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February 12

What is this anti-pattern re pointers called?

I'm curious if there is a name for a certain programming idiom I see occasionaly in C where a particular object is looked up through a series of pointers and data structures. For example, in systems programming where the machine might have to search through arrays or lists to find the object they're interested in. After a pointer to the object is located, several of the member values are read and some result is set in the object. However, instead of handling the struct pointer locally, it is re-computed again and again. Example:

Instead of this sensible code:
obj *pstr;
pstr = j->k->l->m->n->o->p;
pstr->result = pstr->x + pstr->y * pstr->z;


you get this mild exaggeration:
j->k->l->m->n->o->p->result = j->k->l->m->n->o->p->x + j->k->l->m->n->o->p->y * j->k->l->m->n->o->p->z;


Squidfryerchef (talk) 00:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a name for the act of writing code like that, but please note that, on some compilers, both pieces of code will run at the same speed, due to common subexpression elimination. (The Law of Demeter is probably being violated in both examples, but that's a concept from OO, and very little systems stuff is written in OO style.) Paul Stansifer 02:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what's vexing; we have a large category of articles about "anti-patterns" that isn't reflective of the real world. The closest I can find might be cargo cult programming, but the metaphor is pretty weak and I'm thinking of AFD'ing the article.

Yes, it's possible a compiler would essentially optimize the second case into the first, if the optimization is set high enough. But the problem remains of the code being horrible to follow and maintain, as well as to debug. The first case would dedicate a register to pstr, the second case would likely use an "accumulator" register for each step in the pointer arithmetic, making a debugger useless.

As far as Demeter, yes, if this was in good OO style there wouldn't be all these chutes and ladders to get to the object and the object might contain a method to do this operation internally, but I'm thinking of the case where the data structures are legacy and the programmer is patching an existing function. Squidfryerchef (talk) 14:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a program/software

hey guys.. Can anybody tell me if there are any programs that records whatever's coming out of your speakers?? And I mean programs as in softwares, not actual recording devices. And it would be a huge plus if that software was a free one. Thanks in advance. Johnnyboi7 (talk) 00:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Audacity can do it if you sound card will let it. If not, it may take getting a cable. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Audacity is defintely the way to go. The user above is correct, you can set your recording options to 'Stereo Mix' and this essentially lets you record whatever sound is travelling to your speakers.

ffmpeg question

I run into the same problem with ffmpeg a lot. I have a set of photos and a sound file. I need to make a video that fades from one photo to the next for the length of the song. I am left doing a lot of calculations to guess at the frame rate. Then, I have to keep increasing or decreasing it little by little until it actually matches the length of the song. To avoid this, is there a way to tell ffmeg that I want the photos to be evenly dispersed over a specific time period? -- kainaw™ 01:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a method to do that automatically; perhaps you could write a pre-processor script (python, e.g.), to perform the calculations you want and generate the arguments to FFMPEG explicitly. Alternatively, maybe you could investigate other tools, such as Kino (software), which has neat features for this sort of video editing. Nimur (talk) 05:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a -vsync option that nobody really knows how to use. :p It would probably really hurt quality though.
s=$(mplayer -identify -frames 0 input | grep LENGTH | sed s/.*=//); p=$(ls *.jpg | wc -l); secondsPerPhoto=$((${s%.00}/$p))
¦ Reisio (talk) 10:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Richard Stallman and Proprietary Software Keywords

I'm looking on Google for articles that talk about how or if Richard Stallman wants proprietary software "banned" or "outlawed" or "repealed" or "not protected" through law. I've tried searching using each one of those terms in a separate Google search:

richard stallman wants proprietary software <insert one of the terms here>

I have not gotten all that good search results I've also tried:

richard stallman codified gpl

but I want to use a more common word than codified. Is there any common word that is more appropriate or applicable than "banned" or "outlawed" or "repealed" or "not protected" that I can use, in the form of:

richard stallman wants proprietary software <insert one of the terms here>

--Melab±1 ☎ 01:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find anything along those lines. Stallman's position has always been that there should be a free alternative and that people should choose the free alternative. The non-free alternative should be left to die off due to lack of support from the community. He does not suggest banning or outlawing non-free software - just undermining the profitability of it. -- kainaw™ 01:54, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't know why you'd think he wants it banned, outlawed, or repealed... none of those are really his sentiments at all. I have never heard him suggest that non-free software should have any kind of legal action taken against it. It is one thing to not approve of something, it's another thing entirely to say it should be banned. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The closest Stallman has come to this sort of thing is saying that software patents are wrong (e.g., GPL3). — Man in shack (talk) 05:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above three, and that's the reason Googling isn't helping you. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the OP's biggest problem is he/she is concentrating on proprietary software. Richard Stallman often talks about copyright in general. There are plenty of articles on his views of copyright in general [1] [2] [3]. For example his view "One important dimension of copyright is its duration, which is now typically on the order of a century. Reducing the monopoly on copying to ten years, starting from the date when a work is published, would be a good first step. Another aspect of copyright, which covers the making of derivative works, could continue for a longer period." while something quite a few people would support is obviously fairly controversial. Also "As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and this means saying no to proprietary software." Nil Einne (talk) 20:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably not the place but...

Alright, here's my situation. I have AOL, but it's very slow (especially on Wikipedia), and often freezes. Today, I started to use my Internet Explorer 8, however my mouse has broke on me so I cannot scroll at all. Instead, I tend to click the scroll button and scroll with the mouse. However, when I click the scroller down to stop scrolling, I often click the Rollback button by accident (has happened twice so far today). A new tab then opens and says that my rollback was successful. Is there some way I can change the settings so a new tab does not open and I do not rollback quality edits? Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Eagles 24/7 (C) 04:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the help desk is probably a better place for this sort of question. I personally use User:Ilmari Karonen/rollbacksummary.js, which, as a side effect, will prevent accidental rollbacks from happening. decltype (talk) 07:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, but that script seems to only work when you physically click the rollback button, not when you click with the scroller. Thanks anyway, Eagles 24/7 (C) 14:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Analysis of Quicksort

This is a question related to quicksort why is in analysis of quicksort running time of partition function arbitrarily assigned running time theta of n i want a detailed explanationSb122010 (talk) 07:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC) prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives

The partition operation hits each element once and only once. That is n operations, which is Θ(n). That is not an arbitrary assignment, it is a value based on analysis of the algorithm. If you explain why you believe it to be different, we may be able to provide more of an answer. -- kainaw™ 14:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Quake 3 Arena

I've just started playing Q3A again after a long hiatus, and I'm a little bit lost. I'm not really interested in getting all the best and newest mods, I just need enough so that I can try out most of the public servers on my list. So... basically, what do I need other than the latest updates, and team arena? And are there any "necessary" map packs that I should get for either? Thanks! 210.254.117.185 (talk) 09:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, you might be better off asking this on the official Quake 3 Arena forum. Somebody there might know. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 07:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

power efficiency of 27" iMac processor options (core2 duo @ 3.06 GHz vs. quad core i5 @ 2.66 GHz vs. quad Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz)

If I got a 27" iMac I could get it either with 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, or either of two quad-core options: quad-core Intel Core i5 at 2.66 GHz or quad-core Intel Core i7 at 2.8 GHz.

What would the power efficiency difference be between the three models?

(I don't know if it makes a power efficiency difference, but as far as I can tell the only other difference is a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB in the i5/i7 options versus a ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics with 256MB in the Core 2 Duo option - you can see the options here by clicking "Buy now" above-right of the pictured iMac.)

Thank you for any information you might have. 84.153.242.184 (talk) 12:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

(ps. is there a huge difference in power efficiency compared with the 21.5" option due to the screen size?) 84.153.242.184 (talk) 12:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Calculating the 'power efficiency' is going to be rather difficult without significantly more info on what your requirements and expected usage pattern is. Most modern computers are quite good at adjusting speed (both in the CPU and to a lesser extent in the GPU) based on the requirements. (The GPU can definitely make a difference BTW, the 4850 is a lot more power hungry then the 4670.) Different CPUs particularly when it comes to completely different families like the Core2 family and the Core iX family work better in relative areas in some areas then in others. In other words, it depends on things like what applications you're running. Are you running these applications 24/7? Do you turn your computer off when finished or leave it on? A 27" screen would definitely use a resonable amount more power then a 21.5" BTW, everything else being equal. To use a simple example, the Core i7 would probably be somewhat more power efficient at running a highly multithreaded app. However it will also complete a lot faster then the Core i5. If the Core i7 then sits idle this will be different from if you turn off the Core i7 computer (and the i5) as soon as they complete this task. (Of course power efficiency is only one part of the equation. If you are waiting for the computer to finish, the fact that the i7 finishes a lot faster is also likely to be an advantage.) If you don't actually expect to tax the computer much, then going for the one with the lowest idle usage is likely your best bet from a power efficiency standpoint given it will sit idle for most of the time. Nil Einne (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

can someone explain what the i7's hyperthreading (HT) means in practice?

So, I have bad memories of hyperthreading, from the Pentium 4 era I think. Back then, it was in many ways WORSE than having a single-core computer WITHOUT the hyperthreading, I think largely because many, many programs, including maybe even windows itself, were not threadsafe. But has that all changed? In reality, what does the quad i7's 8 virtual cores mean compared with the i5's four physical cores? If I write a threadsafe number-crunching app for some parallel problem that easily divides into 2, 4, 8, 16, whatever number of nodes, it's just a linear divide, then would THAT app be twice as fast on an i7 (where 8 threads could each be on a virtual core) versus the i5 (where four threads could each be on a core)? Or, would it be something less than twice as fast? Thank you for any information you might have... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.96 (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Before symmetric multiprocessing was common (i.e. when Hyperthreading first came out, before single systems with multiple cores were remotely popular) the Hyperthreading feature was certainly a niche, you could only really benefit from it if your programs were fully SMP capable, and the time wasted managing two virtual cores was not recovered in speed improvements for many practical tasks. Now, however, since HT has been around a while and full blown SMP has even been in the mainstream for some time, software is really ready to take advantage of it. That being said, back to the benefit of HT. The chief gain is when two threads are running and neither can fully utilize the CPU due to bottlenecks elsewhere such as cache loads from RAM or the HDD. Since these will never be quite as fast as the CPU (especially when considering very high clock CPUs) you can get more out of the CPU during heavy load because HyperThreading gives each thread a very fast way to give work to the CPU.

However, there are a number of other technologies to consider when estimating the advantages of HT. In the past (i.e. when HT was first available), power/frequency scaling was very hard to do at the CPU level, and not terribly effective. So, you wanted to get the most out of that one CPU that you could, since adding a second would not only be costly but it would double your power consumption. Now, frequency scaling is very effective and multi-core chips with low power envelopes are common. This means that having four cores instead of two cores and two virtual, hyperthreaded cores is not very costly. --Jmeden2000 (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thre is any program that i can use to get the average Amplitude of a song?

Thre is any program that i can use on a sound file to get the average Amplitude of a song?201.78.204.108 (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it has the average amplitude feature, but Audacity will show you the waveforms of a song. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 16:40, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

If by "amplitude" you mean "volume", normalizers are used to calculate the average volume of a song. Then, the song is increased/decreased in volume to move the average to the volume that the listener wants. -- kainaw™ 16:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

FORGET about amplitude, what I meant was frequency. PS:sorry, i am new to this sound related names. 187.89.31.29 (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The frequency spectrum of the entire song can be determined by simply taking the fourier transform of the entire song (or taking the transform of many frames and stacking them). Then you can choose the peak frequency, or you can perform some type of averaging. Do you expect this result to be meaningful in some way? Nimur (talk) 22:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, i want to test, if by creating a database with the EXACT average frequency value of some songs, you would be able to find similar songs, by getting a song and looking the other songs that have closer average frequency values.

