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May 8

Screen capture for Mac OS X

Hi, does anyone know of any good screen capture programs/cards for Mac OS X? Has anyone had any experiences with them? What did you think of it? Do you have any recommendations? Chevymontecarlo. 04:13, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a Mac user, but how about this? And this page may be helpful. Oda Mari (talk) 05:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Hey, thanks. The first link sounds really good. I'll look for reviews. I'm surprised it's free! :) Chevymontecarlo. 06:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

/Applications/Utilities/Grab that comes with OSX works fine for me. --Chan Tai Man 00:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chantaiman (talk • contribs)

Local Dropbox?

So, Dropbox is a great tool, and I believe the client at least is open source. What I would like to see is a way to duplicate the functionality while keeping it local, i.e., at the router. On my network I frequently download things on one PC, then will later add it to dropbox so it syncs on the file server of my network, then I move that copy and delete the files from dropbox. This is becoming a problem though, as I have additional bandwidth usage here. Instead of downloading, say, a 100mb file, I download, upload, and download it again, so the cost is 300mb of bandwidth. As I am now hitting my bandwidth cap, I am wondering if there is an equally simple, auto- or semi-automated process to do this same functions? Thanks in advance! 98.236.176.190 (talk) 06:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

What operating systems do you have on your server and PC? --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:13, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Windows XP/Vista on the clients, Windows Server 2003 on the Server. 98.236.176.190 (talk) 19:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe that you could download them to the Server, then use the Offline Files facility in XP to synch them automatically to your clients. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Be aware that Dropbox has a LAN sync option that can at least eliminate the last download in your process: Computer A downloads from source, uploads to Dropbox; LAN computers B, C, and D sync from LAN computer A. --Bavi H (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Targus Driver

i have a targus usb pc camera(model: AVC04AP, part:DC-5126, SN:0801000237). i miss placed its driver cd. i have been trying to find the driver on the internet but i couldn't, may be because i know less about how to find stuffs on the internet. i'll be grateful if some body provides me a link from where i could easily download the driver. i am a newbie to this site. --Kelzdorjee (talk) 07:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

This is not easy to find. Go to targus.com, select "United States" and click "support". Then you get here: [1]. Click "Locating drivers and manuals", and you get here: [2]. Click Downloads, and you end up here: [3]. Then they inform you that the downloads page has been moved, and asks you to search for your product name instead. But you get no matches for either "AVC04AP" or "usb pc camera". A general Google search for "targus usb pc camera", AVC04AP, or 0801000237 yields nothing. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It would have been helpful if the page said where the infomation had been moved to. I did a search for "camera" and it yielded many camera bags and just one actual camera on the US site: the AVC0101LA. Looking elsewhere in the world, I found downloads for AVC02EU, AVC03EU and AVC05EU cameras in the UK (selectable from the last list), and support for the AVC0102 camera in Australia (very bottom of the page). If none of these will do, you might find similar downloads for your specific camera by selecting your country and following the support options from there. You could also try contacting the country-specifc support by phone or email to ask if they can send a disk, email you a download link or suggest a compatible driver from the ones they do have available for download. Astronaut (talk) 12:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

AVC04 is specifically mentioned on this page (the result of a Google search) and a few others related to the same BAP0011 webcam &headset kit. Astronaut (talk) 17:01, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Auto reconnect network drive

I have a laptop computer running windows xp, and use windows file sharing over my wifi network. I have several locations mapped as network drives, which makes them show up in My Computer. This allows me to, for example, have my music collection stored on another machine but the iTunes on this machine treats it as local (is there an easier way to do this?). The problem is that when the machine boots up or wakes up from hibernation the network drives show up as Disconnected, probably because the connection to the wifi network happens after startup. The drive will reconnect if I open it in Windows Explorer, but if I open iTunes while it is disconnected then all my music shows little gray !'s by them. Apparently iTunes trying to access the drive does not reconnect it, but opening the folder does.

Is there any way to fix this in Windows? If not could some little script be written that whenever iTunes is opened, drive J:\ should be accessed in such a way that it is reconnected? Thanks for your help. mislih 13:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

VGA cables, thick or thin

My 10-year old CRT monitor failed recently with crackles of static electricity and eventually disappearing forever with a fading dot - just like a 50's TV! I got myself a replacement LCD monitor with a picture every bit as good as the one on the old CRT. One minor difference I did notice was that the VGA cable on the old monitor is about twice as thick as the cable on the new monitor. The old cable also has two lumps in the cable (like the dark lump in this cable - what are they called?) while the new cable has just one lump. Has cable technology improved in 10 years such that a thick cable and two lumps are no longer required, or does my new monitor simply have an inferior cable? And is the lump better positioned close to the monitor or to my PC's video card. Astronaut (talk) 15:33, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The bumps are called ferrite beads and act as low pass filters to reduce electrical noise. 131.111.185.69 (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess it is manufacturers being cheap. You can also see it in PC cases. Old cases have quite a bit of heft; new ones feels like you can bend it with your bare hands. 121.74.136.10 (talk) 10:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I kind of assumed that cost was a big factor in supplying a thinner cable. But, since the newer thinner cable doesn't seem to affect the resulting image, why did the old monitor have such a thick cable? Astronaut (talk) 13:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Are we even referring to the same type of cable here? The CRT monitor almost definitely had a cable with a DE-15M plug used for transmitting an Analog RGB video signal. If new cable has DVI-D then it's only for transmitting a digital signal. These are completely different types of signals and comparing them makes little sense. In particular, with a digital signal the cable will (mostly) either work or won't, if it doesn't work, it will have clear problems (e.g. intermittent reception or simply not working at all) rather then simply a reduced quality signal or some signs of interference in the output with an analog signal. BTW if your new LCD monitor isn't using a DVI-D cable, nor a DVI-I, you may want to see if it supports DVI-D and if it does consider using this instead at some stage. Nil Einne (talk) 08:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Both cables are definitely VGA. The new monitor doesn't support DVI of any form. That doesn't bother me though, none of my PCs have anything other than VGA output anyway. Astronaut (talk) 08:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

OCR reading of poor text

If I made a copy of something and then re-copied again and again with 1500 different copying machines, each time from the previous copy, would OCR sofware be able to read this 1500th down line copy?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Not well. OCR has enough issues with pristine copies. APL (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It would perhaps be easier just to OCR the original? ;) ╟─TreasuryTag►First Secretary of State─╢ 22:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I hAve seen copies of copies of copies and how each time there is some degradation. I would imagine at the 1500th down-line copy that the text would be very corrupted. So much so, that I would guess the the best of the OCR softwares would not be able to read it. Perhaps at that level even humans would have trouble. Are those a fair statements?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:39, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

It would really depend on the copying machines. I've worked with some that would be illegible by humans within ten generations, let alone 1500. —Korath (Talk) 23:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Say for the sake of argument that a random area equivalent to two 0.5mmx0.5mm specks is obscured with every copy. For an A4 paper sheet (~ U.S. letter size) this means that after 1500 copies approximately 1.2% of the page will be obscured by the copying process (1-(1-(2*0.5 mm*0.5 mm)/(210 mm*298 mm))^1500). This compares to an ink coverage of 4-5% for an average page of printed text. OCR would be difficult, at best. -- 174.21.225.115 (talk) 17:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Easier just to type it in again if you've got a typist friend. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Korath that it depends on the copy machines, and probably the original text. I have used machines that repeated photocopying of the same page (don't ask why) did not change things significantly after copy #1 (which polarized it but that was all). This was something typed on a typewriter—very simple to begin with. A scan out of a book that has a lot of page "noise" would probably be more troublesome. But on a new machine you could probably do pretty well—I'm not sure copy #1000 would really look that different from copy #10. On older machines, or dirty ones, you'll get worse results. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Windows XP Explorer columns

The Windows XP Explorer displays several columns with data in its right pane, e.g. file name, size. What does the column "status" mean? Almost all my files are labeled "online" in this column. Why is this? And what do the letter like A, H and so on in the "attributes" column mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.157.107.213 (talk) 22:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

If I'm remembering this correctly, A=Archive, H=Hidden, R=Read-only and S=System ... they are the attribute flags that Windows' file system supports. Archive is something to do with whether the file is picked up by a backup process (either backing up clears this flag and changing the file sets it to ensure the changed file is backed up next time, or vice versa). Hidden and Read-only are self explanatory. System is like an extra level of hiding a file. See attrib for more detail. No idea what the status column means. Astronaut (talk) 22:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The 'Status' column is useful when working with files available offline, typically a folder shared over your network.[4] It is probably less useful when viewing a local drive.Cander0000 (talk) 04:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Save every image seen in the browser

Is there any free software that will save every image displayed in my browser, to my hard disk? There are some utilities that will save images from the cache to HD, but only a few of the images seen are in the cache. I'm using WinXP. I think I recall seeing a description of some freeware like this, but do not know what it was. Google search has found nothing. Thanks 92.24.17.70 (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a built-in capability in Windows operating systems to capture screen images. Use Alt-PrintScreen to capture the contents of the window that currently has the focus. It will be stored in the clipboard. Then bring up any graphics program (MS Paint will work fine) and use Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard into a new image. You can crop this to save any parts of the image you like. Use Shift-PrintScreen to capture the entire desktop including the current window. Linux has similar functionality, using Alt-PrintScreen for the window with focus, or PrintScreen for the entire desktop. --CaritasUbi (talk) 03:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Not sure thats what the OP meant Caritas. But one thing, every image displayed on your browser will be a hell of a lot, take [5] for example, it won't just be the pictures, it will also be the boxes and the backgrounds and the icons, and that's not even including the ad's most pages have. Are you sure you actually want that?--Jac16888^Talk 04:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I am acustomed to filtering the results. I do not just want to save a static screen, but what is shown as the screen changes over time. Thanks. 78.146.175.181 (talk) 11:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You could use web crawler software and filter the result to only save images. To get changes, you might have to re-run the crawler on a regular basis. Astronaut (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Try DownThemAll!; it will save every image on a given page (although not all of them altogether). Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem is where the images you want are shown in a scrolling window - I do not think the above suggestions would work for that. (I am not talking about Flash). 84.13.53.169 (talk) 12:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

May 9

Wav to ogg command line converter

Let me generalize my earlier question. Can anyone recommend a Windows program that will convert .wav audio files to .ogg audio files from the command line? I can't get VLC to do so (as seen above). Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:00, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

SoX can do this. —Korath (Talk) 05:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

In the past, at least, OGG's project site used to have command line windows compiled converters. Lame can do the same I think in a *nix environment and it's probably been compiled in windows too. Shadowjams (talk) 07:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Try oggenc2 from here. -- BenRG (talk) 07:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I ended up using SoX. Thank you! Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Chur

What is your scouse that Chur, Switzerland dates back to 3500-3900 BC? Thank you for your help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.5.129 (talk) 02:01, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That statement in the Chur article indeed does not have an inline citation, so, because you asked, I added a "citation needed" tag to the statement. In the future, you should add such questions to the "discussion" page of the article in question. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

And thank you Tobyc75 for adding the inline citation! Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Comparing processors

There's an old Dell Dimension 5150 that both my bro-in-law and I want. He wants it for this which says that the software requires an Intel Core 2 Duo. This Dell documentation says that the 5150 has an Intel Pentium 4. Am I right in thinking that the Pentium 4 won't meet the requirements that my bro-in-law wants it for? Dismas|^(talk) 03:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That's correct; any Pentium 4 is slower than any Core 2 Duo. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Unfortunately for me, after all that, I was told that my father-in-law changed everything in the system including the motherboard... Why nobody told me this in the first place is anyone's guess! Arg!! Dismas|^(talk) 14:40, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Emails

