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February 18

Stop Google searching for wrong spelling

Google searches include results for different spellings of words you enter. Sometimes this is helpful (for example, if you are bad at spelling), but sometimes it's a pain in the neck (for example, you are good at spelling, and the term you are searching for is similar to a common but unrelated word). How do I make google only search for the spelling I want it to? DuncanHill (talk) 13:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Usually quotation marks are sufficient to restrict a search. If I search for doughnuts, I get results that include donuts. If I search for "doughnuts", I get a different set of results. Note that the second set of results might still include donuts (e.g. our own Doughnuts article), so to further refine the results, I might want to search "doughnuts" -"donuts". In my experience, I sometimes find it takes me multiple searches to get the input string just right. --LarryMac | Talk 13:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, The Google Guide is a valuable reference for learning many search tricks. --LarryMac | Talk 13:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Add a + sign to what you're looking for. For example: +definately --Belchman (talk) 14:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That's excellent, thank you both. DuncanHill (talk) 14:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Sine wave

Why when I stop playing a sine wave sound on my computer, I hear a "pub" sound?--Mikespedia (talk) 13:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What program are you using, and on what operating system, to play this sine wave? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Quite anything, including youtube and anyplace that can play a sine wave. The "pub" sound is heard when I pause the video or even when I turn off the sound from my computer. I use XP.--Mikespedia (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Some computer audio devices sometimes emit a slight "click" when they're muted; they really shouldn't (to my mind its a defect) but some do. If it happens for you in everything, I'd make sure your audio device driver is up to date. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

hard drive connectors

I'm going to be soon trying to get the contents of one PC hard drive and put them mostly verbatim on the contents of another. One uses IDE and the other is SATA. What's the easiest way to do this? I don't need to straight clone the drives, I don't think, so skipping out on a not-cheap IDE-SATA convertor (that I will never use again) is preferable. I have lots of USB and ethernet cables if there is some easy way to use those for this. The size of the files to be moved is large enough that I'd prefer not to try to do it over an internet connection (I just think it will take forever, and I'm not sure what the max up/down caps on the connection will be). Any thoughts? --Mr.98 (talk) 14:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Are both machines in (different) working PCs? If so what OSes do they run? If the PCs don't work, I'd dig around for an external USB hard disk, open it, and use it as a temporary host for the old drive in the new machine. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If the drive is in an operating PC, then connect it via Ethernet, share the drive and move the contents. With Windows XP you can do a direct cable connection with a special USB cable. Vista and Windows 7 have Windows Easy Transfer. If the drive is not installed, you can get a USB to SATA/IDE adapter cheap on eBay; they come from Hong Kong so it may take a few weeks for shipping. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If both PCs are working then direct-connect them with an ethernet cable, fix the IPs (192.168.0.1 and .2), and copy the files across with a failure-tolerant copy program e.g. robocopy(over samba) or rsync (over its own network layer or ssh). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You would need a Ethernet crossover cable for that. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. Lots of ports have automatic crossover these days. If you don't have a crossover cable on hand, it's worth trying a straight-through cable. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

They both work. One will be running XP, another Windows 7. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure the Win7 machine doesn't have an IDE connector somewhere? Most desktops still do (languishing unconnected somewhere in a corner of the motherboard); only laptops tend not to. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure that it doesn't. I just don't want to count on it (I will be traveling far and having only a limited amount of time to transfer things, so surprises are not desired). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You should bear in mind a SATA-PATA or reverse cable would only be something like US$10, probably closer to US$6 shipped from a place like DealExtreme or Ebay [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] although shipping would be from HK and take 2 weeks or so, so may not be feasible if you need to do this soon. Although it may still not be something you'll ever use again (although IMHO could be useful with the eventual demise of IDE), I wouldn't exactly call this 'not cheap' but to each their own I guess... SATA+IDE to USB adapters are also not that much more and may or may not be more useful. As others have mentioned, if both computers have ethernet (a key point, you mentioned you have lots of spare ethernet cables, but not that I noticed whether both had ethernet, the XP one in particular since it lacks SATA may not have it built in to the mobo) ethernet would probably be a good option, as has been discussed you may need a crossover cable but probably not since the Windows 7 computer probably has GbE and these usually (although as our article mentions it isn't compulsory) have automatic crossover. Someone mentioned USB but in the unlikely event both have IEEE1394, you can use that without any special cable (but you do need an IEEE1394 cable with the right plugs of course). As with all situation where you have a limited amount of time, will be travelling far and surprises are not desired, having two options ready may be advisable, perhaps take an ethernet cable or two (in case one is broken) and get a SATA-PATA adapter. Nil Einne (talk) 19:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows appearance

Hi

I like changing the appearance of Windows everyday for example the color of the windows and the fonts, but there's this guy who has quite an amount of authority and who's office I'm occupying. Basically this guy doesn't like that I change the appearance everyday (don't know why and it doesn't affect my work whatsoever, because it takes less than a minute)and said that he's going to let the I.T. manager disable that function so as to prevent me from changing the colors everytime.

Q: Is it possible to disable that feature?

Thanks, NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 15:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible for them to disable the feature on your machine? Yes very easily, take a look at our article Group Policy. Is it possible for you to disable them doing that? No, if you're on a corporate domain (and you probably are) then you can't override a group policy and even if you were to bypass it somehow it'd revert back then next time the policy was applied (it updates periodically whilst Windows is running). ZX81 ^talk 15:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring the technical question, I'm going to focus on the social element (though ZX81 is right, Group Policy exists to allow this sort of control). Is this a shared computer? If so, common courtesy dictates you leave it in close to default configuration (with allowances for font size for those with poor vision and the like). Many people are uncomfortable messing with these settings, and unless you are resetting it back after you use it, you're creating more work for other people. On the other hand, if he just dislikes seeing your screen, he's got a serious chip on his shoulder and should probably be ignored (unless you're going with neon orange or green so bright it causes retina damage out of the corner of your eye, in which case he might have a small point, and perhaps a compromise is in order). —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys,

Compromising I don't know... It's my name that appears on the screen when you try to access this particular pc, so no one else works on it besides me.

Thanks, NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

To me, it depends on how far you want to pursue this, and what it's worth to you. Is this person in your managerial line? That is to say, does he have a say in the review process, whether you continue working there or not, etc.? If he doesn't, I might consider mentioning it to your supervisor/manager/director. Not call a sit-down and make a big deal of it, just a drop-in "Quick question for you...." If it doesn't bother him/her, the issue has been broached and (at least mentally) recorded, and you should be OK to continue. However, if your office mate IS in your managerial line, I would probably drop it immediately. (I'm assuming he isn't, though, or you probably would have written "my supervisor" instead of "this guy.") Sounds like he's kind of a jerk. I've had similar experiences, and it's not fun. Sorry. Kingsfold (talk) 14:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

If there is a reason (and there may not be - some people are just jerks), it could be the perception (not the reality) that you are wasting time endlessly fiddling with your machine's setup when you should be getting on with work. I've known people who surf the web endlessly (on company time) looking for nicer wallpaper designs and downloading loads and loads of obscure fonts and icons and desktop 'toys' like clocks and such. But if it really does take you only a minute or two, you might want to emphasise that to whoever is in charge - and make a point of sitting at your desk a few minutes before the "official" start time - so you are shifting the settings on your own time. Better still, reset the colors before you go home at the end of the day. If I were your manager, I'd be more concerned about why you are almost unique amongst big-time computer users in wanting to do this. Changing the colors every day means that you can't possibly be using anything like optimal settings. The kinds of professional programmers and artists that I work with are extremely picky about choosing their backdrops, fonts and colors - but never wish to change them EVER again once they have them set up how they like. I might suspect that you are having trouble keeping interested in the work or something. But none of these things would justify shutting off the feature on a non-shared computer. Weird. SteveBaker (talk) 04:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking this for a while but dismissed it at first since it's said this was an office but have now reconsidered... You say this is a shared office. Does this colleague regularly get visitors to the office? If so, it occurs to me he may find your computer settings make your computer look unprofessional or odd and he may not like visitors seeing that. Also another thought, is your computer within line of sight of where he works? If so, perhaps he finds your settings keep distracting. Also I'm surprised now one mentioned this, have you tried asking him in a non-confrontational way why he doesn't like you changing your settings? There could also bee things like him being somewhat OC or having other psychological issues which could make the continually changing settings hard to deal with. In such a situation you may expect him to automatically explain why he has problems but it could be he's not that comfortable having to explain his issues all the time. Nil Einne (talk) 02:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Noise of LCD screen when scrolling mouse

How come when I scroll my mouse a small 'buzzing'/'humming' noise is heard from my monitor? It doesn't appear to be volume-specific (i.e. if my volume is up louder it isn't louder) but presumably comes from the speakers. I can't figure out what sort of interference it would be - it seems to be dependent on the window being scrolled within a web-browser mostly (and more so on content-heavy sites). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I also have a faint recollection of having observed the very same phenomenon. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Are your speakers hooked up with standard analog cables or via digital audio cables? And is the monitor connected with VGA or DVI cables? If you're using either DVI cables or digital audio cables, then the problem isn't caused by interference between them (to be honest, I'm not sure if VGA creates more EM noise during screen changes, so this might be totally wrong). That leaves a problem on the monitor side or the computer side. On the monitor side, there is little you can do aside from replacing it; I'd suggest testing with a different monitor to see if the problem goes away. On the computer side, you might have some EM crosstalk between your graphics card and the motherboard/soundcard/audio out port. If you've got multiple PCI-Express slots, you might try moving the graphics card to see if it fixes the problem.

All that said, I'm mostly guessing here. I've had similar issues (not dependent on the mouse, just crosstalk between multiple analog audio cables causing hiss on some lines), and the number of sources of EM interference are beyond counting. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 16:56, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It is very doubtful that the noise is coming from your monitor signaling itself; it is likely a red herring for noise generated by the motherboard. The simple reason is that monitors don't use activity based signaling, so the signal is still there, in a near identical form, whether the mouse is moving or not. I have observed activity based noise generation on a number of computers with poorly shielded internal sound cards. I have a PC at home that inducts noise through the PC speaker so activity literally causes faint beeps, boops, whistles, and clicks as if I were using some sort of steam powered computer. Anyhow, you have a few options. First, try using a mixer tool to mute any unused audio sources like line-in, mic, or cdrom. You can then try to outpace the SNR by tweaking the output volume up or down and adjusting the speakers accordingly, this will have varying degrees of success depending on where in the audio system the noise is being introduced. Aside from that, if your sound card supports digital output get a set of SPDIF capable speakers, or simply get an offboard sound card such as an external USB sound device. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I seem to recall having a similar problem with my headphones that was fixed by plugging them in to a different jack (the computer had two headphone jacks; one in the front and one in the back). Paul Stansifer 21:24, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

How to interrogate a website?

