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July 13

The earth rotates!

Imagine a map projection showing the whole surface of the earth on a flat screen, such as this image. That's a still picture. Is there software that can do the following? I supply in some form information specifying which map projection I want to use, and as output I see the rotating earth using that projection, say doing one full rotation every minute? I would want it to be scrupulously accurate and to look nice. And in a form that could be incorporated into a video that could then be uploaded to youtube. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

MATLAB Mapping Toolbox can perform arbitrarily complex standard or user-specified map projections, and can be configured to use gory details and precise geodetic information from various international standards (e.g. geoid references like NOAA NGS). You could easily write a simple MATLAB program to load and set up the earth data, configure your favorite globe projection, and using the standard plotting tools, render an animation in 2D or 3D. Unfortunately MATLAB and its Mapping Toolbox are expensive. Nimur (talk) 17:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

GNU Octave has a Mapping Toolbox as well; it is less well supported, but probably functional. These tools are free software. Nimur (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Nimur. I'll see if the department whose computers I'm using has those. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

What to do with .cbr files?

How do you see .cbr files, I mean with what application you open them ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 06:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

google ".cbr extension". it seems to be a 'Comic Book RAR Archive', which can either be decompressed using a standard archiving utility, or opened in an assortment of apps designed for reading comic books. --Ludwigs2 07:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be Comic Book Archive file which according to that page should be able to be opened with anything that can decompress .rar files. Dismas|^(talk) 07:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

CDisplay is the program you want. CBRs are just renamed RAR files, so literally all you have to do is change the extension to .RAR and open it however you normally would. Personally, I like using the CBR setup because it keeps things neat (one file, not fifty), takes up less space (due to compression), and can easily be switched back to individual files should the need arise. CDisplay is a good program which I've used for years, but the default settings may not match what you want - all the settings can be adjusted, however. Matt Deres (talk) 16:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Creating a Firefox Persona

I'm trying to make my own persona, but when I select an image from my personal folders, the image only appears at the very right-hand corner of the header and at the left-hand of the footer. It never fills up the entire browser. Even with photo editing software (Paint.NET in case you're wondering), it never turns out right. Yet the sample pictures that are in the My Pictures folder have no problem looking as it should for a theme in the browser. How do I make my custom persona look right with my own pictures? 24.189.88.30 (talk) 07:35, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Your persona will only ever occupy the header and footer, never the entire browser. If it is only appearing in the corners, I would guess that the images are not large enough – they should be 3000px wide and 200px or 100px tall for header and footer respectively. See How to Create Personas for more info. AJCham 08:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Excentro or another guilloche generator for windows

Does anyone know of a Windows programme (free or open-source) with the same functionality as Excentro? ╟─TreasuryTag►CANUKUS─╢ 18:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Searching for "harmonograph simulator" in Google produces some results, see also Spirograph. 92.24.177.162 (talk) 21:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Strange image results in Google

In trying to help answer a question, I noticed a lot of my search results led to similar web pages. For example, on this result page, of the 21 results I can see: 9 are links to sites all named "tattoo<random 5-digit number>.info", 3 are links to sites all named "tattoos<random 5-digit number>.info", and 5 are links to sites all named "wallpaper<random 5-digit number>.info" - leaving just 4 that are links to other sites. If I click on any of the "tattoo" links, I am taken to a page advertising stuff related to body art and if I click on any of the "wallpaper" links, I am taken to a page advertising stuff related to desktop wallpapers; in any case the image I clicked on is not on that site. In fact, the site I end up on is the result of a redirect from the site with the image. It looks like somebody has registered hundreds (or thousands) of similar addresses and arranged for a huge effort in redirecting pages to their random sites. Is this the result of fancy Search Engine Optimisation? Are Google's results being corrupted in some way? Or do I have some malware that is intercepting my Google results and rewriting the page on the fly to push their sites? Currently running MalwareBytes, to see if it's my PC that is causing this, but I would be curious if others are seeing the sme thing I do. Astronaut (talk) 12:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks like someone is gaming the system a bit. It's not just on your end of things; it happens on my Mac as well. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. MalwareBytes found nothing after a thorough scan, so that's a relief. It is still odd though. Astronaut (talk) 18:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This is an example of black hat search engine optimization called cloaking. The site detects when the search engine's indexing robot is requesting the page and shows it relevant content that will rank well in searches. But when other people visit, the page instead shows ads the site owner can profit from.