I am using Thunderbird for the first time but it sends an error report: Sending of message failed. The message could not be sent using SMTP server smtp.gmail.com for an unknown reason. Please verify that your SMTP server settings are correct and try again, or contact your network administrator. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 09:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Details are here. In particular, you have step 20's information set wrongly. Make sure that the TLS button is checked, and that the port is set to 587. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 09:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Advanced programs for recognizing songs/compositions

Hello.
I was always wondering about one thing - how to recognize MP3 with its sound and to auto-tag MP3s. So I did some research and found some programs that can handle with that problem.
Here they are:
1. MusicBrainz Picard ([6])
2. Jaikoz ([7])
3. TuneUp ([8]).
Those programs use two different databases (first and second one - MusicBrainz's database, third one - Gracenote's). As I checked it up it seemed that Gracenote's database is much bigger (according to its site ([9]) it has over 100 millions tracks with an audio fingerprints for over 28 millions tracks) than MusicBrainz (about 9,5 million).
So I have checked up some of my music files if those programs can identify them. It seems all those applications can identify well-known songs but there are some minor and major problems if songs aren't so famous (e.g. Japanese songs and different performances of a classical pieces). I thought it could be better if in these cases the whole tracks should be analysed (with Gracenote's MusicID or MusicBrainz's MusicIP). Because acoustic fingerprinting uses only short fragments of compositions (it cuts down the time that's needed to identify a song).
Another thing - MB's database is created by all users. Its quality of auto-tagging depends from how tags have been filled by users (and you know - you can never know how precisely it has been done).
So, here are my questions:
1. Is there any program that analysis whole tracks instead of small fragments?
2. Do you know how is database of Gracenote created (exactly - who and how often add new tracks)? If they have some contacts with music industries and from those industries they receive tracks with filled ID3 or something like that?
It seems to me it would be perfect if in a program would be an option to check whole track or only its fragment and if a database has been professionally created (if it could be done with a collaboration of releasers - it sounds amazing for me).
Thanks in advance for your help!Yuugari (talk) 10:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Trouble accessing website

I'm having trouble accessing zshare.net. Every time I try, firefox returns the error "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at zshare.net" etc. However, I know the site is up and operational because I've checked via proxy. So the problem must be with my computer or my ISP. I've restarted my computer, restarted my router, flushed the dns cache, tried used OpenDNS, and I still can't access zshare.net. Is there anything else I can try? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE: Apparently zshare.net is resolving to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), and I can access zshare if I use their ip instead of their domain, so this must be a problem with my computer. What has happened here? How do I fix it? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it's being mapped to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file? There's a table in the article that tells you where to find the file, depending on what OS you use. I'm at a loss for why it would be in the hosts file in the first place, but it fits the symptoms, at least. Paul (Stansifer) 11:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the host file, and there's nothing there except the example text "This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows." and some stuff about how to use it 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Try running diagnostic on the router; most will have the ability to do a ping or traceroute. If it goes properly from the router... it's your computer. If not, it's your router or upstream. Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's the zshare.net IP for reference: 213.171.195.53 . Try running the command 'nslookup zdshare.net' and maybe dump the results here (assuming Windows, but I believe nslookup works on mac as well.)--rocketrye12 ^{talk/contribs} 15:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Works on Linux as well. I got this:

Server: 62.179.1.63

Address: 62.179.1.63#53

Non-authoritative answer:

53.195.171.213.in-addr.arpa

name = server213-171-195-53.livedns.org.uk.

Authoritative answers can be found from:

...and nothing more after the colon. I can access it now, and got redirected to plunder.com. --Ouro (blah blah) 06:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Use of "Wikipedia"

Why do many people use "Wikipedia" to refer simply to the English Wikipedia? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 11:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Because its the biggest and most well known Wikipedia I imagine--Jac16888^Talk 11:33, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

And because the people you know probably all are speaking English. I imagine if a Russian says, "go look it up on Wikipedia," he might be implying the Russian version. (One could also make an historical argument here—for a long time, even wikipedia.org just redirected you to en.wikipedia.org. But I don't think that's really what people are taking into consideration.) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:19, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Brevity? For the same reason people say "The news" instead of specifying the channel, or saying they watched "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" or "Sesame Street" without mentioning which nationalized version they watched? No point spelling out the obvious. APL (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a chain of grocery stores in the US Midwest called Jewel. They often partner with a chain of pharmacies called Osco. When I was a kid, a friend of mine used to refer to the Jewel near our house (literally within 10 minutes walking distance) as the "Jewel Osco". He said it was to differentiate between this Jewel and the one a couple of towns away which didn't have an Osco pharmacy. Even at 12 years old or whatever I was, it still sounded strange when he used both company names instead of simply truncating it to just "Jewel". The point is, why use more words than you have to when everyone will understand what you mean by just saying "Wikipedia"? Dismas|^(talk) 00:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

an example of Polymorphism in communication, potentially making the assumption - rightly or wrongly - that both parties have the same frame of reference.Cander0000 (talk) 01:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I am still peeved that many of my colleagues use the word "wiki" (without further qualification) to refer to Wikipedia. This is especially problematic because we have a different, other, internal wiki for research use. Many people simply have a high tolerance for speaking ambiguously, with context and assumptions that are unstated. As far as I am concerned, every proper noun should be fully qualified. Nimur (talk) 02:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, Mr. Nimur Smith of 223 Rottendam Plaza, Nob Hill, London, England, Europe, Earth. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Why did you stop at earth? Nil Einne (talk) 13:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It seemed like a nice place to visit... -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Earth,Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Cluster, The Universe --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Guys, you're missing my point! Wikipedia isn't paper: we can be fully qualified and concise, thanks to the magic of hypertext. A link to my user-page fully qualifies me as "that human or software entity who controls the user-account Nimur on the website with Uniform Resource Identifier http://en.wikipedia.org". Because of the way we designed the internet, that URI is globally-qualified; and my user-account is therefore unique and fully-qualified. I don't have to write out my whole biography or address in plain-text every time. Nimur (talk) 10:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

NMEA 0183 protocol

Those who know NMEA 0183 please see Talk:NMEA 0183#Suspicious example and verify the example described there, added to the article in the February 1, 2007 edit. --CiaPan (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of something that is beyond the role of an encyclopedia article. The article should direct you to the official standard, but it shouldn't really be duplicating or describing the official standard to that level of detail. Such content is prone to error, isn't really encyclopedic, and is difficult to verify. Nimur (talk) 02:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

But official standard is not publicly available — one must pay to obtain it, and it is copyrighted (one is not allowed to redistribute it or quote in extenso), so 'directing to the official standard' is in fact directing for shopping... Anyway you confirm my suspection: despite being correct or not, the example is not appropriate here, and I'm going to remove it soon (if there are no replies for my request on the article talk page). --CiaPan (talk) 06:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate Search Software

I read somewhere about some software what could search for duplicate images what are the same but under different names.

does anyone know what this is called or where to find it

Sophie 16:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

TinEye? --Phil Holmes (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Duplicate File Finder .tkqj (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Firefox acting funny; adware removal

Firefox has been acting strangely of late. Among other things, It will spontaneously open up tabs to a variety of commercial sites and redirect me to similar sites when I try to click on Google search results, instead of leading me to the links I clicked on.

I'm almost positive I have some sort of malware on my system, but I'm afraid to click on any search results for "malware removal" since who knows what those programs could be hosting. Can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) program or other steps to get Firefox to behave the way it should? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.242.15.205 (talk) 18:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Try Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, it is pretty good and is safe. For more extensive probing, try the Viruses FAQ. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

If you havnt done so already, then you need to instal an antivirus program. There are several good free programs available. I use Avast!. You can also do additional scans with other antivirus software which does not run-all-the-time. I do extra scans from time to time with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Superantispyware, or Spybot – Search & Destroy, as they do find different malware. However, only have one run-all-the-time antivirus installed. I suggest running Ccleaner before you do a scan as it cleans some of the garbage out and should result in a faster scan. I also like using Advanced SystemCare but it is not a complete antivirus program. Wikipedia seems to lack a simple list of free anti-malware programs. Other programs include Microsoft Security Essentials, and Ad-Aware which I do not like. 84.13.53.169 (talk) 12:55, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Anything you download from http://download.cnet.com/ , http://www.filehippo.com/ or http://www.softpedia.com/ is 100% safe because each hosted file is individually and manually checked for malware and stability. Each of those sites host wide range of free security applications and you can take your pick and download few (it is always good to scan with multiple programs cause none of them are perfect). Particular mention deserves HijackThis, a VERY powerful program but not newbie friendly, so don't use unless under detailed instructions because you can cause damage ( it is not malware, but if you don't know what you are doing it can be dangerous). And to expand on previous answer, good free antivirus programs are AVG Free, ClamAV and Avast. And you are right to take especial care with your search because there is malware that disguises itself as anti-malware programs as well as commercial programs that could do the cleanup, but you'd have to buy 'em.--Melmann^(talk) 15:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

May 10

Ultimate Boot Disk

Contrary to my title, this isn't specifically about UBCD. I have a long-term project I'd like to work on, but have sort of hit a wall in my process: I'd like to create a bootable disk (preferably USB) with all my favorite technician tools on it. Anti-virus software, backup tools, system restore tools, etc. I would like it to be configurable so that I can add new programs at a later date and I need it to boot quickly, so in general I will want to avoid loading a WinPE environment when possible (although I would like the option to run WinPE for the tools that require a Windows environment to run of course). I was thinking something similar to Hiren's BootCD in style, but I have my own tools I'd prefer to use rather than Hiren's.

So the tl;dr version: I want a USB stick with a configurable boot loader that has the option to load several different diagnostic/repair programs on the same stick.

My main problem here is that I do not understand boot loaders very well and am not quite sure where to look nor what will accomplish my goals and what learning I need to do in order to be able to create this disk. I was thinking GRUB4DOS could work, however I am new to bootloaders and so I am terribly confused by it.

Does anyone here have any experience building their own boot disks and wouldn't mind posting some links, how-to's, or otherwise point me in the right direction? Would be much appreciated, thanks!

Amordea (talk) 02:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen our article, Ubuntu Live USB creator, and its project page? This may do exactly what you are looking for. Writing your own bootloader is not easy; I don't think you need or want to do this from what you have described above. All you want to do is use a bootloader to run a system from a USB stick. Nimur (talk) 03:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Nimur. As far as I can tell, this particular live USB creator seems geared towards Ubuntu installs, which isn't quite what I'm looking for.

However I did pursue other live USB creators in the meantime and in the process uncovered a nice little program called Multiboot USB. This is very close to what I had envisioned (although preferably would also have persistence, but at this point I'd be happy just to get something functional), with the glaring exception of its small functional program list which is mostly incompatible with my needs. I decided to attempt to muck around with some of scripting in it anyway and I did get two of my unsupported programs to boot, however they would also crash soon afterwards due to reasons beyond my (admittedly limited) understanding.

I ought to elaborate some to clarify what I am looking for: I am mostly servicing Windows PC's. While I could carry a stack of rescue CD's with different functions and/or deal with what ships with other rescue multi-tools, I figure it makes more sense in the long run to learn how to build a portable multi-tool which contains all my programs in one easy-to-carry item. I want this tool to boot things like AVG's rescue CD, ERD Commander, Acronis TrueImage's boot CD, and any other tools I pick up along the way and have them all contained conveniently in one unit.