Is just a wierd idea that i had. 187.89.31.29 (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

See acoustic fingerprint, which is the technical term for it, though it requires much more than just average the frequencies. It is not a trivial problem - there are entire companies that dedicate themselves to developing it. —Akrabbim^talk 22:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Averaging volume or frequency isn't going to find you similar songs - period. You need much more sophisticated analysis to do that. Extracting the 'beat' of the song and calculating the number of beats per minute might go some way to do that - but even so, it would be pretty sketchy. Services that do this (Pandora Radio is one) do it by noting your reactions to music and comparing them to those of other people for the same music - when it finds other people with the same likes/dislikes as you - it suggests that you might like the other things that they like. It's amazing how good it is at doing that. But it's not using anything as simplistic as an average frequency/amplitude! SteveBaker (talk) 14:46, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Pandora does more than just compare what you like with what other people like: see the Music Genome Project. Sites like last.fm and services like iTunes Genius are more genre/taste/popularity-based. —Akrabbim^talk 15:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I knew that better ideas then mine existed, and my idea would not work most of the time (or every time), I just asked that because of curiosity, i just was curious to see what recommendations, my idea would show. About last.fm/pandora/..... I already know them and use them. They are good.187.89.164.224 (talk) 04:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

can I force windiows 7 into a VERY low resolution (e.g. 640x480)

I have an eee pc 1005H and would like to force it into go to 640x480 (windows 7). can I? how? thanks. 82.113.106.96 (talk) 17:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Possibly. Go into Control Panel -> Display -> Change Display Settings -> Advanced Settings and click on List All Modes. The list will show all the modes that your graphics card/driver supports (which will include 640x480 if supported). However, your EEE PC has a widescreen monitor so 640x480 is going to look stretched on it! ZX81 ^talk 17:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

yeah, thanks, it "worked" - only it doesn't look stretched, instead there are super-thick black borders with a small 640x480 window in the middle (typing on it now). man, with such thick borders screen looks just like an iPad :) anyway thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.96 (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect you will have to fiddle with the video driver software if you want it to "stretch" rather than add borders. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Scan cancelled; no items to scan

Resolved

This refers to [4].

I emailed Norton about this and was told to use chat support. I was quite busy last week with the weather and didn't take the time to do it. This week when I did, the person, after taking control of my computer and watching the scan I started manually and looking at other things, asked to see the error message.

There was only one way to do that without waiting a week. I scheduled a new full system scan. Well, that didn't work. The scan started normally. Which solved the problem. Like Dorothy, had the power all along. I just didn't know. The scheduling was done with the old software, but this new scan was scheduled with the new software. Problem solved!Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Apparently my computer does have a backslash key. For some reason I never noticed it. I also realize that shift and backslash produce a piped link.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Check when a folder was last accessed in Mac OS X 10.6

Is there software that will allow me to check the history of when a particular folder has been opened since its creation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.208.7.232 (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The last access time (called the "atime") is (generally) stored, and you can see those by saying ls -lu (rather than just ls -l). For an explanation of the different kinds of time stored for a unix inode see stat (Unix). But this has a performance cost - it means every time you look at a file (or a folder) the filesystem has to update its inode, which can get rather expensive. So for this reason it's not uncommon to mount filesystems saying "noatime", which prevents this (and makes the atime field meaningless). If you want every time it's been opened, and not just the last, that's not something a conventional filesystem will do - it'd have to keep a huge log. While I can see a very few applications for super-secure environments like banking or an intelligence agency (and even then, would they want this log at the filesystem level anyway) but not for normal uses. Note that if you wanted to be able to store all the previous revisions of a file then a versioning file system can do that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

is there a thunderbird add-on for better split-file downloads from Usenet?

I am trying to download open-source Linux ISO's from usenet with Thunderbird, but naturally these are split into many, many files, and Thunderbird doesn't seem to have any built-in capability to download/collate them all at once. However, it seems to have a robust add-on system.

My question is: is there a Mozilla Thunderbird add-on to better download binary files from Usenet that are split across many messages?. THanks. 84.153.242.184 (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea whatsoever why you would ever want to download a Linux .iso with Thunderbird from Usenet (or even how?!), but I can tell you that if you want to download a bootable .iso (bootable from a flash drive) then UNetbootin is your answer - it has all the major distros. If you want it bootable from a CD, then just go to the site in question and download it from there. I really have no idea why you have chosen such a (in my mind) ridiculous way to do something which is really simple. :) --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 07:23, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Haha, okay. I should have said:

“ I'm trying to download binary files from Usenet (only "open-source Linux ISO's" of course) ”

Notice the quotation marks. Now, does anyone have any ideas? 82.113.106.195 (talk) 12:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

(He means "porn") SteveBaker (talk) 14:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that you would think so says more about you than about me. All I'm saying is, how do I get an add-on to make the process of downloading totally Free, open-source Linux ISO's from usenet less of a pain with Thunderbird. Whether this would apply to any other kinds of files is irrelevant. (Obviously it would). 82.113.121.88 (talk) 16:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

There may be, but I've never come across them. There are far better binary grabbers of course some of which are free including ones specialised for NZB some of so I'm not that surprised no one has bothered to try add this to Thunderbird. Nil Einne (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

MIDI on modern computers

In the old days I bought a MIDI cable that connected my keyboard to the "joystick"-type (serial?) port on my old computer. This old computer even had built-in support for SoundFonts in the Windows Control Panel -- I could download a SoundFont and hear a better piano reproduction, for example, through the audio attached to the computer. My modern computer has none of this capability. How do you connect MIDI these days? Does one need to buy a non-integrated sound card to get the appropriate port, or can you connect via other means? If you accept bonus questions, is support for SoundFonts hiding in all Windows systems with integrated audio or would I again need a sound card that supported it? (The old computer just had integrated audio, but maybe it was really special...) Thanks Llorando (talk) 23:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

It's very common to make the MIDI connection over USB [5]; a lot of modern keyboards (etc.) have a USB port themselves, and you're tunnelling MIDI over USB end-to-end. For older, and sometimes for cheaper, equipment you end up with a usb-MIDI bridge, and a normal MIDI port at the instrument end. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

February 13

Ubuntu format taking forever

I've plugged an external 1.5TB hard disk into this PC here and booted from the latest Ubuntu install disk. I went through the install wizard and the "Installing system" dialog is now showing, claiming "Partitions formatting". It's been stuck at 5% for a really long time. Is there a way to figure out whether it's dead or not? Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:28, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

run iotop (or better yet iotop -a); you should see a mkfs.ext3 process chucking out a fair amount of write iops; no writes means no progress. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip — iotop isn't installed, so it recommended I do a sudo apt-get iotop, but then apt-get didn't recognize iotop as a package; so off the power went! Thanks - Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

As can be seen here iotop is in the universe section of ubuntu repositories. Universe isn't enabled by default so you would have needed to enable it to install iotop. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 13:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Google Buzz

I've been sucked into Google Buzz just like a horrific number of other people, and, because I don't like the idea (I will save my reasons for another site as Wikipedia is not a soapbox) I want to get out from it. Is there any way that I can exit this intrusive project that came along to my email account with no warning nor any information whatsoever on how to use it? TIA! --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 01:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

First off, go to Settings/Labels, and you can hide the "Buzz" label. If you want to completely filter out Buzz, see this Lifehacker Article: Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox. -^Avicenna_sis @ 03:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not the hiding/removing of the updates that I am concerned about. I don't want people following me. [soapbox] As a case in point, when I opened gmail a couple of days ago and found that I had this GoogleBuzz added to my account, I was automatically already following 6 people, completely without my consent. One of these people was a person who had contacted me a while back about translation of Japanese manga - we talked for a while, but the project fizzled out for various reasons and we both eventually forgot we'd even met. Anyway, now, GoogleBuzz is inviting me to go and look at pictures of his family that he put on Picasaweb (and emailed me the pictures anyway even if I didn't want to have a look), and he probably doesn't even know that GoogleBuzz has done this. This is why I don't want to be part of it and completely out of it. It's a privacy thing. Is there any way to just disable the ability for people to follow me? Also, I've written on here about Facebook and the complete lack of control that you have over people writing whatever they want on your 'wall', and I am thinking that this will become the same. I already know the names and personal interests of many of the friends of the six people whom, by default, I am supposedly following, and really, I don't want my boss looking around and seeing what my mates, and their mates, and then THEIR mates are into. Ridiculous! Email and who I talk to should be my own business and no-one else's. [/soapbox] So, is it possible to disable it completely? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 07:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I noticed this too, and I can't find a way to disable it either. I suggest writing to google and threaten to leave them for another email provider if they don't rectify the situation. If enough people don't want it and complain, they'll have to do something or risk losing their ad-revenue. This is also worth reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. That link shows there are plenty of people who have the same idea, though there is no information on how to opt out of this feature. Writing to Google may be the only option, and that is what I have just done, but, not surprisingly, in the drop-down menus where you have to select what service you are referring to, GoogleBuzz is nowhere to be found. 'Other' was the most appropriate one. We'll see how long this takes. Cheers. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 17:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I never clicked on any link connected with Buzz and only clicked the "Turn off Buzz" link. Now I can't find any mention of Buzz except for the link to turn it back on. Perhaps that;s the secret to maintaining your privacy. Astronaut (talk) 18:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The first rule of Google Buzz is not to talk about Google Buzz. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe (though I can't be sure) that if you haven't "connected" anything (like Chat status messages, or Google Reader or Twitter) to Google Buzz, no on will be able to see anything from you (if you have connected those things, you can remove them). (There's also a public profile might have set up.) So I believe that everything is private-by-default (except that other people can see that you exist; but the people who can follow you know that already). If my analysis is correct, Buzz is not inherently intrusive, it's just that Google should have been more clear. Paul Stansifer 00:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Google has now added a way to disable Buzz completely. Also, it looks like I was wrong -- it used to connect to public Picasa and Google Reader items automatically. Paul (not signed in) 71.174.127.229 (talk) 17:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice. Thanks for the update —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 17:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Make server think I'm a browser

Resolved

Hello! I'm using Java to query a server (specifically, http://www.rae.es, a Spanish dictionary website), but if I do the exact same query (http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltGUIBusUsual?LEMA=tomar&origen=RAE&TIPO_BUS=3) in Firefox, then copy-and-paste it into my Java code, I get two different responses. For Firefox, I get the proper response to the query, but for Java, I get a response from the home page (http://www.rae.es). It seems like the server knows I'm using a automated program and is refusing my request. Is there any way to make the server think the request is coming from a browser, or otherwise fix this problem? Of course, I know about etiquette and will program a delay between queries. Thank you for any advice!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 01:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Try changing the user agent string. --Spoon! (talk) 02:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, but googling "java change user agent" has only brought up dead threads on forums and incomplete answers. Can anyone help me with an implementation specific to Java? I mean, it should be as easy as calling a method like setUserAgent(String userAgent), but I haven't found something like this by browsing through the java.net package.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 21:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you're using URLConnection then an example is here -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Finlay McWalter. This is exactly what I needed.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Better performance tracking than htop

I'm using Kubuntu. Is a free utility available that can track CPU and memory usage for each program over the past few hours (rather than just the past second as htop does) and that can also track time spent reading to and writing from memory and disk, and ideally also GPU usage? NeonMerlin 08:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Nagios is great, but may be overkill for your needs (it's usually for monitoring entire clusters, but can be used on one machine). Tracking GPU usage is a tough nut for technical reasons ("GPU usage" is a poorly-defined metric - do you mean bus traffic, GPU utilization, etc)... and it depends heavily on your hardware and drivers, so it's hard to get any utilities that track GPU usage well. Nvidia has some performance monitoring tips and a few tools in their developer area on their website - e.g., PerfHUD (unfortunately Windows-only). Nimur (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Seeing the URL of an unclicked hyperlink in Firefox?

Something I found useful in Internet Explorer was that you could see the URL of a hyperlink, that you put the cursor over, at the base of the browser. Is there any way to get the same thing in Firefox? Sometimes the URL is shown in Firefox in a small yellow pop-up, but this is unreliable and you have to wait a long time for it, and it may just be a description rather than an URL. 92.29.55.65 (talk) 12:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

View --> Status bar. Friggums (talk) 13:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

TalkTalk ISP and eMail timeout.