In this case, the images themselves come from other websites. If you right-click a image in the results page and copy the link address, you can find the direct image link between imgurl= and the following &. This is tedious to do manually, so if you decide to do this often, you can find web browser add-ons that will help you go directly to the image address embedded in Google image search result links. --Bavi H (talk) 02:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I've reported this problem to Google. I then found this discussion on Google's help forum - this kind of thing has been a problem with Google's image search for some weeks now. Astronaut (talk) 03:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"CLICK CLICK CLICK WHIRRRRRR. CLICK CLICK CLICK WHIRRRRRR" - my laptop's hard drive

By now I'm pretty well aware of how badly I screwed the pooch on this one, and will be buying a new hard drive pretty soon. But I did have some stuff I liked on the other one, that I hadn't backed up yet. For purpose of these questions, it is an 80gb drive on an HP dv1000 (I think it came with the laptop), dual-partitioned to WinXP and Ubuntu although neither is able to boot because sectors 00-07 (i.e. all of them) are junk according to the BIOS integrity check.

1. I've heard of putting clicking drives in the freezer and having them work for a few minutes - assuming this works, how long would I have for the
2. Would I be able to, post-freezing, mount it as a secondary drive (with the newly-bought one as primary)?
3. If so, could I do it while the laptop was already booted, therefore giving myself more time to copy and less time to dick around with booting?
4. Will this whole rigamarole work if I install Linux on the new HD?

ZigSaw 13:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, it's you! I don't know the answer to your question, but welcome back to Wikipedia! I was very sad when you got banned last year 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Ziggy was actually banned from 2007 to 2009, in other words he was unbanned last year not banned last year. This particularly account was blocked for a short time last year after it was uncovered he was a banned user but was unblocked after about 1.5 months when he/she made a successful unban request. Nil Einne (talk) 00:39, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you shouldn't freeze your electronics, including hard disks. They are not rated for freezing temperatures, and moisture will condense on your electronics, too, which could cause damage when you turn it on. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I've heard a lot of anecdotal success stories about freezing (such as this one). It's worth trying as a last resort. You should plug the drive into an already-running system to recover data, not boot from it as that guy did. -- BenRG (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You can definitely try to mount your old drive as a secondary drive with the newly-bought one as primary. It might not work at all, or it might give lots of errors, so be prepared for the worst. The easiest way to do it with a laptop is a IDE/SATA USB adapter, which you can pick up online for ~$20. They're quite common. And yes, you'd probably want to plug it in after the laptop was booted, so you could get the most out of your limited time. And yes, installing Linux on the new HD shouldn't make a difference. Linux works quite well for hard disk recovery, especially since the ntfs-3g drivers became standard. Indeterminate (talk) 17:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Name for padding function

I want to do a formatting in OpenOffice, but I don't know what it is called. I want to have a list that has a left-justified column and a right-justified column. The padding between the two columns is variable (depending on content per line) and I want the padding to be filled with periods (or dots). What is this type of justification and padding called so I can search for the method of setting up the paragraph style? -- kainaw™ 14:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

If you mean a line of periods like in a table of contents, they're apparently called "dot leaders". This page discusses them in OO. --Sean 14:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That works. -- kainaw™ 16:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Combining images into a PDF

I have a folder containing images such as image01.jpg, image02.jpg, image03.jpg..... (or perhaps image01.png...). Is there any free software that could join them together in sequence as a PDF? Thanks. 92.24.184.61 (talk) 14:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

With ImageMagick:

convert -adjoin -page A4 image*.jpg output.pdf

--Sean 14:49, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

PDFTK (website) is also free; I don't think it accepts JPG as input files, but it can do many other useful operations on PDF. Nimur (talk) 17:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. How would I do the ImageMagick command above please? I am used to GUIs. I have XP. Thanks 92.24.177.162 (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Download the Windows version of ImageMagick and install it. Open a command prompt and run it using the command specified above. Nimur (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Am I correct in thinking that I will need to navigate in the command prompt window to the folder where the ImageMagick software is? How can I do that? Thanks 92.29.127.224 (talk) 13:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No, as the software should put the command in your PATH so you can use it from anywhere. You will have to navigate to where your images are (let's say they're in E:\my\pics), something like this:

E:
cd \my\pics
convert -adjoin -page A4 image01.jpg image02.jpg image03.jpg image04.png output.pdf

--Sean 16:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

IrfanView (free for personal use) is supposed to be able to do the job if you download and install the Plug-Ins in addition to the main program; the menu option is Options → Multipage Images → Create Multipage PDF. PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Got a spam Facebook friend request from someone with similar name to one just mentioned in an email -- hacked account?