This task might just be beyond me. But I was sort of hoping such a functional and flexible tool already existed somewhere and that I was just too blind to see it.

Any other help would be most welcome.

Amordea (talk) 06:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

torrent subtitles

i downloaded a .avi movie and it came with subtitles but how do i "add" them and make em work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom12350 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

If you're on windows, try Media Player Classic. It has support for those kind of subtitles. Just put the video file and the subtitle file in the same folder and open the video in MPC. (I don't remember if they're on or off by default. You can toggle them by clicking in the "play" menu.) APL (talk) 07:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

VLC also does subtitles very easily; if they are in the same folder, you can find them on a Subtitles menu. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I know someone who dislikes the way VLC handles subtitles although I can't remember why. I believe it has improved in recent versions but I'm not sure if all the major issues this person had have been resolved Nil Einne (talk) 13:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of vague. ;-) I tried to load up subtitles once in VLC and got a lot of garbage, but when I downloaded the latest version, it worked better. It seems pretty straightforward to me at the moment. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

i pu them in the same folder but where do toggle them by clicking in the "play" menu. where is the play or Subtitles menu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom12350 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What software are you using to view the film? Did you download MPC or VLC like was recomended above? APL (talk) 19:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

yes i downloaded both wheres the subtitles button for them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom12350 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

In "Media Player Classic" click on the "play" drop-down menu, click on the "subtitles" sub-menu, then select the subtitle file from the list. In VLC, click on the "Video" drop down menu, "Subtitle track" sub-menu, and either select your subtitle file from the list or select "Load file..." to select the file manually. APL (talk) 00:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

i tried that but it didnt work —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom12350 (talk • contribs) 07:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

is this a BST? if so, how would I begin to implement it?

I'm trying to prepare for a CS exam... so I'd thought I'd try to implement a random project on my own. I'm chemically inclined, so I figure it would be good to try to compile a sort of symbol table that would store the solubility equilibrium constant between two ions. Basically for every pair of ions (or types of ions) there is an associated solubility constant. Only, I have trouble trying to extend the 1 key ==> one value concept to a sort of "multivariable" equivalent of a function. Any ideas? John Riemann Soong (talk) 07:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

And of course as with any ST, it should be dynamic, e.g. it is easy to implement methods adding or removing relations. John Riemann Soong (talk) 07:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It depends a bit on the language you write your implementation in. However, in general you will want a hash that incorporates both objects. In java either make an object that encapsulates both objects or create a map from a set of ions. Taemyr (talk) 08:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there any way to do it using a BST implementation? The issue is that I need to remove the redundancy -- the Ksp for Ca++ and acetate is the same as the Ksp for acetate and Ca++. If I change the Ksp for one pair how would I efficiently change the other? etc. John Riemann Soong (talk) 20:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

extends Comparable<Key> for a molecule datatype?

I actually don't really know how this Comparable thing works in Java... they kind of glossed it over in class. I'm trying to write a program that would compare two chemical compounds by chemical structure using a procedure based on Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules. (For example, chloromethane > methane. I intend to implement a recursive definition using a user-defined "molecule" datatype.

Firstly, when comparing two molecules, we first determine whether it is organic or inorganic (by whether it contains carbon). The rules diverge for each type (i.e. if it is inorganic, we use another set of rules). If it is organic, we compare by # of carbon atoms. If there's a tie, we look at the carbon with the substituent with the highest atomic number. So on and so forth. The basic idea is that I guess I want to maybe define a "compare" function.

I admit I don't get how generic <Key> works at all. Is the way I want to implement Compare for molecules going to work with generic data types? John Riemann Soong (talk) 09:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Just say class Molecule extends Comparable<Molecule>. The generic is there in case you want more flexibility in what you compare with. Taemyr (talk) 10:03, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

No, there's no need to extend Comparable<T> for this; your class should implement it. The generic just allows you to specify the type of object it's okay to compare, so in your case, you would implement Comparable<Molecule>, where Molecule is the (super)class of your chemicals. Basically what Comparable does is require you to write a method that returns an int when given another Molecule to compare. Read the documentation I linked to for more about what the sign (+/-) of the returned int means. Once you implement Comparable, you can use a sorting method (like one of those in the java.util.Collections class) to sort a List of Molecules. Let me know if you need anymore help.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Avast! v. Microsoft Security Essentials - which is better?

I thought Microsoft Security Essentials was just a malware scanner, but when trying to install it, I found out that its a run-all-the-time program. I currently have the free version of Avast! installed. Which is better, Avast! free edition, or Microsoft Security Essentials which is also free? Thanks. 84.13.53.169 (talk) 13:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

According to a recent article in Maximum PC magazine,[10], Microsoft Security Essentials[11] is better than Avast!.[12] Personally, I use AVG Anti-Virus which is also available for free.[13] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, AVG is a great little free program.Chevymontecarlo. 16:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Little? I've personally found it to be quite bloated and resource hungry. Avira Free Antivirus is better imo, at least in terms of performance, but I am unsure how it performs in terms of virus detection compared to AVG 82.44.55.254 (talk) 17:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, although after reading it I'm not sure that the article does indicate that MS Security Essentials is better than Avast! 78.146.176.116 (talk) 19:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The print version includes a rating for each product on a scale from 1 to 10 (higher = better). For whatever reason, the online version of this article doesn't include this rating. I remember that MS received one of the higher ratings, I believe an 8. I don't have the magazine with me, but if I have time, I'll check tonight what each scored. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You can get a free PDF of the print edition. MSE got an 8, and Avast! got a 5. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Avast is definitely my first choice; Used to use AVG, Avast is much less intrusive and seems to do just as well, if not better. I recall a study that concluded Avast was more or less the best AV at the price point. Riffraffselbow (talk) 00:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking for example graphical UIs for programming IF....ELSE...ENDIF blocks with boolean logic

Background

At work, we have an application that (among other things) requires end users to enter small snippets of code. These code snippets are rules which are executed by a rules engine at run-time. Usually, these rules are only a few lines long. Generally, the code follows the form:

//pseudocode
IF ((variable1 > value2 AND variable3 = value4) OR (variable5 = function6(variable7)) THEN
//do something
ELSE
//do something else
ENDIF

Although our users are bright (they all have engineering degrees), they are not programmers and dislike having to write programming code. For the next version of our software, we would like to create some kind of graphical user interface that would allow users to 'create' programming code without having to type it all in. IOW, we want to create some kind of point-and-click GUI that would allow then to write code with a minimal amount of typing. There are some things that we realize that our users will have to type, such as mathamatical formulas (but using an Intellisense-type text editor), but we'd like all the other code to be graphically generated.

Standing on the shoulders of giants?

I have some ideas of what such a UI might look like, but it seems to me that this problem (creating a point-and-click GUI to write IF....ELSE...ENDIF blocks) is not something unique in the history of software development. But for the life of me, I can't think of any apps with this sort of GUI. So, here's my question. Can anyone point me to any apps (or web pages, whatever) I can use as examples in creating my GUI? I figure that someone else, brighter and more knowledgable than me, has already thought of this problem before and come up with some ideas. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Check it out: Visual programming language and Category:Visual programming languages. Personally I find Scratch the most straightforward looking (see e.g. screenshots here), but I'm not the target audience. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Simulink and LabView, both commercial software tools, are widely used for this sort of task. Nimur (talk) 15:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Try looking at Microsoft Excel's insert function capabilities. "Insert If", for example is similar to what you describe. Alfrodull (talk) 22:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

iTunes can be used as an example. If you're creating a "Smart Playlist", you can select as many criteria as you like and any songs that fit the bill, get onto the playlist. e.g. Genre = Rock, Length > 20:00, Composer = Pink Floyd. --Dismas|^(talk) 07:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Viruses

Are there any computer viruses that can actually cause physical damage to computers (such as destroying/damaging hard disk and RAM) as some chain mails claim? 202.129.235.22 (talk) 15:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

No – ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 15:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The caveat should be, "no virus can damage the hardware of a well-designed commercial personal computer." See our article, brick (electronics). In sloppily-designed devices, particularly mobile/embedded systems, it is possible for software to irreversibly damage the hardware. There are also varying degrees of "irreversible." In some cases, if firmware is damaged, it can be reprogrammed using additional devices/cables. It is also possible that malfunctioning software could destroy hardware and render the unit unserviceable. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The Chernobyl virus has some info about this.--TrogWoolley (talk) 16:10, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Followup question: Years ago, when CRT monitors were nearly universal, I remember reading that changing their screen resolution too quickly — many times a second — could damage the monitor, and there was speculation that this could be a form of computer virus that could damage hardware. I'm having trouble googling any mention of this; is any of this factual? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I had a similar thought about cd drives; could a virus make the cd drive spin too fast, which would shatter the disk inside? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 19:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

That sounds unlikely unless the CD is already cracked. Are the speed limiters physical in modern drives? At one time, the limitation was in firmware that I suppose could be modified by a virus. It was reported that the old 5.25 inch floppy drives could be damaged by repeatedly seeking a non-existent track past the physical stop, but I never succeeded in causing damage when trying to write extra tracks. Dbfirs 06:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I recall (in some 1985-1890?) have heard about the possibility to de-calibrate HD heads by repeatedly forcing it to seek past the last physical cylinder. Possibly there were some poorly designed devices, where the on-board software did not validate the head positioning command parameters, but I doubt it.
What concerns CRT monitors, some of them were prone to failure whan the video card was set to generate too high refresh frequency. Even now, if you are using Windows, see the monitor settings: Control panel → Screen → tab Settings → button Advanced → tab Monitor → drop-down list Refresh frequency and checkbox Hide modes... below it (some names may differ slightly, I translate them back to English from Polish version). There is a comment there, saying something like 'Un-checking this option allows you to choose display modes which your monitor may not handle properly. This may cause the monitor unusable or hardware damage' (sorry againg for my poor English). --CiaPan (talk) 07:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Purely speculation on my part, but given that you can alter voltage settings via software (for overclocking purposes), it seems theoretically possible a virus could do this too at an intentionally malicious level that could damage the circuitry. I have never heard of such a virus in circulation, but it seems theoretically possible? Or I could be wrong. Amordea (talk) 11:29, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

computer power supply question

I have a computer with a 500W power supply, and the hardware inside currently uses 415W. If I was to upgrade my video card, the new requirements would take 475W. Would this make it more likely for my power supply to fail, since it would be running at 95% capacity? Googlemeister (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I bet that Dan's Data has covered this, I wasn't able to find anything more specific than this general discussion after a couple quick searches. Paul (Stansifer) 16:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a few issues I see, besides whether it will lead to PSU failure: (1) Sometimes PSU power ratings are simply bogus. It's possible that your 500 W power supply has never been able to supply 500 W. (2) As it ages, the PSU may be less able to supply its rated power, so even if it could supply 500 W when it was new, it might not be able to anymore. See Footnote 4 at this PSU calculator. (3) The power that it can supply is divided up in a certain way between its various voltages and rails. If the system you're building requires 500 W, but it's divided up differently than the 500 W in the power supply, some component will not get enough power. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:09, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

If you're underpowered or close to capacity, then your components would do more 'work' in getting power from your PSU and this is one of the most common causes of overheating. I would keep at least 20% fat and there would be no harm in getting yourself at least a 600W PSU which would also put less strain on the PSU and your PC. Sandman30s (talk) 18:08, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What kind of computer do you have? Because unless you're using a power metre to measure the draw, I somewhat doubt your computer really uses 415W (at a guess, you'd need a fast or old quad core and SLI/Crossfire to get even close to that). Most PSU/power draw calculators just as the maximum possible load of every single component usually with significant headroom added in which can never occur in practice, no matter what kind of stress test you actually use. Also manufacturers of products, when recommending power supplies have a tendency to overestimate what you need for a variety of reasons including the fact many powersupplies are vastly overated and it's easier for them to do that and reduce the chance the PSU will cause problems particularly for people who don't know what they're doing then it is to offer proper PSU requirements. If you don't have a power metre, take a look at SPR to get an idea of the real power consumption of your system (I'd recommend you ask there if you need further help) e.g. [14] [15] [16] [17]. Also while getting a bit old [18] is still useful.

