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April 9

Hard Drive Cleaner

I wanted to sell my computer, but I don't want the buyer or anyone else to have my personal information, bank records, social security and so forth, could someone recommend a good cleaner for the hard drive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.147.7.50 (talk) 00:12, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

DBAN--Chmod 777 (talk) 00:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Buy a new hard drive and install it in the computer before you sell it. Since the new drive will probably be an upgrade in capacity over the old one, you can charge a little more for the computer. Save the old drive as containing a backup copy of your files. You can never have too many backups, and the computer buyer gets a new drive that has never been in contact with your data. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 21:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

laptop power brick going eeeeeeeeeee

I've got an oldish (4 years) Uniwill laptop that has a massive powerbrick. I've noticed that it now makes an ever so slight and extremely high-pitched 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' sound while plugged-in. Most other people can't even hear it. I'm certain it's coming from the brick. Is this indicative of a slow death? Should I be concerned about it bursting into flames? Is it ok to continue using if no other problems arise? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Does it get hot ? If not, it's probably safe, but why put up with the annoyance ? I'm sure you can get a replacement relatively cheaply. StuRat (talk) 01:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Even if it does get hot, that doesn't say much. A lot of power bricks get quite warm during operation, to the point where they can be uncomfortable to handle. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 01:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The sound you're hearing is in a range that most people lose the ability to hear around the age of 25 (varies a bit, and can be lost much earlier with long term exposure to excessive noise). The number of causes of that noise are too numerous to make any hard and fast recommendations though. I notice it more than most others (because it causes me pain; I'm a bit oversensitive), and I've found that the noise corresponds to a failing fluorescent light bulb, and overclocked and overtaxed graphics card, and any CRT television (particularly when it has no input to override it), getting worse as the CRT ages. I've never heard a power supply do it though. I doubt you're at risk of it bursting into flames; worst case I suspect it would just fail on you. If it doesn't bother you, I wouldn't worry about it too much. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 01:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I always thought that noise was the power going through whatever the device is. I have a phone charger which has a transformer which does this. Chevymontecarlo. 06:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe the transformer is the problem here, too. Smaller transformers, like the type in a "power brick", tend to hum at higher frequencies. Here's a discussion of some of the causes: [1]. StuRat (talk) 13:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Check the manufacturer's web site to see if there is a recall. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The usual cause of that sort of noise is an inductor working its way loose inside the brick. They are normally covered with a blob of glue to stop them from vibrating. Power supplies do catch on fire sometimes. I'd replace it if it were mine. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 21:49, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Question About Artificial Intelligence Programs

I'm not sure if these are classified as AI programs per se, but I remembered a programming contest where programs tried to stay in memory and delete an opponent program from memory/RAM. Does anyone know any websites/information about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andyyee (talk • contribs) 02:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Core War? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I want to have my own bussines but i don't have much money, which is easier and cheaper?

I want to build something commercial, right now i don't have much money because i'm a foreign exchange student(Mexico) and i don't have much technical skills and i dont want to pay someone to build a website for me because it cost too much.so i want to build something easy and simple because of my lack of technical skills so which is easier and cheaper to build: a comercial website,a social network or a comercial blog. I'am not working right now so i have free time.thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.175.88.233 (talk) 02:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

A blog, because you can use free software like Wordpress, or services like Blogger. But it's unlikely you'll make money from this. To make money with a blog, you usually have to invent some way to get millions of people visiting regularly, and sell advertisements to advertisers. I think instead you should think about what career you want to have in ten years and maybe take an entry level job at a firm in that business, in order to gain experience so in a couple of years you can get promoted or take a higher-level job at another company in the field ... until you're confident in your mastery of the field and can start your own business in that field. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

A commercial website would be the most expensive choice- even if you decided to build it yourself you'd have to pay to learn HTML and stuff, and you'd have to pay for webpage creation software too, as well as site hosting fees. I'm not sure how a social network would work. Chevymontecarlo. 06:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Learning HTML is free if you do not value your time. Emacs (or any number of other text editors) are free (and Free!), as are many web site frameworks. Hosting costs money, but unless you have massive traffic or need complex back-ends (that you wont get on blogs or networks, anyways), the cost is very low. I don't even know how much I pay, but it's single-digit Euros per months. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd post on Craig's List. Make some business cards, too. I made some in Microsoft Publisher and printed them on my inkjet on business card paper. Give them out to everyone you meet. Put them on bulletin boards all over the place. You could also make posters, although most of them will get torn down immediately, thereby making them useless. Web sites are almost useless for startups, too, in my opinion. Unless your business has a unique name, your site won't rank very high in Google results. A web site can make your business seem larger and more established than it is. But you have to make it look good (i.e. pay someone very good at making them) to trick people. So if you're just starting out, I wouldn't worry about a site, yet. Most of your business will be return customers and word of mouth, anyway. I haven't attracted any customers with my site. I've never had someone call me and say, "Hi. I saw your site. I'm interested in ..." It just doesn't happen that way for small businesses. Maybe large businesses, but not small ones.

By the way: what kind of product or service are you selling?--Chmod 777 (talk) 07:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Before anything you need a clear idea of what it is you are going to provide people (Service or product). There a billion web-pages but very few 'earn' money, most will exist because of the love of their creator. The ways to make money on a website? Content for sale that people want to buy (subscriptions - e.g. the FT website), high volume of people viewing so you can sell advertising space or sell a product on the site that pepople want to buy (e.g. amazon). It's a very difficult thing though and for every Google-billionaire there are hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of people making nothing out of it. To be fair though, setup costs aren't huge and risk-wise you can limit how much you spend so it's pretty 'low risk' business wise 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wanting to run a Servlet locally with little prior experience

I'd been poking around with various technologies and gravitated towards a Servlet for a project. There are a number of reasons why a Servlet is better than other alternatives, but the major drawback is I have no idea how to run one. I just want to run it locally for a proof-of-concept... maybe a few clients over the LAN in a demo would be the most extravagant it would get. The problem is I have no idea how to get from Java source to a Servlet running on localhost. I played with GlassFish v3 and the Glassfish Tools Bundle for Eclipse, but it seems like there's very little integration between the two.

On to the question, could anyone provide some advice for finding an appropriate and up-to-date tutorial for hosting a simple Servlet? I'm not terribly attached to GlassFish, though I suspect it would be simpler than what I remember of pulling out my hair over Tomcat in university. The biggest obstacle is I just have no idea how to get a Servlet compiled and jammed into a web server... Eclipse doesn't even want to admit that there exists a javax.servlet package. Thanks in advance. BigNate37_(T) 12:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I've developed J2EE web applications in both Eclipse (in the form of IBM's WebSphere kit, non-free), and NetBeans, (free). In my experience, the free NetBeans tools integrate better with GlassFish. One of the biggest mistakes is mixing up the Java SE and Java EE compilers - make sure you have a full J2EE SDK installed. Sun's Java EE SDK is the best bet. Next, get your Eclipse or Netbeans environment set up to use the EE SDK as its default JRE and compiler. If you use NetBeans, these tutorials will help. Out of the box, you can run a NetBeans "New Servlet" wizard, and have a demo servlet running in a debug-version of GlassFish in about 3 or 4 minutes. Exporting the entire archive in the form of a JAR, WAR, or EAR file is a little more configuration-dependent, but there are export wizards. Usually, this involves exporting your program as an archive and dropping it on the server, and possibly running an install or configure script (for example, to specify locations of other web services like databases your application/servlet wants to connect to). Nimur (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Awesome, I'll see where I can get. I've just been poking and prodding Tomcat all morning. Thanks! BigNate37_(T) 16:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Success! I now have a sample Servlet running locally. I can commit to using Java for my project and when the time comes, following the example that I have working will be a simple mechanical activity. Thanks Nimur. BigNate37_(T) 04:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Online computer

Resolved

Say for example I was traveling and used a remote desktop program to connect to my home computer every now and then. I could then set up programs and stuff on the home computer and they'd keep running even when I disconnected from the remote desktop program. However, I am unable to leave a computer running at home when I go traveling. So, are there any online services that offer you a basic Windows system that you can connect to anywhere in the world and would keep running your programs even when you disconnected? 82.44.54.207 (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You need to be specific about what type of programs you want to run on those remote servers. For example, there certainly are simulation-type games where food grows, etc., even while you are logged out. StuRat (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wake-on-LAN is what you're after. It's possible for a shut-down PC to be turned on remotely (they do it at my office for essentially upgrades and prevents them having to ensure everyone leaves their pc on). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry just re-read your question, don't think that's what you're after. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, try googling for windows vps (Virtual Private Server). -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. A bit expensive but useful to know they exists, and the right terminology. Thank you 82.44.54.207 (talk) 16:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Reading what you've written, perhaps you are looking for portable programs that you load into a pen drive and take with you? 78.147.131.74 (talk) 19:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I use portable programs all the time :) but for some things they need to be left running on an active computer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.207 (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

iPhone OS 4.0 with multitasking

Does anyone know if iPhone OS 4.0 will allow you to run multiple instances of the same app? If I go to the home screen and click on an app that's already running, does a new instance get created or do I get directed back to the existing instance? I've been following Apple's announcement since yesterday but haven't seen this discussed. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

OS X will not let you run multiple instances of the same application, generally speaking. (Starting an .app file of a program with a existing instance will just give that existing instance focus.) I would be surprised if the iPhone OS was different in that regard (especially if they aren't mentioning a difference). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiki edit tags

This Q applies to Wikipedia, but also to the wiki world, in general. The edit tags for a section always seem to be at the top, while I've usually just finished reading the section, and am thus at the bottom, when I want to edit. So, I scroll up to the top, try to find the edit tag for my section (which I sometimes miss), then it puts me at the top of the section, when I want to add to the bottom. So, now I must scroll down again. My idea is to have edit tags at both the top and bottom of a section, like so:

 [Edit ↓]

Content...