Hi all,

My mother just sent me some financial information, and cc'd her bank advisor -- let's call her "Roxanne Courn." This was the first time "Roxanne Courn's" name or email was ever sent to me email. Two hours later, I got a spammy-looking Facebook friend request from a (let's say) "Roxane Korn." It looked like spam because I've never heard of this person, and s/he has just five friends none of whom I know. This request, as you may have noticed, was from a person with an extremely similar, though slightly different, name from the one just mentioned.

Now, I get several spammy facebook friend requests a week, so this could easily just be coincidence. But do you think that there's any chance that either my, my mother's or (the original) Roxanne's emails are compromised? That some automated spam-bot said "let's send him a friend request from someone with a similar name to that just mentioned, just in case he clicks on it thinking it's the same person?" Is such a scheme a known strategy? Or am I being paranoid?

Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.135 (talk) 21:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems odd that they would misspell the name if they have the actual, correct version. I suppose one could imagine some sort of case where it was mechanically transliterated into Chinese or Russian and then back into English again, I guess, but that would be awfully inefficient... --Mr.98 (talk) 21:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Could they have a farm of existing facebook accounts, and whenever they match to something similar send a request from one of them? Reaching a bit here, probably. — Sam 166.186.168.45 (talk) 21:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Hundreds of identical files on Windows HD - thanks Bill.

I have XP and I've run a program that finds duplicates on the HD. a) It has found about a hundred identical copies of update.exe. They are 0.75MB each. Is there any sensible way of diminishing their number? b) Is Linux better designed than Windows - does Linux just keep one or two copies of system files in some central repository rather than having a hundred identical copies all over the place, as Windows does? c) I also have hundreds of different files that are exactly zero bytes long - would it probably be safe to delete them? Thanks 92.24.177.162 (talk) 21:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

What directories are your copies of update.exe in? As for the 0-byte files, I would not delete them; I know some people hate computer directories that they see as "junk drawers", but some applications may write a 0-byte file just to keep a note around that some situation or other has occurred, or not occurred. Since they presumably are not affecting your computer in any way, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

If the copies of update.exe are underneath a folder named Windows\$hf_mig$, then the standard advice is to not delete this folder, since it's needed for correct installation of later updates. You can safely delete folders with names starting with $NtUninstall, along with all of their contents; this can free up a lot of space, though you will lose the ability to uninstall the updates. Deleting zero-length files will not free a noticeable amount of space and can cause problems; don't do it. -- BenRG (talk) 03:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

If you want to clean your computer use CCleaner. I use it across 800 computers. --mboverload@ 05:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

As far as I recall the update.exe filers are in many different places. I already regularly use Ccleaner, CleanUp! and Window's own disk clean-up. Thanks 92.29.127.224 (talk) 13:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you have the option to clean hotfix installers enabled? Doing things to clean the Windows system itself other than using proven safe programs like CCleaner I can't recommend unless you're familiar with the workings of the Windows operating system. --mboverload@ 01:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do. 92.15.9.213 (talk) 08:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Searching for and fixing corrupt zip files

I have a large number of corrupt zip files throughout my HD. Although I know of freeware that will attempt to fix a corrupt zip file if you tell it what the filename and path is, is there anything that will search for them itself without having to be explicitly told about every individual file? 92.24.182.102 (talk) 22:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious how you ended up with a large number of corrupt zip files throughout your hard drive. Anyway, assuming you're running Windows, you could open a command prompt and run this:

for /r c:\ %i in (*.zip) do (zip -T "%i" || move "%i" "%i.broken" && zip -FF "%i.broken" --out "%i")

That will process all of drive C. Replace the "c:\" near the beginning with another folder name to process the subfolders of that folder. You will need zip.exe and unzip.exe (Info-ZIP). The original broken files are retained with ".broken" appended to the end. I take no responsibility if this makes matters worse instead of better. There's no magical way to repair zip archives perfectly. -- BenRG (talk) 08:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you greatly! Curious, what language is the line above written in please? The corrupt zip files were probably due to zipping up a lot of stuff from an old computer into a big zip file, copying it to a DVD, reading the DVD on my newer computer and unzipping the big zip drive.