Now back to the original question, if you really need 485W then it may be slightly risky to use a 500W PSU but it depends a lot on the quality of your PSU. As others have mentioned there are issue like rail loadings and PSUs not supplying their rated capacities. And bear in mind many cheaper PSUs are rated at a silly temperature anyway, like 25 degrees C. See [19] for more. Also a good PSU should shut down if overloaded but crappier PSUs may sometimes just die, and there's a possibility of taking something out with it.

However I disagree there's no harm in getting 600W PSU. If your system doesn't really need anything close to it then it's a waste in many ways. Firstly since it's resonable to presume cost matters to you, there's no reason to spend money on something you definitely don't need. Note as well it would be far better to get a high quality lower rated PSU, e.g. Antec, Corsair, Enermax, then to get a crappier higher rated PSU. (Although this applies whatever, if you really need 600W I would recommend you spend the extra to get a good PSU, you must have a rather fancy system to need that so hopefully the cost won't be a problem.) More importantly PSUs tend to be quite inefficient at low loads (in some cases you may even have problems if the load is too low). If you aren't continually stressing your computer, then it likely spends a great deal of time idle and with most modern computers, idle usage can be very low. This means your PSU may spend a lot of time at a rather inefficient range if you get an overly high rated PSU. If you get or have a high quality PSU then it's likely compliant with the 80 PLUS standard, this means it needs to have 80%+ efficiency at 20% load so it isn't as bad as some of the older crappier PSUs but 20% of 600W is 120W and there's a resonable chance the usage will be lower then this depending on what it is.

In the same vein though, PSUs tend to be most efficient at around the 50% or so mark. So you also ideally don't want to your PSU to be continually using 95% load.

Nil Einne (talk) 00:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Power Cut

Say if there's a power cut and of course the computer would go off. Is there a way to make a computer automatically start up again when the power comes back? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Many BIOSes have a setting to power on after a power outage. Go into your BIOS settings and look around. --Spoon! (talk) 17:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

This page has simulated screenshots of the popular Phoenix BIOS; the bottommost screenshot shows the option you want, called (on that particular brand of BIOS) "Restore on AC/Power Loss". Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

You can of course use an Uninterruptible Power Supply to keep the power going for a long time. Of course the bigger your UPS, the longer it will have power for. Sandman30s (talk) 18:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

iTunes bit-o-song selecter slider

1. What is that thing called? You know, where you pull the thing back and forth and it changes your place in a song... 2. How can I make it longer? I have an mp3 that's two hours long and when you get to that point you don't get much control with the pissant thing you get as default. Vitriol (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It's called a slider, as you correctly mentioned in your title.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:14, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but there's also the volume slider. Vitriol (talk) 22:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a position slider. In editing software (such as Goldwave) you can zoom in to obtain any degree of positional accuracy. Dbfirs 06:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I've never known of any way to change the size of that slider. Since the majority of what iTunes is built for is (was?) a 4 minute song, there isn't too much need for a lot of accuracy in the slider. After all, it's not a sound editing tool where you're trying to get just one clip of a song and need to place the slider on an exact beat. Dismas|^(talk) 07:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Battery

Hi, my rtc battery is dead, finding another one is very difficult. Does exist a sw that synchronizes not only the time but the date as well with a time server in internet? t.i.a. --87.5.122.52 (talk) 20:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

(I've added a section title to your question so we can see it's not part of the above thread.) Are you certain that you have a nonstandard CMOS battery? It's like a US$5.00 part on desktop machines. There certainly are applications that synch your computer's time with a big clock on the Internet; what OS are you running? Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that there is a way to synchronize time without synchronizing the date. (Usually, the date/time information is stored internally as seconds since January 1st, 1970; it would take extra effort to not sync them both). You probably want a Network Time Protocol client. Paul (Stansifer) 22:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

alas my pc is a laptop.. I found many synchronizer, but all of them need a manual adjusting of the date. Thank you --87.5.122.52 (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.194.34.103 (talk) 07:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It will be easier for us to help you if you say what make and model the laptop is, and (as requested above) the operating system. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It's an acer travelmate 661lci, the os is win xp --87.5.31.150 (talk) 18:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

With Win XP, the OS provides date/time synch. Open the clock from the system tray, click the Internet time tab, and click Synchronise now. --Phil Holmes (talk) 13:45, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Special configuration parameters of the Windows time sync service (for advanced users only!) are described here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884776

You may also find helpful some of lnks on this page http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773061(WS.10).aspx (section Note) — or may be not:

• Configure the Windows Time service on the PDC emulator
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=91969
• Configure a client computer for automatic domain time synchronization
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=91376
• Configure a manual time source for a selected client computer
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=91377

CiaPan (talk) 15:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

thank you for your advice, but the Synchronize service of xp needs a manual synch of the date, otherwise it doesn't work. The lonks you gave me doesn't apply on my xp home in workgroup (not in domain) --87.5.31.150 (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Databases?

Is Pay Pal catergrized as a database? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.165.196 (talk) 22:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

PayPal certainly uses many databases. What distinguishes PayPal from, say, eBay (which also uses many databases), or CNN.com (ditto), or Facebook (again), or even Wikipedia (yeah), are qualities other than the fact that it uses a database. Any large site that has large amounts of carefully delineated information (e.g. names of users, accounts of transactions, articles, whatever) uses database technology. It is very widespread. I would not categorize a site "as a database" unless it does nothing but serve as the front-end for a database (e.g., the ARIN WHOIS database). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

"Database" has two typical meanings:

• An organized collection of data.
• A collection of data in a Database Management System, which is a software system to put data into non-volatile storage in a quickly-accessible, reliable, and safely-editable fashion. Almost every complex website (not to mention many other things) is backed by such a system (usually a SQL-style relational database).

So, in either sense, PayPal has a database, but that doesn't distinguish it from, say, Geocities. Paul (Stansifer) 03:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

questions on Wal-Mart

it has been said that the advantage that leading edge retailer such as Wal-Mart has over their competitors isn't technology but management. Discuss 2.what management, organisation, and technology facctors explain why Wal-Mart suppliers had trouble implementing RFID systems 3.How is RFID technology related to Wal-Mart business model? How does it benefit suppliers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annor Brenyah (talk • contribs) 23:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our policy here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

May 11

TI-89 Titanium

I have a TI-89 Titanium calculator. I am wondering what keystrokes is necessary to convert

$({\sqrt[{3}]{\frac {x}{y^{7}}}})$ to ${\frac {({\sqrt[{3}]{x*y^{2})}}}{y^{3}}}$.

Whenever I pass it through the calculator I get ${\frac {x^{\frac {1}{3}}}{y^{\frac {7}{3}}}}$. I use the keystrokes root((x/y^7),3). I need help!!! --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The calculator's answer is correct, even if somewhat unhelpful. Probably, its built-in simplifier prefers the form that doesn't have the root. I don't believe that you can change the way the simplifier works. (This forum post seems to agree.[20]) Essentially you and the calculator are not agreeing on what form is "simplest". You could work it out on paper, it's pretty straightforward. APL (talk) 02:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

That's right: the calculator algorithm separates the powers of x and y. Educational mathematics has a "rule" that there should be no root in the denominator. They are just different views of "simplest". Do you need help in converting one to the other, or were you just wanting the calculator to perform the conversion? Dbfirs 07:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I know ow to do it manually but I was just wondering if the calculator can do it faster for me... --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 16:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

PC won't recognize camera anymore

I've got a Canon PowerShot A95 from which I normally load pictures into my Dell Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP. In the past, I had no problem transferring the pictures from camera to PC. I haven't done so in the past few months, but I tried to do it today, and it wouldn't recognize my camera. So I went into Control Panel to try and manually add my camera as a device, and my model isn't on the list. What gives? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 04:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

No idea offhand, but here's a possible workaround: Go get a standalone card reader for the memory card. Shouldn't cost more than twenty bucks. Take the card out, put it in the reader, and hook that up to the computer. You should see a new drive show up in "My computer".

I admit it's a pity to waste the sawbuck if you don't have to, but a standalone reader has its advantages (doesn't drain your camera batteries, doesn't try to go through obnoxious proprietary software provided by the camera company). --Trovatore (talk) 04:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Any recommendations on which particular brand of card readers would be of best quality? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Even the really cheap ones (less than £5 in UK) seem to work OK, though there might be a speed difference. Does the Canon website have a download for a Powershot A95 driver, or did a CD with a driver come with your camera? Dbfirs 06:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The camera previously belonged to a friend of mine, so I honestly don't know if it came with a CD and/or a driver or not. As for any downloads, I went to their site, and there are some software updates, as well as a driver update for my OS released in 2006. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 08:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, PowerShot cameras expose themselves as some sort of image acquisition device over USB, which requires special software to access the images (unlike some other camera brands which act like memory card readers, which is a lot more convenient). The camera should at least show up in My Computer, though. -- BenRG (talk) 09:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

My PC used to recognize it like a normal USB device, so I can't understand why that changed all of a sudden. I haven't updated my drivers since I last uploaded pictures from my camera, so it can't be an incompatibility issue. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 10:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This forum post suggests that the camera decides whether to be a USB mass-storage device class or USB video device class object depending on the setting of the "playback" switch (presumably the little triangular "play" icon) when the USB connection is made. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Right, I'll second Finlay McWalter's statement: on a PowerShot you are supposed to move that switch to the little triangular "play" icon before you plug it in. If this still doesn't work, I'd use a memory card reader as suggested above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

addEventListener

In theory, can the DOMNode::addEventListener() method be expected to work properly if called on a node before the node is added to the document? Is cloneNode(true) supposed to preserve event handlers? NeonMerlin 05:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It will help if you specify your programming language and/or environment. Commmonplace libraries in C++, Java, C#, Javascript, and thousands of third-party libraries have functions called "addEventListener()" - judging by your syntax, it appears you mean a C++ version. Can you specify? Nimur (talk) 07:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean the one JavaScript uses from the W3C DOM specs. I'm only using the C++ syntax because AFAIK the class name isn't visible to JavaScript (which, given that class names are present in the DOM specs, suggests to me that the DOM is designed for multiple languages). NeonMerlin 08:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

From the Mozilla Documentation Center: addEventListener() works on any DOM element, even non-visible ones. It should be okay to instantiate a node and add a listener before adding the node to the document. The Node.cloneNode() documentation doesn't specify an answer to your second question, but it seems plausible that the actionListener would be added to the clone (but would not be cloned itself). This is worth testing. Nimur (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Software To Monitor Fan/Temperature On Ubuntu 10.04