 [Edit ↑]

The top edit tag would work as it does now, but the bottom section edit tag would place you at the bottom, where most people would want to add text. So, does any other wiki do something like this ? StuRat (talk) 17:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit buttons at the bottom could be confusing when you have multiple levels of headers (sections, sub-sections, sub-sub-sections). -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Good point. StuRat (talk) 18:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be easier (in my opinion) to add a hover function. When hovering an otherwise non-clickable section of text, it will get a slight highlight (perhaps a slightly yellow background). Then, if you click, it will trigger the edit function on that section. Then, no matter what part of the section you are in, you click a non-link and you go into edit mode. -- kainaw™ 17:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

WYSIWYG editable wikis exist, but MediaWiki (which powers Wikipedia) is not one such software. This is probably for both historic and practical reasons - a high-volume site like Wikipedia benefits from a user-interface paradigm that "slows down" editing (at the expense of ease-of-use). Nimur (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. The additional time it takes to find the spot where you wanted to edit makes an edit conflict more likely, and then everyone's edit escalates from section edits to page edits, causing more probs. StuRat (talk) 18:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I use a home-made database where double-clicking on text allows you to edit it. It's useful a lot of the time, but I am used to it accidentally going into edit mode very regularly (if I want to click and highlight and copy something, 9 times out of 10 I will accidentally or purposefully double-click it and end up in edit mode). For my purposes it doesn't matter much—it's just a homemade database and I'm the only one using it, so I am just used to how it works—but I think it would be utterly disastrous for something with as many users as Wikipedia. Most people who use Wikipedia don't want to edit it—they want to read it. (Most of even my own using of it—and I feel free to edit liberally—is spend reading and not writing.) --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't edit

[2] Turns out the problem was the computer, not Wikipedia.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

What's still running?

On Windows systems, what's still running when no one is logged in? For example, if I configure some script to <start at 03:00, download files, and exit>, do I actually have to stay logged in overnight for it to happen?

DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:25, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If memory serves, when you create a job in Task Scheduler, there is an optional "run as" field. If you fill that (with your own login) then it should run when no-one is logged in (or when someone else is logged in). Beware of running some job that actually requires a GUI application, as this will (I think?) fail. Debugging this kind of thing (as with its unix counterpart cron) can be a bit of a pain. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Bioshock stability issue

I know I should've been asking other forums for this, but does anyone know a solution to my problem? You see, whenever I play the game (on XP compatibility, running as admin and on Mono audio), it goes out well for five minutes, but hangs after a while. I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit, Realtek HD audio, and an Nvidia 8400GS. Blake Gripling (talk) 23:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You shouldn't need XP compatibility mode or admin privileges (I've run it under Vista x64 without compat settings). And running in Win7's full XP compatibility mode means running in a VM which would cause all sorts of issues. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 00:04, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed Bioshock is clearly somewhat designed for Vista (and therefore Windows 7) since it's a DX10 game, DX10 of course is not officially supported on XP. A 8400GS is a fairly weak card so I don't know if you'd actually want to run in DX10 but the point remains you most definitely should not be running in XP compatibility (in fact I would avoid that in games unless your sure it's needed) Nil Einne (talk) 00:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Tried running sans compatibility and it just gives me an error message saying that "BS has encountered a problem" or something. I've heard of so many Der Untergang-style complaints about this. Any ideas? Blake Gripling (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, some forum dude suggested that I should run the game on DirectX 9 mode. Doesn't seem to freeze anymore, I guess. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

April 10

Excel

I have developed an excel spreadsheet to perform a certain function which uses the Solver add-in that requires being macro enabled. Is there anyway I can encrypt this spreadsheet so that it can be distributed without revealing the equations and/or processes yet still allow data to be entered and changed? 71.100.3.207 (talk) 00:12, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Simple answer: no. Long answer, as long as you are distributing the code and the calculations are being performed on a remote computer, you have no way of stopping people with the necessary skills and desire reversing engineering and working out what your code does. Forget Solver, even you design some sort of fancy standalone program, it's not going to work. People who design applications and games sometimes go to great lengths to make it difficult for people to reverse engineer their code (generally not so much because they want to keep their code super secret but because they want to stop people copying their program or using it without the copyright owner's permission and to do that, they need to make it difficult for people to reverse engineer the copy protection) but none of these ever last for ever unless no one is interested enough in breaking it. If you really want to stop people knowing the internal algorithms, run the code on a server so all the calculations happen on your server and of course make sure you secure your server well. Even then if your code is simple, someone might be able to work out what it's doing by using the inputed values and results. You'd likely want to limit the number of answers over a defined time period to to make this more difficult although someone could use a botnet so you can't do it simply per IP which means people could easily DOS your server. Of course if no one cares about your code, even if you don't encrypt it no one may actually know what it does. (BTW in case it isn't clear, that last comment applies to whatever level of protection you do use, the more interesting people find your code, the more likely it is someone is going to bother to break any protection you do use. Of course there are many other factors.) Nil Einne (talk) 00:53, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

If you are really worried about proprietary equations the easiest way to keep them proprietary is to not have them execute as distributed code. One could imagine an application that was either web-based or could interface with a script running on a web server that would be running the actual equations and just pumping out answers. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Just ran a server side test script so in theory all computations could be done server side. Is there anyway to run Excel server-side and then submit data to it using HTML forms and client-side script? 71.100.3.207 (talk) 13:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

You can't encrypt the formula, but you probably can obfuscate it.--Chmod 777 (talk) 03:54, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

That article tells me how little I really know about programming and computers compared with most anyone in the world. 71.100.3.207 (talk) 13:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

On a very simple level, in Excel you can put formulae in hidden columns, then save the spreadsheet with a password to modify. This means that the user can open it only in read-only form, but can still enter data in unhidden cells and read the result, but they can't see the formulae used. This is probably at too simple a level for your purposes, and there might be a way round the protection (but I haven't found it). Dbfirs 07:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've never been able to recover a password protected sheet without the password so you are probably right. If I can't find a way to run Excel on the server then this is probably what I'll try. 71.100.3.207 (talk) 13:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Excel allows unlimited tries at the password, and cracking software is available on the internet, so make sure that the password is not in any dictionary. Is the rumour true or is it just a myth that Microsoft have a "back door" password for the NSA to use? Dbfirs 16:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Such rumours exist for most things, for something as famous as Excel, you can bet there would be ample discussion if there were any real evidence. In any case, Excel encryption until 2007 at least has evidentally been very weak [3] so who needs a back door? However more to the point, am I missing something here or do people really think passwords to modify are useful for protecting documents against all but the most uninformed users?

Passwords to modify are nearly always next to useless since if you can open the document, you just need something which understands the document and ignores the requirement for a password. In this particular case, from a quick search it appears even Microsoft does that. If you save the document as a copy/another file, the password disappears even though you never entered the password. A quick test confirms this behaviour (although I didn't bother to make a hidden column). So even Excel only tries to protect the original file and even that has flaws [4]. Somethings like Adobe Acrobat aren't so kind but finding apps which remove the password isn't hard even if they may violate the DMCA in the US. For some sort of obscure proprietary document format, perhaps no one will have bothered yet, but that's not much protection.

Note a key point here, if you're talking a local computer which someone has complete and long term physical access to, without encryption a password is close to useless. (This example is very similar since the file is on such a computer as your distributing it to people who have such computers.) If you're talking a password to modify, either you have no encryption of the content you're trying to protect (most common by far) or you do have encryption but it's tied to something that's universal. You inherently cannot tie it to the password to modify, since people need to be able to open the document without the password.