I would like to daily and automatically do the same search on this website http://www.rightmove.co.uk/ and then, within the results of my search, look for words like "garage" for example in the text. If "garage" is found, then my computer tells me, otherwise the program/script/whatever just silently closes down until the next day. What would be the easiest no-cost way of doing this please? Thanks 89.243.151.96 (talk) 16:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

You would typically web scrape the site and then search the retrieved pages, often with a program written in a language like Perl or Python. But notice section 3.3 of their terms of use and the corresponding robots.txt file. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I would go to the Start → Control Panel → Scheduled Tasks → Add a scheduled task → Next → Browse and select the script you wish to run. I would then examine that script I e-mailed you for clues on how to create one. Lines like this should get you started:

var ie = new ActiveXObject("InternetExplorer.Application");
ie.Application.Visible = true;
ie.Navigate("http://www.rightmove.co.uk/");
WScript.Sleep(2000);
var html = ie.Document.getElementsByTagName("html")[0].innerHTML;

Then, search for the term using indexOf. If you wanted to look for the word test, you would type this:

if (html.indexOf("test") != -1)
{
    WScript.Echo("Match found.");
}

--Drknkn (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Customize autoconf script options in apt-get

In Ubuntu, can I set apt-get to always build a particular package from source, with specific arguments added to or removed from the ./configure invocation, and still have updates and dependencies handled automatically (unlike when I download a source package and manually run the configure and make scripts)? The only example I can name right now is --enable-nonfree for ffmpeg, but I know I've faced the dilemma before. NeonMerlin 18:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Build the software from source and then use checkinstall to create a .deb that you can install using dpkg. --Alterego (talk) 06:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

ITunes and External Hard drive

Forgive my simple question, but I want to be extremely cautious that I in no way jeopardize my 8,000 song Itunes library in any way. I currently have an old Compaq computer from around 2003 and the 60G memory is basically full due in most part to my music library. My simple question is this: Is it possible for me to transfer the entire Itunes program and music library to my external 125G hard drive and run it from that? This would include updating and syncing my Ipod as well as playing the music through my computer sound system. Is this possible and if so, what are any concerns? I really do not want to lose all or part of my library as it has taken countless hours to rip my huge compact disc collection. Thanks! 10draftsdeep (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this link on the Apple website will help as it gives a step by step guide to moving your files. From what you've said though it sounds like you only have the single copy of your music and I'd really recommend you take at least another copy somehow (burn over multiple DVD - 60Gb = 7 dual-layer DVDs). It's not a matter of IF a hard drive will fail, but rather WHEN. :( ZX81 ^talk 19:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible. This is exactly what I do, and I was delighted at the recovered hard disk space. You just need to always remember to have your external drive plugged in and turned on when you try to sync your iPod. Otherwise, the iPod will have no source data to sync. (Think exclamation points in little gray circles.) Also, the other drawback is that to play your music from your computer, you'll (obviously) need to connect the external drive. (Not sure if it's a laptop or desktop, and if portability is an issue.) ZX81 is absolutely right, though. I got burned by this process once and lost a 10,000 song library because both my iPod and my external drive crashed within a month of each other. Blank DVDs are so inexpensive now that there's really no excuse for not backing up. (I still have the crashed drive wrapped up and in my closet, trying to save up for the data recovery. Yikes.) Kingsfold (talk) 13:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

flatironbuildingnewyork

(Question moved to Humanities Desk) --LarryMac | Talk 20:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu installer issue

I have a Ubuntu live cd and I have installed it successfully on 2 computers, yet it won't install on this one. When I get to the cd boot menu I have "try without installing", "install" etc. Clicking enter on any option causes the cd to whirr for a second and the harddrive to light up momentarily. Then...nothing. I can move up and down the menu again and enter still does nothing. I have puppy linux running on this (from a cd) fine. Any tips? 83.147.142.48 (talk) 21:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you verify that the system has successfully identified the installed hard disk? Boot into "try with installing" mode and run gparted, and make sure it reports the disk is present. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that "try without installing" does nothing when I hit enter. Nor does any other other option. :/ 83.147.142.48 (talk) 23:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Does pressing alt + function keys take you anywhere? --194.197.235.240 (talk) 00:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Check your BIOS for SATA options. ¦ Reisio (talk) 10:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OP here. Turns out the ISO failed to burn correctly. :p A second burn worked perfectly. 83.147.142.48 (talk) 18:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

February 19

List of English Words

I'm writing a program that needs to recognize when words are spelled correctly, so I need a list of english words, including plurals, conjugations, common proper nouns, etc, but not foreign words or acronyms. Do you have any suggestions? Black Carrot (talk) 00:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You could extract this data from the English Wiktionary. I have done so in my application AlgoSim. If you install it, you will find a UTF-8 plain-text file <Program Files>\AlgoSim\data\english (yes, with no extension) with all English words, one per row, and each row has the format <Word><U+0009><Class><U+0009><Definition>. However, all acronyms are present, so you need to ignore all rows with Class=Initialism or Class=Acronym. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Try using Aspell. It's kinda like Word's Spellcheck without Word. It can run standalone, or be integrated into certain applications (I know that Notepad++ supports it out of the box). Hmmwhatsthisdo (talk) 05:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I recently needed a long list of English words. I found This Page on Sourceforge to be very helpful. Ultimately I went with the ISpell list found on that page. (Note : I was not making a spellchecker, so I can't speak to the list's suitability for that purpose.) I hope this helps.APL (talk) 05:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You can google for the SOWPODS list which is the official Scrabble player's list of English words. It includes plurals but not proper nouns. Other lists with proper nouns might not include plurals so you can combine them. Sandman30s (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at the Moby Project. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 05:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Google Search Results

Is it possible to see where a particular site appears in a search result without manually sifting through pages?

eg.

say I want to find instances of example.com in google search results for "example". I want to know how high up on the list the site ranks, but I don't want to manually find it?

How can I do this?

Thanks in advance,

PerfectProposal 00:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I suppose you could write a script to automatically get results from Google and count where your search phrase occurs. I am not a programmer, though. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

SERP Rank does the trick, if you give a URL and search term. There's others, that actually give your results on multiple search engines, but I forget where they are. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

chemistry

50g of sugar added to 450g of water.What is the percentage of sugar in the solution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agnesdelatorre (talk • contribs) 03:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Divide the solvent by the solution: In this case, 50 grams of sugar divided by (450 grams of water plus 50 grams of sugar). 50/500=.10 or 10% - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

This question would be better asked at the WP:RDS Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Percentage by weight or by volume? SteveBaker (talk) 04:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wherever it was asked, it should have got a {{dyoh}} rather than an answer. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Converting svg to swf

I'm looking to convert some svg files off wikipedia into Flash swf files (and eventually fla files) so that I can edit them in (my opinion) a more comfortable vector editor. I have tried to use the converter available at sourceforge (svg2swf), and got a nice blank white square as a result. Does anybody know of, or have an svg to swf converter that they have gotten good results with? The file is File:Canada_Ontario_location_map.svg. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 03:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Adobe Illustrator can export SWF files (File → Export or File → Save for Web). If you'd like a vector .fla file, instead, then you would need to export the SVG from Illustrator as a .ai file. The process of importing .ai files was improved considerably in Flash CS3. Previous versions of Flash seemed to mess with them a little.--Drknkn (talk) 04:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You can fix the .svg file and then svg2swf will give you what you wanted. Comment out the path elements at line 43, 1467 and 1903; all three are invalid because they don't have the required 'd' attribute.86.178.150.150 (talk) 15:26, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Nice, and I can even do it with the demo. I have Flash MX so I use another converter to change it from swf to fla. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 07:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows Explorer launches on startup

Recently, whenever I load up my netbook, Windows Explorer is launched. Is it possible to determine why this is? I know that's what happens when I crash Explorer, so maybe Explorer is crashing on startup. As a side, when I load My Computer, I get an error message about Windows Live not being enabled. How do I get rid of these issues? Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 05:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

By "Windows Explorer", do you mean the base process, or a window? If it's a window, look for multiple instances of explorer.exe in Msconfig & your system's startup folders. Hmmwhatsthisdo (talk) 05:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I shot down a bunch of random start processes. It seems to be working... Thanks! But what about this Windows Live Messenger? I haven't changed any settings to my knowledge.Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 06:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

laptop keyboard

i fucked my laptop keyboard and would want to know if there is a way to buy a spare one or something like that. i got an hp dv6000 series laptop, and while attempting to clean the keyboard keys got a few of them off the board but getting them back turned out to be a nightmare since if you do a little more pressure than needed the whole thing fucks up and the key wont plug in as it should, so im wondering if its easy and technically possible to buy a spare keyboard and replace it MYSELF? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.83.239.7 (talk • contribs) 10:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes you can. Using Google products (shopping) and searching for "dv6000 keyboard" (without quotes) came back with loads of results so obtaining one shouldn't be too hard. To fit it just see a guide here which has lots of photos and step-by-step instructions. ZX81 ^talk 13:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

And of course in the meantime, you can plug any old USB keyboard into your laptop and use it instead of the built-in one. SteveBaker (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Chrome (browser) Flashblock Privacy thing

I just downloaded Chrome to replace an old version of Navigator that is becoming obsolete. I also have Safari and Firefox and I use different browsers for different things. In the past I have always installed AdBlock and FlashBlock, but just now, on Chrome, when I went to add the plug in (or whatever) I got a message that said basically "Are you sure you want to add this? Flashblock will have access to all your private data on all websites." Can someone explain to me what this means? Is it just an IP address sort of thing? Or does it mean that someone somewhere can get all my facebook info and passwords and bank account info or something? I am totally naive so don't play with me :( Also I have a Mac w/ Snow Leopard. Saudade7 11:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

If I understand correctly you are installing the Flashblock plugin into Chrome? If so, then it will have access to whatever Chrome let's it have access to. Since to do it's job, it sounds like it needs to have access to all websites then yes, potentially it could log all information including passwords, bank account info etc if it was designed to do that. Depending on how well your browser and OS limits it and whether they have any bugs then potentially it would have access to all info on your computer including private files. And even if the plugin itself is not malicious, if it has certain bugs then these potentially could be exploited in various ways but third party websites.

However you should be aware that this is generally true of all plugins and all software. Running executables is always risky unless the source code is available and you review it or it's been reviewed by someone you trust, then you have to trust that the developers are not up to something fishy. Okay if it's a popular program someone may have noticed if it's doing odd things but ultimately you still need to trust someone. You're using Chrome, I presume that means you trust Google (okay Chrome is open source and widely reviews so trusting Google is perhaps not so important), if you have FlashBlock then you must have Flash so I presume that means you trust Adobe. And if you're using Mac Os X then you must trust Apple.

Note that while modern OSes will generally limit what the software can do, so for example they may not be able to write to many files, they often do have wider read access and if they have read access and network access they could potentially transfer any private info in this files (as well as any info they gather themselves). Plugins may have access to most of what the the software does that the plugin hooks in to.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible a rogue plugin could be developed to steal your private info and maybe Google are wise to warn people of the potential danger. But it sounds like an unnecessarily scary message to me. Is it possible that Google have made it that way to discourage people from installing ad/flash blocking plugins and therefore blocking Google's primary(?) source of revenue? Astronaut (talk) 17:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Nil Einne and Astronaut. Somehow it is comforting to know that I am already compromised, and I thought that maybe it was a scare tactic re: ad revenue. But your messages have given me the courage to just install the damned thing. I don't have any dark secrets or money anyway. Thanks!! Saudade7 19:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Hiding "Hidden formatting" in Word 2003

Resolved

Sometimes I turn on "show hidden formatting" by using the ¶ button in Microsoft Word. And when I'm done, I push it again and the hidden formatting goes back to being hidden. However, I am now in a position where it won't go away, even after logging off and back on; I've also tried deleting my normal.dot. Any suggestions? If it makes a difference, I am using remote desktop to access a shared server. Ma^t_chups 14:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried the shortcut Ctrl+( ?

It is possible that the document actually contains the characters ¶, ·, etc.

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried displaying the document on another computer (or in the Microsoft Word viewer)?

Have you tried to repair the Microsoft Office System installation?

What happens if you print the document, save it as a PDF, or copy a part of it to WordPad?--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you looked at Word's settings? You can choose to always (Swedish: alltid) display some formatting charcaters, such as ¶. See this (Swedish) screenshot of Word 2007. Make sure that all checkboxes are unchecked.--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks--this was it. Ma^t_chups 04:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Internet security blockage

For my project work, I'm trying to access https://spdbv.vital-it.ch/ but my internet says the website is blocked. I changed the settings for internet security but I still can't access the website. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It appears that your browser is blocking it because the security certificate doesn't match the site. The certificate is for www.vital-it.ch instead of spdbv.vital-it.ch. This is a relatively minor issue, but you'll have to judge for yourself if that's close enough for you to consider it "secure".

If the mismatch doesn't bother you, your browser should allow you to bypass it. Firefox allows you to click "I understand the risks" and then "Add exception".

If you use Internet Explorer and not Firefox, perhaps someone else can tell you the procedure. APL (talk) 21:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Video editing software, open source or at least free?