Does anyone know of any software I can get which will allow me to monitor the fan on my Acer Aspire laptop running Ubuntu 10.04? The only monitors I am able to find in the Software Centre are for CPU, disk space, and a few other things, all of which are already available in System>Administration>System Monitor. I am hoping for a desktop widget or something. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The package lm-sensors installs the program sensors (and the setup utility sensors-detect) which reports the information provided by all the sensors it finds (sensors-detect leads you through all the different busses it can scan, and then shows what it discovers; I think the package install scripts actually run this for you, but you can run it yourself to see what it tries). You can monitor the results reported by the detected sensors by running sensors yourself or from a script, installing sensord which logs these to syslog, or installing xsensors which shows the results reported by sensors in a GUI window. There are probably Gnome and KDE widgets that do likewise. I don't know about the Aspire, but this finds two (unnamed) temperature sensors in my Acer Travelmate. - Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, the gnome applet is just called the Gnome sensors applet. It's in package sensors-applet. In addition to the stuff reported by sensors, it also talks to the proprietary nVidia driver, to the kernel ACPI module, and gets hard disk temperatures from hddtemp using SMART. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

And the KDE application is Ksensors -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Cheers! I'll try that out a bit later on, then (different computer at the moment). Thanks! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Update: Well, I've downloaded and installed them, and when I try to run them, nothing actually happens. I've followed the instructions on the websites but still no joy. Cheers anyway. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

On my desktop, sensors doesn't find any usable sensors, but the gnome applet (which you have to add to the top panel) shows GPU and disk temperatures. On my laptop it does find the two motherboard temps, and gnome applet finds the two cpu temperatures and the disk temperature. But if sensors doesn't know about the various chip sensors in a given laptop, it can't know how to interrogate them, and so shows nothing useful. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

GKrellM 129.67.37.143 (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

XP won't shut down

Hi my PC refuses to shutdown, a quick google search throws up a lot of guff about using registry cleaners to fix the problem, I am not a fan of theses tools anyone got any ideas what I can do? Thanks Mo ainm~Talk 12:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Does it shut down if you initiate the shutdown from the Task Manager? Hit ctrl-alt-del, then from the Task Manager window, go to the "Shut Down" menu, then choose "Turn Off" (or Restart, or whichever other option you want). I have found that this sometimes works in situations where Explorer in Windows XP refuses to acknowledge the "Shut Down" command from the Start menu. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You can also shut down the PC from a command prompt. Just enter the command

shutdown -s -f -t 00

and the PC will shut down. The command "shutdown -s" can even be entered from the start menu (in the "Run" box). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the OP is actually asking us if there is any way to fix the problem and stop it from happening again. If they were asking about how to switch it off then we could point them to the OFF button as a last resort. I can't help, because you haven't given us enough information about the problem, but I thought I should just point this out for anyone who can. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried ctrl alt del and it would not turn off or even restart, the only way I could turn it off was to hold the power button. I haven't tried from the command line, but it is not really a preferred option to have to use this way (if successful). Would like to know a possible cause so I can fix it. I have added no new hardware of software and my Kaspersky AV throws out no infections. Mo ainm~Talk 08:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you do not in fact have any viruses (which can still happen even if your current AV solution does not pick up on it, but I'll agree it seems unlikely), you may want to run a Windows Repair. Back up your important data first. The Repair process does not wipe your data however it's better to be safe than sorry. Be sure you have your Windows key handy before you do this. If this does not work, you might need a full OS reinstall. Amordea (talk) 11:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Paste text greasemoney

Resolved

I want to write a greasemoney script that can paste a pre-written body of text into a text box. I would like it to function by right clinking in a text box, and in the menu that appears there's an option like "paste text" or something. Is this possible to do? I'm a noob at greasemonkey 82.44.55.254 (talk) 13:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK the only way to change the right-click menu with GM is to completely replace it, which you probably don't want. Perhaps it would be easier to add a little "paste the canned text" button next to the text box, or something like that? --Sean 18:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes that would be ok. How could it be done? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The following does it:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           TestTextArea
// @namespace      http://aaa.com
// @include        http://svnback.bustech.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi*
// @require        http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js
// ==/UserScript==

var canned_text = "my canned text";

jQuery('textarea')
  .each(function(idx) {
        var textarea = jQuery(this);
        var button = "<a href='#'>{INSERT}</a>";
        textarea.before(button);
        textarea.prev().bind('click', function(event) {
            event.preventDefault();
            textarea.val(canned_text);
        });
        textarea.before('<br>');
  })

--Sean 15:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! <3 82.44.55.254 (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Is a search box to the upper right "intuitive"?

Hi. I know this is not the best place to discuss the WP Beta, but I'm looking for opinions from knowledgeable Internet users. My question would be, is having the search box at the upper right hand corner of a web page "intuitive" as the Beta project claims it is? The project claims that "The new position takes advantage of user expectations from across the web". Please correct me if I'm wrong, but for any major website other than Wikipedia, you browse the site by links and whatnot, and only occasionally use the search box. That's why most websites put their search box, say, in the upper right-hand corner, for instance: so that it's for the most part out of the way, because searching is a secondary function for those websites. But for Wikipedia, this is not the case! Wikipedia's main browsing tool is the Search Box! Therefore, changing the search box to the upper right, in order to "align Wikipedia with many other major websites" [21], is not really a good enough justification, or is it?

I think it's also important to keep in mind that us westerners read from left to right; therefore, the most important elements of a website should be closer to the left than to the right, for easy and fast access, right? So, does moving the search box from the left to the upper right retain the search box's importance, or does it make it a hindrance to look for the search box in such a cumbersome place in the web page? Is it really a good thing to put the search box, the main browsing tool for WP, as if it were a secondary thing like in other websites? (They say they got good results on the new position of the search box in their research tests, but it seems they only tested 8 people, so that doesn't make sense to me either.)

Wikipedia is NOT like other major websites, because unlike other websites, Wikipedia's search function it's its main function! This is why I think there should be more prolific discussion about this particular issue more than anything else, especially before the big change is invariably forced upon everyone. Kreachure (talk) 13:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right. This is not the place for such a discussion, nor for airing your views on the proposed new wikipedia skin. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:57, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This would probably be better suited for Wikipedia:Village pump (development), or perhaps the miscellaneous village pump page. Buddy431 (talk) 15:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Fine. I was looking for widespread discussion from buffs and experts (like the ones I usually find here), about a common subject that experts and non-experts could relate to; not technical discussion about technical issues at pages only technical users use. But I guess that if no one's all that interested in the discussion about their own website, then I shouldn't care either. Good times! Kreachure (talk) 15:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not that we aren't interested (I don't like it much either and personally will choose the old UI) but that, as stated at the top of the page, the Reference Desk isn't a discussion forum; and although we at the Reference Desk are extremely powerful and influential, our levels of power and influence rapidly wane as you leave the Reference Desk pages, and the levels reach a value of 0 when landing on any other Wikipedia page, including those where it's appropriate to have this conversation. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

And any claim to academic discussion is undermined by your polemic last paragraph. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about the paragraph where I said that the search function is the most important function in WP, and then I said that the change will be forced upon everyone as a standard (on May 13)? I don't get what's polemic about that. Kreachure (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Was there some ambiguity about "last paragraph" phrase"? Some lack of polemic in the upper case "NOT"? In the plea for more discussions (read the guidelines at the top of this page...)? In the "big change is invariably forced" phrase? It's fair enough that you don't like the change. Hijacking the RD to complain about it is not on. It would have been perfectly possible for you to ask the question in a neutral fashion. You chose not to. Your bad. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think people are getting side tracked from the core question OP asked; "Is a search box to the upper right "intuitive"". 82.44.55.254 (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The sidetracking was from the original poster, for what it's worth, who is looking for "widespread discussion from buffs and experts". Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tried beta here on en.wiki but from what I've seen at the commons it looks awful, clumsy and unnecessary. And I agree with you that the new placement of the search box is stupid too. Wikipedia currently has a simplistic, easy to use interface that's so perfect for it's function that this change seems like the wikimedia foundation meddling because they were given a big donation and have nothing better to do with the money. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 15:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Browser size (permanent link here). -- Wavelength (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

To try and answer the question about whether the search box at the top is intuitive, as a brief exercise I went to alexa.com's Top Sites page and looked at the first few of the Top 10 web sites to see where their search boxes are, and found:

• Google: Front and center (web page is built around it)
• Facebook: No search field on home page, but login fields are at top
• YouTube: Top
• Yahoo: Top
• Live.com: Top
• Wikipedia.org: Left side
• Baidu.com: Front and center (web page is built around it)
• Blogger.com: No search field on home page, but login fields are at top
• Msn.com: Top
• QQ.com: Top

I know this doesn't equal "usability", but it's reasonable to suggest that if 7 of the other top 8 websites (excluding the two that are basically a big text field with some elements placed around it) have their primary text fields at the top of the page, that Internet users are being conditioned to look for the text fields at the top of the page. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Add to that the top-right placement of the browser search bar in most modern web browsers (well IE, Firefox and Safari at the very least, and I assume others).131.111.185.68 (talk) 22:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

(EC with above) In addition most modern browsers have a search bar. In fact it isn't just browsers but many programs including the OS themselves. Guess where that is by default? (The reason is of course partially related to the UI.) I also happen to be on eBay, DealExtreme [22] and [23] at the current time. Guess where their search bar is? Yep at the top (albeit mostly centre not right.)

I agree with others that this is the wrong place, and is a bit silly when it starts off with unproven claims like

Wikipedia is NOT like other major websites, because unlike other websites, Wikipedia's search function it's its main function

Personally I use search functions on other websites much more then wikipedia. Perhaps that's just me, I don't claim to be an average user (although do think that for a number of examples both me and CT have mentioned search would be important), but I also don't see any evidence presented for this claim and if a large chunk of your argument is apparently unsupported by any actual data, it usually falls flat on its face. When you've apparently failed to consider other obvious things as CT and me have IMHO amply demonstrated well then...

To put it a different way while I can't comment on their performance in particular, I'd trust professionals paid to do the job much more then I would some random person who makes a random OT complaint based on premises without any evidence and without even apparently considering some rather obvious issues. But perhaps that's just me.

P.S. If I'm not mistaken the WMF was given money specifically to improve usability. They obviously could have rejected that money OR tried to convince the donator to let them do other things with it (I don't know if they tried but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't) but clearly whether or not they had anything better to do with it didn't come in to it. Someone specifically wanted them to improve usability and paid them to do it whether or not other people feel it's a worthwhile goal (and frankly I doubt they cared much about the opinions of former vandals).

I should also add that the opinions of 'knowledgeable Internet users' is unlikely to be what the WMF cared much about. These sort of people should be able to find the search box wherever you place it and more importantly are only a tiny proportion of people that use the website. In fact any discussion which tries to collate anything from the experience and expectations of wikipedia editors, and the small subset of editors that edit any specific page at that is inherently flawed. The vast majority of readers aren't editors. I believe one of the goals of the usability initive was to get more editors, so clearly finding ways to get more editors was important (although that still means trying to get something from existing editors is not necessarily the most productive avenue) however I'm pretty sure it wasn't the only goal and the location of the search bar in particularly is something everyone including readers may want to use. In other words, the knowledge and experience of web designers and others familiar with relevant research etc may be useful, but the knowledge of random editors based primarily on their personal experience much less so.