Similarly eBooks which often have DRM usually in the form of an equivalent of a 'password' (not really what most would call a password but rather a key which the software automatically obtains from the ebook seller and which is tied to the computer) to open but which anyone who can read the book obviously has (since they can open the book) are similarly nearly always broken eventually and the encryption removable. In these cases we do have encryption which is tied to a specific key but the key is available so you just need to break the encryption, and the decryption algorithm is obviously in the program which can open the file so... Baring that of course you can take advantage of the 'analog hole' i.e. screenshot then OCR the book.

Of course as I mentioned above, since Excel is computing the results on the local computer, it would definitely be possible to recover what it's doing internally and you could also easily bruteforce it and try to work out what the formula is as another alternative. (Somewhat equivalent to the 'analog hole'.)

Nil Einne (talk) 01:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I seem to get differing quality of security with differing orders of setting protection and in different versions of Excel. I still have one spreadsheet with protected columns and cells (created some time ago) that none of the methods seems to crack, but I'm sure Nil Einne is correct that there will be a way round my protection, so I withdraw my advice to use Excel unless you have very honest customers! Dbfirs 08:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you use some sort of macro protection? If so, this may not be crackable with default tools. If you're just using a password to modify, can't you just save it as a new file, open the new file and then unhide the columns? (Or to put it a different way, are you saying the password to modify stays around even after you save it again? If not, what's stopping you unhiding the columns?) Nil Einne (talk) 17:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I used macro protection, but the sheet was created years ago, so I can't remember. I think it was just a password to unprotect cells or columns. The sheet doesn't allow me to unhide columns, and saving it to a new file doesn't change this. I thought I could reproduce the effect with a password to modify, hidden columns and protected cells, but, as you said above, this doesn't seem to work. Fortunately, I have a copy of a very similar sheet without the protected columns, so it is not important to crack the protection, but I wish I could remember how I did it. Dbfirs 20:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Was investigating this myself before I saw your post and that combined with reading it now I think there's some confusion. I've never really bothered with password but it seems there's a password to protect and password to modify (and also a password to open of course). You mentioned a password to modify but not protect but I now presume you did protect or both. A password to modify seems to be easily defeatable even from within Excel as I mentioned. A password to protect is different and isn't quite so easily defeatable although there are various tools (which you mentioned?) which I didn't bother to try.

However in my case in Excel 2007 there is a fundamental flaw (perhaps intentional?) in the way it works which I'm guessing would apply to your case even if you can't work out how to defeat the protection. Specifically, while you can't select the locked cells with the mouse or keyboard, you can enter the cell in the name box and see the contents (but not modify it).

Of course you could hide the cells in an odd place but you should be able to see the referenced cells in the unprotected parts which give you the output (since the output is coming from the hidden data plus whatever variables you provide) so unless there's some way of obscuring that then it's not much work. Well you could make like 1000 references or something so it takes a long time to find it which will add some work but ultimately a dedicated person can probably find it even from within Excel and without any additional tools. (You could also use macros/scripting in a variety of ways, e.g. to hide the namebox although if the macros aren't essential to the file, then just disabling macros should defeat this.)

BTW, if you're interested in a basic test of the effectiveness of the protection, something to try is a different app which understands Excel documents as I mentioned a while back. In my test, Google Docs doesn't appear to care about the password for protection or locked cells and the hidden cells are easily unhideable. Won't work if the worksheet is larger then the Google Docs maximum although something like Open Office may be just as easy (but downloading & installing something may seem a bit much if you don't care hence why I tried/suggested Google Docs).

Of course it's possible you were trying the wrong tools if you were trying tools to defeat a password to modify, you need tools to defeat a password to protect. If there is a password to modify, you should be asked for this on opening the document but just in case you may want to save the document as a copy when open as readonly (without entering the password) before trying the password to protect tools. One caveat is many of the tools are trying to find the password, these are obviously more likely to have problems then ones just to remove/defeat it.

Nil Einne (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct about the fundamental flaw! I'm kicking myself for not thinking of something so obvious! And I was getting confused between password to modify and password to protect. I meant to take a copy of my protected spreadsheet today when I had access to Open Office (but I forgot it). I think I'll just admit that you were right that there is no real protection in Excel. Dbfirs 22:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Google Street View

How do I get to see the "Google Street View" view of a location? Even for places for which I know there is a Street View available, when I look at the Google Map for that locality, it dosnt say anything anywhere about how to see the Street View. What's the secret? Thanks 89.242.144.8 (talk) 13:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

On top of the zoom bar is a little yellow man. Drag him off of his place and streets with Street View available will turn blue; drop him on a street and the appropriate picture will appear. It's not very intuitive, I know -- when Street View first came out I believe you clicked a Street View button, and a camera icon appeared on every Street View city, allowing you to click on a street to view an image. I dunno why they fixed something that wasn't broken. Xenon54 / talk / 13:59, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

And if the man is gray rather than yellow, that means there is no streetview available for the area shown. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

In some areas there is only Street View pictures for major roads, although here in England nearly every road has had the pictures taken. Chevymontecarlo. 10:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Another method is to zoom in past max zoom level and it automatically zooms into street view - a bit of a pain if you don't want street view and aren't paying attention. -- kainaw™ 22:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Memory leak (or something similar)

Resolved

On a windows xp computer memory use (as reported by task manager (performance tab)) has gone up to 1.6GB, but in process tab, there are no suspicious processes, which would report large memory use (even with "show processes from all users" selected). This large amount of memory must be allocated by SOME process. How to identify that process? -Yyy (talk) 16:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

You can kill each non-suspicious process, at least the ones which aren't vital, and see when the problem goes away. A reboot will also likely solve the problem, but not necessarily tell you what it was. StuRat (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Also check whether you are looking at the memory amount or the virtual memory amount. The performance tab shows your VM page file usage, whilst by default the processes tab shows the physical rather than virtual memory usage. Go to View --> Select Columns and tick the VM box. Zunaid 19:37, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Looking at consumed virtual memory amount helped. Restarting that process reduced memory use almost by a gigabyte. Thank you. -Yyy (talk) 04:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Which process was the problem ? StuRat (talk) 04:39, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

DC++ (v0.75) -Yyy (talk) 07:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; good to know that the next time this happens. StuRat (talk) 18:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

iTunes is sentient?

Lately, I've been noticing iTunes automatically changing song information. Usually, it manifests in a several songs having their genre changed to "other" when they didn't have a genre to begin with. However, I just noticed that it changed a song called "Brazos del Sol" to "Envidia," as well as filling the artist as "Eugenia León" and the album as "TROVADORES." What's going on here? How do I stop it? How long 'til iTunes becomes Skynet?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 19:52, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you got iTunes set to retrieve track information from CDDB? It basically identifies and pre-fills in information about songs for you as you rip them (my understanding is it can analyse the file and find it even if you've not ripped it from the cd). ny156uk (talk) 22:15, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's set to do that. I've turned that setting off, and I'll see if anything suspicious happens. And I was just starting to overhaul my music organization...good thing I haven't started yet!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 03:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

transfer files from old to new computer

I would like to find an easy way to put all of the saved information from my old computer to my new one. I don't have a paid service to back up files. Is there a disc or flash I can use and how should I do it? Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harmony7120 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Depending on how much you have to transfer, the three easiest options would be A) transfer the files over a home network, B) put everything from the old system onto a flash drive and sneaker net it over to the new system, or C) get an ethernet cable and network the two systems (if they're not already on the same network). Dismas|^(talk) 23:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

There are also stand-alone disk drives; you might use one if you have too much data to fit on one or two loads of a flash drive. They're more expensive, but you are more likely to be able to do it all in one shot, and they're a good idea for making your own backups anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.106.221.124 (talk) 00:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Take a screwdriver, unscrew the hard drive from your old computer and plug it into your new computer. This is not the easiest way but you get the fastest file transfer rate. F (talk) 12:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8600493.stm - What computer?

Hi, What computer is in the picture at the top of this article? I've searched for all the computers mentioned in the article but none of them are the one from the picture. Thanks for your help. 86.176.96.242 (talk) 23:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the item that you can see all of is a computer -- I think it's a "dumb terminal", i.e., a machine with a screen, keyboard, and input/output capability for 8-bit ascii characters. These were often used on 8-bit computers like the Altair; such a machine would have a "serial port" (or more than one) and the computer would have input/output capability on that port, so that any "dumb terminal" could be connected to it.