I have a friend in the UK who uses the "TalkTalk" ISP - she is extremely computer-illiterate and a very slow typist. She says that: "after 20 minutes,my computer sent message to say "your > time has expired" while i was sending you an email and i had to type it all again". I'm guessing that this 20 minute limit is due to the nature of the "free broadband" service that they offer. I assume that there must be a way to compose email offline and use the 20 minute time limit to actually send it - but she's going to need step-by-step instructions on how to do that. Do any of you guys know enough about this service to give me a click-by-click account of what to do? I have no idea what email client she's using - but I strongly suspect that it's one that came with the TalkTalk service. Since I have no clue how TalkTalk works, any help would be greatly appreciated. SteveBaker (talk) 14:34, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Well the obvious answer is simply to open Notepad, Wordpad or another text editor, compose the email in that then copy and paste into the email client when complete. Exxolon (talk) 14:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

If it is a broadband service, it will not expire. I'm wondering if she's using a webmail application, which has a session timeout? What she actually got was the mail service saying it had timed out, since she had not accessed any new pages? I'd suggest checking what she actually does for email - it may be possible to save drafts. But, as Exxolon says, she could compose using notepad and paste it in. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to correct Phil Holmes — I don't know anything about TalkTalk, but some broadband connections do "expire" — I used to be a Qwest DSL customer, and they intentionally disconnected my connection every 2 hours because that was the main inconvenience that incentivized customers to pay more for an upgraded plan. The ostensible reason was to "free up connections" for other users, but, suspiciously, they always assigned me the same IP address.... Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe any broadband connections expire in the UK, which is where Steve was referring to. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Some modem/routers will also disconnect after a certain amount of inactivity (this can usually be turned off). In Malaysia time limited broadband (ADSL) packages exist Nil Einne (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm a TalkTalk customer and my connection never expires/disconnects/timeouts due to inactivity. I would imagine it's as Phil Holmes says and her site session is timing out. TalkTalk do not package a standalone email client with their installation discs, they do offer webmail though at talktalk.com/mail. Nanonic (talk) 20:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

OK - so it's likely to be the talktalk.com/mail server. I'll try explaining how to cut/paste from notepad. Thanks guys. SteveBaker (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No, not the mail server ("Message Transfer Agent"), but more likely the Webmail client, which has the role of a Mail User Agent. But copy&paste will solve it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Software Question

Hello, I was looking for a specific software that allows you to take pieces of different pictures and make it look like one. I don't want a morph program, I was thinking more along the lines of what they have at a plastic surgeons office where they could take your picture and change the nose or eyes to show how you could look if you got acertain procedure. Does anyone have any idea of what a program like that is called? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.255.212 (talk) 15:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you're referring to, but it does sound like morphing of some sort. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

there is a specialty software called FotoShop or PhotoShop that professionals use. It's used to make magazine cover girls have impossibly thin arms and legs, among other things. However, because it is specialty software it may be very expensive, maybe as much as several thousand dollars, I haven't looked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.195 (talk) 20:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean Photoshop? It's expensive, to be sure, but there are free alternatives (like GIMP, which does the same stuff). It isn't the kind of thing where you can just say "make them thin," it's just image editing software. It's not what the original poster is asking about, I am sure. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The operation you are talking about is called photo stitching. It is usually used to make wide panoramic scenes. See photo stitching and panorama. Also, a simple Google search of "photo stitching freeware" returns many good free programs that can do this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 21:53, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Any decent graphics software should be able to do what you want eg Paintshop Pro and FREE versions are available. This software won't do the job for you, it's more of a sophisticated electronic paintbrush. It requires some practice, and experience with other graphics software helps. Tools to "change the nose or eyes" are definitely included, these allow you to select an area and move it or alter its shape. Whether the result looks realistic is up to the users skill--220.101.28.25 (talk) 03:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Article in TFA, ITN, OTD and DYK?

First of all, I did not post this in the help desk because, well, it does not deal with a technical problem on the Wiki. Now for my question: Has there ever been an article which was on the Main Page for TFA,DYK In The News and On this Day?

Regards,

Buggie111 (talk) 15:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about OTD, since we don't seem to keep records of that on the talk pages, but for the other three we can take an intersection of Category:Featured articles that have appeared on the main page, Category:Wikipedia Did you know articles that are featured articles, and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:ITN talk. Give me a few minutes. —Akrabbim^talk 16:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: There are zero DYK-FAs that were ITN, let alone featured as TFA. Sorry to disappoint you. —Akrabbim^talk 16:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

That's impossible under the current rules, which disqualify articles that have been ITN for DYK. I am sure ITN has a similar provision. decltype (talk) 16:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't meen all on one day.

Buggie111 (talk) 19:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

We didn't either. DYK and ITN are mutually exclusive. Apart from that, there have been no FAs that were ever ITN, let alone TFAs. There have been 503 FAs that were DYKs, 216 of which were TFAs:

Sorry. I got it. Thanks.

Buggie111 (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

—Akrabbim^talk 20:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows Media Player: removing the delay between repeated playings of a file

Might anyone be able to tell me whether I may remove the delay between playings of a file being repeated in Windows Media Player, such that it is continuously playing; and if so, how?

Thank you in advance,

88.189.248.66 (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is a delay on my computer. Perhaps your file needs trimming? Dbfirs 21:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the file that I wish to have continuously playing; in between repeated playings, I have a delay which is as noticeable as it is short, whence my query. Do you hear it also? 88.189.248.66 (talk) 23:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I tried with a trimmed file on my computer and noticed placing the same file on the playlist several times in a row results in a slightly shorter delay compared to the delay at the end of the playlist starting the list all over. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful suggestion! 88.189.248.66 (talk) 23:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, on checking carefully, there is always a short delay (sorry if I implied there wasn't - I hadn't tried white noise files). One solution would be to use sound editing software (GoldWave is shareware) to create a single file with many copies of the original sound end-to-end without a gap. The delay in Media Player would then not be a problem. Dbfirs 08:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Connecting a DVD player into a computer

Can DVD players, in general, be used as a CD-ROM or DVD reader for a PC?--Quest09 (talk) 18:13, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

None of them?--Quest09 (talk) 18:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) In most DVD players the digital datastream is converted into composite video and analogue audio by the electronics in the player. I guess that someone with sufficient skills might be able to dismantle a DVD player and intercept the datastream, but it might not work and could permanently break a perfectly good DVD player. It would be a lot of trouble to go to when a computer DVD drive can be bought for as little as $15. Astronaut (talk) 18:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

No regular DVD players (for playing movies on TVs) are likely to have the requisite hardware to interface with a computer. They are fairly specialized devices. There is no reason they would have this capability built into them. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

awk problem

i have this script, where the input files have been sorted over $1 (using sort -k 1,1n in > out.sort), the problem is that is runs too fast, it makes only one output file of ~200k when i would be expecting 60 files each in the mb-gb region. I'm guessing its a problem with the next/exit statements as there the newest bits i added but i cant see whats going wrong. The idea is to split the input files into files of overlapping ra ($1), by looping through the file untill its close to the region is question, printing that out untill its out of the region then exiting and going to the next number in the list.

#!/bin/bash

for j in $(seq 1 1 60)
do
	ra=$j
	ARCSECMIN=$(echo "scale=6;$ra-0.002778" | bc -l)
	ARCSECPLUS=$(echo "scale=6;$ra+1.002778" | bc -l)
	
	PATHOUT="/path/out/$ra.ra"
	
	for i in "/path/in/*.sort"
	do
		awk '{ if($1 < ra1){next}
			else if ($1 < ra2) {print >> "'"$PATHOUT"'"}
			else{exit}
			}' ra1="$ARCSECMIN" ra2="$ARCSECPLUS" $i
	done

done

--86.27.192.94 (talk) 21:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

First, general shell script debugging: use the -x option. Add it to the #! line, or put set -x before the part that's not working the way you want.

Now the reason your script isn't working: you put the *.sort glob in quotes, so it's not getting expanded there. The inner for loop is only being run once, with i set to that literal string, including the asterisk. Later, when you reference $i, it gets expanded and globbed so all of the filenames get passed to single awk instance, and it treats them as if they were one big concatenated file. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 04:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

February 14

Booting from USB when it's not a BIOS option

Here's an un-lovely question. I've got an old Dell Dimension 8100 with a Pentium 4 in it. I want it to boot from the external USB drive, and I have disconnected and tossed the internal PATA HDD. After formatting the external USB drive with Ubuntu, I reboot to find that the computer complains there's no hard disk. The BIOS boot sequence lists the grand total of boot possibilities as (1) floppy, (2) CD-ROM, and (3) HDD (not installed). "Surely, this being Linux," I told myself, "there must be a workaround such that I can leave a boot floppy or CD in the drive that loads barely enough Linux drivers necessary for it to "boot" from the external USB drive." Any hints? Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Try SmartBootManager; this review suggests that you can make a boot floppy which pops up a menu that lets you continue to boot from other devices. I've not tried it; please let me know how you get on (assuming you survive). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Or PLoP, which (unlike SBM) explicitly says it supports booting from USB on unsupported BIOSes. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

After some work, I've got it working, but it feels shaky. I've got a PLoP CD booting; I manually choose to boot from USB, and then it actually boots from the external drive. I had to delete a file in the GRUB directory that was halting booting as it complained about an inability to write to the drive. Once this boot sequence resulted in a system halt of some sort with a call stack, and once with a fsck and another system halt, and then the third time it seemed to boot fine. Thanks for the help! Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Google Books previews

Has Google ever released statements on why some public domain books are available only in part? I just ran across a book that was available only at "limited preview", even though its title page included a statement of "This book is not copyrighted and is placed into the public domain by Harvard Square Library", its publisher. Do they just not have enough server space to display it all? Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If the statement was in the book itself, Google's staff may just not have noticed it. Or, the publisher supplying the book may not have provided Google with a complete copy so that they could still try to sell it. If you're outside the US, you might try accessing it through a US open proxy; some countries have weird copyright laws that Google might still be in the process of navigating. NeonMerlin 01:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I asked google this question about eight months ago and received a response confirming NeonMerlin's take:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Google Books support. As you have noticed, some public domain books which are available in full view in the United States are in limited display in other countries.

This is because for users outside the U.S., we make determinations based on appropriate local laws. As with all of our decisions related to Google Books content, we're conservative in our reading of both copyright law and the known facts surrounding a particular book.

Please be assured that we are working to include these works in as many countries as quickly as possible; we appreciate your patience.

The Internet Archive very often has avaiable texts for which google only offers a limited preview or no view at all. Right now they have 1,877,231 texts online. I've grown weary of waiting for google to make good their assurance. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:09, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the points. I doubt that non-US copyright law would be relevant here, since I'm in the USA. I've checked for the book (Notable American Unitarians 1936-1961) at the Archive, but they don't have it. It was published in 2007; do they normally have such recent texts? Nyttend (talk) 02:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's public domain as you say, they would certainly accept an upload, but of course you'd have to get it from somewhere in order to upload it. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 10:55, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what the title page says if Google doesn't believe it's in the public domain. For example, the Google preview clearly says 'copyrighted material' and the page says "Pages displayed by permission of Lulu.com". Lulu.com is a selfpublishing website, apparently used Harvard Square Library [6] to publish their book and at a guess give an option for their clients to submit these previews to Google Books but Google Books will only display these as limited previews of copyrighted works by default. You could try writing to Google to tell them they can display the full version since it says it's in the public domain. However it's possible Google doesn't even receive the full version in which case telling them is no use and in any case I doubt it'll be easy to get to the right person. A better bet is to write to the Harvard Square Library and ask them if they'll be willing to submit the entire book to places like the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg and Google Books presuming these websites accept self published books. However for your own personal purposes, from what I can tell the book is simply a book version of the website (it says it began online in both the book and the Google/publisher description) and the book even says there's a colour illustrated version on their website, so it seems to me it'll be easier to just use the website [7] which may be more up to date as well as being in colour as the book itself said. P.S. As a self published book and website, I would be careful about trying to use this as a WP:RS in articles Nil Einne (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Why doesn't abs() return unsigned?

In C's stdlib.h, why do abs() and labs() return a signed integer type, given that returning an unsigned type would eliminate the anomaly involving abs(INT_MIN) and labs(LONG_MIN) (and would make it safe to write (long)abs(x) instead of (long)(unsigned int)abs(x))? NeonMerlin 05:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying you want "x = abs(y) - z;" to be a type error? Keep in mind that C's type system is very weak. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 08:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

That shouldn't be a type error (though abs(j) < i will get you a warning). There's a discussion at StackOverflow that suggests that C's type promotion rules (which make abs(j) - i legal) are the problem because they'll unexpectedly convert other signed values to unsigned. It's not a terribly strong argument, so I'd be happy to hear another reason. Paul Stansifer 13:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a minimal speed gain in not checking for overflow every time. And maybe existing abs implementations were already doing it this way? --194.197.235.240 (talk) 15:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

That is a good argument, if you ask me. Consider:

int a = abs(-4) / -2; /* yields 0 if the result is unsigned, -2 otherwise */

On systems where INT_MAX < UINT_MAX, the following becomes implementation-defined:

int a = abs(0) - 1; /* this suddenly becomes implementation-defined */

The same is true for many other expressions involving abs, that would normally yield a negative value. decltype (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Apple problem

I have a new MacBook Pro and need to know please how to put a web page up into the tab bar at the top of the page. There are a number of addresses there already but I had a special address up there and it has disappeared. Help will be appreciated please. Thanks in anticipation.--88.110.51.49 (talk) 12:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you are talking about Safari, Bookmarks > Show all Bookmarks, then edit the contents of the "Bookmarks Bar" (which is that tab bar your are referring to). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this, but the BookMarks Bar that I wish to add a page to is that one right across the top, and I cannot see how to "edit" that; any ideas please?--88.110.51.49 (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble understanding what you mean. In Safari (the web browser), there is a Tab Bar which has active tabs only. I don't think you can make them permanent. The Bookmarks Bar is a thin line that you can enable (under View) to show up above the tabs. You edit those in the way that I indicated. Separate from that is a Bookmarks menu (which can be edited in the same way as the bar. If you are indicating that you had a tab open but it has closed, look for it in History. If there are too many tabs open and you can't find the one that should be open, click on the double-right arrow (>>) at the far right of the tabs. Does any of this describe what you are trying to do? --Mr.98 (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

SORTED! thanks Mr 98--88.110.51.49 (talk) 14:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

mapquest location

Hello I run a business that is located at 450 saint peters howell rd saint charles, mo 63304 when I use map quest it shows my location 2 miles away how can I get location closer to hwy 94 Thanks Dan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.243.156.150 (talk) 16:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Their website says that to fix business location errors you should visit www.mapquesthelp.com , where I can see a link about that problem. 78.149.145.203 (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I skip (or automatically avoid) the MS Windows XP startup delay?