Nil Einne (talk) 22:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Another interesting thing. The first result on Google for me for 'search box location' is [24] which says "There are many possibilities, but only a couple of right ones. The most convenient spot for users would be the top left or top right of every page on your website, where users could easily find it using the common F-shaped scanning pattern." It also mentions the old wikipedia search box as a bad design albeit not because of the location. (The first result on Bing is [25] which is of limited use to this discussion although guess where their search box is located?) Nil Einne (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See Home Page Usability and Credibility Survey - Fortune 30 versus Inc. fastest growing companies; it might have some relevance here.

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Using keyboard as a mouse on a laptop without numlock

Hi there, all:

My laptop has recently broken down overnight, with the OS disappearing. I'm using a friend's old laptop until I replace or repair my laptop, but unfortunately, it too has problems. Many of them I have solved myself, such as the incredible amount of scareware, but one big problem remains - the functionality of the touchpad comes and goes. At some points, it works like any other, without a hint of a problem; for hours at a time, though, it is stuck in one of two phases: either completely non-responsive, or jutting around and failing to click anything other than what one does not want to click.

I thought of finding a program to temporarily solve this, with which one could scroll the mouse across pages using keyboards. However, all of the ones that I have encountered rely on there being Numlock or a separate numbers keypad, neither of which this laptop has. Can anyone help with a way to scroll using a keyboard, without numlock?

All the best &c —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.198.62 (talk) 17:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you just connect an actual mouse to it? Theresa Knott | token threats 05:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Hello. I thought that folk would surmise that there was a reason why I should choose the rather more cumbersome method of using a keyboard rather than attaching a mouse - the USB slots do not work. All the best, &c. --82.36.198.62 (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Touchpad is "touchy" and USB slots don't work? Hmmm. You mentioned "scareware" in which case I'd strongly suspect a heavy virus infection (when you see one roach, you know there's bound to be many more hiding nearby). This could have done damage to your drivers or other system software components, which could account for the intermittent failures. You may need to reinstall these (via driver reinstall and Windows repair/reinstall respectively). Amordea (talk) 10:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your suggestion; I'll try that right away! --82.36.198.62 (talk) 11:20, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Compress

I have 500 files that I want to compress with 7zip individually ie into a separate .7z archive for each file. Is there an option to do this with 7zip? Thanks 82.44.55.254 (talk) 19:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

On sh/cygwin find directory -type f -exec 7z a {}.7z {} \; -exec rm {} \; will compress every file in directory and its subdirectories. find directory -type f -exec 7z x {} \; -exec rm {} \; to decompress. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 21:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks but I'm not on linux / can't install the cygwin thing for windows. I was asking if there was a way to do this with the 7zip Windows gui 82.44.55.254 (talk) 21:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

7-Zip on Windows has a number of command line options. When I entered "7z -?", I got this:

7-Zip command line options

7-Zip 4.57  Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov  2007-12-06

Usage: 7z <command> [<switches>...] <archive_name> [<file_names>...]
       [<@listfiles...>]

<Commands>
  a: Add files to archive
  b: Benchmark
  d: Delete files from archive
  e: Extract files from archive (without using directory names)
  l: List contents of archive
  t: Test integrity of archive
  u: Update files to archive
  x: eXtract files with full paths
<Switches>
  -ai[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include archives
  -ax[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude archives
  -bd: Disable percentage indicator
  -i[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include filenames
  -m{Parameters}: set compression Method
  -o{Directory}: set Output directory
  -p{Password}: set Password
  -r[-|0]: Recurse subdirectories
  -scs{UTF-8 | WIN | DOS}: set charset for list files
  -sfx[{name}]: Create SFX archive
  -si[{name}]: read data from stdin
  -slt: show technical information for l (List) command
  -so: write data to stdout
  -ssc[-]: set sensitive case mode
  -ssw: compress shared files
  -t{Type}: Set type of archive
  -v{Size}[b|k|m|g]: Create volumes
  -u[-][p#][q#][r#][x#][y#][z#][!newArchiveName]: Update options
  -w[{path}]: assign Work directory. Empty path means a temporary directory
  -x[r[-|0]]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude filenames
  -y: assume Yes on all queries

I've not actually tried this, but I'm pretty sure you could use this information to make a .bat file perform the same compression task on 500 files and make 500 .7z files (remember "dir > filelist.txt" will output the result of a dir command to a file rather then the screen). Astronaut (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming 7z.exe is in your path:

       for %d in (*) do 7z.exe a "%d.7z" "%d"

--NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

May 12

Script errors in email

Hi, all. I need a small amount of education about email scripts. I don't need to know how to write them, but I'd like to understand where they come from, and what in our environment I can reasonably do about script errors, if anything.

Although there are forty in our building, with a "corporate" mail server, each two or three of us are an independent contractor, responsibile for our own desktop system -- OS, mail client, etc. Our group uses Outlook Express on WinXP. Replacing either of those is not a viable short-term solution.

A typical error throws a dialog box -- If needed I might be able to capture one, and with help could upload it -- which must be dismissed. "Syntax error in script" is a common message, along with a line number and a token, e.g., At line 43, unexpected "}".

• In one case, we get this error on every single email from one particular vendor. So, my first reaction was that the script is part of the mail, comes from the vendor and gets executed for some reason after it arrives. (Why exactly? Not a clue.) If that's true, I can't fix it.
• In another case which started appearing recently, the subject mail is from a little old lady who could no more send along an email script than fly -- so, maybe it's not part of the mail. Or, perhaps it's something her ISP is tacking on "for our convenience".
• If there's a library of scripts that exist on our server, then why don't I get an error on every email? Well, that's because different emails take different paths through the scripts -- there are obviously if-blocks that execute some stuff and bypass other. If that's the case, though, somebody should be able to fix them locally, yes? They look like simple syntax errors.
• It is possible that the errors are mailer-dependent -- i.e., I get them because I use Outlook Express but somebody else does not get them because they use something else. Don't know.

Bottom line: Where are these errors coming from? and Is there anything *I* can do to get rid of them?

Thanks, DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

ubuntu workstation setup

I am planning to setup ubuntu 10.04 based workstation for development (web, python, eclipse, java), learning and also for a bit of entertainment (movies and build in games, mainly minesweeper) for two users.

I have one CPU (2GB RAM, 3GHz Dual core AMD processor, 120GB HDD), and two set of keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor. I would like to use either this as dual monitor configuration or two separate consoles, so that two users can login to this machine at the same time.

What hardware (preferably < $200) do I need more to setup this configuration ?

I would also like to add more CPUs to this setup but not in next year or two. --V4vijayakumar (talk) 03:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

You are asking about a multiseat configuration, where one computer is used by multiple local users. Here are instructions for MultiSeat Ubuntu - it seems that you will be forced to use KDE, but this should not be a problem for most purposes. However, in this era of decreasingly expensive terminals, have you considered buying a netbook for each user? These lightweight laptops can connect to the main Ubuntu terminal server, and also provide significant standalone functionality. They may even be cheaper than a monitor and keyboard. As far as adding CPUs to your computer, unless you have a multi-socket motherboard, this will not be an option without a major upgrade. Nimur (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia syndication

I am (attempting) to watch someone's Special:Contributions with atom. I have the appropriate feed in Google reader. I am having a few problems with it, and I don't know if it's me, the feed, the reader, or just how Wikipedia works. First, it takes hours to update, which kind of misses the point of a "feed" in my opinion. Six hours until another update seems like an excruciatingly long time to wait, but maybe this delay is normal. Second, it sometimes won't update at all: I once waited 3 days for a single entry to show up but another is still missing in action. Third, it bizarrely keeps trying to show me the same contributions over and over and over and over again. Sometimes an edit from last month will randomly pop up as a new entry, or a recent edit will just come up as new, repeatedly, for days. With all of these things combined, I'm finding the whole thing rather useless. I don't use atom for anything else so I don't know if this is typical of web feeds in general. Can someone more knowledgeable please tell me what's going on? Differentially (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Am I the only one watching contributions this way? Surely at least someone can say, "works fine for me, mate", even if they have no clue why mine doesn't? Differentially (talk) 19:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

New laptop

Hi

I've just ordered a Dell Studio XPS 16 Laptop and the specifications are as follows:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz,4 Cores/8 Threads,turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB Cache)
• OS: Windows 7 Professional 64bit
• Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• HDD: 500GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
• Optical Drive: Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with DVD+R double layer write capability
• Video Card: ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 - 1GB
• Battery: 9-cell (85WHr) Lithium Ion Primary Battery

I would like to know what kind of gaming this configuration can handle. Primarily, I'm interested in Strategy/RPG games. I would also appreciate if someone could suggest some good ones from these genres which I could play on my system. Also, while I know that Photoshop CS4 can run on my system, I want to know if it would run smoothly and not clam up the system while rendering.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.170.25.229 (talk) 07:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

You have a very good CPU (well, the clock frequency is not very high, but I still think it is very high-end considered it's a mobile CPU), a lot of memory and given the overall feeling of high-end of the system, I suppose the GPU is very good as well (I am not at all very familiar with the different lines of mobile video cards), so you could probably play most games just fine, and PhotoShop will not be an issue. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. Would appreciate suggestions of any good (compatible) games from the Strategy/RPG genres. Also I would like some clarification about whether my video card is a dedicated one or integrated with my system memory. --122.170.25.229 (talk) 09:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

From what you posted, it appears to have 1GB of dedicated VRAM, which is becoming increasingly common in performance laptops these days. The specs on this laptop seem pretty good to me and should run any modern game and run it well. ATI Radeon is very popular and well-supported and any mainstream game should have support for this chipset. Amordea (talk) 09:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The only real concern I'd have is from an upgrade standpoint. In two years, that 4670 will not seem so hot (it's already being pretty well supplanted by the 5000-series) and being a laptop, you most likely will not be able to upgrade this. Amordea (talk) 09:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I probably might look to replace it after two years. Reading some reviews of the Studio XPS 16, I have noticed that they all mention an overheating issue with this build. I have added 4GB of additional RAM to the laptop (making it 4GBx2); will this augment the overheating problem? --122.170.25.229 (talk) 10:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

No. RAM adds very little in the way of heat. The heat issue is an extremely common issue in performance laptops. Get yourself a nice cooling pad and monitor the temp. SpeedFan is what I use on my netbook since it can be minimized to the Notification bar with a real-time temp readout as the icon. Amordea (talk) 10:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Warcraft 3. I think it's compatible with your system, and it's my all-time favourite game. 174.114.4.18 (talk) 20:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Can I customize my mediawiki to only allow people with our school's email address to create accounts?

I'm on the student senate at my school, and we want to customize our mediawiki install so it only lets someone create an account (i.e. edit) if their email address ends in @[school_name].edu. We also want to force their username to be the [first].[last]@ from their email address. Later, we might expand this to more schools, so we would want the flexibility to add other @[school_name].edu's to have the ability to create accounts.

Question 1: Is that possible?

Question 2: Howso? Thanks! AGradman / talk. How I saw it:

There are a number of different authentication schemes for MediaWiki listed at its Authentication page - but none seem quite what you're looking for. The $wgEmailConfirmToEdit feature forces new users to supply an email address and receive email on that address before they can edit, but I'm not aware that you can limit those email addresses. It shouldn't be too difficult to hack the code for that to reject email addresses that don't correspond with your school. I'd check with the folks on the mediawiki mailing list in case someone has already done that, or has a simple idea of how you'd add that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Can I own all copyrights?