The article mentions the subject's connection to the "Altair 8800"; it was certainly of this era, and I *think* it needed such a terminal as an interface, but am not sure. The terminal appears to be sitting on a box that *might* be an Altair, but that's really just speculation. It would make sense, though, that the photographer and/or editor of the picture/article would not know what part of the equipment was significant, and therefore might leave out the part that was actually associated with the subject. To a non-computer person, the distinction between a terminal and a computer is a bit esoteric. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.106.221.124 (talk) 23:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A Winston365 (talk) 00:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it's an ADM-3 (maybe a 3A, maybe not - they look identical). What you're looking at isn't a computer - it's more or less a keyboard, CRT screen and text-only "graphics card" all in one. It connected to the actual computer through a serial port - the computer just had to send the text it wanted to display and the ADM-3 would mindlessly display it. At the time they were common, they were replacements for teletype machines - and were often called "glass teletypes". The ADM-3 was a relatively early example of this kind of device. SteveBaker (talk) 04:14, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thank you all very much for your help. 86.179.132.38 (talk) 13:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This LA Times article has a wider view of the same photo, showing that the terminal is indeed perched on top of what appears to be an altair 8800b. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 04:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

April 11

Make your own movie by hacking

Is there such thing as putting a scene in a movie that you alreadly saw made by somebody —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.137.200 (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comedy TV shows will often show a real scene followed by a fake one, for comic effect. StuRat (talk) 03:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

If you're asking how to do it you only need a movie editor program.--92.251.215.5 (talk) 11:28, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

...and also some way to capture the starting movie in an editable format. StuRat (talk) 12:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

You mean you want to make a fan edit? 66.127.52.47 (talk) 22:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes,Like can you put Lindsay Lohan in the Nutty Professor 2:The Klumps in a computer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.137.200 (talk) 22:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

When Industrial Light & Magic did this in the movie Forrest Gump, putting Tom Hanks in pre-existing film clips of people like John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, it was the state of the art in CGI. It is now 16 years later and is easier to do because the tools have gotten better; if Lohan participated in the effort and posed and spoke her lines, you could do it, if you had millions of dollars, yes. Without her cooperation, you could do it with further millions of dollars by creating the highest-resolution possible textured model of Lohan, and you'd mocap an actress to do the animation of Lohan walking around and saying her lines. She would not look perfect. She would look OK. Her face in particular would look more plastic and unconvincing than Lohan's actual face, because of the uncanny valley effect. Possibly the hardest problem, though, would be her voice. You can't synth another person's voice this decade with a computer and have it sound convincing. You would have to hire a soundalike imitator actress. So, the short answer is, "Yes, with many millions of dollars and a couple of years' work." Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you are exaggerating the cost. With digital editing, it does not cost "millions of dollars" to do compositing. Depending on the source material and the destination material, it can take a lot of TIME, to be sure, but even then it's hard for me to imagine it taking a million dollars worth of man-hours. It is not trivially easy to do this well but it is not even close to being that labor or technology intensive. You can accomplish this with off-the-shelf software these days. There are lots of YouTube examples of this—e.g. this one overwrites characters from Law Abiding Citizen with characters from Team Fortress 2. Tough work to pull off, but not millions of dollars worth of tough work... kids do things like this as their final project in film school all the time. (Though, of course, maybe trying to scale that up to feature-film length would be pretty time intensive. But my point is that this is not just "only film companies can do it" technology anymore.) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Awesome Team Fortress clip. I would assert again it'd take millions of dollars to insert a live-action actor into a live-action feature film. Assuming we are talking about a lead role or something and not a cameo. Time is money, and I don't think we want to get into time<->money conversion rates. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

To see this taken to the extreme, watch the comedy spoof Kung Pow! Enter the Fist. The entire movie is an old Chinese film into which Steve Oedekerk added himself, re-dubbed the entire original dialog and basically turned it into something of a cult classic. The "See also" at the end of the aticle has more examples. Zunaid 12:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

c program

please suggest to build this program: There is a book stall where 5 different books present in 5 different bookshelf .1st book in A,2nd book in B,3rd book in C, 4th book in D, 5th book in E.the MRP of books are Rs.50.00, Rs.60.00, Rs.80.00, Rs.100.00, Rs.120.00 respectively.Write a c program in terbo c to calculate following :

1) If I input names of book and each quantities then calculate the total amount to perches and print it

and also print in which bookshelf it stored.Supriyochowdhury (talk) 05:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like Turbo C homework, but I can give you some general ideas:

1) You'll want arrays of 5 book names, 5 shelf names, and 5 prices, all in corresponding order. (You could skip the shelf names, technically, if they are A-E, in ASCII order, but the array makes the program simpler and more flexible.)

2) Recognizing the name of a book to purchase will be the hardest part. You may want to convert the name to upper or lowercase and do the same for the typed name when comparing. It's also important to limit the comparison of the strings to the length of the book names, as random characters may exist past that point. Typos and leaving off words like "the" will still be a problem, though, so presenting a menu which lists all 5 and has the user type in a number is safer, if allowed. StuRat (talk) 12:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

My 1440x900 has decided it's a 1280x720

Resolved

I use a monitor with a resolution of 1440x900, and it has always worked fine up to now, but this morning I turned it on and it's stuck at 1280x720, in the middle of the screen, with huge empty black areas at each side. I'm using windows 7 with an ATI Radeon HD 3650, when I go into display settings 1440x900 is no longer available. Something about the aspect ratio get changed? How can I fix this?--92.251.215.5 (talk) 11:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Have you tried a reboot ? Have you tried changing the color depth and refresh rate ? (Some resolutions are only supported at certain color depths and refresh rates.) StuRat (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah i tried both of those before I finlly fixed it.--92.251.143.238 (talk) 19:57, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha using CCC I managed to detect a new monitor (my current and only one oddly enough), and then force it to 1440x900, problem apparently fixed.--92.251.215.5 (talk) 11:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Gmail in Mail (Mac)

Resolved

In Mail I have configured it to work with my Gmail account. It works OK, but how can I get rid of the 'Gmail' folders that have duplicated the 'inbox', 'outbox' etc...basically it has it's own section on the left at the bottom and I want to remove it. This screenshot should help but I was thinking maybe there's other Mail users out there who have also set up their Gmail accounts to work with Mail and so have experienced this as well. Chevymontecarlo. 12:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

VB v6, Excel reference and components, server-side program

I have a copy of VB v6 with Excel and FrontPage references and components. The New Project screen in VB shows a bunch of Active X and IIS Application wizards and the server is FrontPage enabled and also runs ASP pages. With these resources it seems that I should be able to use a client side form and script to send data to a server side copy of Excel and get a web page spreadsheet returned with the processed data. Is there a Wikipedia reference I can consult that will help me do this? 71.100.3.207 (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Before trying to help you find information on using these technologies, I would like to point out that if your only goal is to build a form that submits data to a server, processes it server-side, and returns a web page in a spreadsheet format with the data, there are many, many, many better ways to do it. If you are really certain that you need to use all of those systems, others may be able to give further advice. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 18:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Exactly how are those better? He's already set up his server to run ASP. He's already learned VB. Now you want him to learn those languages and set up his server to run them. Why? He's using a server, a scripting language (VBScript) and an IDE (VB6). That's quite a lot of "systems" for you?--Chmod 777 (talk) 19:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

This link may help: [5]. This article is less relevant, but may still help: [6].--Chmod 777 (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

"Floating server"

What is a "floating server"? I tried searching but there doesn't seem to be an article on them 82.44.54.83 (talk) 19:52, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

That is not a specific name for a specific item. You need more information to get a definition. Where did you hear the term "floating server"? If we know where you heard it, we may be able to tell you what it means in that context. Without context, it could refer to a lot of things - including computers designed to float in the middle of the ocean. -- kainaw™ 22:06, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It was on Stargate SG-1 episode "Chain Reaction". Maybourne said the NID delivered orders to it's cells via encrypted newsgroups hosted on "floating servers" 82.44.54.83 (talk) 22:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It's technobabble, then; it's something they made up to make it sound plausible. Now, they didn't actually need to make anything up, it's perfectly possible to use public key cryptography to ensure that no one aside from the intended recipient knows what you're talking about. In the context, it sounds somewhat like a real-life botnet. Paul (Stansifer) 02:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like they mean that the address of the servers change constantly so tracing traffic through them or tracking down the owners is impossible. It is possible to mimic that sort of behaviour, but using a "server" for it is silly. You'd use a laptop and drive from one wireless connection to another - some people do that. Those doing real illegal stuff don't bother. They just send emails out to millions of people (for free) with attachments that ignorant fools open. Then, they use those computers to do illegal work and send out more emails to more ignorant fools. -- kainaw™ 02:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

[I am revising the section heading from Question to "Floating server". See WP:TPOC, "Section headings".
-- Wavelength (talk) 03:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)]

Adobe Reader

Hi, I'm trying to read a form on Google Chrome, and an Adobe Reader warning popped up saying something about "Compadibility" and I clicked "Don't Show Message Again." Well, I NEED to see this message again, because now the form won't open at all. I really need to fill out the form, so can anyone tell me how to open that Adobe Reader pop up again? Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 20:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Could you be a bit more specific on what it said about compatibility? It may be possible that you are running an older version of Reader than the document is stored in; you can download the most recent version here. Intelligentsium 23:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I actually didn't read the whole thing, I just read the word Compadibilty, but I think you're probably right about the whole "Older version" thing. I'll download the new version and see if that helps! Thank you Sir!:) Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 01:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I downloaded the new version of Adobe, but it still will not open the form I want. It opens Adobe, but the form is not displayed? Now what? Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

April 12

Touchscreen technology and human health

Touchscreen#Capacitive (permanent link here) says the following.