I've looked through Category:Free application software, and I can't find any video editing software, along the lines of Premiere or Windows Movie Maker. Is there anything along these lines? I especially need something that can speed footage up. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

VideoLAN, famous for the VLC video player, is working on one: VLMC. It's not available yet. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

pitivi, kdenlive, cinefx, diva, kino, avidemux, lives, cinepaint, cinelerra ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The category you want is Category:Free video software. Be warned that depending on your operating system, the options can be kind of feeble, depending on what you want it to do. All of them involve considerable difficulty in installation in my experience. I looked into some kind of FinalCut replacement about two years ago that would work on OS X, found nothing that really fit the bill good enough to be worth learning how to use, alas. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In retrospect, I should have specified the Windows operating system... I've already investigated most of the programs in the Free video software category, and they all were useless or Linux. (I've debated getting Linux, but it's a big switch.) Avidemux does solve the speed-up bit, so at least one of the things is covered. Thanks! -- Zanimum (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, Avidemux actually doesn't do the trick, the feature's just for converting amongst PAL/NTSC/etc. Anyone know how to speed up video? -- Zanimum (talk) 18:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I have used Adobe Premiere for this purpose. Sorry it's not free. Maybe you can borrow (or even rent) some time on a friend's computer at work or something. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Zwei-Stein isn't on the list. It's not the easiest software to use, but it is free.[6] Also, Windows Movie Maker[7] is free, though not open-source. --Normansmithy (talk) 12:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Are links to news articles truly anonymous?

Often I wish to link to some archived or recent news story at a site like the New York Times. If I am logged in at such a site, the html link to the story may end with 40 alphanumeric characters, far more than would be needed to uniquely identify the story. Is there likely to be encrypted therein the IP address I used if I accessed the story anonymously, or the user id or email if I accessed it while logged in to the site? If I were more certain that someone could not decrypt the long alpha string and identify me,I would provide more useful links as references in articles or in response to Ref Desk questions. Edison (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but using a proxy would remove the risk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 13:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The obvious thing to do is strip out those parameters and test if the link still works without them, before you post the url. If it works, then post the link without the parameters. And yes, the parameters often are the equivalent of a session cookie. Someone who clicks on one can even end up logged in as you, depending on the site. This was a problem with Amazon urls for a while, and maybe still is. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 02:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

For most sites you can simply strip out the identifying tags...Smallman12q (talk) 14:28, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Does there exist a simulator for the game of 8 ball pool?

Hello, having recently taken to the game of 8-ball pool, I am inquisitive as to the possibility of potting the eight-ball directly from the break (the first shot in the game). Does there exist any computer program which could be used to decide whether this is possible? --T.M.M. Dowd (talk) 19:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I can tell you that I've seen it happen, but I don't have a reference at hand. --LarryMac | Talk 20:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a simulation at hand, but Googling "8-ball sunk break" yields many web pages about this. 63.164.47.229 (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

And you can put it into YouTube for videos of it. There's even a helpful tutorial. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I would be surprised if a pool simulator would do a good job of reproducing that. The case where there are a lot of balls in actual contact is an especially tricky case for realtime dynamics software and because the 'break' shot is pretty chaotic anyway, they can get away with that. SteveBaker (talk) 03:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

My family used to have an old DOS game called Virtual Pool. You could play several different games of pool on it, and one of the features was that you could turn on ball "tracking" (or whatever they called it) that would show you as you aimed where all of the pool balls would go. This probably isn't particularly useful to you, but it's just a thought that if you find a pool simulator, check to see if it has this option. Many probably do (although you might have to use a cheat to turn it on). 24.247.163.175 (talk) 03:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

adobe reader

I upgraded to adobe 9.3, but 9.1.2 is still on my computer. Can I delete 9.1.2 to free up space —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.106.57.127 (talk) 20:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's in a separate location, yes. Use the "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel (assuming you are using some version of Windows). I'm a little surprised that the 9.3 installer didn't overwrite the 9.1.2 version, but if you've got both listed in "Add/Remove Programs", yes, feel free to delete the earlier one. 63.164.47.229 (talk) 23:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Trojan removal

Today when I connected my iPod to my PC, my AVG antivirus (free edition) detected "Trojan horse Downloader.Agent2.EJC". It does not remove it. What free software can i use to remove the mentioned virus? Thanks.--119.155.20.24 (talk) 20:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Try using ComboFix or google for an app called Noob Killer. It's likely to be one of them autorun worms. Blake Gripling (talk) 06:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Blender Grass Texturing

I am making grass with a plane with "hair particles". Then I want the grass to have one texture and the ground anotherone. How can I do that? --83.183.172.203 (talk) 21:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

My son has done some of that (check it out: http://oliverbaker.org/portfolio/school/TownviewCustomLogo.png and the background image at http://oliverbaker.org/HamperBall/ ) - you can find his contact info at http://oliverbaker.org - tell him I sent you - he's usually pretty helpful. SteveBaker (talk) 03:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

February 20

Installing Windows 7 on a HDD with files on it?

I have a HDD with a few hundred gigs of media files on it (it does not contain an OS). I want to put it in my new computer. How can I install Windows 7 on it while keeping the files? F (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I've done a couple of Windows 7 reinstallation jobs by just opting for a fresh install, and let the setup wizard move my docs and other stuff to a folder named windows.old. Blake Gripling (talk) 06:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Does this work if there's no Windows previously installed on it?F (talk) 08:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This is rather lame, but I would trust the Windows 7 installer to not partition or format or otherwise erase the drive without asking. Though I would back up before proceeding. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I trusted Windows 7 installer not to place a pointless 100MB partition on a completely different drive from the system drive without telling me, but it did that anyway. I had to reinstall Windows with all other drives unplugged because that partition contained boot information and I had other plans for that drive. The fact that the other drive was part of a RAID array that had been transferred from another computer didn't bother it either (the array was going to be destroyed anyway, because arrays generally can't be moved like that, but it's not the point. I haven't done precisely what the OP is asking, so I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't trust it. In an ideal situation, I'd suggest buying a smaller drive with great performance to use as the system drive, but perhaps the OP's situation precludes that. I know mine does! ----Seans Potato Business 20:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought about buying a SSD but my budget does not stretch that far. I'll partition the hard drive first then. Thanks. F (talk) 00:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a big difference between the two however. The first one didn't destroy any data, nor did it have any direct ill effects unless you the user did something you weren't supposed to (like disconnect the drive or delete the partition the second of which Windows 7 wouldn't let you do so you'd need to do it with some other OS). And if you did the former, all you need to do is reconnect the drive, if you did the later well you could definitely mostly recover, it would just take a bit of effort (and still no lost data). More importantly, not something your average user is ever likely to encounter (read on).

The partition you refer to BTW was created I presume because Windows 7 by default always creates a recovery partition if it can, and the recovery partition is always going to be on the boot drive and I presume the disk (or array) was seen by Windows as the first boot drive. This isn't exactly new to Windows 7 IIRC, while Windows XP didn't create a recovery partition it would use the first boot drive (or current boot drive/partition if it existed) as the main boot drive & partition where it put the bootloader.

It isn't too surprising either, when Joeclueless installs Windows they want it to bootup, they don't want their computer to fail to bootup because they installed Windows to a different drive and their mobo is trying to bootup from the first boot drive. Hopefully anyone using Windows is aware MS nearly always prioritises for Joeclueless.

For Joenonclueless, it's always wise to disconnect any drive other then the one you want the OS to be installed on to ensure the bootloader etc goes to the right place and nothing else you don't want happening goes on (I've done it with Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X & particularly all variants of Windows with as I've already mentioned have always had a tendency to put the bootloader in places I don't want it). Even more so if you plan to remove the drive some time soon. (Actually I'm not sure if I'd ever connect a drive I intended to remove when installing an OS).

The Windows installer wasn't of course designed to guess where drives came from nor guess that the user is intending to delete them soon, it sees the first boot drive (or perhaps it was the existing boot drive/partition) and uses it for the boot. Also from memory it was fairly obvious that Windows had created that recovery partition (unless perhaps you use the wizard mode) so it's not like something you only find out after you installed Windows unless you weren't paying attention while installing (which is always a bad idea). In fact in that way it's probably better then the past since from memory it was never that obvious where Windows was going to put the bootloader if you didn't have experience.

In other words, annoying but understandable behaviour and something the user with an odd setup needs to and can easily account for.

In terms of the ops problem, it's fairly obvious that it's incredible bad design to have your OS delete data without telling you and if it does do that it is something that clueless users could easily do and in some cases would really, really, really piss them off. Therefore something which any installer designer would generally account for. And indeed I have installed Windows 7 (and other versions) on existing partitions before when testing various things and it doesn't generally delete data. Of course it goes without saying if you have important data, you should always have a back up, even more so when carrying out major changes like installing a new OS.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

How to revert (back out) Flash plugin update

I have been experiencing a very annoying problem where the PC (Dell, running Windows XP) will totally freeze up and nothing works except moving the cursor (sometimes right-clicking on the task bar brings up the menu, but clicking on those menu items doesn't work). Even Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up Task Manager won't work. I have to hold down on the power button to turn off the PC. Unfortunately, I have had to do this several times already. I did upgrade Adobe Flash today (well, yesterday now) to 10.0.2.45 when I got the auto upgrade request (I see from Adobe's site that this "critical" upgrade was released a week ago; maybe I put it off before?), so I am now working on the premise that it is the culprit. I have now disabled the Flash plugin in Firefox, and so far I am O.K. But this is an unacceptable solution since too many sites I use, like Hulu or Youtube, use Flash. Therefore I was wondering if there was any way to revert or back out this new version of Flash?

P.S. It is true I recently (either the same day or the day before; I forget) also upgraded Firefox to 3.0.18 . I actually suspected the Firefox upgrade at first, but then I experienced the problem while using Internet Explorer, so I don't think so.

Thanks in advance! TresÁrboles (talk) 07:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

http://www.oldversion.com/Macromedia-Flash-Player.html F (talk) 08:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, F!, but is there a way to just go back to the previous version? The latest version on that site is Flash Player 9. There is a message on Hulu saying it requires "Flash Player 10.0.22 or higher." For all I know Youtube requires 10 also (it doesn't specify). Also, am I to assume the Flash Player download includes the plugin? TresÁrboles (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I had the version of my current updated (and suspect) Flash wrong -- it should be 10.0.45.2 . TresÁrboles (talk) 08:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You might try using Windows Restore.--Phil Holmes (talk) 10:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Here are all of the versions of Flash Player 10.--Drknkn (talk) 21:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Drknkn! Unfortunately, I have the sinking feeling now that Flash may not be the problem because the PC froze twice when watching a DVD last night without any other apps running. (I had no problems the whole day today though... but then again I didn't watch any DVDs or enable the Flash plugin.) I really hope it's not hardware starting to fail. TresÁrboles (talk) 08:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

is it possible to remove just one URL from Chrome's autocomplete?

we rely on Chrome's URL auto-completion when we start typing into the URL bar, but wonder if it is possible to selectively remove a single URL that we do not want offered anymore as we type? (ie we don't want it displayed while typing). thank you. 84.153.236.194 (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know - no - not accessible from the front end. (You can delete single history items) [8] - but it only works sometimes.

The help forum is here http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome?hl=en

87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You can also request it as a feature via the google chrome site.

vu meter

I got a mixer that's got this vu meter which looks like this (http://www.brindeamusica.net/products/Audio/mmistura/Yamaha_MG_16_6_FX.jpg). I'd like to ask for some kind of advice on how to use it or how to understand it rather. I know that the sound should rarely or never get to the red peak bar section, but most of the time should it be like in the middle of it (the green area , usually marked as 0 db) or that is above it which is in my case orange and its marked as +3 +6 db

I also assume that if the signal is far below 0 db around -10 -20 on that meter is bad and the sound wont be strong enough and punchy , so where should i keep it at? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.83.238.11 (talk) 10:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

First of all one important factor is whether or not you are ouputting to a digital medium - if you go over the top threshold with digital the distortion will be unacceptable (clipping) - and you simply must avoid it.