When booting a PC it is annoying to have to wait the extra 15 seconds or so (it feels as if it were a full 59 seconds!), while Windows is showing the startup screen ("Windows XP ([...] edition))") with the "fake progress bar" below.

1. How do I skip it at the time it appears?
2. How do I configure the system to automatically avoid it at all times thereafter?

(I would prefer a general answer for MSWindowsXP, but one of the computers in question has: Microsoft Windows XP, Home Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 3).
--Seren-dipper (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no unnecessary delay. Windows NT startup process details the startup process - the Windows screen is displayed as the kernel starts, and while it is displayed various kernel services, drivers, and os services are started. If you put /noguiboot into your boot.ini then the screen itself is not shown, and instead you're shown a rundown of all the stuff it's doing; but this doesn't make things go any faster. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

True, but to answer the question in the classic way: Get a Mac (not that they boot faster, but at least mine is nearly never rebooted). Or install a lightweight Linux, where you can optimize the boot process to your hearts desire. I know 15 seconds total boot time is possible for 400 MHz embedded ARM Linux (because I met that requirement ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

My Windows 7 machine is on in less than a second (from the hybrid power-save mode). I never preform "slow" reboots. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If "Get Linux" was considered to be unhelpful I don't see why "Get a Mac" is any different. Both Windows and Linux have not required reboots for at least a decade now (seriously, the unstable Windows image is from Windows 9x, more than a decade ago). Similarly, hibernation and sleep have also been around on PC for almost a decade now (although support was slow to come). "Get a Mac" just for its hibernation/sleep ability is at best unhelpful, and at worst misguided and ignorant. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have the same version of Windows you do. 15 seconds is lightning fast! Mine used to take several minutes. Do to a particular Windows Update which tackled this issue, it is now faster. If you use Ccleaner, then it may be best not to delete the "Old Prefetch data", or so it is said. I imagine the startup screen is just there while windows does things behind the scenes. I can remember computers like the Commodore 64], which started up as soon as you switched them on, so I too miss the quickness and simplicity of such machines. I would check to see which programs start up at startup, and disable those which are not needed. I have the freeware StartUp Control Panel 2.8 by Mike Lin installed, and have disabled everything from running at startup apart from my anti-virus. This causes no problems and the computer seems faster. 78.149.145.203 (talk) 22:28, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Vanilla XP loads very fast; it's all the junk that you've installed that is slowing it down. Windows 7 is definitely much faster on reboot (technical story behind the reasons for this, which you can google), even with all the junk that I've installed... Sandman30s (talk) 09:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

If you can afford it, you could buy a solid state disk and reinstall Windows on it. The reason this helps is that a good portion of software start-up time is usually taken up by disk access delays, as the CPU waits for the mechanical drive head to move to the right position, and access time on a good SSD is orders of magnitude better than on a traditional hard drive. Once you get used to a SSD, hard-drive based computers feel quite sluggish. 80.186.158.218 (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You could set it to hibernate as opposed to shutting off. In XP, it should be in Control Panel -> Power Options, or something of the like. You can set your tower's power button to hibernate the computer, and (possibly) set the shut down button to do the same. The only problem is that the shutdown and startup time is proportional to the amount of RAM you have, and your HDD's speed. I had a Windows XP Pro machine a few years back with 256 MB RAM and it took barely 20 seconds to hibernate and 15 seconds to start up. I still use hibernation now, with a Vista Home Premium x64 machine with 4GB of RAM, and it takes about 2 minutes to shut off and 1 minute to turn on, as opposed to 2 on and 4 off. However, if you do hibernate your PC, make sure you restart it after the PC's uptime (viewed in Task Manager) reaches around 60 hrs, because then applications can behave erratically.Hmmwhatsthisdo (talk) 04:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

How to get Mplayer to work?

I'm using WinXp, with MPlayer already installed. User Reisio has kindly previously given a command which he indicates will record a video from on-screen. (It has to be recorded from the screen, because the stream is encrypted, and no work-around downloader exists.) I can forsee there's lots of room for misunderstanding, as I don't understand a few things.

The command was "mplayer -playlist -dumpstream URIhere -dumpfile foo" and Reisio adds "occasionally you will not want -playlist".

The things I don't understand are: 1) What is "URI" in "URIhere"? Is that the same as an URL? Should I put the URL of the webpage the video is playing in there? Or something else? 2) Do I need to replace "foo" with something, or should I leave it alone? 3) Where will the video file be downloaded to? 4) I tried putting the command string in the Run box (with the webpage URL included) and windows said it could not find "Mplayer". I tried "C:\Program Files\MPlayer for Windows\mplayer.exe....." and then Windows said it could not find "C:\Program".

Could anyone help please? I have Firefox, as well as IE8, installed and I'm willing to instal any other no-cost browser or software if it helps. Thanks 78.149.145.203 (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

1) All URLs are URIs; the difference isn't important here. My guess is that that's supposed to be the URI of the stream, (which won't be the URI of the page that plays the stream). 2&3) foo is the name of the file it will save it to; you can change it to something more sensible. 4) Do Run > "CMD" to get a command prompt. First, run the command cd "C:\Program Files\MPlayer for Windows" so that the program name "mplayer" is meaningful to it. Paul Stansifer 22:27, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

^ that ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

would a full hd screen look better than one with 33% better more pixels in each direction both vertically and horizontally?

ie apple 21.5" vs. 27"? I mean when playing full hd content? thanks 82.113.106.103 (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The displays are both 2D so they aren't better in the 3rd dimension (the screen itself may have different thickness but that's not going to make a difference to playback in itself). It'll also likely depend on what you mean by 'better'. If you simply mean bigger then you should use that word Nil Einne (talk) 21:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Um, I meant that the 21.5" iMac has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels which is exactly FULL HD, pixel-for-pixel. If I watch HD content on it, it would be pixel-for-pixel the exact HD source, no upsizing, downsizing, nothing. Now, the 27" iMac is exactly 2560 x 1440 pixels. This is 1/3 more pixels in each directin (2560/1920 = 1/3 and so does 1440/1080). If I watch HD content on that, it will no longer be pixel-for-pixel the HD content; instead it will be upscaled by 1/3 in each direction. So, my question is: as a result of this upscaling, will the viewing experience be worse, despite the larger screen, due to the upscaling artifacts? Thanks for now udnerstanding my question and trying an appropriate response. :) (I've also updated "each direction" in my question to vertical and horizontal.) 82.113.106.103 (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The answer is probably not, at least not because of the size difference. On the 27 inch screen the HD content is just stretched to fill the screen as there just aren't any extra details, so unless you are sitting so far away that you can't see the details on a 21.5" screen the 27" screen is just a blown up version of the HD content and allows you to sit further away. However, the 27" screen is supposedly very good (although I can't tell too much difference from my brief time playing with it) so it may look "better", but not because it has a higher resolution. --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

what I'm getting at is that it's "blown up" but not by doubling the pixels or anything. Instead, it is blown up in a less natural way. Normally, I can very much tell the difference, on first sight, between content that is playing 1:1 at the resolution of the source, and content that has been "blown up". The only exception is when the pixels are just doubled in each direction, it can look just as good from a moderate distance, at least so far I have seen. My question is whether I would see the same effect on the 27" iMac? Now, I'm very interested in what yu heard about the 27" screen being "very good" -- can you elaborate on that? Is it "very good" in a way that the 21.5" screen isn't? Thank you very much. 82.113.106.103 (talk) 22:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

ps you said "probably not, at least not because of the size differences." I really didn't mean the size differences, I mean the resolution differences. I mean, if you're taking - this is a simplifying example - 9 pixels by 4 pixels and trying to display it on 12 pixels by 6 pixels in the SAME size, it's obvious you can't actually do it. Let's look at the first line, you call the pixles ABCDEFGHI. Now you want to go from that, the source, to displaying ABCDEFGHIJKL. What do you put in JKL? If you don't crop, leaving A and KL empty, what do you do? You can't just double any of the existing pixels, it would ruin the picture? So, you have to do something very ugly instead. I feel the same thing must be going on in each line when you go from the source, Full HD at 1920 pixels per line, to 2560 pixels per line. What do you put in the extra 640 pixels? You can't display each pixel in the source twice, and you can't just double some pixels but not others... so instead, you have to do something very ugly, don't you, to blow up by that 1/3? This is my impression is of what would have to happen, and I would just like some confirmation on it. Thank you. 82.113.106.103 (talk) 22:58, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Modern interpolation work pretty well in my opinion. From my experience of playing 720p on my 1200p screen I can't tell too much difference between stretched 720p and 1080p versions. If you want to know more about how they do it, read interpolation and specifically Image scaling. The main reason why something looks sharper when played at native size as opposed to stretched to full screen is that the full screen version now covers a larger area, but there's so many points of information. If you simultaneously stand back a bit so that it occupies the same field of vision as the native size you'll find that you it's not very different to the unscaled version. And the new iMacs (both 21.5" and 27") use IPS panels now, which is similar to the old 24" and much more vibrant than the old 22" or your normal run of the mill TN panel monitors. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Native resolution is relevant. I bet it looks worse, yes, inevitably. Whether it's worse enough for you to detect on an ongoing basis is another matter. I'd look in particular at scenes that fade to black, which for me scream "artifacts!" Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Automatically set formatting options when pipelining

Do any shells or shell add-ons for GNU/Linux have the ability to automatically add formatting options to a command if its output is going to a pipe and won't otherwise match the second command's expectations? (E.g. change ls | xargs to ls -Q | xargs.) NeonMerlin 21:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of anything to do what you specifically want, but you might be interested in the find command, which is a bit of a pain to use, but can often automate a whole complicated operation in a directory hierarchy; something like find . -maxdepth 1 -exec some_command {} \; executes some_command on everything in the current directory, and leaving out -maxdepth 1 makes it recursively visit subdirectories also. Paul Stansifer 22:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

There are a few pre-installed *nix commands that will format in from stdin and out to stdout inline like what you want. List of Unix commands has quite a few of course, but off the top of my head some useful ones are: tr, grep, sed, comm, expand, paste, unexpand, and sort. Of course you can do almost anything if you upgrade to a scripting language, including perl or awk, or even sed. Shadowjams (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

CRT vs LCD

I have a normal 15" CRT monitor. It is quite clear and OK. But I heared that LCD monitor is even better. Is that so ? I mean has it more or less or equal pixels. Is overall performance i.e. picture quality real better or does the LCD sacrifice quality for sake of eye-safety, I mean using LCD won't I find things a bit dimmer than CRT ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I have used nothing but LCDs for many years now (as have most computer users, I believe), and they are generally far superior. First of all, the picture is stable (Swedish: bilden flimrar inte), and the screen is perfectly flat. In addition, on a LCD each pixel has its own space, so there cannot be any problems with the geometry of the picture, especially if the LCD is connected via a digital cable (e.g. DVI). Furthermore, LCDs are much smaller and nicer, and do not consume as much power as CRTs. The physical resolution (number of pixels per inch) is about the same. However, LCDs have minor drawbacks: First of all I believe that the colour representation might be a bit worse on cheap LCDs (TN panel LCDs) as compared to (more expensive?) CRTs. Also, you often cannot view the image of a LCD at an angle of 80-90° from the normal. (But that you cannot do with a CRT either, because it is not flat.) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean, for almost everyone, I would strongly recommend a LCD rather than a CRT... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes nowadays the contrast ratios and brightness (compare LED) of most LCD's are good enough. Refresh rates are generally good enough for rapidly changing frames (games, movies) and ghosting is a thing of the past. The future holds exciting prospects such as 3D screens and holographic emitters. CRT's have gone the way of the junkyards and are contributing to landfill problems worldwide... Sandman30s (talk) 09:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

At least in Sweden you cannot even buy CRT computer screens anymore... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Having switched to LCD from CRT, I'm happy that I no longer may be getting a face full of X-rays. Its said that the most recent CRTs didnt give out much X-rays, but you can never be certain. 78.149.185.159 (talk) 20:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

February 15

How do I programmatically determine whether a Wikipedia article is disputed?