As the human body is also a conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the body's electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance.

Does use of touchscreen technology pose a risk to human health? -- Wavelength (talk) 03:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Touching anything results in a distortion of the body's electrostatic field. I don't think it can possibly have any effect on health except in the obvious case of very high fields. Even several million electrostatic volts from a Van der Graaf generator is usually considered harmless. Dbfirs 07:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You probably meant the Van de Graaff generator though ;) --Ouro (blah blah) 08:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

... oops! So I did! I missed off the second "f" and saw it was a red link, so my subconscious must have thought of the band and made the wrong correction. Thank you. Dbfirs 13:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I examined http://www.touchscreenguide.com/index.html without finding an answer. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Whats the best website where i can learn Javascript language fully?

Im making my website but ive seen that there is many ccool things i can do with javascript not only with my html knowlege, so i decided to learn javascript, ive been trying to find normal Site where i can learn javascript, but i havent found any, so can any1 help me please?

check out my works: www.aodgx-club.ucoz.org and my newest www.godzilla.ucoz.co.uk what is made specially for my aliance, so if u have any advice say it nopw ;)

I don't think you can expect to learn any modern mainstream programming language fully, unless you design it (and even then it's unlikely, given the process that makes it mainstream). I found http://www.quirksmode.org/, http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning, http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/script and http://www.w3.org/DOM/faq.html useful. None of them is about JavaScript alone, though. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Douglas Crockford's book JavaScript: The Good Part is very good. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 09:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually there's more than one good part :) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I have some advice which I will say now. First, your website does not explain its purpose very succinctly; you might want to put a quick summary to explain the website and its purpose. From what I gather, it's an enthusiasts website for a videogame or role-playing game, but your main page should specify. You don't need javascript to do this; it is just proper website design to explain your purpose. Nimur (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

non profit association / donations

Hello, I wonder if you can help me. I am a trustee of a non-profit organisation (not a charity) based in the UK. We are currently trying to set something up in order to receive donations online from people who wish to donate to the organisation. However, all the sites I have looked at (such as justgiving.com, etc) seem to be aimed around charities rather than non-profit organisations. We are very short of funds and cannot afford to do very much that will cost us money. It seems like justgiving and others rely on taking a 5% cut of gift aid on donations. Does anyone know if there is a site which can deal with donations to a non-profit organisation, or a v. cheap / free way of setting up a donation box on our wordpress site?

Many thanks, Handy2010 (talk) 10:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Paypal has a scheme for accepting non-profit donations - see here. Their partner MissionFish has a scheme for registered charities and exempt organisations (as variously defined in complicated ways) - it's here, but I don't think it covers non-charity nonprofits. You can always ask them. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 10:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Paypal charges 2.2% + $0.30 per-transaction for nonprofits, assuming that the transaction volume isn't huge. I believe that that's about as low as the fees can get, unfortunately, because it mostly reflects the credit card fees. (according to interchange fee, it averages out at 2%). I thought that Amazon FPS might be cheaper, if harder to implement, but it turns out that I was wrong, unless a heck of a lot of people transfer from their bank accounts directly. Paul (Stansifer) 12:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

In one of the previous WMF fundraisers it was claimed Moneybookers fees were generally lower then PayPal. I don't know if this is still the case, a quick search suggests it's somewhat complicated so I didn't bother to compare it myself and I couldn't find any specific rates for non profits. It seems Moneybookers does tend to put more of the fees on the sender. I believe Moneybookers is also more focused on the European market and is a UK regulated company, whereas PayPal has a more of an international focus and PayPal's European operations are regulated as Luxembourg bank. I believe PayPal does allow people with a credit card to make payments without an account. Of course you could offer more then one option.

BTW note that the rates you are quoting are "To be eligible, you must have documented 501(c)(3) status or you will not receive the reduced nonprofit transaction fees". Since we're discussing a UK based non profit, it seems unlikely they will be registed in the US. The fees for UK registered charities are here [7] (1.4% + 20p) however since the OP specifically said the organisation is not a charity, it seems unlikely they will qualify.

Interesting enough, Google has no fees until 2011 at least for non profits who are also part of their Google Grants program [8] however it appears to only be valid for US registered non profits [9] even though they do have a Google Grants program in the UK [10]. There's also a Youtube linked program [11] which again is apparely offered in the UK however it simply uses Google checkout so I presume again has nothing extra for UK registered charities let alone non profits.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Those of us who use e-banking might be happy to make donations directly from our own bank accounts to yours if you publish your bank details. Obviously, it would be wise to set up an account that accepts only in-payments. For those without e-banking you could provide bank credit slips. You might be no better off if your bank charges you for setting up or for in-payments. Dbfirs 20:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there something like snapshot.debian.org for Ubuntu releases?

Hi, Debian recently started to offer a snapshot service at http://snapshot.debian.org/ - making a local mirror for large-scale, tested patch roll-outs obsolete. Is there a similar service for Ubuntu, and if not, are there plans to implement this in the near future? -- 78.43.60.58 (talk) 11:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thoes Small Icons What Are In Line With The Title

this is also on the Miscellaneous page

like on protected, spoken and featured pages

when mediawiki:sitenotice is being used, they stay in line with the title

on my wiki, they dont stay in line (see here)

iv coppied

• Common.js
• Monobook.js
• Common.css
• Monobook.css

to my wiki but it just wont do it, i dont want to use "demospace" because i want to use my own custom icons

how do i get it to work?

-Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 12:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's being transluced from a template. You need to copy the template and any translutions the template uses for it to work. 82.44.54.83 (talk) 12:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Disappearing Ink(jet)

Hi Refdeskers, I bought an HP Inkjet printer last fall. I've barely used it since then, maybe 20 pages or so, and those mostly black. However, lately I've been getting these "Ink Alert"s popping up, and sure enough, when I check the ink status, its been dropping steadily since I bought it, and pages I print now do in fact back up that the ink has run out. Is this a normal think for inkjets to do? Where does all that ink go?

See this link, which claims that the ink cartridge that came with your printer probably has a "G" at the end of the cartridge number, meaning HP skimped on their quality by shipping you a "starter cartridge" containing about half the normal amount of ink. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, thats a bit of a chapper, isn't it? Even still, given my minimal use of the printer, would the ink level just decline over time like this?