For analogue the balance is between a high signal and increasing distortion, and a low signal and a low sound level with increased background noise levels.

Typically you need to experiment (or read the manual) to find out what works best.

Also OdB is not guaranteed in general to be the cut off level - it depends on the calibration.

The usual aim is to record at at a high a level as possible but avoiding the peak levels going far into the 'red zone' since that would cause compression on transients.87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Infinite type hierarchy

In my term paper for a course in comparative programming languages that I finished in December, I proposed a C#-descended language in which the Type class would be made generic, and that every type T be an object of type Type<T>. This meant that Type itself would be an object of type Type<Type>, which would be an object of type Type<Type<Type>>, etc. Would this infinite regress make it possible to write a program whose vtables could not be generated at compile-time? Would it necessarily be possible to compile such a program by using a heap-dynamic vtable that could expand at runtime? NeonMerlin 10:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Clearly if you don't do anything to stop multiple analysis of the type of a 'thing' you will can an unworkable compiling model. Is there any reason why type analysis shouldn't stop at Type<XXX> - ie stop once the type is a sub type of your single built in generic.

Anyone can write a program that performs infinite regress - the trick (I think) is to avoid it - not make it a feature ?! :)

Dynamic tables (or other dynamic structures) expressing program state and data (of all sorts) expandable at run time are almost certainly the best way to deal with any dynamic language. (Is that too general an answer?)

I'm fairly certain that to answer your question about compile time do-ability using vtables you'd have to be more specific about what possibilities there are about operations on the different types. - eg how flexible.

If your C# descended language remains sufficiently non-dynamic at to be compiled at runtime then won't it be impossible to generate the infinite regression you describe in an actual piece of code (since you can't write infinite code) ?

87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way what was your base type class going to implement? All I can imagine is a base type of binary, with operations such as XOR, AND , shiftleft, testbit, etc.. and sub types being implementations of Int, Char, Float etc with allowed operations (and castings) derived from the 'binary' operations? Is that anything like what you had in mind?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.67.84 (talk) 12:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Usually a type of a type is called a kind. There are languages with the features like what you mention. Wikipedia's coverage of this subject is not very good and I don't know that much about it myself yet, but the book Types and Programming Languages is the usual place to start. I'm not sure how it would interact with vtables and C#'s features. You might also look at the wikibooks module on the logical structure of Haskell's type system, which supports higher-kinded types: Haskell/Category theory. Haskell does not, however, support full-out dependent types which is where elaborate kinding mechanisms tend to come into play. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 02:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

How do the public rate the different web domain suffixes in terms of trustworthiness?

There are many web domain suffixes, such as com net biz and so on. Have there been any surveys about how reliable and trustworthy the public would consider websites or web-businesses having the different suffixes? Thanks 78.149.241.220 (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Those domain suffixes are technically called Top-level domain names. (This may help you refine your searches). Our article, Top-level domain, links to this news website, Internet Infrastructure - Top-Level Domains, which has a lot of relevant articles. There has been much recent debate in the IANA/ICANN community regarding new proposed top-level domains, especially with respect to TLDs encoded in alternative character sets. The consensus is not clear yet - but as more TLDs are introduced, the hazard of ambiguity becomes larger and larger, given that a DNS name is supposed to be globally unique and easily recognizable as a domain name. Personally, if I see "wikipedia.org", I know without further context that it is a domain name - because "org" is an easy suffix to recognize. Country codes also make sense, and they're easily recognizable. Recently, IANA added a bunch of other TLDs which I consider "less good" because they are a lot more ambiguous. There has even been talk of adding specific city names - e.g. ".vegas" and so on - because of the potential commercial value. I think this is a terrible idea. In the extreme example, imagine seeing a domain name like "orange.juice.is.delicious" or "this.is.a.good.restaurant" - how in the world would you know that's something you should type into your URL bar, and not just artistic use of punctuation? In that sense, I have a great disdain for domain name hacks - they only serve to obfuscate and disrupt a system that is supposed to be easier than memorizing a 12-digit number. In the worst case, I'll just go back to memorizing 12-digit numbers - in the old days, that's how we used to telephone our friends, and I'm sure it'll be a fine way to get to our news and information websites too. Anyway, I should refrain from ranting and just provide some references. Here's a study called Legitimacy and Authority in Internet Coordination: A Domain Name Case Study - you might find it helpful. Nimur (talk) 17:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well unless IPv6 takes off... Nil Einne (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What I meant was, how do the public/consumers rank the trustworthyness of business-websites having different web-address suffixes? If you had to put the different suffixes in rank order according to trustworthiness, what would that rank order be? I'm *not* asking about the behind the scenes technical comittee stuff that Nimur has described. I have had a look at the Top-level domain article and its links but could not find anything relevant. Thanks 78.149.241.220 (talk) 17:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The last link I provided ([9]) is non-technical. Are you specifically looking for summarized surveys of public opinion, as opposed to summarized analysis by internet designers? Nimur (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes! (I had mentioned the word "public" three times!) The last link, thanks for all your effort, but its not relevant at all. 78.147.195.219 (talk) 18:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Sort of a flip-side is the prevalence of mis-trust. 50% of phishing attacks use .com names. So, I would suspect that ".com" is both the most publicly trusted and the most publicly mis-trusted TLD. Nimur (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I searched a little more, and couldn't find a survey like you are seeking. The closest I found was this 2009 Industry Brief from Verisign, which makes reference to qualitative surveys about business acceptance for IDN (non-ASCII) domain names. But again, from the point of view of systems design, there is no validity whatsoever in people's willingness to trust a website any more or less just because it uses a .com or .biz top-level domain. See for example, Perils of Transitive Trust in the Domain Name System for some technical insight. Anybody can register a domain-name. Very few TLDs actually enforce any kind of requirements - except notably the .gov and .mil TLDs, which are tightly controlled. But beyond that, there's no reason to trust a particular website just because of its name. In any case, public opinion is not always rational - so there may be some unfounded trend to distrust particular DNS names. Nimur (talk) 19:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The question is interesting, and I'm sure that the registrars would not be anxious to publicize the results of such a study, for fear of informing companies that their .biz addresses for sale are distrusted. (Or even, perhaps, the .net addresses.) Nimur, you say there's no validity whatsoever in distinguishing between .com and .biz, but I think you have to provide a reference for that assertion. If we take as a given that young companies fail more often, then as a vast overgeneralization, I think standardinstruments.com is more likely to be around in five years than standardinstruments.biz. Even if I'm wrong, the original poster is asking about people's perceptions, and I've made mine clear. The .com and .biz TLDs aside, I don't think it is a stamp of unreason for Americans to distrust e-mail directed at them from the .ng TLD. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

An interesting diversion is this SiteAdvisor survey which ranks the TLDs in terms of safety: the worst for malware in order are .info, .ro, .ws, .biz, and .cn, with .info taking the (dubious) top spot with 22% of all tested sites hosting malware or links to malware. The worst TLDs for spam (i.e., websites with "questionable e-mail practices") are .info, .cn, .hk, .net, and .ru, with a staggering amount of .info sites - almost 60% - falling into the questionable category.

Although it's clear by this point a survey to directly answer 78.'s question will be hard to find, if one even exists, I can try to answer the question with an anecdote. It seems to me that most non-tech-savvy users, at least in the US, distrust websites that are not .com, .org, .edu, .net, or .gov - probably the five they come across most in their daily usage. I have two e-mail addresses, both in my real name: one is at an internet portal and ends in .com, and the other one is at a German ISP's "Freemail" service and ends in .de. Even though (I think) it's pretty clear that both e-mail addresses are owned by me, occasionally when I send an e-mail from my .de address I will get an e-mail at my .com asking "was this really you?" Similarly when I'm talking to someone and I tell them to go to "acq.osd.mil", "fb.me", "youtu.be", "tagesschau.de" or even "itv.co.uk" - all perfectly trustworthy websites - I might get a funny look. If it's not "cnn.com" they won't want to go there without being prodded. Xenon54 / talk / 23:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

.edu and .gov are both actually restricted in who can register them to accredited US colleges/universities, and US government agencies, both of which the public has some sort of actual trust it. Websites on those domains are virtually guaranteed to be legitimate. Paul Stansifer 12:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

.mil is also tightly controlled. Note that "legitimate" here has a very specific meaning—that the organization sponsoring it is who they claim to be. It does not say too much about the accuracy of content, of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

2.5" ATA: 4 additional pins on devices

My Notebook contains a jack for 2×22 pins in a 2mm grid. I assume that this is a female 44 pin parallel ATA connector for 2.5" drives. When searching for 2.5" “IDE” hard drives, on every picture I found there are 2×(22+2) pins, with a gap between the 44 pins and the four additional pins.

What is the purpose of these four additional pins? Are they used to jumper the drive, or do they need to be connected, or do they belong to older or newer versions of ATA, so it doesn't matter if I connect them to anything or not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalkühl (talk • contribs) 19:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I assume you are not talking about the pins for the power connector? I which case it is likely they are the pins for selecting master/slave or other HDD configuation options. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I'm talking about power pins, because it's 40 pins data plus 4 power, so power pins are already included, but for example http://www.reichelt.de/bilder/web/artikel/E600/HDD_25.jpg shows 4 additional pins on the very right, which from their position are not clear to not belong to the connector. I just wondered because on every image of a notebook hard drive with ATA connection these pins seemed to be at exactly that position, so I thougt it might belong to the connector. – Kalkühl (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Per http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/notebook/momentus/5400.5/100468844b.pdf (p. 18) two of those pins are jumpered for 1.5Gb/s operation. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That's for a SATA drive though, whereas this is a PATA drive. The extra four pins are most likely jumpers, analogous from desktop PATA drives. I do not know their specific functions but it should be explained on the drive itself. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Then see http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/notebook/momentus/5400_3/100398876c.pdf (p.22 or sect. 3.2). nb I got this by Googling for "Momentus PATA specs" --220.101.28.25 (talk) 02:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Installing Linux Genuine Advantage

I'm not that much of a Linux person and I want to install Linux Genuine Advantage on Kubuntu 9.10 running in VirtualBox. I'm not stupid, I know that this thing is a joke but I just want to install it to see how it works and the virtual machine that Kubuntu resides in is a clean install so there nothing special about it that I could lose because of this. So how do I install it, not the source code but the one found under Download? --Melab±1 ☎ 21:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you know how to unzip a tar.gz file? You can use tar -xvf linux-genuine-advantage-1.0.0.tar.gz; and then run the script with make install. Explicit instructions are found in the README file. While that entire site is humorous, be aware that the install script and perl script do appear to actually functionally disable your computer by overriding your login configuration... so use with caution. Nimur (talk) 21:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Download the .tar.gz to the Desktop, then extract it by opening a shell, running "cd /home/[username]/Desktop" and then running "tar -xvzf ./linux-genuine-advantage-1.0.0.tar.gz". This should create a new folder on the desktop called "linux-genuine-advantage-1.0.0". cd into it and run "sudo make install". (As far as I can tell the .tar.gz file retrieved from the "Download" link contains an already-compiled program, so "sudo make" is not required) Xenon54 / talk / 21:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no compiled program - the entire system is a perl script that runs with root permissions. Nimur (talk) 21:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I unzipped it and I changed the directory to the unzipped folder and entered:

sudo linux-genuine-advantage install

It prompted me for my password which I entered and I got this:

Could not open /etc/inittab for reading!

--Melab±1 ☎ 21:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You should be entering "sudo make install". Following this you should enter "linux-genuine-advantage" Xenon54 / talk / 21:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

But this message came from the Perl script not the Console itself. --Melab±1 ☎ 22:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

After some Googling apparently there is no /etc/inittab om Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu etc., instead it is replaced by /etc/event.d/rc-default. I don't know if this can be worked around (and if it can it probably isn't worth the effort). Now that I'm actually on an Ubuntu box I also found, in case others are confused like I was, that once you "make install" the script you must run "sudo linux-genuine-advantage install" to "completely install" the "service". This throws up the "could not open..." error above (although I also got it on my initial "sudo make install"). Xenon54 / talk / 22:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

How to turn off the pop-up minature image of page in Acrobat while viewing PDFs?