To help preserve my own sanity, I've created some JavaScript[8] (called from my monobook.js) that blocks myself from viewing any Wikipedia article with a content dispute (such as NPOV, OR, etc.). While researching the various content dispute templates, I noticed that every template used the same set of 10 or so images. So rather than parse through the article text to find the template, my script searches the images to see if there's a match. It's kind of a kludge but it appears to work.

JavaScript function

function IsDisputed() { var images = new Array( "Accessories-text-editor.png", "Ambox_content.png", "Ambox_question.png", "Ambox_scales.svg", "Ambox_warning_orange.png", "Consensus_icon.png", "Edit-clear.png", "Question_book-new.png", "Text_document_with_red_question_mark.png", "Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg", "Unbalanced_scales.svg", "Question_book-new.svg", "Edit-clear.svg" ); var isDisputed = false; for (x=0; x<document.images.length; x++) { for (y=0; y <images.length; y++) { if (document.images[x].src.indexOf(images[y], 0) > -1) { isDisputed = true; break; } } } return isDisputed; }//end function

Nevertheless, it's the one part of my code that I'm a bit uncomfortable with. Is there a better way to do this? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Both Template:Original Research and Template:POV calls Template:Ambox with the type set as content. That generates <table class="metadata plainlinks ambox ambox-content" style=""> so you can look for that instead? The body tag in an offending page, <body class="mediawiki ltr ns-10 ns-subject page-Template_POV skin-vector" dir="ltr">, also has the exact template (in this case, POV) as part of the class, so even a simple CSS .page-Template_POV {display: none} can stop yourself from viewing tagged pages. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a comment regarding your current code: If you have n symbols to look for, given a page with m images, you have to do n x m comparisons if there are no maintenance templates. This could've been improved by storing the images to look for in a set-like data structure with faster lookup, reducing the number to, say, log(n) x m comparisons. But from what I can tell, JavaScript doesn't have such a data structure. decltype (talk) 04:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Spell check problem in google chrome.

Hi all,

The problem is, chrome automatically spell checks the data I enter in any forms like username field in gmail. I need to tell chrome not to do so. Any idea?

It does the auto spell check only in my home PC( Windows XP).

Thanks.ManoharTR (talk) 09:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggest report it to google via the 'report bug or broken website' option in the google chrome options - As I remember it didn't use to do this, but started doing it with a recent update - (I have also reported this bug) - the same update also introduced other problems such as drag and drop of selected text within the wikipedia edit window doesn't work. (this also used to be ok) - if you really need a fix immediately I'm fairly sure that the last version of chrome that didn't have extensions was ok.

It's a bug - not a feature ! :)

87.102.67.84 (talk) 12:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95604 says what you can do to change spell checking options - right clicking on the input box and selecting 'temporarily turn off spell checking works' - but is only temporary.87.102.67.84 (talk) 12:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. :)--ManoharTR (talk) 13:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, there's a spellcheck setting somewhere in the Google settings accessible from gmail. Astronaut (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Inbox privacy

Hi

Please excuse me for being a complete goof when it comes to computers.

1. When Outlook is open, is there a way to prevent people from from viewing your INBOX and SENT MESSAGES without having to lock your PC or close OUTLOOK everytime you leave your desk?

2. Can't your normal cd drive/optical drive read a clean disk? I've tried to put some pics on cd, but I keep getting the same window that says, "please insert disc". I've tried other pc's here at work as well, but with the same results.

41.193.16.234 (talk) 10:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

1. No, there's no official way to lock the Outlook messages except lock your PC. That doesn't mean there isn't an unofficial addon to do what you're asking, but I've never heard of one and considering that you can just lock your PC I don't see why anyone would make one. Can I ask why you don't want to just lock your PC? (since you're obviously requiring some sort of password to be able to view your Outlook).

2. It might be that your work computer don't allow access to the optical drives (I know I personally lock our work ones down to the IT team only and I wouldn't be surprised if most big corporations didn't do similar). ZX81 ^talk 10:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Thanks for the quick response.

I do data capturing and a lot of times I have to go out on the floor and in the warehouses or go to people to double check stuff and so it's a lot of in and out of the office. We work with production codes and sometimes some folks would just (when they're on the go) find the nearest pc and punch in a code to find information about a particular product. This is not a problem though, the problem is that some folks tend to scratch where there is no itch. Meaning that when you're not looking or not there they maximise Outlook when it was minimized and casually view your inbox and stuff like that. Now to prevent this I have to lock my pc each and everytime I leave my desk and a few times it's happened that I typed my password incorrectly (like any normal person) and before I know it I'd be locked out. I'm getting tired and scared (of the guys at I.T.) of passwords.

Thanks, NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.193.16.234 (talk)

What would be the reason for locking the optical drive?

Thanks,

NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The main reason for locking down optical drives (and USB flash drives etc) is literally to stop unauthorised software/files from being copied onto the computer. This is from both a legal viewpoint (unlicenced software) and to try and stop the risk of viruses or other system problems that may cause problems for the IT Staff. Another reason (although this more relates to the write part of the optical drive rather than read) is also to protect company data from being copied in bulk to CDs/DVDs. ZX81 ^talk 12:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ZX81,

Having said that...

I have music on the pc that has been copied via Windows Media player's "Copy from CD" feature. -I understand the virus scare stuff, but how come I was able to copy music from two cd's so far?

Thanks,

NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Although we haven't actually confirmed that there is software locking down your optical drive, to me this still sounds the most likely. The CD Audio (Red Book) format isn't actually "data" in the same way that a disc of files is and it's actually your CD software that is reading the music and creating files. If you browse the CD Audio disc from "My Computer" (if you can) all you'll see a file for each track, but with a tiny filesize for each one, this aren't real files, just Windows trying to be helpful and creating links to the individual tracks (playable via Media Player). Sorry I'm probably not explaining this very well, but what I'm trying to say is CD Audio doesn't use a filesystem like a CD-R disc does. There's some more information on the various formats on our Rainbow Books article. ZX81 ^talk 14:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

How did you put pictures on the CD? Quite possibly that disc has not been finalized. --LarryMac | Talk 15:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

To lock the computer quickly, hit the Windows Key and the L key at the same time. This is how we stop people browsing our PCs in public. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You can set an automatic lock in the screensaver. If you trim the screensaver timeout to a minute or two, it will still get locked even if you forget.

As for remembering the password, consider using the same easy to remember key phrase each time with a numeric prefix or suffix. For example: using "P455w0rd" ("Password" with numbers replacing letters where appropriate) as the key phrase and the month and year as a prefix, this month it might be "0210P455w0rd", then next month "0310P455w0rd" and so on; you only have to remember the month you last changed it. It goes without saying, never tell anyone the key phrase, not even the I.T. guys. If I.T. change your password for you, immediately change it back to the next password using your key phrase. Astronaut (talk) 17:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

A few companies sell a system where you wear an RFID tag when using your computer; when you walk out of range the computer auto-locks (and auto-unlocks when you're back). A Google search found these guys, although that's not a recommendation as I've never used it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys,

To ZX81: When you say "...your CD software that is reading the music and creating files". Do you mean files that can't play without the cd, because it does play without the cd, and if I'm off the point would you be so kind as to correct me please.

To LarryMac: ☻ No I haven't been able to put my pics on cd yet. What do you mean the disc hasn't been finalized yet?

I misunderstood your question and thought you'd already put some pics on CD and were just having trouble reading that disc. As far as "finalized", I linked that word to a Wikipedia article in my previous reply, but I no longer think that applies. --15:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

To Finlay McWalter: Unfortunately I don't think they'll go for that, I can try, but then I'll probably get the following response... "Well we can, but unfortunately due to the fact that you're a nothing we have no choice but to shoot all of your ideas down... As well as those in the distant future, should you have the nerve to try your luck again". "So is that a no?"

Thanks, NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I knew I wasn't explaining that one very well. What I was trying to say (and I'm probably going to fail again) is that although a music CD and a CD full of files/pictures physically looks the same, they're both in completely different formats and the music format probably isn't locked out (I know the software we use doesn't lock that out, only when there are files/software on a CD/DVD. The staff can still listen to their music CDs without a problem. Hope that explains better. ZX81 ^talk 14:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ZX81

So files/software on a cd/dvd is more harmful to the network then music? -If so why is that?

Is there a way for me to change my windows password?

Thanks, NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes they're potentially more dangerous. Music CDs for the large part just sound, but files/software have the potentially to be able to install extra things on the computer, change the configuration of the system or worse still could contain a virus that could not only cause issues and infect that computer, but replicate round the internal network as well. To answer your second question, to change your password on most business Windows system just press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and one of the options that comes up should be "Change password". If you don't get this and only get task manager than your system is running more as a home system and in which case you'll need to go into Control Panel and User Accounts. ZX81 ^talk 17:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

screen-recorded theora wikipedia tutorials

Hi guys, I'm working on some video tutorials on using Wikipedia; haven't completed anything yet and still exploring the software I'm using for the screen recording, Adobe Captivate. I suppose I have four main questions (sorry!):

• I plan to output in .avi and convert to theora (that way it can be uploaded here). Will there be a noticeable difference in quality/sharpness/resolution? I'm unfamiliar with both formats, having only ever watched stuff with those file extensions from time to time. My research led me to believe that the quality is comparable between the two, but I've since heard otherwise.
• Captivate can record at different resolutions, and I'm left wondering which option is the best to go for. I'm conscious that not everyone will have a monitor of a similar size to mine, and obviously want this to be as usable as possible for everyone. Generally, is it better to record at a lower resolution or a higher resolution; which is more scalable at the user-end? I recorded at a high resolution, and upon viewing the .avi, thought that all of the text looked slightly soft. Is this resolution or quality related? Can I avoid it?
• As I'll have to license these tutorials cc-by-sa, do I somehow have to cover up the Wikipedia icon, top left? If so, does anyone know a quick and dirty way to do this?
• When I examine certain edits as part of the tutorial, should I request permission from the authors of the edits? Or at least let them know that they're mentioned in the video? I'm half-inclined to say it would be the nice thing to do, and the other half of me says it's being a bit anal about it (and would hugely impact on my ability to produce the videos).

Apologies if not all of these questions are computing related, but I was hoping that someone with media experience would have a clue about the last two questions also! Thanks very much for your help, :-) Maedin\^talk 10:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

1. (theora) - Theora should be fine (it'd be better if you could record directly to theora rather than have to reformat later, but I appreciate your tool may not do that); make sure the avi has a higher quality than the final theora you're going to make.
2. (resolution) - personally I'd recommend going at a smaller screen size, so that the video fits on almost everyone's screen, and also to keep the file size down. The softening of the text is an artefact of compression - increase the quality (and maybe experiment with other settings too)
3. (wikipedia logo) - this would be a reasonable case for fair-use of the Wikipedia logo (it's used in many otherwise-gfdl screenshots inside Wikipedia). If you really want to suppress it then that can be done fairly easily inside your user skin by hiding it with CSS. Tell me which skin (vector, classic, monobook) that you intend to use and I'll figure out the CSS for you. Personally I think you should go with Beta (Vector), so that the tutorial doesn't look outdated in a few months (when, presumably, vector becomes the default skin).
4. (permission) - it's a matter of courtesy, like you say; if you're dwelling on a specific edit for a while then getting the input of the contributor in question might be worthwhile. BLP applies (if you're uploading the tutorial here) and common decency applies elsewhere (allegedly), so I'd be reserved about how you describe edits you disagree with and particularly careful about how and to whom you ascribe words like "vandalism".

Please drop me a note when you've uploaded the first one ; I'm keen to see how you get on. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The fair-use discussion goes, I guess, for all images in the article - so it'd be better if you targetted your videos at pages that don't have any fair-use content in them at all. In practice no copyright owner is likely to be upset (or have much of a case), as low-resolution blocky images that flicker past in passing can't really be shown to cause them any actual loss or harm - but there's no reason to go there if you don't need to. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your comments! May I dig a little deeper?

1. (theora) .avi or flash output are my two options. I'll fiddle with the settings and attempt a few conversions.
2. (resolution) I have a modest (though probably standard) monitor size of 17" and resolution of 1280 x 1024; would your advice be the same, knowing that?
3. (logo) The vector suggestion was invaluable, whew! I would have done the recording with the monobook skin that I'm using and, yep, probably would have dated videos fairly quickly. I'll switch to vector for the demonstration account; can I be greedy and have the CSS for monobook and vector, please?
4. (permission) I'll be careful about which edits I select and examine, but your agreement that it would be considerate to inform editors of their upcoming appearance on a tutorial means I probably will. Hopefully there will be few objections.
5. (fair use) Also a good suggestion, thank you. I'll try to avoid fair use (though I agree that it's unlikely to be an issue). And one more question!:
6. (length) What are maximum and minimum reasonable lengths for each tutorial? I say "each" because I've come up with ideas for a whole series, but I don't want to make them too short nor too long. I'm thinking around 20 minutes is ideal, but then I'm fairly good at concentrating and doubt that I'm a good judge.