The only place it would go is if it were dripping out of the bottom of the cartridge — take a look inside the printer underneath the cartridge(s) to see if there's any leak. (Personally, I don't remember ever seeing an ink cartridge leak that was not caused by me in some way.) If not then I guess HP gave you an even lower amount of ink than is discussed in the article. I would expect that would be the problem, and would expect that the sensor system for detecting the ink level is just pretty inaccurate. Sorry! Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wait a minute, there's more. Someone smarter than I will have to elaborate on this point, but I recently opened an ~8 year old factory-sealed box with a brand "new" HP color ink cartridge in it. It refused to print anything. No ink came out. The ink doesn't just evaporate or disappear, so I assumed that it had congealed / solidified within the cartridge or something. Since you were able to print with your cartridge, this was probably not what occurred to you, but I mention it as a possibility. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe a typical ink cartridge contains a sponge full of ink. It's not perfectly sealed, so the liquid portion slowly evaporates and the solid portion plugs up the sponge. Considering how freaking much they charge for ink cartridges, they sure are junk. StuRat (talk) 18:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Current HP starter cartridges contain only about 20 pages-worth of ink (depending on page density, of course). This forces the user to pay the extortionate price for a new cartridge soon after the purchase of the printer. Many retailers in the UK warn the purchaser about this and use it to sell replacement cartridges (on which they make much more profit) along with the printer. From personal experience, I suspect that HP also sabotage the starter cartridge to cause problems if an attempt is made to refill it! Dbfirs 21:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The inkjet article and in particular the Inkjet head design and following sections all provide some possible explanations for what you have experienced here. In my experience, inkjet printers are sold at remarkably low prices, yet replacement ink is incredibly expensive (so much so, it seems almost worthwhile buying a new printer each time the ink runs out). On the other hand, I have used the same laserjet printer for over ten years and never replaced the cartridge - there is little sign of it wearing out even after some thousands of pages. Astronaut (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have a 14-year-old laserjet printer that is still printing, but it has used many toner cartridges (and refills). I seem to get only a couple of thousand pages at the most. You must have a magic cartridge, Astronaut! (or possibly you print low-density pages) Dbfirs 20:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Inkjet printers also have warm-up and head-cleaning routines that waste a surprising amount of ink. (I don't know exactly how the HP ones work, but the Epson ones have a little sponge to the side of the paper track that the print heads squirt ink into to flush out any gunk in the print heads.) APL (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The old cartridge mentioned above that would not print might be due to it being deliberately time-limited. I refill black ink cartridges - after much practise I can now do it quickly and without getting ink everywhere. 89.240.34.241 (talk) 22:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, some cartridges have an inbuilt chip, but I don't think it stores the time. (I was wrong - see below - it can store dates.) How would it know the current time unless it asks your computer? (and you could tell it lies). I agree that refilling saves much cash, but sometimes print quality deteriorates. Dbfirs 01:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I doubt if the chip kills it, but it may be designed to clog with dried up ink after a certain time period. Just normal evaporation will do that, provided they "accidentally" forget to seal the cartridge properly. Planned obsolescence rears it's ugly (printer) head again. StuRat (talk) 03:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually some catridges do expire [12] [13]. While not something the manufacturers yell and scream about, these things aren't big secrets and the error message you get will always tell you the catridges has expired AFAIK. They can get the time from the computer but those which expire the catridges also often have an internal battery backup clock [14]. As you may notice that's mostly HP. Epson catridges don't expire by date, but they do monitor the ink levels (well so does HP) and will sometimes/usually? completely refuse to print if the ink is out or the catridges are refilled (although some companies have designed resetters although I believe you have to reset before the ink runs out otherwise it might not be possible). Canon catridges also monitor the ink levels but they will generally print if the ink is out or the catridges refilled if you overide the monitoring (which is recorded in the printer EEPROM and may create warranty issues). (As with the rest, Canon won't work if the catridges don't have the chips at all.) In all cases although some may be worse then others, the ink monitoring isn't that great and some tests have shown upto 50% wastage or something IIRC.

Incidentally HP and Epson in particular also seem to more vigiriously pursue manufacturers of alternative catridges and chips. Oh and from memory all of them also have region coding for some of their catridges and printers. I've discussed some of this before with more references if anyone is interested.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct (again)! I'd forgotten that modern printers have processors with backup batteries. Dbfirs 08:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The solution may be to buy an old second-hand printer that uses simple cartridges - which is what I do. 89.242.91.98 (talk) 10:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Config file keeps "vanishing"

Is there anything which would cause a WinXP computer to lose track of its system configuration file, and what can be done to correct it? —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 20:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

To clarify: I have both Pro and Home editions on my rig. Whenevcer I try the Professional one, I get a warning message that it can't find the system config file, and if I try the Home edition it can't find my C: drive. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 20:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

What's the exact text of the message, and when does it appear? —Korath (Talk) 21:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It appears whenever I try to boot. For Pro, it's "The system cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/CONFIG/SYSTEM You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original CD-ROM. Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair."

For Home, it reads "Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information." —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 22:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The first looks like a corrupt registry. This should allow you to boot, at least. —Korath (Talk) 23:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a no-go on this rig since I turned off System Restore. Any other suggestions? (As an aside, I'm able to load it using a boot disc, and will be moving my essential files off of it tonight so that I can reformat and reinstall.) —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 03:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a guess, but could the two keep the config files in different places in an otherwise shared directory structure ? StuRat (talk) 22:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Benchmarking AWB's typo fixing

I'm interested in quantifying the processor use / run time of AWB Typo rules. Really this is an attempt to see if we need to be more cautious about rules that aren't used much in practice for the sake of increasing speeds. Ideally I'd like to be able to say that "rule x adds y milliseconds to each 1,000 characters of page processing" or something like that.

AWB uses the .net implementation of regex libraries, and there may be other overhead in there for the plugin too. Obviously different expressions will have different time, and the word's they're checking will vary. I'm just looking for some general idea about how to benchmark these with some precision. Shadowjams (talk) 23:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Not to side-step the issue, but I'd be very surprised if the bottleneck wasn't the data transfer (over the 'net) rather than any processing. 94.168.184.16 (talk) 11:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Excel to VBA to VBScript

Excel macros are written in VBA so thee must be a way to convert a simple spreadsheet entirely to VBA and then to VBScript. Where can I find a reference to doing it? 71.100.3.207 (talk) 23:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Your logic is faulty. Excel macros are indeed written in VBA, but the behaviour of Worksheets (calculation of formulas etc) and other objects is not. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

April 13

Traveling salesman problem and taxicab geometry

How does the complexity of the traveling salesman problem change if the distances are determined by 2-dimensional taxicab geometry and constrained to have at least one integer coordinate (meaning they must be on "streets" but not necessarily at intersections? NeonMerlin 04:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Travelling_salesman_problem#With_metric_distances says that the Manhattan metric case is still NP-complete. I don't see how the constraint to have one integer coordinate changes this - as far as I know, you can specify the TSP on integers to begin with. Going from any rational TSP to an integer variant is just scaling, and computers (even abstract ones) don't do really real numbers, anyways. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Windows XP Pro doesn't boot

On boot, the computer would hang on the screen with the Windows logo and the running bar beneath. Boots fine if I press F8 and choose Last Known Good. How do I fix it so I don't have to press F8 each time? (Tried system restore, doesn't work. Can't reinstall because it is in French and I don't have the CD.)F (talk) 06:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You need to reinstall. Contact your computer manufacturer and ask for a copy of the CD. Or try Microsoft. Ale_Jrb^talk 13:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I used to have a similar problem. It was eventually cured by disabling a defective graphics driver. You can get XP to show you what is loading when it starts up. As far as I recall mine used to hang after it had loaded mump.sys (or some similar name). Mump.sys was working OK, it was what it did next that was the problem. Unfortunately XP does not tell you what is happening at that point. Try restarting it in Safe Mode. If it loads up in Safe Mode, then something it is loading in ordinary mode is the problem. 89.240.34.241 (talk) 22:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

information technology

Electronic Commerce enables an organization to operate in the areas much beyond their physical relation” Elaborate

WP:HOMEWORK. That said, you might appreciate the article on electronic commerce. Dismas|^(talk) 10:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Question about editing PHP and javascript files

I'm a programming novice. I made some small fixes to the sidebar in my website, using the following method. I feel like there must be a more efficient method, and I am wondering if you can suggest one, for the next time I need to do so.

The main challenge was FINDING the file that contains the sidebar. To do so, I first went to one of the pages on which the sidebar appears, and used the "inspect element" tool in firebug to find some identifying feature of the sidebar. In this case, it contained an identifying number, #######. Then, I downloaded the page in Filezilla and searched for " #######" in the original PHP file. In one of the locations where ####### appears, I saw the name of a javascript file. I downloaded that file, and, hallejuah, it is the place where the sidebar is stored. (For confidentiality, I won't provide the file name, but I did a google search and can tell you that it bears a generic resemblance to this file). Is there a more efficient method to locate the file that contains the sidebar?

The next challenge was editing that file. Is there a more efficient method than downloading the file in Filezilla, editing the text in Mac OS "Text edit", and uploading it again? JD Caselaw (talk) 12:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

1. No, sorry, there isn't really a better way. Why not? Because there are about a million different places that could be stored, depending on how the website was set up. If one knew that the site was set up in a predictable way (e.g. it was a WordPress site and was set up like most generic WordPress sites are), then you could say, "Oh, this kind of site always keeps its data here." But if not, then you have to either go through the code (which won't be very helpful if you aren't experienced in reading code and know how Javascript/CSS/HTML/PHP files transclude content), or, as you did, find something that will search through all the files for the right text. So I would say you're doing it pretty efficiently for someone with your professed novice ability.

2. Basically all file editing is a version of what you are describing—get content, edit it, upload it again. There are programs that can automate some of that. I think TextWrangler can let you directly save to an FTP server, skipping some of the laborious bits. It's also a more full-featured text editor than Text edit (and is free). There are other methods that are similar that are available, but they're all of the same nature. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It depeneds entirely on who wrote the code for the site - quite frankly, they could have put anything, anywhere they wanted. If there isn't any documentation, and you can't ask the person that wrote it, then there isn't any magic way to find it.