I am using WinXP. Whenever I scroll a PDF slightly, using the default Acrobat reader, I keep getting this very irritating pop-up box which shows a minature image of the page. How can I kill it please? I've looked through what I can find by right-clicking the mouse, but cannot see how to turn it off. I think I have the latest version of Acrobat reader. Thanks. Edit: more specifically, the pop up keeps popping up whenever I move the page up or down by placing the cursor on the solid-looking part of the scroll bar top the right, pressing the left mouse button, and then moving the cursor up or down. 78.146.167.216 (talk) 22:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Routing packets from my computer.

Is there anyway I can route outgoing traffic from my computer, if I know the ip address and the port they are bound for (if that makes any difference)? 66.133.196.152 (talk) 23:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It is trivial. Open a connection to that IP address/port and send data to it. It can be done in pretty much any programming language. Just look for examples of sockets. -- kainaw™ 01:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect you want to re-route packets for some reason, or maybe just watch them. If you route them to an IP that's not expecting them then they'll just be dropped because the receiving machine's not expecting them. You might also be trying to drop those packets, or perhaps view them. I don't think you'd ask this question though if you had already set up a TCP socket able to receive arbitrary connections (unless you're using something like netcat, but then we're back to just viewing the traffic).

Could you be a bit more specific about what you're trying to do by rerouting? Shadowjams (talk) 07:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

February 21

active \ passive elements

what are the active and passive elements in electronics? give with the examples . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radhakrishnamugada (talk • contribs) 06:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Try these search terms http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMA_en-GBGB367GB367&q=passive+active+electronic+component&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

also see Electronic component and Passivity (engineering) both of which answer.87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Opera tabs

Is there a way to save multiple tabs in Opera? I don't want session saving or bookmarking, I want to open say 50 tabs and save all those webpages as files with Opera, without having to click each tab one by one and save it that way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 10:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

For medium amounts of repetition the best method is usually keyboard shortcuts - see http://help.opera.com/Windows/9.51/en/keyboard.html

In your case you need to select the first tab, hold CTRL and the press S (save) and F6 (next tab) fifty times.

87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

To save all open tabs use http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/2009/09/opera-10-tips-tricks.html File>sessions>save (I think?) 87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Also this discussion might have an answer you find useful http://www.exbii.com/showthread.php?t=98337 87.102.67.84 (talk) 11:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Mac OS

can i install macos on my intel core duo based sony laptop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.83.237.9 (talk) 11:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Basically no, apple (company) only allows OSX on its own harware, however some people do not give up easily - if you are one of those see http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMA_en-GBGB367GB367&q=osx+on+non+apple+hardware&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=0&oq=osx+on+non+apple+

87.102.67.84 (talk) 12:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Or see Hackintosh. But the answer is basically "no" unless you have a lot of free time on your hands and a desire to get very technical. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Firefox does not save page name, but Internet Explorer does

In Firefox, if I save a page to harddisk, instead of the description at the top of the browser such as for example "Merging IE Favorites with Firefox Bookmarks • mozillaZine Forums" being saved as the title of the file, all that gets saved is the unhelpful "viewtopic.php.htm". Whereas in Internet Explorer, it saves "Merging IE Favorites with Firefox Bookmarks • mozillaZine Forums.htm" as the name of the file.

"Viewtopic.php.htm" is useless when I go back to a documents folder on my HD to look things up that I have previously saved. It tells me nothing.

How can I make Firefox save the full page title as described above please? Thanks. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 16:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Try this --kv7sW9bIr8 (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks very useful. It led me on to UnMHT and Mozilla Archive Format - now I'm wondering if they are compatible. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Buying a new laptop

I'm buying a new laptop, and I need some help on this. Sure, I'm checking out all the tech sites for reviews, but it's still kinda confusing, as consumers' reviews will differ greatly from the editors' reviews. Since there is a vast variety of laptops for different needs, here are mine:

1. I mainly use it for browsing the web, but I do store a lot of files on my PC (pictures, music, videos, word files), so disk space counts.
2. I'd prefer for the physical size to be between 14-15 inches.
3. I'm not going any higher than $800.00.
4. My computer is also my second television, so picture quality is something I look for as well.
5. Speed is also a huge factor for me, so I'd like to know if I should go for a computer with an AMD processor or Intel.
6. Battery life also counts a lot for me.
7. Strong wi-fi capabilities. Like, I wanna be 50 feet from my router and still get a strong signal. Bluetooth would be nice, too.
8. A built-in webcam wouldn't hurt either!

Any suggestions are very much appreciated. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

For what you want I'd suggest a dell inspiron, like the 15z my parents have. Fits your price range, 6-700 dollars--Jac16888^Talk 23:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Dell makes great products, but I'm REALLY wary of their customer support. I heard a lot about people who have had horrible experiences trying to receive help from them. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC) (edit conflict)Tech support is generally quite bad all around -.-. I wouldn't say that Dell has worse tech support than other companies.Smallman12q (talk) 00:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm typing this from an Asus U81A-RX05 with Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor, which I love. I think you can get it for about $650, so it's in your price range. It's about 14 inches, which is the size your looking for. The battery life is quite good (6+ hours). The graphics card isn't great, so if you're planning on a lot of 3D gaming, it might not be the best choice. The speakers are pretty poor quality too, so you might consider getting a decent set of headphones (as I've done). It does have a built in camera, though I've never used it, so I can't vouch for the quality of it. The wi-fi has always worked well for me, but I haven't exactly been using it in marginal situations. I haven't had to use any customer support, so I can't say how good it is. The computor hasn't given me any problems at all in the 6 months or so that I've had it. It has 3 usb ports, which I like (plug my printer in one, my mouse in another, and use the third for a flash drive). It also has a SD memory card reader, which is nice for me to transfer images from my camera to the computor. Because the computor's black, it shows dust pretty well, which is aesthetically annoying. The brand is less common in the United States, so you might have a little more trouble finding someone who knows how to service it. Buddy431 (talk) 00:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth considering before buying whether you want a shiny or matt screen - opinions differ on which is best.87.102.67.84 (talk) 01:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I've looked it up, and it seems like a lot of people agree with you, Buddy431. I'm not a gamer, so the graphics need not to be world-class. I'm on YouTube a lot, I may also watch DVDs when I travel so a good screen resolution is what I look for. I may consider it. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 01:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

More suggestions are still welcome! 24.189.90.68 (talk) 10:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Buddy431. Anything by ASUS. It is a far superior company to almost any other brand, in my opinion. (As for Dell, I'd say that something's been wrong with their quality control. I or others I personally know have bought 5 dead-on-arrival Dells, out of 9.) Note that most ASUS laptops have 2 year warranties, and 1 year accidental damage. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 05:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Double directorys

When unpacking/opening compressed sets of files eg .rar I often get file paths like this:

C:My_Computer\My_name\My_Documents\peter\peter\actual files here

when unpacking a file like this:

C:My_Computer\My_name\My_Documents\peter.rar

when the packed file was called peter - the relevent files are in the second peter - why is a nested peter directory created that contains nothing but yet another peter directory ? Is there a reason for this?87.102.67.84 (talk) 01:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Some programs that extract files will create a folder with the same name as the compressed file, then extract all the files into it. Some people that prepare compressed files put a single folder in the root of the compressed file that contains all the other files. If both happen, then you'll get one folder in another. --70.129.132.244 (talk) 02:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks.87.102.67.84 (talk) 02:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In the world of Unix, it's traditional to create archives that extract into a directory with the same name as the archive. This is so you can drop the archive into, say, your home directory, and extract it without creating a huge mess. You can check the documentation of your extractor to see if it automatically creates those directories, or if the people who made the .rar files are doing things the Unix way. Paul Stansifer 14:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I'm using 7zip in windows - an experiment confirms that it creates a folder when extracting to contain the files compressed even when the original file was not 'folderised' - this explains it.

Simple when it is explained to you. Thanks both.

Resolved

February 22

Sega Master System cartridges

How can you tell the difference between a European (PAL) and a US (NTSC) Sega Master System cartridge? Daram.G (talk) 02:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the same article you linked, there is no physical difference between the US and European cartridges. The only physical differences are between Japen/South Korea and the rest of the world. Likewise the console doesn't have any region coding so all US/EU games will run on the SMS with only a few exceptions because of the technical problems with the games themselves. ZX81 ^talk 02:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Are the European versions of the carts adjusted to play at 50 Hz? Will the US version of a game at 60 Hz play at the same speed as a European version of a game at 50 Hz? Daram.G (talk) 03:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, are there no obvious label differences? Daram.G (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no source for this, but as far as I understand it with the SMS games it's nothing to do with the cartridge, but the console that's playing it (a US SMS runs the games at 60Hz, an EU SMS runs the games at 50Hz). Because there is no region coding and the cartridges between US and EU are fully interchangeable, I don't think there is any differences. As for the labelling though, I'm unable to tell you that I'm afraid, but since they haven't put in any region information it would make sense that the labels are all the same too. Sorry for not being able to give you a full answer, but I hope this is of some help! ZX81 ^talk 03:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There will have to be a reference for ZX81's speculation, I am afraid. US console programmers always had to do a lot of crap work at the end of every project for the dreaded PAL conversion. Video resolution is different and the 50/60Hz difference is a pain, too. I don't know anything personally about the Sega Master System, but to my knowledge, the first console that supported a worldwide console release, where the same SKU (a disc, in this case) could work on any system was the first Xbox. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Normally I'd completely agree with you, but with the Master System it was a bit of a weird system because they really didn't bother. PAL versions of the console literally squashed the screen to fit the native resolution and ran slower as well, there was no adjustment done by the actual developers to handle PAL conversion. A lot of owners therefore "modded" their SMS to put in a switch to convert between 50Hz and 60Hz so they could play the games as intended. Links to this here and here. ZX81 ^talk 23:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

daily/weekly PHP code problems?