I recall a file copier from Korea that was unusual in verifying what it had written, which would have been useful for that, but do not recall any more details. 92.29.127.224 (talk) 13:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(Those are commands for Command Prompt, and although this set of commands are not a "complete" programming language, they are commonly used for batch scripting). Nimur (talk) 18:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

At what point in that process do you think the zip files got corrupted? The first thing I'd try is reextracting them from the DVD. Data loss during file copying would indicate a serious problem with your hardware. I'd advise against continuing to use a computer that occasionally corrupts your files. -- BenRG (talk) 20:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

July 14

Custom persona will not stick

I finally succeeded in creating my own Firefox persona (see several questions above), but now I have another problem. It won't stay. What I mean is that I keep clicking "apply" in the Persona menu, but it either never checks or it reverts right back to the previous persona I had after two seconds. How do I fix this? 24.189.88.30 (talk) 00:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Using ogis2svg.pl

I'm trying to use the ogis2svg.pl class to convert the US Census shape file of the entire United States into svg format. I'm using Ubuntu 10.4 x86, and for compatibility I've installed libmath-round-perl, postgresql, postgresql-client, postgresql-contrib, pgadmin3, and postgresql-8.4-postgis. But I get the following error during compilation:

converting shapefile to a temporary sqlfile ...Shapefile type: Polygon
Postgis type: MULTIPOLYGON[2]
unknown error with conversion from shape to temporary sql file!

Mind you it still puts out a lot of valid sql before it aborts. What am I doing wrong? The postgis version is above what's required by the ogis2svg page (8.4 vs. 8.2). Note: I've also tried a workaround under Windows XP in Virtual Box, but I get an unrelated error there which appears to be related to poor compilation of the executable, so I've abandoned that route. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

CPU cooling

I recently bought an i7-860 which came with a fan, but I wanted opinions on whether this standard fan is sufficient or if I should buy something else, and if so, what is a good choice? The reason I ask is that I think the fans fuse on after some use, and can't be taken off again. For context, it does get very hot in summer (Southern Australia) but it's a case with fairly good airflow. Benjamint 02:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

If it's an Intel stock cooler, it most definitely should be sufficient for normal usage (meaning no overclocking although even mild overclocking and overvolting is usually fine, the HSF should have sufficient headroom) since if not it would be defective/unsuitable and Intel shouldn't be providing such things. If it's not a stock cooler (if it came in a retail box it should be) then there's a chance it won't be although I doubt it. Also removing the HSF should be possible unless you plan to apply thermal glue. The thermal pad that comes with the HSF is a bit waxy and can stick somewhat but you should still be able to remove the HSF, particular if you do it while warm (in other words, if you ever want to do it consider turning on the computer and loading the processor for a while before you try to take it apart). If you are concerned, considering removing the stock thermal pad and applying some sort of thermal paste like Artic Céramique or Artic Silver which isn't sticky (bear in mind these are sometimes not officially supported by Intel) and then you should not have any problems removing the HSF if you ever need to. Nil Einne (talk) 04:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Benjamint 07:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

TV Tuner Card/Signal Issue

Resolved

I have a TV Tuner Card in my PC. I'm not sure its name or how to check but it came default in my computer when i bought it. I used it for a year at college to watch/record shows from cable with windows media center, so it should work? When i came home for the summer i plugged in the antenna with a coaxial cable to watch public TV (air waves) I believe we have a digital antenna, but despite my going through auto detect on media center (cant find signal) and manual setup (tried every option available to choose from, still no signal) i cant get it set up!

My dad insists that the antenna is hooked up to the wall box up here, but since the place where i can supposedly check is dangerous (an unfloored attic space) i would like to see if i can look at the raw data from the coaxial cable before coming to the conclusion that we need to fix our hookup. (Bringing a huge flat screen TV up here, which is all we have, is also complicated)

Does anyone know of a program that would be able to show me raw data from the tuner card? i just want to see that i am in fact getting a picture, and figure whether its media center/my PC that's goofy or if it is in fact the coaxial hookup.