Actually, if you're amenable, perhaps I could send you a draft before uploading to Wikipedia; no use embarrassing myself publicly if you are willing to provide feedback first! I need guinea pigs, :) Maedin\^talk 12:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

(resolution) I'd go with 800x600, which is enough for almost everything to work (bar a few wide tables on some pages); that should be clear enough for everyone to see, but won't make for too huge a filesize

(logo) on Vector you'd add

           #p-logo a {background:none !important}   /* for an empty space */

or

           #p-logo a {background-image: url('http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mediawiki/b/bc/Wiki.png') !important} /* for the PD Mediawiki logo */

(length) I have a low threshold of boredom, so I'd make it 5 minutes

I'd be happy to look at your draft, although I'd recommend you post a link to it on the Village Pump somewhere, to benefit from a diversity of views. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It's the same CSS in Monobook too. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:38, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

XP bootable system image

I'd like to create a bootable (boot loader) (via USB) (no 3.5 drive) image of my computer as it currently is. (I've already got an utility that creates a bootable reinstall disk on usb but this resets everything to day one - removing files etc - and re-adding various bloat pre-installed).

Is there an easy way to do this - (preferably a point and shoot solution) ? 87.102.67.84 (talk) 14:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you want List of disk cloning software. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes I think it is (Thanks) - any suggestions (from personal experience) - I'm looking at acronis backup which sounds fine - anyone got any horror stories (or personal recommendations?)87.102.67.84 (talk) 18:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I used to swear by Norton Ghost, but in recent versions I've found its hardware compatibility to be disappointing. In addition, Ghost's licensing has changed, making the sysadmin-walking-about version really rather expensive. These days I use an Ubuntu Linux livecd and dd (which is great if you know enough about dd and Linux device names, but can be dangerous if you don't). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I, too, have liked Ghost in the past. I had a bad experience with FileZilla Clonezilla the one time I tried it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

perhaps you mean Clonezilla? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Gahhhh! Fixed, thank you. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Second Apple Problem

In an AppleWorks template I was able to put in a date that was automatically updated on the next opening of the template. How can I do that with the new 'Pages' programme please? Thanks in anticipation.--88.110.52.18 (talk) 15:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

From the user guide: To add and format the date and time, place the insertion point where you want the

value to appear, and then choose Insert > Date & Time. To change the date and time format, Control-click the date and time value, choose Edit Date & Time, and then choose a date and time format from the pop-up menu. If you want the document to always show the current date and time, select “Automatically update on open.” --Mr.98 (talk) 03:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again Mr 98 for your interest. However, Ctrl clicking the the date and time value does not produce a pop-up menu that includes "edit", so no access to the "automatically update option. Any more ideas please?--85.210.170.13 (talk) 08:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CORRECTION TO ABOVE. I have managed to do what you have suggested. Only tomorrow will tell if I (we) have been successful. I will tell you then. Thanks again.--85.210.170.13 (talk) 08:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Automatically chown setuid programs named a.out

Is it possible to set Linux up so that when I compile a program with gcc under my own username and name it a.out, it will be chowned to a different user and have setuid enabled? I figure, combined with suitable limits.conf settings, this would be a good way to avoid bringing my system down with an accidental resource leak or fork bomb, without creating problems for production software from a source package (where I'd have to sudo make install anyway). NeonMerlin 16:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess you could have a root cron job which runs find to find a.outs and do the chown/chmod accordingly - but you'd realistically only run that every few minutes (lest it slow your machine down). Failing that you could write a wrapper around gcc that checks for an a.out after gcc has completed; realistically that wrapper would itself have to be setuid-root (eek). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:07, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You could make a bash script called "runsafe" (or something) thats fiddles with the a.out in the current directory and then runs it, but this would require remembering to type "runsafe" instead of "./a.out". As a bonus, you could skip the creating a new user thing, and just have the bash script run ulimit before executing the local a.out file. Paul Stansifer 20:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Advanced exercise: Hack bash (or whatever shell you use) to automatically chown (or, easier, limit!) newly generated binaries. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You're talking about code you wrote yourself? Have you actually had problems like that? They don't occur that often. I'd say just set reasonable ulimits and run normally. Another thing you can do is intercept the system library calls for things like fork, if you're forking a lot of processes for some reason and are concerned they might get out of control. Web searching "intercept libc" finds some pages on how to do that. If you're talking about potentially hostile code, you want to run in a chroot jail, under emulation so you completely control the VM the thing is running under, but even then you have to expect it to get loose, so run it on a machine that you can completely trash and re-initialize. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 08:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd just do the chown/chmod as the last step of your Makefile. (If you're not using make yet to compile your code, this may be the time to learn. IMHO, it's a better use of your time than the hack you're proposing.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You should be able to make a bash script which is the code: chown otheruser "$1";. Mark this as executable by yourself only and writeable by root only. You can then use setcap on that script to give that script superuser access for a specific capability only (see man 7 capabilities for the full list of capabilities). I think you'll want to give the script CAP_CHOWN so it can change the owner of files. Then add running this script as a makefile target. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Or you could just add ulimits for yourself: it'll prevent you accidentally forkbombing yourself! --h2g2bob (talk) 22:25, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing very large white margins from a PDF

I have someone's peculiar home-made PDF, where each photocopy-like page is a small barely readable image surrounded by a white margin several times the size. The "photocopy" part is less than 10% of the whole page. I've already tried some software which removes images from PDFs, but it did not find any in that PDF.

What would be the easiest quickest free way of removing the huge white margins please? 78.149.185.159 (talk) 20:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends on whether the margin is part of the the image in the PDF, or just "margin". But you should be able to use any software with PDF-editing capability to cut out sections you want manually. On MacOS-X, both Preview and Skim can do it. I suspect some Adobe product will also allow this. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Acrobat Professional allows you to crop with impunity. Reader does not (which is pretty annoying). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

It's kinda in the name though; reader, reads - I agree though, it'd be nice if it did some basic editing, but they want you to buy the full product (and I suppose they couldn't call it reader if it did more than read). ZX81 ^talk 23:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure they could—Preview manages it, even though it allows you to take notes and crop things (more than just "preview"). These functions are not exactly what I consider under the heading of "Professional," anyway. One should not have to shell out $450 just to crop things so that they are readable/printable. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I've seen some programs that actually examine the pdf contents to identify the margins for the purpose of removing them for n-up printing at the largest possible type size. I don't have a url handy but I remember finding something like that with a web search. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 07:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The real issue is whether the images would be readable if the margins were removed. I would start by simply magnifying the PDF viewer window and checking whether there is readable text there - if there isn't, you're not going to produce readasble text by removing the margins. --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I installed the free Sun PDF Import Extension into OpenOffice, and that did what I wanted. The resulting file was much smaller than the original. Problem solved. 89.243.72.5 (talk) 15:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Got valid XP on a hard drive, but motherboard kaput, use in another computer?

I had a rather old computer whose motherboard died due to me fitting an graphics card which turned out to be incompatible, despite the internet suggesting otherwise. The old HD now works fine in an external case. It still has a valid copy of Windows XP on it. I have another old computer that is similar to the aforementioned computer, except its operating system is Windows2000.

If I put the WinXP drive into the second computer, is Microsoft likely to accept it as valid and allow updates?

If it is any help I also have got a Dell WinXP instalation disk (no registration number), and a copy of a WinXPPro instalation disk that someone gave me. Both acquired in case I needed an installation disk to do a repair. Neither of the computers are Dell machines.

I'm inclined to install Ubuntu on the Win2000 computer, but I'd like to know if it would be possible to get a fully working WinXP computer from what I've got. 78.149.185.159 (talk) 20:58, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

As long as it's a retail (or small-system-builder) XP licence, then you can (probably) get it working; you'll have to revalidate (but it mostly does that itself); they might insist that you phone them, in which case you just tell them what you did, and they'll probably be okay with it. If, however, it's a big-OEM licence (like a Packard Bell or an HP or an Acer or whatever) then the licence is for a specific machine, and plugins to the licence manager will check hardware specifics. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

From my experience, using an installed XP on a different computer results in a blue screen of death during start up with a message complaining about recent hardware changes. There obviously isn't any technical reason why XP shouldn't work on another computer, but I believe microsoft deliberately disallow using multiple hardware configurations due to piracy issues. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 09:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

That's wrong. The BSOD you get when you change the motherboard is because Windows is trying to load the wrong drivers (if you change to the same motherboard family that uses the same drivers it'll usually be fine). There are plenty of ways to enable a successful change of motherboard on XP even with a rather diverse change (e.g. a P4 i865 mobo to a Phenom II with 785G mobo) as a simple search will find and I've done it before myself [9] [10]. It's easier if you get it ready before hand (which I guess isn't possible now). If your installation media allows you do to a repair install that's also another easy option. This relates solely to starting up the existing Windows installation without a BSOD, I can't comment on the activation issue, it will depend on the XP license at hand and whether Microsoft allows the change you carried out. Nil Einne (talk) 17:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah my mistake, thanks for correcting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 19:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanksd. Looks like I shall erase the operating system and use it as a second HD in another computer. 89.242.101.230 (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

adobe illustrator

I'm trying to install adobe illustrator from the adobe creative suite 4 master collection, but it keeps telling me "system requirements not satisfied for this product". Other options like photoshop etc can be installed, but I don't want them, I only want illustrator. What is the problem? I have enough ram and hdd space, and it said my system met the requirements when it first started up. Is there any way to bypass this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 22:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

What version of Windows are you running? I appreciate you said you have enough RAM, but just to clarify, how much do you have? ZX81 ^talk 23:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 with 4GB ram. The program said it only needed 2GB, and I closed all other programs while installing to free up all the ram except for that which Windows uses (about 1GB) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 23:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

(I'm guessing you do but just incase) do you have Directx 9? I know it's only a requirement for some features but it could be causing the issue? ny156uk (talk) 23:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The requirements are here http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/systemreqs/ or http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/406/kb406240.html which I guess you already know - I looks unlikely that you don't have them (less than 2GHz processor with more than 1 core?) - I'd suggest using adobe support for this one as first choice http://www.adobe.com/support/illustrator/ 87.102.67.84 (talk) 00:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I seem to remember a similar issue with some Adobe product once for some silly reason although can't remember what it was. Could have been the screen resolution or something. I seem to recall however that it provided more info. Have you looked carefully in the window to see there's nothing to click to find more info on the problem? If not, perhaps try this [11] Nil Einne (talk) 17:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

February 16

Internet Connection Problem

When I load a video on Youtube, the video stops loading after just a little bit. And when I try to play online on Modern Warfare 2 and Age of Empires 3 the game lags and connection interrupeds. This started for just a few days ago. All stoped work at the same time...Can anyone help me? --83.183.172.203 (talk) 06:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

To reduce the chances that its a malware infection I would use Ccleaner to clean out the junk, then do a series of scans using free software from Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, Avast, SpyBot, and others. Avast includes a boot-time scan which may be useful. If they will not download then you could download them via another computer. 78.147.202.148 (talk) 11:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

DDR2 RAM - PC2-6400 vs PC2-5300

I can see from the DDR2 SDRAM page that these two version differ in terms of 'peak transfer rate' and 'timings' but wondered if anybody could answer...which is 'quicker'/'better' for using products like Adobe Illustrator? I'm weary to assume that 'bigger number = better' as this is quite regularly not the case, particularly with computer-parts where they love to confuse your average Joe (particularly graphics card wise). Anyhoo any help more than appreciated. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:40, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

In this case, a bigger number does mean better performance - faster cycle times mean less latency and more transfers per second - as long as the motherboard supports PC2-6400. The obvious followup question is, are you certain your motherboard can handle the higher performance RAM? If your motherboard doesn't support it, it will usually automatically scale back down to the lowest supported speed (so the system will still function, but without the performance boost). Nimur (talk) 14:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning Up iTunes Playlist

Resolved

Besides it's huge 100MB updates, iTunes can be really inconvenient to use at times. Sure, when you play a song for the first time, iTunes adds this to the playlist and remembers the location of the file for you to play it next time, but when this has been changed, iTunes can't find the song. When you then find the song manually, you end up with two entries in you playlist for the same song, one which works and one which doesn't. Over time, you can end up with half a dozen or so (of each song). Is there any way to just get iTunes (and songbird, for that matter - it's exactly the same) to clear away all these deadlinks rather than me having to click on each link to see which one is the one that works? I've got so many of them I believe it would be faster and less hassle just to uninstall and then reinstall iTunes (or maybe skip the last bit as the size of the updates takes the mick). --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 14:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

File -> Show Duplicates will allow you to clean out your library faster. Also, if you have iTunes manage your music automatically, it will place all the files in a single folder (sorted by artist then album). This should prevent the links in iTunes from becoming broken again in the future. Caltsar (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You either are going to have to put your files in a standard place, or let iTunes manage their locations for you. If you are going to mix-and-match, iTunes is really not the best program for your MP3-playing needs. It is not meant to be a program that just plays an MP3 you have on the desktop that you then later move somewhere else. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Mr.98, but it's not just a problem of file management. I've recently deleted about 12GB of music (that I moved to another computer) and all of these songs still show up in the iTunes playlist. And thanks for the tip, Calstar, but 'show duplicates' shows about 99% of my iTunes playlist and still doesn't tell me which ones out of them are the broken links. Would it be possible to just delete the entire playlist with a single click or do I really have to go through each one? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 16:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

[EDIT] It's OK, I've done it. Thanks.