Other than browsing StackOverflow, is there a way I could get daily or weekly PHP code challenges/problems to think about in my freetime and (hopefully) introduce me to new aspects of the language? I'm imagining a blog/email list or something where they post short challenges & answers on a regular basis... Thank you! 218.25.32.210 (talk) 06:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

thedailywtf.com is pretty funny. If you just want programming challenges, rubyquiz.com has a big collection of them, though not PHP-specific. They're intended for Ruby but lots of them are worth doing in other languages. PHP itself is not that complicated and in my perhaps snobbish opinion it's not worth messing with its weirder corners instead of just doing stuff straightforwardly. It -is- worth looking over other people's PHP code to figure out what it's doing. MediaWiki (mediawiki.org) is a big PHP application that we here all use, so it's a possible place to start reading. And of course bugzilla.mediawiki.org has tons of real-world problems that you can work on and for which your solutions would be gratefully received by the wikipedia community. Lots of the open requests aren't terribly difficult, it's just a matter of somebody finding the time for them. Maybe the somebody is you ;-). 75.62.109.146 (talk) 11:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If you want some general programming challenges, Project Euler is a fun resource. The problems are mostly mathematical and computer science oriented in nature, so it may not be what you're looking for, but it will definitely help you become a better programmer. Start with the early ones, the last ones can be crazy difficult. Belisarius (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hardware Diagnostics

Please see [10]. Is there any way to run diagnostics to see if there is a hardware problem? TresÁrboles (talk) 08:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You could try memtest86.com but from your description, I don't see anything suggesting hardware problems. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 11:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. OR here but I have seen my computer freeze thousands of times over the years, and only rarely is hardware at fault. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I really hope that is the case, but I'm worried. I've had the PC freeze up on me on rare occasions before, but it's been happening consistently these last few days now. At first, I thought it might be ads on websites, then Firefox itself, but then I had the problem happen when I was playing a Flash game not on a website (the swf file was on my drive) using Internet Explorer, so I then thought the recent Flash update was the problem. But then I got the problem while watching a DVD and not using any other app (besides PowerDVD). Therefore I don't think the problem is Flash by itself anymore. I'm pretty sure it's exacerbated by Flash though; I was browsing the web all day yesterday without problem, then last night I enabled Flash to browse Youtube, and bam! PC frozen after only 15-20 minutes! My current hypothesis is hardware related to video is flaking out, but works until irritated by Flash or video- or graphics-intensive stuff. Sorry if that's a silly idea; I don't know too much about hardware. TresÁrboles (talk) 01:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

videogame processor design idiocy

The Playstation series, of late, has seemed hell-bent on basing itself around "hard to design for" processors. Prior to that, the Sega Saturn was a famous pain in the ass. My question is simple: how is this possible? Processors are not designed overnight by one monkey - they take years and teams of engineers. How could "the system" possibly end up with something difficult to use? Logically, the fact that that processor was chosen implies that other options were found to be less acceptable. It baffles the mind. Isn't usability paramount here? How can you build something to be "fast" if no one knows how to use it? It's like making a bicycle that is allegedly phenomenally fast, but virtually unbalanceable, and then blaming the rider! This makes no sense to me... 218.25.32.210 (talk) 08:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not able to source any of this by the way, this is just put together from things I remember reading, but anyway... The Saturns (unique at the time) dual processor design apparently was actually a very quick decision. The console was going to have a single standard processor for quite a long time during its development, but then Sony released the specs for its Playstation, and sega decided that they needed more power, so added an extra processor or something, making it apparently difficult to program for. The PS3 uses the Cell Processor which is at least partially made by Sony, and because of this it allows sony to make them cheaply. Lots of components in both the PS2 and PS3 are made by Sony themselves if I recall correctly. The cell seems to have been designed for rendering and server applications, and massivly multithreaded things, and does pretty well. I guess this makes it hard to program games for, at least if you're making a game with the intent of making it multiplatform. Gunrun (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The oft-repeated hard to program issue is overblown. It's just that having a single multipurpose processor (such as an x86) is easier to use.

The processors have maximium power for a specific task - in the PS2 (and PS3 cases) this is mostly vector transforms and similar - an 'easy to program' x86 processor of similar power would have been expensive, and full of a lot of extraenous processing ability that wasn't useful, and have a larger die size.

You're analogy is a little overblown - both playstation processors are perfectly workable and stable for the task.87.102.67.84 (talk) 13:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See also http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?t=313485 (the main Hitachi SH4 processors used in the saturn are simple, easy to use and straightforward RISC processors )

Most of this comes from people who don't really know what they are talking about - eg Saturn - what's so hard about a two processor system? Is a core2duo hard to program?

87.102.67.84 (talk) 13:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The other reason may be lack of easy to use middleware rather than something intrinsically wrong or hard with the architecture; which is designed with a specific task and purpose in mind, and not to be easy to program by untrained persons.87.102.67.84 (talk) 13:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind who is claiming the PS3 is hard to program for. Is it someone who purchased Sony's development API or is it someone who didn't get the API and is trying to poke through it manually? Imagine trying to write a program for you PC without any compiler of any kind. It would be a pain in the ass. -- kainaw™ 14:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the reason game engines and middleware exists, so that the obscure task of writing machine code to drive the graphics chip, or do collision detection doesn't have to be written every time a new game is made. This I think relates to the reference to Yu Suzuki in the link I gave above - out of a development team of 100 only 1 person will actually need low level understanding of the architecture, and be writing code for it the rest will be concerning themselves with graphics assets, scripting, and programming that can sit on top of the 'hard coding stuff'. The days of the single lone programmer are pretty much dead.87.102.67.84 (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

87's claims (that this is all exaggerated) are not correct. It is apparent that he or she does not work on these systems. Every single coder in the video game industry bitches about the difficulty of programming for the PS3 architecture, and before that they all bitched about the PS2 architecture, and before that the few who worked on Saturn games really let you have an earful, all of the time. All three really have been pains in the ass. Video game coders — not one low-level guy, but all of them — are always leaned on hard to squeeze out the maximum performance possible, because the content guys always want to cram more data into every frame — larger and more textures, geometry, animation, particle effects. It's true that using the Unreal Engine, or whatever, helps a lot, but you still need coders to do specific low level stuff necessary for your game, because in the quest to become optimal — in order to accommodate more of the demands of the content guys — you're doing plenty of low level coding and optimization for all the systems you do have to write. Anyway, to speak to the original poster's question of why, I heard a similar story about the Saturn, that its extra processors were thrown in hastily and at the last minute. As for the Sony architectures, these came from Ken Kutaragi and his team. He loves high performance and for the PS2 and PS3 was willing to follow a path that got him some interesting high performance, even though it be hostile to programmers on his systems. The PS2 architecture with the vector units was introduced because some benchmarks were promising — although a slower system overall than the (later and more expensive) Xbox, the PS2 can beat the Xbox at certain narrow tasks because of them. And as for the PS3, Mr. Kutaragi stood in front of everyone at his GDC keynote speech a year or two before the PS3 launch, and showed some benchmarks of a prototype system with eight PS2 motherboards operating in parallel. Parallel computing seems to fascinate Mr. Kutaragi, and the PS3 is the result. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The PS3 is really a gaming machine. The end-use begs for parallel processing and (especially) vector processing. A scalar processor simply won't do. It is an architecture argument, not a programming argument. So, as you said, the programmers get left out of the argument and complain about it. If I were to design a gaming system, I'd use a vector processor with a heavily pipelined and parallel floating-point math unit along with associative memory instead of addressable memory. It would be completely beyond the norm for programmers, so they would hate it. -- kainaw™ 18:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Internet service after power cut

Resolved

Is there likely to be a delay in the resuming of internet services after a small, localized power cut? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 13:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The internet may not actually be affected by a localised power cut since it usually runs off the telephone systems set of wires (depends on situation).

Otherwise if the local internet did lose power during a power cut - you could expect a delay whilst it restarts - anything over an hour would suggest to me they screwed up their recovery system. Sorry I can't be more specific. I wouldn't expect a notable delay in general.87.102.67.84 (talk) 17:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

. References please? Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Last time our power was cut off the telephones and internet still worked - sorry that's the best I can do.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. The internet comes via fiber optic cable, not a phone line. Would that make a difference or do they use the same system? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Fiber optics mean you definitely won't get service during the power outage (since fiber optics only transmit data and rely on wall power to operate). After power is restored, it's a crap shoot and depends on what caused the outage, whether the ISP also lost power, etc. If both the fiber optic and power cables were cut, and only one was fixed, you'll need to wait until they fix the other. If the power outage was caused by a lightning strike, or there was some other source of power spike before the outage (or they caused a spike when turning the power back on), it may have damaged electronics at either end, and they'd need to be replaced before it would work. Aside from those circumstances, I wouldn't expect a significant delay restoring internet service after power was restored. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 20:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion here. Unless you have some sort of uninterruptible power supply or a laptop with a built in modem which you use to connect to the internet thru the phoneline without relying on any external device, you will lose internet access since you have no power for the devices on your end (it would work if your laptop has a built in Optical Network Unit that connects to your local fibre connection as well although I doubt such devices exist particularly since most fibre connections to the ONU aren't likely to be designed to be removable). I would hope this should be obvious to all, the same way your TV or microwave oven won't work. While normal corded analog phones can operate without any extra external power (getting power from the phone line), others including all data equipment (obviously something like a laptop has internal power so doesn't always need external power) can't no matter whether they connect to the phone line or fibre optic cables.

However the internet service itself may not be affected you just need to provide power to the modem and routers on your side to use it. If you have some sort of UPS for the ONU or modem and routers (if needed) then as long as that has power, your end should be fine (whether you can use it of course will depend on whether you have a UPS for connecting equipement or battery powered devices like a laptop).

It is of course possible that there may be problems on the other end. However most network providers should have decent UPSes and often backup generators too so provided it isn't too long and there isn't some other issue (like cut lines or lightning strikes) the network provider shouldn't go down or at least not for long due to a power failure. (Of course shit happens [11])

If you want to stimulate a power cut on your end and have access to the power supply for the modem or ONU, then just cut the power for a while and bring it back. It usually won't take long for service to work again.

Incidentally, if you rely solely on VoIP for your phone line, you may want to consider installing some sort of UPS for emergencies during power cuts.

Nil Einne (talk) 02:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

"Hex-based"?

I just stumbled upon the Systemsoft article. What does "hex-based" mean? I guess that it either means that the user has to input a large number of hexadecimal numbers during gameplay (not probable), or that the user interface is based on a hexagonal tiling, as in this screenshot (more probable). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For company, hex refers to the map. It uses hexagons to avoid strategy faults in a standard grid map. -- kainaw™ 14:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have linked hex map in that article. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Make clickable links to HD in a text file or similar?

Is there anything that will allow me to click on for example C:\my docs\mytext.txt in a text file or similar and have mytext.txt open? The freeware notepad-like Metapad will do this with URLs but it does not work with references to the HD as far as I've found. A simple database with this facility would be useful too. Thanks 78.147.192.66 (talk) 16:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried the file: notation? That is used by most web browsers. -- kainaw™ 16:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

http://techie-buzz.com/softwares/metapad-free-notepad-replacement.html for an example of using the "file:C:\blah" notation in metapad.

Found better answer ignore ... Notepad doesn't do it, Wordpad sort of does (for certain file types, as OLE objects), openoffice does it properly - use insert>hyperlink and select "document" then select your file - and give a text name as you wish it to appear in the document (annoyingly you need to use CTRL-click to open, not double click).

In general search the documentation or help page of a given program for "hyperlinks".87.102.67.84 (talk) 16:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Strange Internet problem

My computer is connected to my d-link router and my modem. The internet on my host computer was working fine, but stopped all of a sudden. My laptops can still connect to my internet and I can browse the internet from there. My host computer cannot browse the internet and I have no idea why. I checked with ipconfig and saw that the dhcp is not enabled. I would really appreciate any help. If you need more info, just ask.--68.210.32.244 (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You could set the IP address to use manually for this simple wired connection - in (windows) network places - select the connection, the open the properties window, then Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) properties - you can then enter the address - though the same window gives you the option to turn on DHCP anyway which should also fix it. (You'll probably need to go through a restart or maybe flush the DNS stuff - if you are using ipconfig in cmd.exe then "ipconfig /?" gives the switch to type to do this.

I'm assuming that the fix is simple (above) - though I don't understand the cause.(below)

What IP address is the connector currently trying to use, and what is your routers address?? (did you connect manually before, and was DHCP on before?) - My guess is something has caused the IP address on one or both to reset - but why - this isn't normal? Hopefully someone else can explain if this is a worrying development..(Any new programs or other odd behaviour)87.102.67.84 (talk) 17:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 screen saver issue

Is there any way to adjust when the screen saver turns on with Windows 7 Starter Pack? I'm using a Spanish version and I thought I'd changed it under the energy saving menu but nothing really changed. It's set at 2 hours for everything but still there's a 1 min delay before it turns on again... It's very frustrating to try and watch a video on Youtube when the screen saver turns on constantly. Thanks for any help 87.111.102.76 (talk) 17:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not know what "Windows 7 Starter Pack" is. Perhaps you mean "Windows 7 Starter"? The amount of inactivity before the screen saver starts is adjusted where you choose the screen saver. Right click on the desktop and select "Adjust" followed by "Screen Saver". Alternatively, you can open the same window by searching for "screen saver" in the Start Menu. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you are adjusting the amount of time it takes for the screen itself to turn off (in energy settings)

ie the energy settings turns the whole screen off , but doesn't affect the screen saver.

For screen saver properties http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2109-screen-saver-change.html (scroll down to Here's how) .. right click on the desktop - select "personalise" then click on the screen saver part, and adjust the time it takes to come on (or off?)