Thanks! 63.26.247.76 (talk) 03:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

ADDITIONAL: I did look on the back of my card and there is a "TV" and "ATSC" hole. i did look up some stuff on ATSC and found that that is a digital signal, however my coax cable doesnt fit there, i would think i could still grab my signal through coax?

63.26.247.76 (talk) 03:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Which version of Windows are you using? What model is your TV tuner card? And what do you mean by your coax cable will not "fit" in the hole? You will need to connect to the ATSC input because the U.S. shut off analog broadcasting last year and is now exclusively broadcasting in digital. The tuner card worked at college because most cable TV systems still carry analog signals. Many TV tuner cards have separate inputs for analog and digital signals. PleaseStand ^(talk) 03:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow! I feel dumb! What i mean i guess by doesn't fit is that i guess for whatever reason the hole for the pin was either really snug, or it felt like there was something blocking the hole or it was the wrong configuration on the inside. I came to this conclusion because the pin, like many coax pins after a while, was bent and i didn't want to accidentally break it. After reading your post i tried again (with a little more force!) and it went in and all works like a charm, silly me! Anyway you have my thanks for the help, this has been bugging me for a while!

63.26.247.76 (talk) 05:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hard Drive

If I reformat a hard drive will it erase all the sensitive information on it?75.185.120.28 (talk) 04:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No. You need to write data over it. Formatting doesn't do that, it just rewrites key areas of a drive. Even after writing over data, it's possible (but not probable) that someone could continue to recover data. Others can provide the links to that (I know we have some). Writing zeros over all of the drive is a very good approach, and writing random data first, then zeros is even better. Shadowjams (talk) 05:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) To the casual observer, yes. To a determined forensic examination, no; see data remanence for more details. Of course, if you put that drive back into regular use, the new data will eventually erase all trace of the previous contents. There are specific software utilities that can erase data more thoroughly, usually by repeatedly writing zeros, then ones, then zeros, then ones, etc. to the drive; see Data erasure for more info. Astronaut (talk) 05:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

As mentioned in the data remanence article, there's no evidence that anyone in the world can recover data that's been overwritten just once. Unless you're such a dangerous criminal that the U.S. government is going to use classified NSA technology on you—in which case you're probably doomed anyway—don't bother with fancier overwriting schemes. A "quick format" will not overwrite the whole drive, but I think a "full format" will; but I'm not certain that that's true in 100% of cases. It's better to use a dedicated data-wiping tool, of which there are many. -- BenRG (talk) 20:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Another non related hard drive question

Is it possible to make a create a new partition out of unused space on a existing partition? For example I have a 500 gb hard drive. It is split up into C and D. There is data on both drives already. I want to create a new partition out of the unused space on D and call it F. Is that possible without having to reformat D completely? 75.185.120.28 (talk) 04:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but it's tricky and if it goes bad it can mess up your pre-existing data. Backup everything before you try anything. For windows there are a few programs, but Norton Ghost I think has that option. On *nix or mac, you can try (may need to install it) gparted, which is pretty good at these kinds of changes, but again, it's risky. Shadowjams (talk) 05:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It is easy to do so long as you don't use Window's default disk partition utility. There are a number of other disk partition utilities that will do this without destroying the data on a partition. My choice would be to boot my PC from a Linux Live-CD and run GParted to shrink the second partition (probably called /dev/sda2). That would make space so GParted can make a new partition and format it. Once you go back to Windows, the new partition will just appear, probably as drive E (and the CD/DVD will become drive F). When messing with partitions, it is a good idea to take a backup in case something goes wrong. Astronaut (talk) 05:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Stay away from Partition Magic! I agree with gparted, it seems to be the best and most stable. Just be very careful, it's really worth it to backup even though you might think you know what you're doing. Sandman30s (talk) 07:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