Deleting a bunch of files from the filesystem is exactly a problem of file management. iTunes thinks of itself as keeping track of your files and where they are and whether they exist. So if you delete files off of the hard drive itself, without going through iTunes, it will get confused. Again, the easiest approach is either to let iTunes manage the files, and then you do everything from within iTunes (like deleting), or to use something other than iTunes. Otherwise this will be a continual issue, because it just goes against the file paradigm iTunes uses. (Which I don't necessarily think is great, mind you.) --Mr.98 (talk) 21:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

4Gb SDHC Card

Sorry if this is a waste of your valuable time folks but I have been in the habit of using either a 1 or 2 Gb SD Card for my digital camera and had no difficulty transferring pics to my PC via the onboard multi-card reader. But now that I have upgraded my camera to one with twice as many pixels capacity I have decided to also upgrade to a 4GB SDHC Card, and while it works fine in both my old and new cameras it can't be "seen" by my PC's onboard card reader. But when I put it into my USB multicard-reader and install that device into my PC, hey presto - it works. So I don't have an insuperable problem - I just don't get how the HC card can be seen by the PC as long as I first plug it into an intermediate device. BTW, I make no apologies for admitting I am far from being a techie. Thanks. 92.30.44.2 (talk) 14:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Basically SDHC was an extension of the SD format. SDHC card readers (like your camera and USB card reader) are backwards compatible and can read SD cards as well as SDHC cards, but unfortunately SD card readers (your onboard PC) aren't forwards compatible and can only read SD cards. Also our article on Secure Digital has more information in the SD and SDHC compatibility issues section. Hope that helps to explain. ZX81 ^talk 14:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

In other words, the "intermediate device" is doing some format translation that your computer's built-in reader does not know how to do. The multi-reader then (probably) registers itself to Windows as a USB mass storage device, allowing the PC to access the file-system on the SDHC card without ever knowing what format translation has taken place. USB is a complicated protocol - the apparent transparency of "plug-in-and-function-properly" is the feature that most users are familiar with. In reality, a lot of digital translation is occurring with device drivers on the PC and firmware on the devices in order to make the "Universal Serial Bus" universally compatible. You've just witnessed a breakdown of that system. Nimur (talk) 16:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks folks. Much appreciated. 92.30.140.229 (talk) 17:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

editing google chrome's extensions?

I have a simple extension installed in Google Chrome and I'd like to slightly modify its code. How can I do that? --Belchman (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Just unzip it, modify, re-zip, re-install. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

But I "installed" directly from Google Extensions, so I can't find the .zip file. --Belchman (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

To look at one that's already installed, go to your Chrome profile folder (vista or later: C:\Users\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data), and open the Default folder, then the Extensions folder. Hey, there's all your extensions! One of those folders is the one you want, already unpacked. Just edit whatever you want in there. Indeterminate (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, man. --Belchman (talk) 14:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Firefox old history site folders will not delete - where is folder?

I have deleted all my history from Firefox. However, when I look at History View By Site I can still see lots of empty folders for the websites I once visited, even though every other View choice is blank . These folders are empty, but they are still there. I have tried every thing to get rid of them - I have tried every possible History deleting option from within Firefox itself. I have used Ccleaner. I have searched on Google - all the advice given was for old versions of Firefox, so does not apply to me.

Does anyone know what folder these folders will be in, so I can delete them manually? Or has anyone else had the same problem for version 3.5 or 3.6, and know how to get rid of them? I have just installed the latest version of Firefox, they are still there. Thanks 89.242.101.230 (talk) 20:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Tools, Options, Privacy tab, click "clear you recent history." --Wonderley (talk) 00:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've already tried that and many things like it in version 3.5. Version 3.6 does not offer that option. 89.240.100.129 (talk) 11:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's where to find your profile. The page also describes how to do other things, like which file contains your history, and how to create a new profile (and delete the old one). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Indeterminate (talk • contribs) 08:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that link gave some clues although it did not address the problem specifically. I eventually found that the solution is to exit Firefox and rename or delete c:\documents and settings\username\application data\mozilla\firefox\profiles\random.default\places.sqlite (where username and random.default will vary). Upon restarting Firefox I found that the bookmarks were all there, presumably restored from the daily backup which Firefox seems to do, but the unwanted history items had gone. I suppose I will have to repeat this the next time I want to delete history. 89.240.100.129 (talk) 13:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Is my iPhone defective?

I just got an iPhone and am scared to touch it any more because either I am doing something wrong or it is defective. namely, I have to push the screen basically as hard as I can to get the color change feedback; Im afraid of breaking the glass screen! Is my pressure sensitive laye defective, or what is happening? Thank you. 92.229.12.171 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC).

I don't have an iPhone, but surely pressing the screen as hard as you can is a really bad thing to do (see Liquid crystal display#Drawbacks - seventh bullet point). I only have to lightly touch my laptop's screen to see a colour change and the iPhones I have used have only required a light touch to make them work. Astronaut (talk) 02:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

iPhone has a capacitive touch screen which does not respond to pressure but by the mere fact that your finger had a detectable capacitance. If you have to push the screen to register a touch, you have a defective iPhone or possibly a cheap iPhone knock-off that uses resistive touch screens. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:05, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Pardon my iPhone ignorance, but what is "Color change feedback"? Can you operate the onscreen buttons and do all the gestures? Or do you have to press as hard as you can to make anything work at all? APL (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

February 17

Getting unblocked from TV Tropes

For whatever reason, I can't access TV Tropes from my home Internet connection--it just says "Forbidden - You don't have permission to access /pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage on this server." I'm presuming this means my IP address has been blocked for some reason, but I don't know why, as I've never vandalized/spammed TV Tropes. It's been this way for a few months now, too. I can access the site through proxies and TOR and I know my IP address has probably changed several times since I last was able to get on, so the only thing I can think of is that my ISP (Charter Communications) has been blocked... but I don't know why that would be or how I can get it unblocked. Any help? (yes, yes, I know I'm probably more productive without TV Tropes, but I still want it back!) 24.247.163.175 (talk) 01:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You're going to need to talk to the admins at TV Tropes to get unblocked. Try getting an account and posting about it on their forums. Someone might be sympathetic. Indeterminate (talk) 08:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't check without the full URL (and it's likely blocked my the corporate firewall I'm sitting behind), but that sounds like a standard HTTP 403 error message. Some more detail on 403 is provided here. I don't think it's personal; it might be a (temporary?) configuration issue. --LarryMac | Talk 13:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The exact URL I'm using is http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage . I'll try setting up an account on another internet connection and seeing if I can ask directly for advice--thanks, it hadn't really occurred to be to try that! 24.247.163.175 (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Noisy server

I have a Dell Poweredge server at home (it is >5 years old and was going to be thrown out so I got it for free). I would like to use it more, perhaps as a webserver but find it impossible to keep it on for a long time. It is very noisy, with the three cooling fans and SCSI disks making it sound like a jet aircraft ... well maybe not THAT loud, but loud enough to be obtrusive from the next room. Inside, it has a Xeon processor with a huge heatsink and an equally huge fan, and I was wondering if I could get away with unplugging one of the fans, or blocking some vents to reduce the noise output? Or perhaps someone has a better idea to reduce the noise? Astronaut (talk) 04:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Does it have temp monitors that you can read in userspace? If it does you can compare those numbers against processor specifications and get some idea about your temperature tolerance. Shadowjams (talk) 08:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you install the Dell OpenManage software you should be able to read the temperature sensors and fan speeds. You may have an issue if you unplug a fan though because it'll likely trip the system into "error mode" because there's a problem with the fan/it's not spinning and it'll start flashing orange or similar depending on what model you have. ZX81 ^talk 17:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

With a lot of case fans, if you gently lift the sticker on top, it'll uncover a hole to the bearings, and you can squirt a little WD-40 or something in there. That'll help them be quiet for a bit longer. (Don't do this while it's running, obviously.) You can definitely unplug some of the case fans, but check the system temperature in the bios to make sure it's not getting too hot with some of the fans off. Usually you can't unplug the CPU fan, but the rest can probably go, especially if your server won't be under heavy load. You can also buy case fans for pretty cheap. Indeterminate (talk) 08:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I would definitely look at what temperatures you're running before unplugging fans. As a general rule, bigger fans can run at lower RPMs which is quieter, but if the case openings aren't big enough it might not help. Also, air flow within a case is very unpredictable, so it's a trial and error process. So knowing what temp you're running is pretty important. Shadowjams (talk) 08:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's that old, figure out its power consumption. The electricity bills could be costing you more (over few months) than replacing the thing with a newer computer (e.g. one of those netbook-like things with no screen, that would probably be about as fast) would cost. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It's true - if that server is a 1500 watt blade, then you might be spending as much as 20 cents an hour to operate it. That's about $15 a month! In a year, you could afford a netbook - which could run on 35 watts with the wireless and screen off - and might deliver the same quality of service under light load. Nimur (talk) 15:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CD Protection

Hello Sir, I am doing tutorial CD's. The problem faced by me is that I cant protect the CD from being copied. I had known about the software CDRWIN, CD SHIELD etc but I have no Idea on how to use them. My cd contains only a single executable file, I need to make the cd protected such that it will be impossible to copy the file from the cd. Thanking you in advance Kannan.S —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kannanv3jmask (talk • contribs) 06:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but AFAIK that's not possible. If someone can READ your CD (to use it), they can copy it. Indeterminate (talk) 08:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CD copy protection exists, but like all DRM it has a tendency to be (a) not effective, and (b) cause serious inconvenience to legitimate users. Basically, the manufacturer has to make the CD broken in some particular way, and then software to check that the CD in the drive is broken in that way. Indeterminate has stated the fundamental problem very well. Paul Stansifer 15:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought there was an inner ring of data on CDs that only expensive professional equipment could write to, and that that was used for copy protection? 89.240.100.129 (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

That's true. That's how DVD encryption works, for example. The CD-Rom based versions I think are different. Compact Disc and DVD copy protection is our article on the subject. Shadowjams (talk) 19:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Simple regular expression.

Hello all! I'm using an app called Notepad++ to manage some colossal text files. It supports regular expressions in its find+replace function, but alas, despite reading a tutorial on them, I can't work out one to do what I'd like. I want it to find all brackets, and text enclosed within them, and replace it with nothing. Can anyone help me out here? I know if I keep reading I could work it out eventually, but I'm on a bit of a deadline and it seems like a simple thing to someone who already understands regular expressions.

As an example, "Joanna Brown (born 1970), Architect" would be changed to "Joanna Brown, Architect".202.10.86.219 (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Could try " \(.*?\)," (replace with comma alone). ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Try this:

Find what: \s*\([^(]*\)
Replace with:

Note that this will "eat" the space(s) before the parentheses, and leave intact trailing space(s) after. That works well for the specific example you gave. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In case you're curious, Coneslayers regular expression works like this: first match a whitespace character (i.e. space, tab, new-line or the like), that's the \s part. Then match a start-bracket, that's the \( part. Then match everything that isn't an end-bracket zero or more times, that's the [^(]* part. That part is a little complicated. The square-brackets means to match a whole class of characters, so [123abc] will match either the character 1, 2, 3, a, b or c exactly once. The little up-arrow in the beginning means to match everything but the characters in the class, so [^123abc] means "match everything that isn't either 1, 2, 3, a, b or c". So [^(] means "match everything that isn't a start bracket". Then there's an asterisk which means "match the preceding thing zero or more times". So [^(]* means "match everything that's not a start-bracket zero or more times". Then there's only the \) which simply means to match an end bracket.

So in summary, the regular expression means "First match a white-space character, then a start-bracket, then anything that isn't an end-bracket zero or more times, and finally match an end-bracket".