To have no screen saver at all see http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2111-screen-saver-turn-off.html

Did it work?87.102.67.84 (talk) 17:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, so "Adjust" in my response above should be changed to "Personalize". Why can't everyone use the Swedish version of Windows?! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For the benefit of the spanish version using poster - it's the option at the bottom when you right click on a blank area in the screen.87.102.67.84 (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies but the big problem is I don't have a 'personalise' feature on the right-click drop down menu... I believe it's mentioned in several places on the net that there is no 'personalise' feature on Windows 7 Starter... But surely there is something that can be done because it seems ridiculous to not be able to watch something for longer than a minute without it switching to screen saver 87.111.102.76 (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

ooops - sorry I had no idea the starter edition was that locked down - you can try start>>control panel>>display>>screensaver - but according to some reports the change screensaver dialog appears - but has no effect afterwards - just reverts to default - it's worth trying anyway.

If it's true that you can't even change the time limit for screensaver in the starter edition there might be a solution worth trying (no idea if it will work - it might generate a pop-up error) - and that is to delete the screen saver file so that it can't run at all..

Not sure what it's called but searching for "*.scr" in the hard disk should turn up all the installer screensavers - you could try moving them to a different location, and seeing if that has the desired effect. Hope this works.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the above link the files are in C:\Windows\System32 eg C:\Windows\System32\Bubbles.scr

If removing the .scr file works (not sure it will) then you can create the effect of a blank screen saver using the power options to turn off the screen after whatever time you can enter.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I see. But if Windows 7 Starter does have a screen-saver feature, then there must a dialog where the user can choose her screen saver? In the Swedish version of Windows 7 Home Premium, it looks like this. "Vänta 10 minuter" means "Wait 10 minutes", i.e. "do not start the screen saver until the computer has been inactive for ten minutes". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If everything else fails, you might want to try an application that simulates cursor motion, such as my own CursorMotion.exe application. But this is a very ugly solution - surely there must be a way of inactivating, or delaying, the screen saver even in Windows 7 Starter? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(People are calling windows 7 starter the evil edition...) I wonder if there is a command line switch there could be used to set the time out in the bubbles.scr program - someone else with have to tell since I have no idea - could the bubbles.scr program be replace with a shortcut of the same name incorporating the switch.

Other alternatives seem possible - I think .scr files might(?) just be .exe files by a different extension - perhaps it is possible to create a "bubbles.scr" file from another file eg create a .exe that simple exits rapidly, and rename it "bubbles.scr" don't know enough about their implementation to be sure.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a screensaver is an ordinary Win32 application (*.exe file) with an odd extension (and that responds well to some command-line arguments for "preview", "start screensaver", "show settings dialog", etc.). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I've just been experimenting and noticed that the screensaver files in \system32 are fairly well protected - ie can't be straightforwardly deleted - if someone wants to delete them I think some registry editing would be needed - something I don't know how to do.87.102.67.84 (talk) 20:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Registry editing"? Wouldn't it suffice to run the file manager as an administrator? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Something more odd is happening - I can delete the file eg ssstars.scr - no problem - but the deleted file is actually replaced by the system a few seconds later - similarily if I manage to rename another file to ssstars.scr (the starfield screensave) overwriting the old one - it automatically re-overwrites with the old file a few seconds later - I've never seen this behaviour before- and don't know what is doing it - try for yourself ???87.102.67.84 (talk) 20:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, that doesn't surprise me. Windows doesn't want its system files to be altered (and most often that is good)... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

How to get rid of screensavers (doesn't work for me) found a possible answer should someone really need to delete a screensaver, as maybe the case here - quite why windows is so protective of an apparently non critical component is still a mystery though.87.102.67.84 (talk) 21:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Windows is as protective of all items in the System32 directory? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks like it is - not sure if the delete bubbles.scr method will work after all, even with extra effort.87.102.67.84 (talk) 21:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Anyhow, I still cannot accept the fact that you cannot disable or delay the screensaver in Windows 7 Starter. I wish I had a W7S machine to try... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Does help [12]. Did you try searching in the control panel as suggested above [13]? Incidentally Windows 7 Home Basic lacks a personalise tab too [14] although it seems like it may come with more then one desktop background [15]. Incidentally does the Windows 7 Starter EULA allow installation in a VM? If so, someone with the proper MSDN access or whatever could just install it onto a VM and try. Nil Einne (talk) 04:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This page from Microsoft leaves me with the impression that you cannot change your screensaver in Win 7 Starter (see "Applies to these editions of Windows 7" in top right). Further down, behind the "To install a screen saver" link, it says you cannot uninstall screensavers that came with Windows 7. Perhaps you could hack the registry, but then again maybe Win 7 Starter stops you doing that too. Anyway, in my Vista installation the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop" node includes:

"ScreenSaveActive"="1"

"ScreenSaveTimeOut"="600"

"SCRNSAVE.EXE"="C:\\Windows\\system32\\Aurora.scr"

Seems ScreenSaveTimeOut=600 gives a 10 minute delay. Astronaut (talk) 10:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The same values exist on Windows 7 Home Premium. This looks like a very promising solution for the OP. Try to change the number of seconds to the value you want (ScreenSaveTimeOut). Of course, it is possible that these registry values do not exist on W7S, or that theye are ignored, but my guess is that they are still there, and working. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The internet thinks my computer is a mac

Hi,

My laptop has many viruses, I recently tried to clean it up a bit and now it doesn't open random webpages and play me porn videos when I'm least expecting it - but it's also not completely healthy. I'm going to have to format it and all that, but one of the other symptoms it's now exhibiting (seemed to be caused by the virus scanners...) is that the internet thinks it's a mac - but it's really an off the shelf hp running vista. Sites include download.com, chrome download site, and youtube - they all give me suggestions or downloads suitable for macs. What could be causing this? As I said, I'm not so worried about fixing this problem, I would like to hear theories on how this could work.

Cheers,

Aaadddaaammm (talk) 18:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)\

Most likely your browser's user-agent string has been modified. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 19:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably done by the virus or whatever to make it more difficult to download solutions to your problems - good luck with the re-install ..87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the ads, the internet now thinks you're much more hip than you used to be!-- Flyguy649 ^talk 19:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If you have a bunch of viruses, I would use this free download to help clean things up. [16] I use this, and it scans, and deletes. I haven't had any problems with it. Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 19:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows Defender, included in Windows Vista/7, is also good. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Get a Mac!" ;-). Or, more seriously, try Ubuntu. It is mostly virus-proof, reasonably friendly, and reasonably capable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. MAC_address - Kittybrewster ☎ 20:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't try to remove viruses. You will never get them completely gone. Buy a new hard drive, install it in the laptop, install your OS and software on it from original media, and copy your user files from the old drive being very careful about any file types subject to infection. Anti-virus software is useful because it can alert you to the presence of viruses. But it can never give you any assurance at all about their absence. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 20:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to buy a new hard drive this IMO is a bit of a drastic action for a little infection. Try the link provided above by Moptopstyle1, I have used it myself with no problems. Mo ainm (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm with 75; I would always do a wipe and a clean install. New hard disk is only needed if you lack a 2nd already (in order to store all your infected stuff before moving it onto the wiped hard disk). Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Supervised and Unsupervised Learning

I was reading the supervised learning article. At the end of the overview section it says that the Gaussian Mixture Model is one of the most commonly used classifiers. But the Gaussian Mixture Model article says that a mixture model can be regarded as a type of unsupervised learning. Can something be regarded as both supervised and unsupervised learning, or are they mutually exclusive? •• Fly by Night (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops missed your final question ... see Semi-supervised learning (or below for a long discourse that doesn't really answer it...)

Also by picking data associations you think (or know a priori) will be useful, without actually classfying any data sets is an example of a combination of the two - it's not truly unsupervised. eg you might want to classify alien language scripts based on things you already know about writing methods in general - not only does it simplify the process - but also by choosing the 'right questions' you can get answers (classifications) by the right type - eg a totally unsupervised learning method might end up just classifying scripts into those that were written big or small.. (stupid example).87.102.67.84 (talk) 00:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems that the gaussian mixture model when used in supervised learning has labels attached to the different properties - without the labels it reverts to being unsupervised. For example in unsupervised learning a set of examples of arabic and chinese text could be separated into two distinct sets 1 and 2 (after much iteration of sets) - based on similarity of near features. In supervised learning the individual text examples are labled - thus a final text example should be classified into either chinese or arabic type. (without the iteration of sets required for unsupervised learning). Both can use (or assume) a gaussian spread of values (the values being association of nearby features).

In both cases the gaussian distribution is used as a statistical method to compare sets of data.

There are some fairly clear explanations of the difference between the two using http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHMA_en-GBGB367GB367&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=supervised+vs+unsupervised+learning

It's possible to explain more about the differences between the two learning methods and how they differ algorhythmically (the implementation) if you want.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

eg consider text stored as the series of pen strokes required to express it: defined by length, curvature (1/radius of curvature), curve angle and start and end position - see how the two writing types will consist of a mixture (gaussian? probably) of lines of zero and finite curvature (in different proportions for the two scripts). (assume that curved strokes can be approximated by arcs of circles..) - clearly you would expect the range of values of curvature for arabic script to be gaussian about an average position (eg O B Q etc) - but not with chinese script. Noting that both will have data that has an average around zero curvature ie from L I F etc.

In both types of learning gaussian distributions are used - but in supervised learning the two sets are already described - it's a simpler averaging proceedure to find the gaussians describing each set. In unsupervised learning the sets are not known - so some algorhythm must be used to find the organisation of script examples into sets that produces sets with mimimum gaussian spread (variance). (Placing items in the wrong set will increase the spread) - one way is to iterate over all possible sets that can be constructed - but this is extremely compute intensive. 87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Bondi Reader convert to epub?

I have the Rolling Stones Magazine collection, 'Cover to Cover'. Reading happens using the Bondi Reader, which is installed on my XP desktop, and came with the RS collection. Is there a way to convert material from the RS discs to EPUB, so that I can view them on my epub reader? It seems the RS files are in a format called .djvu . On my first try, Calibre did not easily convert the djvu file to an epub file. Thanks if you can advise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.98.238.113 (talk) 22:15, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Rolling Stone website

I can't access http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily . Is anyone else experiencing this or is it just me? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 22:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Can't see it either.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see it, but "it" means "Error: Page cannot be displayed. Please contact service provider for more details. (5)". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Amusingly, if you hit refresh, the number changes. I wonder what it specifies, exactly. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Running Pocket PC software on a Windows XP computer

I would like to run a particular program that is only available for the Pocket PC. I do not have a Pocket PC, only a WinXP desktop computer. Is it possible to run it on that please? If so, how is it done? Thanks. 89.242.98.70 (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Try an emulator: [17] [18]. F (talk) 00:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Kernel 2.6.24-27-server, trying to get module snd-pcsp to work

Hi,

I'm trying to play audio files through the PC speaker, as this should be possible with the module snd-pcsp.

I can load it with modprobe snd-pcsp without any errors, and aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav will output some noise. However, aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav sounds almost like the Noise.wav file - it shrieks like a Fax machine trying to use a Mickey Mouse voice changer for its connection handshake signal. In other words, I can't hear anything that would sound like the voice saying "Front Center" that I can hear when playing the file on my sound card. At first I thought that the 48kHz of that wav file might be too much for the poor little PC speaker, so I tried it with an 8kHz file as well - with the same result. :-(

I also tried alsamixer to change the setting labeled "BaseFRQ" from 18643 (default) to 37286 (the only other option), but that didn't help either. What else can I try?