RAM buses

if buses is the right word, I'm just curious what kind of limit there is on "bandwidth" of transmission to and from a stick of RAM, i.e., what is the bandwidth of the connection accross the motherboard to the cpu. And, if forexample you used 2 4GB sticks, is it possible that you wouldn't get quite as good performance asif you used 4 2GB sticks because of this "bandwidth" limitation? (Corsair DDR3 C8 1600, and the motherboard is an Asus P7P55D-E) Thanks, Benjamint 07:54, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but it depends on your motherboard configuration. Modern RAM uses a channeled system with one or more memory controllers, so depending how you connect RAM to these channels, your peak- and average- throughput will vary; and if you use a very modern computer, with QuickPath Interconnect, there is an entirely different memory architecture. Ultimately, the bandwidth limitation boils down to a very simple equation: how many wires connect Point A to Point B; and how fast can each wire transmit digital data without corruption. But this is a bit over-simplified, because modern computers do not have only bidirectional memory access - DMA devices, including multiple clients that are attached to the CPU and its cache, (and of course, multiple cores and muliple CPUs) may all be requesting simultaneous memory transactions. For these reasons, QPI (the newest memory connection architecture from Intel) functions more as a "network arbiter" than a simple memory bus. In terms of raw numbers: today's best systems will sustain on the order of 4 to 8 giga-transfers per second; each transfer would usually be a 64-bit or 128-bit cache-line (though it may be smaller for some processors). Here's "Weaving High Performance Multiprocessor Fabric", from Intel. Nimur (talk) 17:54, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft

is IIS 6.0 & MDAC part of MS SQL Enterprise Server 2008 R2 license or do we have to purchase it seperately —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.93.67.27 (talk) 09:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

IIS is usually bundled with the operating system and just needs to be enabled. Certain versions of Windows do not include IIS, but if you have Windows Server, it is probably already installed and just needs to be enabled (instructions). MDAC is available as a free download from Microsoft. Nimur (talk) 17:47, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hands-free (Bluetooth) for home phones

When shopping for a cordless phone, I see that some are Bluetooth-enabled. I don't understand how this works. Apparently, I must have a mobile phone in order to take advantage of the feature. I don't like buying things and bringing them home just to find out how they are to be used, and store employees don't know much. Can someone tell me the protocol for using Bluetooth for home phone use? I keep destroying expensive headsets, by catching the cord on things. Thanks! --Everything Else Is Taken (talk) 15:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the answer but the obvious one is to shop somewhere where the assistants actually have decent product knowledge. Exxolon (talk) 16:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd love to, but I live in a technological backwater. --Everything Else Is Taken (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you pair your cellphone with the cordless phone system, just like you would with a Bluetooth wireless headset. That way, when somebody calls either your cell phone or your landline phone, the cordless phone would ring and you could just answer it. See this article for more info. Indeterminate (talk) 18:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah. I did read the article; thank you. I think I'd misinterpreted the whole phenomenon. I'm looking for a way to talk on my home phone, on a headset, without dragging a cord around. It looks like what the market has demanded is something entirely different -- going from the convenience of hands-free and cordless to the need to hold the phone or use a corded headset. Oy. Definitely not what I'm trying to achieve.

It's just weird -- I can't understand why the market doesn't support what I'm looking for; don't other people want the convenience of a hands-free cordless phone at home? --Everything Else Is Taken (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

A quick online search for "hand free cordless phone" revealed a large number of results that seem to be exactly what you're looking for. --LarryMac | Talk 10:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the best (free) tool to convert .avi to animated Graphics Interchange Format?

Please tell, and from where I can download it ? -- Jon Ascton  (talk) 18:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There are many free programs that can make gifs, I'm not sure which is the best. GIMP is one option, here is a quick guide. You could also try iWisoft Free Video Converter which I've found to be very easy to use, but there isn't much advanced control over the gif settings so they sometimes end up choppy or very large. Other free programs you could try are mencoder, SUPER and FFmpeg, however in my experience these are slightly less intuitive to use, especially for a beginner. My personal method for making gifs is to take snapshots of the video with mplayer, then use 'Ulead gif Animator' to make the images into an animation. However, that program isn't free, but if you're just making a one off gif the trial version is fully functional for 15 days after install. 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 22:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Bing Search products not found. Do they exist?

The Wikipedia article on the search engine Bing <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_%28search_engine%29> includes a table listing ″Search products", one of which is "University". When I open www.bing.com, I cannot see this service on offer. Clicking on "More" brings up a list of services *Web*, *Images*, *Videos*, *Shopping*, *News*, *Maps* and *xRank*, but nothing more. Searching (using Bing) for "Bing University", "Bing Services" (and other combinations) does not seem to bring up the right result. The bing website does not seem to elaborate or give any helpful information either. Does this service exist? Is it restricted to the usa only*? How do I get to this service?