Imagine I run a program that spits out all possible combinations of words, including computer code. If I register the copyright of this automatically generated texts, can I sue anyone who dares to infringe my rights? Which technical resources do I need for that?--Mr.K. (talk) 16:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Leaving aside the legal complexities, Cantor's diagonal argument says that such a program is impossible anyway. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

No, Cantor says no such thing. The set of all words ("finite length sequences of letters") for a given finite alphabet is enumerable. Of course, it is infinite, so enumerating it in practice takes forever. If you also want to enumerate infinite sequences, then Cantor comes into play. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

But since the OP said "all possible combinations of words", I assume this includes infinite sequences such as "a a a a ...". Gandalf61 (talk) 09:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

No. As a general rule, only "creative works" may be copyrighted, not the output of a mechanism. This Stanford University Library FAQ says "to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough." The specifics of how much and what kind of "creativity" is enough will vary by jurisdiction, by dint both of varying statute and a complex web of jurisprudence, but what you describe is surely not "creative" anywhere. This leaves all kinds of interesting, but vexing, cases - for example, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. says that in the US taking a photo of a 2D image isn't sufficiently creative, but the UK's National Portrait Gallery asserts that it is sufficient under English law (ref). Another interesting question is SSEYO's Koan computer program, which generates computer music based on algorithms, user input, and random numbers. SSEYO claims (or at least used to, a few years ago when I had a copy of it) copyright over the output of this program; I'd really doubt that such a claim would hold up in court, but I don't know if a comparable matter has been tested in court anywhere. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, copyright law generally requires some creativity, or at least hard work, to go into creating a copyrightable work, which you wouldn't be able to demonstrate (there is work required to create the program, but the work for each individual work is negligible). Even without that, do you know how many possible combinations of words there are? Even if we restrict ourselves to English, without proper nouns, there are hundreds of thousands of words. Even if you just had all possible, reasonably short, sentences (which wouldn't help you, since a work has to be of significant size to be copyrightable and a single sentence wouldn't be) there would be something like 10^100,000 sentences (you could reduce that a bit if your program understood a few grammar rules, but not enough to be useful). If you stored them as ASCII text, you need about 10^1,000,000 bytes. The total information capacity of the observable universe is estimated to be about 10⁹² bits. As you can see, your idea is completely impossible. --Tango (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above; and Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service is relevant in some respects. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Curious, how is the "total information capacity of the observable universe" measured, exactly? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 16:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I expect Tango is using the estimate from Seth Lloyd (2002), Computational capacity of the universe, Physical Review Letters 88 (23):237901. Algebraist 17:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if you had all possible combinations of words, you'd be violating every existing copyright... ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 17:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A tangential point is whether something like RAND's A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates would hold up in court. My understanding is that RAND believes the data to be copyrighted—even though its usefulness relies on its being "truly" random—because the algorithms/hardware used to produce and validate the data are "creative" as defined by copyright law. Numbers themselves can't be copyrighted, but data in specific orderings and arrangements can (they are what the copyright law calls a "compilation"). The question is: if that is true (which I'm not sure it is), why wouldn't it be true in the case of text? I imagine the courts would see a distinction; the data is specifically copyrightable because of its arrangement, but the text would be presumably interesting because of its actual semantic content. (You could probably copyright "A Million Random Letters" but not claim that there was any semantic meaning to the text itself.) Anyway, I'm not sure there is enough case law to know for sure what would really happen and what the exact reasoning would be. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

MacBook cooling

On the newest model MacBook, how is it cooled? Where are the fans located and when do they kick in? Chevymontecarlo. 16:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I really don't know what the newest model of MacBook is. If you could provide the actual model# yourself, that would make research easier for others. In fact, you could do it yourself. A simple Googling of the model plus the search term "service manual" will likely come up with a result that will show you the inner workings of the laptop with some nice line-drawn or photo figures.

Typically, though, most laptops have a fan over the CPU's heatsink which disperses the heat conducting through it. Some models may optionally have some small fans on the back or sides which pulls the hot air out if the CPU fan alone isn't enough to do the job. These fans are always on but are designed to run quietly (low RPM's) during normal operation. When you can hear them is when they are operating at a higher speed than normal, usually during high-load situations to disperse the greater heat that is invariably produced under load. Amordea (talk) 22:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am talking about the 2009 MacBook. Chevymontecarlo. 12:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

MacBooks have an unique cooling system. Instead of vents on the bottom/side like ordinary laptops MacBooks pull air from gaps under the keys on the keyboard, through internal fan(s) and out through a heatsink located near the hinge of the screen. That way they can preserve the clean lines on the outside while delivering sufficient cooling (or not, as in the case of the new i7 MacBooks). --antilived^{T | C | G} 21:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Using a supercomputer

I've never actually "got my hands" on an actual supercomputer. However, I have occasionally used (at that time) enterprise-grade servers in one of my jobs. I'd imagine actually using a supercomputer is a pretty much similar experience - you just SSH into an external computer, where you get a UNIX command prompt and an X server. It's no different from using an average Linux desktop, only that everything works much, much faster. But how do people maintain the supercomputer itself? How is it powered up and booted up? There's got to be something they have to go through before it can even start up an SSH daemon, but what is it, and how is it handled? Is there some sort of direct user interface to the supercomputer? JIP | Talk 19:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

When you have a great many parallel computers, there is a special job scheduler, and special communications techniques to communicate between processes. For vector processors there are special instructions, and you also have to be careful not to waste the resources on a gazillion dollar computer. So it is more important that the program works. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Google has something on distributed systems at http://code.google.com/edu/parallel/index.html, there seem to be videos too. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

"Supercomputer" is a fuzzy and vague term. This is especially true now that your average wristwatch contains more compute power than an early supercomputer from a few decades ago. Regarding the "experience" - many systems do run Linux (or look like they run Linux). The power of the Linux kernel is that it has been ported to all the x86 architectures, the Power architecture, many other types of RISC systems, and many obscure processor manufacturers; but some very esoteric processors still exist that really only run proprietary "unix-like" operating systems; and some do not even attempt to be POSIX compliant, but have a specialized operating system, with its own command interpreter, system libraries, and so on. It may support SSH or telnet. If the system does have Linux and can run X, you really wouldn't even know you're on specialized hardware until you start programming. Many "supercomputers" replace your standard "gcc" and "make" toolchain with a series of proprietary, special compilers, special build utilities, pre-processors, post-processors, optimizers, and so on. These might require variants of your favorite programming languages - special C preprocessor macros, FORTRAN inline comments to direct the optimization process, and so on. At the same time, the power of open-source software often means that these specialized programming systems are just variants of gcc or open64, tuned for some unique feature of the supercomputer hardware.

There are generally two classes of "supercomputer" hardware in 2010. First, there are systems organized like enterprise data centers. These are massively distributed groups of standard, ordinary COTS systems ("blade" centers). These run conventional Linuxes or Unixes, and the task of making them "super" lies in effectively harnessing software-level parallelism and peak utilization of your network resources. IBM Roadrunner probably falls in this category, though it has unique hardware and uses the Cell Processor. The second class of computers have "unique" hardware - very unconventional systems, special accelerators, unusual processor architectures and arrangements, and so forth. Sometimes, this means that the system can not run Linux or Unix at all. Other times, it means the system runs one of the "enterprise" Unixes - Solaris, AIX, and so on. SGI makes a sort of interesting hybrid, using single system image linux. This can be considered a sort of "virtualization" technology, and it appears that an entire server room is a single machine running a single operating system (with enormous quantities of RAM, CPU, and so on). Convey Computer makes a "hybrid" supercomputer, which looks like an ordinary 2U blade server, but instead of a dual-socket Xeon, one of the Xeon processors is replaced by an entire separate FPGA reconfigurable board that is optimized for vector processing or other specialized tasks. SciCortex (now defunct) made a 72-node single main-board, which looked like it was running Linux; in fact, there was a very minimal operating system running on most of the compute elements, and the front-end processor tasked jobs off to the compute elements with a hardware/network scheduler. NVIDIA has mainstreamed its CUDA architecture, which gives you the capability to turn a GPU into a pretty potent supercomputer. You might take a look at high performance computing - this is the new "buzzword" to describe "more expensive, fancier computer" now that "supercomputer" has lost its impact factor. I still struggle to comprehend that I have more storage capacity in my L1 cache than the entire memory capacity of all the computers in the Apollo Program. Supercomputers are as supercomputers do. Most people waste the power of their commodity hardware; mostly, because they have no interest in learning how to use it at peak performance.

If you're interested in working with high performance computing, it would serve you well to learn how to program a system programming language like C. You should probably have some intense familiarity with computer architecture, especially the various types of parallelism now available. You should be comfortable understanding the ugly interior of a POSIX operating system - what exactly is a shell and what exactly is a kernel function, and how those would map on to a different kind of CPU. Nimur (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

May 13

Change icon

Hi all! I recently installed a free codec (this one) so I could listen to Wikipedia's music offline. Unfortunately, it comes with a horrid image of a fish that all .ogg files I download now have. How can I change this? I've tried rightclick-properties but that doesn't seem to wokr. Thanks. ~`76.229.213.156 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC).

HowToGeek provides an article detailing how to do this. Scroll down to "Change Icons for Regular File Types" which may apply to what you're looking for. Amordea (talk) 03:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Get rid of beta

I hate the new "beta" style on Wikipedia and I want it gone. Since I'm not using an account I don't have the option to remove it in preferences. So would it be possible to write a greasemonkey script that could replace the new "Vector" skin with the classic monobook skin? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Get an account. It's free and easier than writing a GM script. Buffered Input Output 11:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, but I want to use a greasemonkey script for this. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What's bad is that even after returning to the classic version you can't get rid of the new, ugly logo. Rimush (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

ToggleKeys won't beep

Hello. I am on Windows 7. I activated the ToggleKeys option, but when I press the Caps Lock button, I hear no sound, not even at maximum volume. Keeping Num Lock pressed for 5 seconds does turn the option on and off, but it doesn't do much else. All other system sounds are perfectly fine. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. 190.157.140.227 (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Logical path to URL

Using vbscript I am able to create a text file on the server and write text to it using a set statement to create the Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") object under ASP. The logical path on the server is '''d:\xxx\text.txt''' while the physical path is d:\ftp\xxx\text.txt. How do I move, convert, link to or make this file accessible as an http:// URL text page file, such as '''http://www.domain.com/xxx.text.txt'''? 71.100.0.29 (talk) 13:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you know what directory http://www.domain.com/ points to? --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I meant "domain" generically. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 16:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Where exactly the root of the domain points to in the file system of the server will depend on your ISP. I've had a number of different ISPs in the past and they all pointed to different directories. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

That should be irrelevant. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 17:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what your question is—in that the answer seems too obvious to really be the question (but maybe I am wrong). On any web server the actual local file path will feature a local directory structure up to the directory which is served as public by the server. So c://whatever/username/apache/public_html/file.txt will be seen as http://www.yourdomain.com/file.txt because the server recognizes everything in public_html to be the root. So if you were coding this from the other side, where you knew the local file path, you'd just need to figure out what the snip out in order to be referencing the root directory (in this case, you snip out c://whatever/username/apache/public_html/). That should all be pretty obvious though, which is why I am confused by the question. If you are asking, how do I get the server to serve that information up as a web page in the first place, that requires the installation of an HTTP server, like Apache. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Server is already installed and uses drive D as the physical and logical drive letter. The physical path to my account on the server is named d:\ftp\myaccount\ and I can create a sub-directory called xxx with vbscript under asp using server.createobject("scripting.Filesystemobject") and write text to the file by uploading and running the script using FrontPage. The file shows up with a physical path on the server of d:\ftp\myaccount\filename.txt and with a logical path of d:\xxx\filename.txt and I can write to this file with another vbscript. Visitors, however cannot view the file with a browser nor can I find it using frontPage anywhere in the main or sub folders. It is no where to be found as a URL file such as http://www.domainname.com/myaccount/filename.txt. I know its on the server but I need to be able to access it from a browser and not just from a vbscript running under asp on the server. I need a way to move or copy the file from either the logical or the physical path to the URL path of my account. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 23:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It sounds as if you are putting them in a directory that does not have an HTTP server making it public (it looks like it has FTP access but not HTTP). If that's the case then no amount of rooting around with the right domain name will help you. That is, it sounds like you have FTP access to an account but that the folder in question is not public—is this right? If that's the case then the problem is making the directory public more so than finding the right directory. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Ironically enough FrontPage provides a "Save Results" web component or webbot to save the data collected by a form but I have not been able to get the webbot to work. Possibly there is a d:\http physical path but I can only reach the physical path through the creatobject which requires I use the logical path name. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

I found a way to get the saved results webbot to work so problem solved. Thanks. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 02:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Saving Passwords in Browser = More Risk?