With regards to editing a site, do you not have a local copy of the files? You should do. You can then perform any 'find/replace' etc. and editing on your local copy, then just upload any changed files to the server. This helps if you have to change server, or if your host goes down etc. Ale_Jrb^talk 13:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That is indeed how one would generally maintain one's PHP website. Strictly, if one wanted to be safe, one would have a locally-hosted copy (running off a local apache or whatever) that one would use for experimentation and development and would then push changes back to the live site only when confident that they're okay. There's no substitute for understanding one's codebase, and while PHP is perhaps more amenable to tinkering that other web development systems, it's still a complete programming language, with the capabilities, and risks, that brings. Navigating the sourcebase (of your local copy) will probably be a bit easier if you use an Integrated Development Environment which is PHP aware - this article compares the PHP features of several IDEs. Incidentally you're right to hate FTP, not just because it is clunky but because it is insecure; see if your web host supports SSH instead, and if it does use WinSCP edit: an SSH/SCP client to move your files to the site. If you end up doing a lot of development, you'll probably have a "publish" script that automatically pushes changes from your development copy to your live site (using something like rsync over ssh). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Although if you are just worried about security, you could use FTPS if it's supported (which may or may not be more likely then SSH) Nil Einne (talk) 16:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone!!! 207.237.228.236 (talk) 20:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If you have shell access to the server and it is a Linux or Unix server... Once you knew the number (lets say it was 12345), you could quickly find which file(s) contain that by typing at the command prompt grep 12345 and pressing enter. You'd see a list of which files match the string and what the line that matches looks like. -- kainaw™ 04:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Opera Mini proxy for other browsers?

Opera Mini uses Opera servers as a proxy to render web pages into a faster format (see here). Would it be possible to make a plugin for another browser (say, Mozilla Firefox) that can utilize this same functionality too? The main benefits would be speed (if you are on a slow connection) and anonymity (because of the proxy). Now, I know that I can already run Opera Mini directly on my PC using a Java ME emulator, like MicroEmulator; but having to use the phone interface is awkward and inconvenient. I want to be able to use the typical Firefox buttons and keyboard shortcuts and bookmarks and stuff, but have the browsing done through the Opera Mini protocol. Has anyone done anything like this? It would be kind of analogous to when one uses a third-party instant messenger client instead of the official AIM, MSN, Yahoo, or whatever clients. Thanks, --169.232.246.47 (talk) 19:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This would be difficult to accomplish because as far as I know, only Opera (the company) knows how their special markup language works. This could be reverse engineered, but it is also far more complicated than a simple IM protocol. Most third party IM clients only support text chat and a few basic "extra" functions for protocols that are not open source. These protocols can change at any time and if Opera Mini's rendering engine, markup language, or any component necessary to display a web page were to change, the plugin would no longer work. You see this with the multi-protocol IM clients from time to time, and I could only imagine that it would be worse with Opera Mini. It could be done, but I'm not surprised that no one has put the effort into doing it. Caltsar (talk) 20:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Much of the speedup is to be had by downsizing images and removing content that's not appropriate for the small-footprint environment (like java applets or flash). Some of this can be achieved with a web accelerator, which has the advantage of retaining the normal web protocols and file formats while reducing bandwidth (and, depending on the context, maybe latency). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I know in the past (don't know if they still do, perhaps it's on by default but you can disable it) Vodafone NZ use to do the downsizing images and perhaps other things when browsing through a mobile Nil Einne (talk) 23:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

XP Pro SP2 Blue screen

Windows XP on start up blue screens with: "BAD_POOL_CALLER" Tech Info: " ***STOP: 0x000000c2 (0x00000040, 0x00000000, 0x80000000, 0x00000000". Safe modes OK. Restore point to: -30 days no help. Any pointers before a reload of the OS? 70.177.189.205 (talk) 23:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Prior to it going sour, did you notice your PC behave in any unusual manner? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 04:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, At Windows logon, upon logging on, it would say "Loading" and then bounce back to Windows logon.70.177.189.205 (talk) 10:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

April 14

Setting up an external image editor

I need to change the background of many images from here and would like to use (Windows) IrfanView as the external image editor. Studied the Mediawiki installation instructions extensively, but something is missing. Selected the default external editor on My Preferences, and added this to my monobook.js on the Commons:

 addOnloadHook(function() {
    var editTab = document.getElementById("ca-edit");
    if (!editTab) return;
    var editURL = editTab.getElementsByTagName("a")[0].href;
    addPortletLink("p-cactions", editURL + "&externaledit=true", "EE", "ca-exted", "External editor", "");
 });
 

Whenever I try to edit an image like this, I get the following (index.php) in my text editor and no image.

[Process]
Type=Edit text
Engine=MediaWiki
Script=http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
Server=http://commons.wikimedia.org
Path=/w
Special namespace=Special


[File]
Extension=wiki
URL=http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:TPSMV1P112.jpg&action=edit&internaledit=true

I am using FF 3.6.3 on Win XP SP3 and frankly, I am lost. Can someone help me through this? Ineuw talk page on en.ws 00:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Latex: 2 Questions

1. How can I force headers, footers and pagenumbers to be displayed on chapter title pages? I'm using report document class and fancyhdr package. I've tried putting \pagestyle{fancy} before and after \chapter{XX}
2. How can I stop toc and tofigures pages from displaying pagenumbers? I've tried putting \pagestyle{empty} before and after \tableofcontents.

59.93.41.156 (talk) 03:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Disown child processes without forking

In POSIX, is there any way for a parent process to disown its children without changing its own pid (as happens if we fork and continue only as the child), or to disown some of its children but not all? NeonMerlin 03:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No. --Sean 16:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Python: Filtering with inequalities

In Python, is there a way to use "filter" with an inequality as the function? More specifically, is there a (very brief) way to use "filter" to pluck, for example, all items less than 5 out of a list? --Lucas Brown 03:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The lambda keyword is probably as brief as it can get:

newlist = filter(lambda x: x<5, oldlist)

98.226.122.10 (talk) 04:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Why didn't I think of that? Anyway, that should do nicely--thanks! --Lucas Brown 19:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Python has list comprehensions --194.197.235.240 (talk) 06:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

...thus: newlist = [x for x in oldlist if x < 5]. Filter is fine if you have a pre-built (and possibly complex) test function, but I think list comprehensions are easier to construct and more intuitive for simple comparisons. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm doing stuff with time comparisons, and I've already implemented the process with list comprehensions. --Lucas Brown 19:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Can using a laptop on a bumpy road damage it?

My company-issued laptop's hard disk failed this morning. It's a brand known for low-quality and correlation does not imply causation, but still I wonder: these past 2 months I've been using it for programming during the 30 minute company bus rides to and from work. The roads around here are awful, and it's a steady stream of bumps and jitters. How resistant are today's laptops to this sort of thing? It's certainly not a normal working environment, but it's not so bumpy as to prevent me from being productive... 59.46.38.107 (talk) 06:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I certainly would prefer a solid state drive for that application. StuRat (talk) 06:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing that probably affects the mean time to failure; so if you ran hundreds of test cases with laptops in a bus and compared the failure rate to laptops not used in a bumpy bus, you'd probably notice a trend. The extent to which that trend decreases the expected lifetime for a single laptop depends on how severe the mechanical stresses from the bumps are, but it is a real and known effect that shaking reduces the lifetime of a hard-disk drive and increases the chance of catastrophic failure. If you know the laptop make and model, or the hard-disk type, we might be able to dig up some mechanical stress test reports. Also, as StuRat has suggested, a solid-state drive is less likely to fail because of mechanical jostling - and many laptop hard-drives can be replaced with SSDs, so this may be an option if you're concerned. After hard-disks, the next most likely mechanical failure trouble spot for laptops tends to be the monitor backlight or the screen itself. Nimur (talk) 14:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Rest the laptop on a cushion on your knee (assuming you arnet driveing).--BandUser (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

VBScript and JavaScript

Is the software to write VBScript and JavaScript applications free? Or is it similar to CSS where you get the basic software free, notepad/notepad++, and then have to pay for more advanced software such as DreamWeaver?