I'd really like to be able to use that feature as it would allow me to notify nearby users of certain error situations when there is no screen or speaker set attached to the computer. -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 22:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Update: After setting the master volume to 100% using alsamixer, the voice can be heard, but there still is an ugly overlay of (white? pink?) noise - way louder than the barely audible voice. Any suggestions as how to fix that? -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 23:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Try converting the file to 8-bit samples (sox infile.wav -1 outfile.wav), that might help if it's a byte ordering problem. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I followed your suggestion and tried an 8kHz mono 8-bit file. Sadly, the noise is still there. -- 78.43.60.58 (talk) 10:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

February 23

Tabs help with latest version of firefox?

Hi there! I have a quick question regarding tabs in firefox. I'm using the latest version (3.6). It's pretty much the same as 3.5, except for one noticeable difference. When I right click on a link and select new tab, it opens a new tab immediately after the tab that is currently selected. In 3.5, it would open the new tab to the right of all currently open tabs. How do I change this to the 3.5 version functionality? I've checked Tools>Options>Tabs, and it doesn't have an option there. Thanks!--70.122.117.52 (talk) 01:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the very general advice, but if you type "about:config" in the URL bar and hit Enter, there will be a cute warning that you are voiding your "warranty", and then a vast number of little config items you can tweak. Type "tab" for the filter and see if anything looks useful. (I don't have 3.6, sorry.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this new feature can be reverted to the 3.5-style "open new tabs at far right" by following Comet Tuttle's suggestion in the about:config manager. The key is browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent. You can see some discussion on the topic at MozillaZine. Nimur (talk) 04:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The Troublesome Ubuntu Netbook: Two Cases of a Linux Newbie Flailing Around

Situation:

I have a somewhat new Asus Eee PC 900. I got it off of Woot.com, and it has only a 4GB hard drive. Normally, this would REALLY suck, but the price made me just shrug it off. I removed the manufacturer's OS and replaced it with the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix.

Everything went really well, until about a month ago, when I totally, totally ran out of space. Every personal, nonsystem file was deleted. Nothing is on the computer anymore, except for what came with it, and Google Chrome.

But still, I only have about 200MB free at the most, after running "sudo apt-get clean", clearing the cache, and removing some Braille-teletype program thingy, which I don't need.

This is a huge problem now, because I keep getting nagged to install the new update, Karmic Koala. And I don't even have enough space for that. Or the updates to the other programs I have.

I need to:

1. Remove Firefox entirely. Every package that's there. I need all the space I can get.
2. Remove anything else unnecessary that you could possibly think of.
3. Fully uninstall OpenOffice.
4. It'd be nice if it could support Flash...well. Well enough to play videos on Youtube.
5. Find a way to clear some other stuff up. Just...pretty much anything that isn't essential to web browsing that got installed by default

My ultimate goals are to:

1. Have room to install update 9.10
2. Get it working to the point where I can play Youtube videos.

Thank you all so much for the help!

Saeb(talkjorn) 02:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

To remove all traces of something you can purge it. From a terminal run "sudo apt-get purge [packagename]", or if you use Synaptic I think it's a right-click and "Mark for Complete Removal". You can go through a list of installed packages in Synaptic and remove everything you don't need. In addition you can head to System -> Administration -> Computer Janitor which will suggest unused packages to be removed and other changes to save space. Be very careful, though, as this Janitor has a reputation for being a bit...overenthusiastic. Once you're done removing you can "sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree". However this may not be required as YouTube is betatesting an HTML5 player which would be supported by Chrome without any additional plugins. It's worth a look if you don't mind losing fullscreen. Xenon54 / talk / 03:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Why choose something as big as Ubuntu - even Ubuntu Netbook Remix is quite hefty for a small disk and small memory system. There are plenty of lightweight linux distros available which would still play YouTube videos, if that's all you want to do with it. Astronaut (talk) 09:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Breaking an Easy Cipher

In an effort to teach myself more about cryptography, I came across the following cipher in a paper. Let $k_{1},...,k_{100}$ be one hundred randomly and independently chosen round keys of 128 bits length each. They have nothing to do with each other. So one round of the cipher is that I take the input (128 bits in binary) xor it with the round key and then find its multiplicative inverse in the Galois Field GF(2^128) with the modulus known (zero maps to zero). I do this 100 times and I get the ciphertext. The paper says that it is easy to break it. I searched around and I find the same answer but no one actually says how do you break this or why is this easy. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Any hints? Is it really obvious how to break this cipher? How would you do this? Thanks! 174.29.98.151 (talk) 07:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Hint: think about interesting chosen plaintexts that you can send through the cipher. 75.62.109.146 (talk) 07:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Depending on what you mean by "I do this 100 times", it can be real easy or mostly easy. If you mean you perform 100 iterations on each character in the plaintext, you have created a 1-to-1 cypher. A simple character replacement algorithm will easily work out what character maps to each element of the cypher text. If you mean that you perform an encryption using k1 on the first character, then use k2 on the second character, and so on... it is the same thing. Step 1, guess how many keys there are. Assume that I guess there are 20. I break the code into 20 chunks. The first contains characters 1, 21, 41, 61, etc... Since they all used the same key, I can do a simple frequency analysis to guess at the 1-to-1 map. If I don't find anything, I try a key length of 21, then 22, then 23. It will take a matter of seconds to analyze each key length. So, it will be trivial to step up to a key length of 100 and then get good values for a frequency analysis of every 100th cypher-text character. -- kainaw™ 07:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

PS3 component cable with second stereo audio outpht

My Playstation 3 will shortly be moving to a room where the TV ([19]) doesn't have an HDMI input, the TV does have a component video input though.

There's loads of PS3 component cables out there - however, I'll sometimes want my PS3's audio to come out of the TV's speakers, and sometimes from a set of external speakers, so I'm looking for a component cable with a second stereo audio out. Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

I can find loads of PS3 SCART cables with extra audio outs (e.g. [20], [21]) but none for component, and from what I've read online, with SCART I won't be able to get 720p video out?

Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 10:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

SCART doesn't do 720p - standard (old) definition only.

I can't find a dual ouput component cable either - cable splitters exist and are cheap - eg try search "stereo phono splitter" - eg two of these would do [22].

Using these actually halves the output impedence - but that really shouldn't be an issue (the input resistances are usually very high) - it's unlikely that there will even be any audible difference.87.102.67.84 (talk) 16:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you really need one you can use a switch box [23] or maybe you have an old amplifier you can use to switch the audio (an old one won't even need to be turned on to operate)87.102.67.84 (talk) 16:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It may not be necessary to split them. Many televisions and receivers have both audio-in and audio-out. You can run audio into one and then run from the out to the in of the other. It will allow you to have one, both, or none of the audio devices active. -- kainaw™ 16:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Accorfing to the manual linked above there is a RCA stereo out which can be either fixed or variable output (p36) - I guess fixed output (not related to TV volume) is the one needed - set in the TV's menu (p14) Shown on p8 (called AV OUPUT).

This would mean that the TV would have to be on though...87.102.67.84 (talk) 16:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Good hosting for static files?

I have about 10 gigs of personal files I want to be able to access from any computer with internet. Low bandwidth costs-- just me. No dynamic content, just a simple password-protection http .

Let's assume I don't want to host the files out of a home server. Who should I go to for cheap static file hosting. --CreedShandor (talk) 11:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Does you ISP have an inclusive hosting package? Astronaut (talk) 11:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Dropbox or something similar might do what you want. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's 10GB that you only need a little bit at a time from (access more important than total redistribution), checkout http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

From that site: "Storage charges apply at $0.01 per megabyte-month" -- so hosting 10GB would be $100/month, I reckon. But bandwidth is pretty cheap. Compared to Amazon S3, another scalable host, 10GB would be $1.50/month. 198.161.238.18 (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

See [File hosting service] and [Comparison of online backup services] for some options. 198.161.238.18 (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Mp3 to MIDI converter

Is there any free full version mp3 to MIDI converter? Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.183.172.203 (talk) 12:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Midi doesn't work in the same way as MP3. MP3 is an audio recording that has had unneeded data removed to allow it to be compressed. Think of it as a recording of a person reading something. Midi on the other hand is a language to tell a soundcard to play specific sounds at specific pitches, think of it more like a script which is interprited by a person who then reads it. It would be possible to convert MIDI to MP3 quite easily although it would sound different depending on the sound hardware that played it, but it is probably impossible to automatically convert music to midi, especially if it contains vocals. Gunrun (talk) 13:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The first result you get when you search on google for "convert mp3 to MIDI" explains why it isn't easy, but gives an example of of to use a program that tries to do this. Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 13:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

MP3 relates to MIDI as BMP to SVG. You can always convert from SVG to BMP, and from MIDI to MP3, but the other direction is (in almost all cases) impossible. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed here before: see [24][25][26][27]. The consensus was as above: it's very difficult; there is some software that claims to do it but the software is error-prone and not very effective. --Normansmithy (talk) 16:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Playing a sound in C/C++

Is it possible to play a sound that is stored in the computer's RAM instead of hard disk? Is there a function like this?

void playSound ( int * sound, int length, int sampleRate ) ;

I'd need suitable functions for both Windows and Linux. 88.148.207.106 (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Simple DirectMedia Layer can do this on both platforms. Here is an example, and in general, see the "audio" section of this list of SDL APIs -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're looking for the native sound API, for Linux you do (or did) just open /dev/dsp for write, configure it with the SOUND_PCM_WRITE_BITS, SOUND_PCM_WRITE_CHANNELS, and SOUND_PCM_WRITE_RATE ioctls, and write raw PCM data at it. That breaks on platforms which use PulseAudio (such as Ubuntu Karmic), as PulseAudio owns /dev/dsp exclusively; in this case you either use the PulseAudio API or use the padsp wrapper around your /dev/dsp software. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

On Windows, it can be done with PlaySound[28], or waveOutOpen/waveOutPrepareHeader/waveOutWrite[29]. Alternatively it can be done with DirectX. --Normansmithy (talk) 17:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

To make explicit something that was implied by Finlay McWalter and Normansmithy, the C and C++ languages do not have any sound playing functions as part of the languages themselves, or as part of the C Standard Library, or the C++ Standard Library. Sound playing is platform-specific and you have to use a sound library (plenty having been mentioned above), and every API will differ a little. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Faster than Gigabit, cheaper than Fibre Channel?

Are there any technologies that are faster than Gigabit, but cheaper than Fibre Channel? My Gigabit network isn't fast enough for multiple video streams, and Fibre Channel is crazy expensive. 10ge looks like a contender, but still seems rather pricey. Is there anything else? While not yet a shipping product, could Light Peak be used to networking? It seems to promise low cost/high throughput --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

List of device bit rates has a pretty comprehensive list of networks and communication channels of various kinds. Light Peak does seem like a candidate, but it's not available right now; Light Peak's inventors clearly intend it for a consumer price range (not the eyewatering costs of Infiniband or Fibre Channel). In the short term, if I was setting up something like a high-quality video-server I'd consider multiple point-to-point ethernet connections (that is, that the server has several Gigabit ethernet cards each with a single cable direct-connected to a single client without an intermediating switch) - that way you get a dedicated 1Gbit connection to each client. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Or link aggregation. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't find enough (heck, any) hard technical information about how Light Peak actually works, in order to answer the "could Light Peak be used to networking" part of your question. It seems like it's a single-initiator multi-drop wire protocol, suggesting that only the PC can be master. If that's true, I guess you could have an intermediary box (like you can in USB) to build a naff point-to-point connection; for a genuine network, then surely 10 Gigabit Ethernet will make much more sense. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the metric measurements for a 1/2" CMOS HD sensor?

What would be the length and width (in mm) of a 1/2" CMOS chip with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if it's half an inch, that would be 12.7 mm, and if that's the height, the width would be 16.93 mm, assuming it's 4:3. Belisarius (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we can assume from the pixel dimensions that it's a 16:9 sensor. But generally speaking, "inch-sized" sensors don't have the direct relationship between their nominal size and their physical dimensions like you would expect them to. See Image sensor format#Table_of_sensor_sizes. The typical size listed there for 1/2" is also for a 4x3 sensor, so it's not going to be quite right for 16x9, either. Usually the physical size of a sensor is listed in the device's specifications. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)