Does saving my password and login information to websites in web browsers such as Firefox and IE increase my chances of having my passwords stolen in the event of spyware/malware infection? In other words, how well, if at all, are these passwords encrypted? Acceptable (talk) 14:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a bit. Firefox does keep your passwords encrypted (ref) but it itself has the key to unencrypt that (otherwise the password store wouldn't work), so any malware that is smart enough to know how can figure it out. I'm not aware of any malware that does, and most password-stealing malware seems to do so by sniffing the keyboard instead, but there's no reason why this would be all that difficult. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It could be argued that, since having the password stored removes the need to type it in, then you're less at risk from keyboard sniffers if you store your passwords in this way. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If you choose strong passwords and memorize them, then you do not need to save them to websites. See Study: Frequent password changes are useless - Yahoo! News. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

But if you use the same password for all sites, mine included, then you would give me your password for your banking site when you logged into my site. Choosing a different, strong password for every site you log into, and memorising them all, is beyond the power of most people, myself included. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One tip I have found useful is to generate a different strong password for each site procedurally - for example choose an easy to remember phrase for each site and use that as your password, but type it in with your hands centred on a non-standard position on the keyboard, effectively turning a weak password into a strong one by using a kind of substitution cipher (I don't use that particular technique myself - I'm not going to tell you what I actually use). 131.111.185.68 (talk) 19:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Java escape sequences

I'm practicing manipulating data in Java through file input/output stream, and need to break a string into tokens. Surfing http://java.sun.com for StringTokenizer class but I am advised to use String.split() method instead (see here). Here is the exempli gratia on that page:

String[] result = "this is a test".split("\\s");

The split() method return an array of strings. In the example above each of them are 1 token seperated by space character. But I do not know why \\s represent the character space. I try to print it on the screen, like this:

System.out.print("\\s");

And receive the output: \s on the screen, since double back slash stand for the character backslash itself. I found the escape sequence reference on http://java.sun.com, but it does not cover my question. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 14:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

There are two layers to understand here. The first is the compiler - it takes that string literal "\\s" and stores it as an internal string that is just "\s" - so the \\ is for the compiler only. If you were to read a string in from a file or the user, you'd just enter \s to get what you want. Next is the String.split() method - it takes a regular expression - if you look at the Java documentation for its regexps here you'll see that \s is the regexp for "a whitespace character". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Regular Expressions and Annotations are 2 last sessions in my textbook, and I admit I haven't read the book through to the end yet (I'm now stuck at the beginning of advanced Java). For now, I'd better pass a specific character (e.g: " " instead of \s) as an argument for this method. This seems to be less confuse and complicated than using the Regular Expression thing. Thanks for the answer. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 16:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Help me choose a username!

I really hate usernames, but Wikipedia requires one to have an account. So help me decide. I want a username isn't long, annoying, pretentious, or related to me in any way. Go! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 15:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid this is a reference desk, where we help by providing information. As you should have seen from the notice at the top of the page, "if you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere." ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 15:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Where would you suggest I ask for help on choosing a wikipedia username to use on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Username policy. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I asked my question there. I still don't see why you people here couldn't have helped, especially seeing as there's a question on the Miscellaneous‎ desk asking for opinions on what to buy a 20 year old girl for her birthday which got a load of helpful replies. Whatever man —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 16:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See this thread from last December, from the Miscellaneous desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the many suggestions in that thread, you could try this generator of pronounceable letter sequences. Check prospective usernames here. -- BenRG (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Use the random page link on the left bar, and click it a few times until you land on something suitable. Check special:ListUsers to make sure it's not too similar to an existing user (you'll often find it is, but most claimed usernames have been used only for a handful of edits long ago). Don't use a name of a person or an organisation. A few minutes of messing around found the following, all of which are vacant and (to my mind) pretty good: Oligarcha, Sealguard, Engineered Wood, Trophime, Distortion Synthesis, Pulse Generator, Rusenu. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

No more please on this page. The question was subsequently posted at the help desk. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

SQL question

I have a table of orders for particular products, and a table of products that are on sale. (It's not ideal database structure, but that's out of my control.) What I want to do is outer join the order table to the sale table via product number, but I don't want to include any particular data from the sale table, I just want a Y if the join exists or N if it doesn't in the output. Can anyone explain how I can do this in SQL? Keepscases (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One way is to "cheat" and use a sub-select (and CASE) within your select. There are probably better ways, but this should work.

select
column1,
column2,
...,
case when OrderProductId in (select ProductID from ProductsOnSale) then 'Y' else 'N' end as 'On Sale?'

from
   OrdersTable ...

--Nricardo (talk) 02:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC) (edits shortly thereafter with better table/column name)

That certainly works. A join might be faster than a subquery, though. I'd tend to use:

select 
  case when sale_products.product_id is null then 'N' else 'Y' end as sale_flag
from 
  orders 
  left join sales_products 
    on orders.product_id = sales_products.product_id

198.161.238.18 (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

mp3 player/recorder/FM radio doesn't work

My Transcend brand player twice the size of a pen drive is not working. I can still plug it into my system via usb and move files to or from. But It doesn't charge nor does it starts when I press the button. It's only a few months old and very sparingly used. On the lower side there is a very tiny hole with reset inscribed near it. If I put a pin and press what will happen? Will the factory settings be restored if it is not physical damage? How many seconds to press a pin down the hole? Thanks for any advice. --117.204.80.75 (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Can't comment specifically on the Transcend. (Model No. or a link to it may help.) Have you read the manual, if it has one? If so, following the advice there is a good start. I have a Creative Zen Neeon 2. It also has a reset hole and a few times I have used it when the player 'locked up' (meaning the software has crashed like a PCs 'Blue screen of death'. Using it is basically the same as resetting your PC or any other micro-processor based device. The bit about not charging might mean a battery problem, (internal battery?) or it may just mean it is again 'locked up'.

You should only need to push the reset for a second, if that. It will likely restore factory settings. I would suggest using something non-conductive, unless it specifically says otherwise. I think I pared down a match-stick & it worked ok. Here is a link to the Transcend web site Support page. [26]--220.101.28.25 (talk) 05:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I would always be cautious about exactly what a reset button will reset. As you can access the content on the player via USB, I suggest you back up what you can, before pressing the reset button. Under the hole, is an ordinary plastic topped button, or sometimes a flexible strip of metal. Depending on the size of the hole, an unfolded paperclip, a pared down matchstick or a pin will easily do the job; just stick it in straight while the player is on, push gently for a second or two and don't wriggle it around. Astronaut (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This [27] is the model.I tried reset and it didn't work.-117.204.84.191 (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Rapidshare

Resolved

I can't access rapidshare.com, and I heard VirginMedia ISP is blocking it deliberately. Any way to confirm if they are or if it's a problem at my end (I had difficulty accessing another site recently that turned out to be my computers problem) 82.44.55.254 (talk) 22:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Try http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/. It should tell you if it's on your end or theirs. If you want to see a little more clearly what is going on, consider running a traceroute and see where it fails. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Tried that and it reports it as fine. Pinged the site and it pings fine too. Try to browse and it fails. Try to browse through proxy and it works. As I said, there's talk that Virgin Media are blocking the site deliberately. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 08:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I just googled for it and they are deliberately blocking it, and other sites. Apparently it's a "technical error" (yeah right) that they'll be fixing later today. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 08:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't work on the PS3 browser

Not sure if this has been raised as an issue already, but Wikipedia pages do not seem to render correctly on the browser built into the PS3, since the introduction of the new page style. I seem to get two vertical blank strips, about a third of the way and two thirds of the way across the page, which probably blank out about half of an article's content. I have tried various settings on the browser but it always seems to render the same. SilverTrack (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This issue has been raised a few times around WP - such as the WP:HD. Please try looking on there because I think a user posted some helpful links to a question on there somewhere... Chevymontecarlo. 11:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

May 14

Automated Photo Mosaic Maker for Mac OS X

I am looking for a photo mosaic maker that can automatically assemble a specific selection of photos into a mosaic.--153.20.24.67 (talk) 01:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Scam Website

Hi, I came across a website claiming to be an authorized Mobile devices seller in Europe. After dealing with them I knew they are fraud! My question is who should I be reporting this to? Thanks - Kim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.201.1.220 (talk) 08:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This could be quite difficult if you ordered from Bahrain. What country in Europe was the website hosted in? For the UK, Trading standards would be the first point of contact.

(By the way, could you help by discouraging others at your school from vandalising Wikipedia? Dbfirs 11:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Integer division rounding up

I'm a very new programmer (VB.NET) trying to write a program for a vending machine for a school assignment. I've got it to return the specific coins given as change but it won't give me the right number sometimes because integer division rounds up if the remainder is above 0.5 (at least, that seems to be what the problem is, if not then I've got no idea). How do I get it to always round down? 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. In nearly all programming languages, integer division does always truncate ("round down"), at least for positive operands. Are you sure that your data types are integers (not just the values?). If one of the operands is of type float (or whatever the language uses), the calculation will usually be performed using floating point arithmetic, and possibly rounded if assigned to an integer. Given that the numbers involved are small, why not just iterate (i.e. start with an empty set, add one of the largest coin until you would overpay, go to the next smallest coin, repeat. That also easily adapts to the case that you are out of certain kinds of coins). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Because we've not been taught loops yet. (That would require some kind of loop, right?) You might be right about the data types, I'll check when I get chance. Thanks! 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Mmm...that didn't work. 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

If converting from float to integer always rounds to nearest integer, then you can force rounding down by subtracting 0.5 from the floating point result before converting to an integer (I am assuming that 0.5 rounds up here). Gandalf61 (talk) 10:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

It does indeed. Cheers, that should work. I'd considered it before but it seemed...inelegant. Ah well. Cheers! 212.219.39.146 (talk) 10:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I've often done it that way and I also find it inelegant. You should be able to use the more elegant Math.Truncate(). --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

gunzip from string in perl

I have a http response in a perl program. But the response encoding is gzip. How do I deflate it? Searching in the net I can only find how to unzip from a file. 59.93.209.146 (talk) 14:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm more of a python than perl person myself, but it seems like perl follows the same nomencature - gzip handles the full .gz compressed file format, using the zlib compression library. I think you need to use zlib yourself, as you're dealing with a simple compressed stream not a formatted file. Perl's zlib documentation is here; that, and not gzip/gunzip, seems to be what you need. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)