Thanks --195.49.180.89 (talk) 10:57, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You can write JavaScript, CSS, and HTML just fine with notepad++, and doing so is a perfectly reasonable way of working. You never need a web development program like DreamWeaver; while some people find such programs easy and productive to use others find them restrictive and the websites they produce amateurish. Large websites are almost always generated by programs that its maintainers have written (using languages like PHP, Java, and Python) rather than built either with a text editor or a website builder like DreamWeaver. If I can suggest one free tool for you, the Firefox extension Firebug allows you to edit and debug everything you've discussed fine, and many other related web creating things to boot. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You do not have to pay for DreamWeaver. People choose to purchase DreamWeaver to avoid typing out what they want - and too often to avoid learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I write a lot of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML and have never used anything even similar to DreamWeaver. -- kainaw™ 12:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm in the same boat but it's worth remembering that this knowledge did not come for free. It takes an immense amount of time to become fluent in HTML, CSS, and Javascript to the point where you can easily read other's code and can easily write your own to accomplish your tasks. If you multiplied that time by even a conservative wage, you're talking a huge amount of money that you've invested in it—far more than the cost of buying a Dreamweaver license. I've had people ask me, "how do I learn these so I can do the same things you can do?" and I really don't have a helpful answer ("play around with it for, I don't know, five years, and by then you'll probably be at the same level I am"). Dreamweaver can be a useful way for people to jump into web design without trying to learn all the basics first, much less learn how the basics of the code interface with their ideas of good design (which is a somewhat different question). I don't use Dreamweaver and have never had the need for it, but I understand that not everybody wants to take the more tedious (and potentially less promising) route, especially if their full-time occupation does not involve web design. Some people honestly do just want to buy their fish a day at a time and not learn how to become a fisherman; I don't think that's necessarily a bad choice depending on their situation. I only wish applications like Dreamweaver and etc. played better with hand-written code. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The notepad approach to web design is long and tedious but you can make anything with it once you are good at it. The Dreamweaver approach is to have a program that abstracts away a lot of the underlying code (but not all of it) in exchange for you getting to design things in a more "visual" fashion. (Instead of typing in the name of the font you want, and changing its size and styling, and then saving and viewing the page in a browser, you can just select the font properties the same way you would in, say, Microsoft Word, and see what that looks like immediately). On a Computing board you are almost universally going to get people who prefer doing it the slow and hard way—it's something of a systemic bias, because that's how self-professed "Computer" people do things. There are advantages to doing it that way—you have better control over what you make, and can do certain tasks a lot quicker, once you know how to do them. And that's the rub: it takes a lot of time to get good at hand-coding things. Dreamweaver and related products let you jump over a lot of the technical stuff, but at the cost of things generally looking less fine-tuned and often with more buggy or problematic code. Suffice to say, you don't need Dreamweaver to do Javascript or CSS or HTML. Most sites are not made with anything like Dreamweaver—they are just hand-coded in notepad or other development products. But it takes a lot of time to learn how to do that well. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

My favorite VBScript and JavaScript editor is Visual Studio. There is a free version just for web applications that you can download called Visual Web Developer Express. The code hinting for JS and VBS is much better inside Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer than in Dreamweaver. It's also a bit easier to learn than DW. I use PrimalScript for administration scripts. But you're just writing JS and VBS for web development, try Visual Web Developer.--Chmod 777 (talk) 20:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Cryptography: Password entry method

I'm looking for more information on a method of password entry where a user doesn't have to remember an alphanumeric string as a password, instead they remember a pattern. A user picks a pattern from a grid, thus:

1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16

So in this case their password would be 1, 2, 6, 10, 11. The next time they log on they might get:

4	8	3	15
1	13	2	16
14	9	7	12
5	11	10	6

And their password would be 4, 8, 13, 9, 7. Has anyone seen this before? --Rixxin (talk) 12:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Something similar is mentioned in Password#Alternatives_to_passwords_for_access_control. However, these systems are not very practical.

In this case, the underlying numbers would be irrelevant; the password is still the thing that the person remembers. (It doesn't have any security implications that there's a different format for transmitting it from time to time, because the user and the attacker both get to know what that format is.) I believe that graphical passwords like this aren't used because they don't carry enough information. On a 4x4 grid (assuming order matters), the number of possible length-5 passwords is only about half a million. There are three times as massing length-4 passwords that use only lowercase letters and numbers. Also your example password is contiguous (which makes it a lot easier to remember). There are fewer than 16*4*3*3*3=1728 contiguous length-5 passwords possible, which is an extremely small space.

Essentially, text-based passwords sit in a sweet spot of being possible to remember and reconstruct accurately, while still covering a large possible range.

It is possible to use 2D art to identify objects to humans. If you see a different image than the one you're used to, you know that something is up:

The key fingerprint is:
c6:b1:78:d6:fc:0f:eb:6e:3d:47:0d:4b:f9:c2:9c:0d paul@saffron 
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|                 |
|                 |
|        .      . |
|       o =    E  |
|      . S o  + B.|
|       +   .  * =|
|            o. o |
|            .+o .|
|           ++ .o |
+-----------------+

Paul (Stansifer) 14:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Internet Connections window crashes

After a fresh install of WinXP on my rig, I tried to set up an internet connection thru my LAN (as I've done in the past). However, upon attempting to open the network connections window Explorer crashes, and upon attemting the New Connections Wizard it crashes. What the heck is going on? —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 15:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Getting Quicktime onto my Mac

I've got an iMac which I keep offline, and a PC which is online. The version of Quicktime on my Mac needs updating so I was going to copy over the application file from my PC, which has been recently updated. I assumed this would work. But then I looked at the two 'Quicktime Player' files on both machines and the one on my PC is just 1.7MB and the older one (2007) on my Mac is 24MB. This seems like quite a difference in size and made me think that it's not going to be as easy as just copying the application file over. Any thoughts how I should get a new QT on my Mac? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.111.76.107 (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You would need to copy the Quicktime files from another Mac. The PC's files would be different because they are written and compiled for a Windows environment. Also, with Quicktime on the Mac you are updating several core components of the operating system while on the PC you are updating the player and a few plugins. On OS X, Quicktime components are scattered all over and finding all the files you need to update is no trivial task. Connecting to a network temporarily or downloading the Quicktime installer for Mac from Apple's website would be the way to update. From the PC, go to apple.com/quicktime, find the download link, and find a small link titled "Get QuickTime for Macintosh." Caltsar (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Linux group root?

On Linux, is there any way to allow a non-root user to perform actions as root if they only affect his own group? I'm thinking, in particular, of the following commands and corresponding system calls: adduser, deluser, moduser, passwd, chown, chmod, su, sudo, kill, renice +. NeonMerlin 17:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Those are inherently rooty actions. I wonder if what you really want is virtual servers for the different groups. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 21:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

vpython related error

window xp is installed on my computer at derive d:vpython was installed on my computer.by deleting some files or otherwise ,it does not work properly.if i uninstall python25 ,and vpython from my computer and then install both first python 25 and vpython on D:\python25 .installation becomes successful but programmes does not work,for examle bounce.py does not work properly by giving this message : raise Runtime Error,"Neither numeric ,nor numarray could not be found." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.110.243 (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Python/TI-BASIC: indirections

TI-BASIC (the dialects of BASIC used on the TI graphing calculators has what they call an "indirection." It work as follows: a be a string (let's say that a="b"), and let x be a variable storing any value (let's say that x=1). Then we can store the contents of x as a variable whose name is the string in a with the command x --> #a--i.e., after executing that command, a variable b would be created (if it didn't already exist) with 1 as its contents.

To take another example, consider the following TI-BASIC code:

:abcde(l)
:Prgm
:Local t, n
:dim(l) --> n
:For t,1,n
:l[t] --> #"a"&str(t)
:EndFor
:EndPrgm

After executing abcde({2,3,5,7,11,13}), the variables a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, and a6 would be created (if they didn't already exist) and a1=2, a2=3, a3=5, a4=7, a5=11, and a6=13. After all that explanation, my actual question is rather disappointingly short: is there a similar feature in Python? --Lucas Brown 20:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You can do something like that by monkeying with the globals() dict, but it's generally not a good idea, and doesn't work for locals() at all. Just using a regular dict is usually the way to go.

Python 2.6.4 (r264:75706, Dec  7 2009, 18:45:15)
[GCC 4.4.1] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> a = 'b'
>>> x = 1
>>> globals()[a] = x
>>> b
1

Winston365 (talk) 21:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Purchasing a Motherboard

Before purchasing a motherboard what should be known to make a decision? I know the question isn't very specific but I would like to know what motherboard details I should be researching before I decide to purchase a motherboard. (Sorry if this question was asked before I could not find a similar question in the archives.) 174.22.229.237 (talk) 21:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What kind of CPU do you want to plug in? This will narrow your choice. What size will fit in your case? How much memory, disk drive connectors, slots, USB, firewire (maximum growth potential)? Memory technology? Do you want built in video or sound, or will you supply your own cards? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree on all counts with Graeme Bartlett, and would add customer support as a criterion. How quickly do they respond to e-mail requests for help? At least one motherboard manufacturer has a terrible reputation in this area. (Maybe all of them do, for all I know.) Another issue that may be something for you to consider is how much overclocking support the motherboard features. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hang out on a site like anandtech.com for a while and get a sense of what brands are good and bad. For a low end system, building up from a motherboard instead of getting a mini all-in-one isn't really worth it any more. For higher end, you have to have a sense of what features you want, since boards go off in different directions. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 21:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)