If you need to do things like this with some frequency, knowing how to use regular expressions is a really useful skill. It takes a while to get to know them, but they are very nice things to have in your toolkit. Belisarius (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Reading your helpful description made me notice a mistake... I meant:

Find what: \s*\([^)]*\)
Replace with:

That is, once we see a start-bracket, match everything that isn't an end-bracket (rather than start-bracket, as I originally wrote). Then match an end-bracket. Why do we have [^)]* instead of .* (match anything)? Because .* is greedy, and will take the longest string that matches. So suppose you have:

Joanna Brown (born 1970), Architect, married John Green (born 1968), Stunt Pilot

In this case, .* would match everything from the first start-bracket to the second end-bracket, leaving you with:

Joanna Brown, Stunt Pilot

-- Coneslayer (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Need an excel macro

I need an excel macro that will allow me to add details into the next row in a different workbook. For example, if a form comes in with someone's name, address etc, I want to be able to run a macro that will add the details to an excel spreadsheet that has previously been saved as a different excel file recording details from all of the cells. 81.134.2.136 (talk) 12:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CPU performance

Hi,

will an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500, 1.66GHz CPU perform better or worse than an Intel Pentium T4200, 2.10GHz CPU?

In other words, will the different architecture of the T5500 deliver a higher performance at a lower clock rate, like it was "in the old days", when a Pentium 4 with a lower clock rate would still beat a Pentium 3 with a higher one?

From what I've read, the T5500 comes with VT while the T4200 does not, so if I'm running virtualization software like VMware Server or VirtualBox, would that make the T4200 lose out even if it would be the better choice if I ran my software directly on the box, without virtualization?

I'm aware that there's more to system performance than CPU specs, however, the two systems I'm looking at differ just marginally when it comes to RAM, disk/controller and GPU (It's an embedded computer, so GPU performance is irrelevant anyway) specs. -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 13:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

When you say "embedded computer", do you mean "battery powered?" If so, you might want to look at performance vs. power and make a decision with that tradeoff in mind also. The Core 2 Duo is a "higher performance" chip using a newer architecture. It's rated at 34 W, one watt lower than the T4200. Here are Intel's specs: T4200 and T5500 (one variant, at least). It looks like the older T4200 beats the newer technology on most benchmarks, though - probably on account of clock-rate alone. T4200 benchmarks vs. T5500 benchmarks. What is your intended application? Does it compare well with a standard benchmark so you can do a targeted line-item comparison on those spec sheets? Nimur (talk) 15:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: "embedded" vs. "battery powered", nope, it's connected to mains power, just a compact (about half the size of a shoebox) headless and fanless box. So power consumption is not an issue, and the passive cooler/case is specified for both the T5500 and T4200 CPUs. Its intended use is as a small Terminal Server-like (under Linux, though, not Windows) system, serving a common office environment (Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice) to a handful of users in an environment where the fan noise of a regular system is not acceptable. -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: Nimur, do you have any insight regarding the VT issue? Would a T5500 be faster than a T4200 when running several virtual machines, as it has VT built in? -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In theory, virtualization hardware support should improve performance. In practice, I've never seen it make a difference. I can boot my top-level server, nimur-enterprises with or without virtualization supported hardware (it's a BIOS setting) - and I can't tell any difference in VM performance (I run some easy-to-benchmark numerical codes, which might not benefit from VT because they're essentially all-CPU and very little disk). (Ultimately, it's best to run these codes natively anyway). I can do the same BIOS VT enable/disable on my 8-core Nehalem system, nimur-core.nimur.com, which is a totally different architecture machine but also supports Intel VT. I'm still not sure what virtualization hardware actually does. Intel's official technology page and our article subsection on Intel VT don't really elaborate all that much either. Gleaning what I can from the white-papers, I think the VT technology does more for streamlining peripheral device access (like USB and maybe hard-disk drives) than it does for CPU and main memory performance (although there are vague claims about MMU streamlining, which could improve virtual memory access speed). So, your mileage will vary based on your use-case.

Finally, it's worth asking - do you need to virtualize? You can provide terminal service to multiple users, including a graphic desktop, without virtualizing. Since you're already planning to time-share a "low-end" processor among many users, I'd be worried about saving every bit of performance for actual work. A common reason to virtualize is if every user needs "administrative" access - and if you have compute resources to spare - but there are workarounds. Proper design of a multi-user unix or linux platform should enable peaceful coexistence of up to hundreds of users. Even a "toy" linux like Ubuntu features pretty industrial-strength, secure user rights management, file-system sharing, and so on. What exactly needs to be virtual? Nimur (talk) 23:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, first of all I hope that for time-sharing of five (that "handful" above was literal ;-)) office desktop environments, one of those two CPUs will suffice. That said, virtualization has some benefits like roll-back in case of a botched update (you can run /home on a different virtual disk, which is snapshot-independent, so you don't accidentally roll-back user data) or easier OS upgrading/testing (you can copy over an image that you prepared on another machine, vm-power-down the production VM, copy the /home disk over, and vm-power-up the new/testing environment). Also, I could run a nice little firewall like m0n0wall in a second VM to make the system more secure:

(Physical ethernet on host)--bridged connection--(Firewall VM)--host-only-networking--(Server VM)

May I ask which VM software you are using? QEMU, KVM, VirtualBox, VMware Server, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, or something completely different? This seems to indicate that not all VM host programs are already making use of VT.

-- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows Registry

Most programs write stuff to the windows registry. Is there a way to forced them to read and write to .reg files in their own directory instead of the windows registry, essentially making the program portable?

In Windows Vista, Microsoft announced Registry Virtualization. You can read technical details on MSDN Technet. If you are a programmer / application developer, see MSDN's tips for developing applications for a least-privileged environment. Nimur (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

hmmm that's not exactly what I was looking for, but thank you. What I was looking for was the way the people at portableapps.com manage to have the registry stuff in a single .reg file. I've read and reread all the pages on that site explaining how to make portable programs but I can't figure it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the program used to make certain pre-compiled applications portable. I have used it. It works well. That's what you meant, right? You don't want to create a portable application from scratch? Applications are porable by default. The registry is simply a convenience for developers. They must tell the application to write to it.--Drknkn (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've had problems with thinapp on different windows versions (a thinapp made on XP won't run on Vista or Win7 etc). I just need a way for programs to use a .reg file instead of the actual windows registry or something similar to that; a portable registry that stays with the program when it's used on different computers. Maybe it can't be done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you are writing a program, you can save settings anywhere you like (ie: a file in the executable directory). It is a standard practice to save to the registry in Windows. If you are attempting to take a program you didn't write and make it think that a .reg file is the registry, then you are trying to either alter an already written program (hard) or alter how Windows works (harder). -- kainaw™ 21:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

When you finish the capture process, ThinApp will save a list of modified registry keys inside the C:\Program Files\VMWare\VMWare ThinApp\captures directory. Each hive is given its own file. One hive would be the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.txt file, for example. You can convert these files to .reg files. In this example, you would replace this text

isolation_full HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\UnlockerShellExtension

Value=

REG_SZ~{DDE4BEEB-DDE6-48fd-8EB5-035C09923F83}#2300

with this text:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\UnlockerShellExtension]

@="{DDE4BEEB-DDE6-48fd-8EB5-035C09923F83}"

and this text

isolation_full HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnlockerDriver5

Value=ImagePath

REG_SZ~%ProgramFilesDir%\Unlocker\UnlockerDriver5.sys#2300

Value=Type

REG_DWORD=#01#00#00#00

with this text:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnlockerDriver5]

"ImagePath"="\\??\\C:\\Program Files\\Unlocker\\UnlockerDriver5.sys"

"Type"=dword:00000001

Then, you would add this to the top of each .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

--Drknkn (talk) 21:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Copy protect

Hi

Firstly I know nothing about computers and I don't know if this is the right place to ask the following questions.

What I'd like to know is...

1. If I have 2 discs with identical information on each, but one is copy protected, how is the one different from the other? -In essence...

1.1 How does the laser lens read the one disc compared to the other?

2. What actually happens when one tries to copy a protected disc, but is unable to?

2.1 What is the mechanism that prevents you from copying a copy protected disc especially audio/video?

3. What is the reason for having all these different formats for movies? -i.e. vcd, dvd, mpeg etc.

3.1 Why are only some dvd players made to play some formats?

Please try as best you can to simplify the answer/s

Thanks,

NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The simple answer is that when your program "reads data" from a DVD, usually it is actually "requesting somebody else to please read the data for you." In some rare cases, you have access to a "raw read" utility and can pull the exact bits from the hardware. In most environments, though, the operating system reads the data for you and delivers it. In still other environments, a third-party device driver or software application layer reads the disk data for you. That intermediate layer can read and interpret the data however it chooses - and then deliver this data to you (or your program) transparently. If the device layer decides that the data is copy-protected, it may choose not to deliver any data, or to garble it, or to flag an error, or to crash, etc. Many times, even if you can read the raw data, it is encrypted - which means that it is useless and cannot easily be reconstructed into meaningful images, sound, and video. Using the intermediate layer (and surrendering to its whims regarding copy-protection) is sometimes required, because that program knows how to interpret and decrypt the data. (There are sometimes ways to circumvent this encryption).

As an occasional hardware developer, this sort of thing is very frustrating - if I want to read the bits off a disc, I want the bits - not some other program's interpretation of those bits. As far as the actual data on the disc, the laser and hardware to read it is identical whether it is copy-protected or not. But the catch is that the data isn't identical to non-copy-protected data - even if it appears identical after it's been passed through some intermediate processing layer. As far as the reason for different file formats, some justifications are technical - see video compression and container format, while others are non-technical (such as region codes on DVDs). Nimur (talk) 15:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a pretty good overview over at our copy protection article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Unstable WLAN over Ubuntu

When I connect through Ubuntu to a specific network, I have a very unstable connection and have to rejoin every 15minutes or less. Other users (using Windows) are doing fine and the connection is at 100% for all (I'm not very far from it). I also don't have any problem connecting to any other hotspots over wifi. Where is the problem?--ProteanEd (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've had something very similar before on Xubuntu, until a friend of mine showed me how to fix it. If you run lshw -class network, does your wireless card show up as an Intel 4965 or similar? If so, try installing the wicd network manager. There's some sort of bug with the standard Ubuntu network manager that stops it working properly with that particular line of Intel cards. CaptainVindaloo t c e 18:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The wicd typ seems valuable. I'll give it a try. --ProteanEd (talk) 18:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Also having the latest version of Ubuntu with all latest updates always helps. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Average daily Google searches per user

How many Google searches does the average Internet user do per day? --Belchman (talk) 17:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

How does he do it?

I have a Sony Vaio laptop running Windows Vista which occasionally loses it's wireless internet connection. I haven't been able to figure out how to reconnect it, but my 14 year old can do it in a couple of minutes. Problem is, he won't show me or tell me what he's doing (he likes keeping secrets from dad). What steps might he be taking to fix things? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Go to the wireless networks icon in the systray. Select available networks. If you don't see your network, refresh the list. Click your network and select "connect". Also, make sure you aren't accidentally sliding the "wifi" switch on the very front of the laptop. I have had many calls from Vaio owners who accidentally switch off wifi with that nearly invisible switch. -- kainaw™ 18:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

LaTeX: Adding the bibliography to the table of contents with a section number when using fancyhdr

Hello,

For a long time, I've been adding my bibliographies to the table of contents (TOC) in LaTeX files like this:

...

\renewcommand{\refname}{\section{References}}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{bibtex_file_name}

I've always found this method to be convenient because it's one line and it adds the bibliography/references section to the TOC, gives it a section number, and allows the section to be linked to via the TOC using the hyperref package. However, today I've been trying to use the fancyhdr package to control the footer content in a document (using these commands) that uses this method of adding the references to the TOC and apparently the highlighted command above interferes with it. When attempting to compile a LaTeX document with fancyhdr footer control and the bibliography code above, I receive this error:

! Incomplete \iffalse; all text was ignored after line 2.

<inserted text>

\fi

1.80 \bibliography{bibtex_file_name}

If I remove \renewcommand{\refname}{\section{References}} the file compiles without incident (of course, the reference section heading is no longer listed in the TOC).

So, what I'm trying to figure out now is a way to either get the highlighted command above to work with fancyhdr or figure out a way to add the references section to the TOC with the same end result as my original command. So far, the best I've been able to come up with is:

\phantomsection
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{References}

This adds the "References" section to the TOC and lets hyperref link to it, but the section is still unnumbered, both in the TOC and in the document itself. Any suggestions as to how I could get it be numbered would be appreciated, as I've searched the net for solutions will no results. If anyone has any idea why my original command interferes with the fancyhdr package, that'd be great, too.

Thanks!

Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 19:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)