• There are others in the world who use the internet, I am located in germany! Does that make a difference?

PS: I have not placed links for each step, as these may display differently depending on viewer location.84.130.121.37 (talk) 17:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find it either, and the cited reference for the entire section was to a bad URL; so I placed some "failed verification" tags next to each use of that reference in the Bing article, and I went ahead and removed the "University" line. There is a Bing site called "discoverbing.com" that does talk about a bunch of Bing features (though I didn't find the alleged "University" feature). Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Renaming clashing files before copying in Windows batches

I would like to copy a file from folder A to folder B, but if a file of the same name already exists in folder B, then I would like to automatically rename it eg from myfile.exe to myfile01.exe before copying. Is that possible with a Windows batch file please? 92.28.246.39 (talk) 19:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is possible. You can check if a file exists (or does not exist) using the IF EXIST syntax. You can design logic to either increment a number or append a new tag until you have a unique file-name that does NOT exist. Here's the most trivial example, note that this will blindly overwrite any pre-existing backup file, so use with caution or add some additional logic to check:

IF NOT EXIST %destfile%    copy %srcfile% %destfile%
ELSE copy %srcfile% %destfile%.bak

Nimur (talk) 20:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, is it possible to manipulate/edit the filename more? Thanks 92.28.246.39 (talk) 21:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, what more would you want to do to it? You could construct a "while loop" using the GOTO command:

 set srcfile=input1.dat
 set destfile=output1.dat

 SET num=0
 :renameLoop
 SET /a num=num+1
 SET newname=%destfile%.bak%num%
 IF EXIST %newname% (
  GOTO renameLoop
  ) ELSE (
  copy %srcfile% %newname%
  )

(Note, I haven't tested that much). You can perform arbitrary manipulations; if you want to get really fancy, you'll soon see that DOS BATCH is a really clunky toolkit and I recommend you consider a more suitable language like Perl or Python for advanced filename manipulations. Nimur (talk) 23:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that. I was thinking of something like myfile.jpg to myfile001.jpg, or if that is not possible then something like myfile.jpg.001.jpg Thanks 92.24.191.1 (talk) 11:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

That %num% substitution can be used anywhere in the file name, but you would have to split the extension away for it to work the way you intend. Simple windows scripting (without powershell) can get tricky on accomplishing this. I fould a fairly helpful document on Scribd but since Scribd makes me want to gouge my eyes out with how terrible their site works, I will have to pass on investigating this further. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 15:46, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly - such string-substitution of the %num% into the middle of the filename can be done, but it will be horrible. DOS batch doesn't make text-processing very friendly at all - you really want some tool that lets you directly manipulate the filename strings, or operate on regular expressions. BATCH has a limited capability to do some such string substitutions, and if you wanted to get really messy, you could roll your own text-processing routines, but it would be better to use a more powerful scripting tool. Nimur (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Word Search

July 14 2010 To Whom

I was trying a recipe into my cookbook program & have used your site to look up a lot of words for food I did not know what they where. Today I was doing the same & came across this ingredient called Bijol powder I went to your site & there was nothing for this item. I am not sure what to do so that is why I am e-mailing you. If you are able to find out what this is, it would be a great help to me. Your site has helped me out in so many ways. I just wanted to let you know how happy I am that I found your site. Thanks for your time with this.

Again thanks Michael A. Velto <personal contact details removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.220.231.73 (talk) 19:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

See Bixa orellana which explains its uses and alternate names. Nanonic (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Broadband availability

I'm going to start house hunting in London next week and, being an internet addict, one of the factors I would like to take into account is the availability of super-fast broadband connections. Is there an easy way to find out what places certain options are available (as opposed to finding out whether a particular option is available in a particular place)? --Tango (talk) 19:03, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What do you consider Super-Fast broadband? 1.5 MBps should be available almost everywhere in an urban environment like London. 10MBps may be available for a higher rate. 100 MBps and above will require commercial-grade connections and might be prohibitively expensive anyway, even if available. Nimur (talk) 21:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, what I'm really looking for is information about a range of options. It's only one of many factors involved in choosing somewhere to live. I don't have an absolute minimum speed I'll accept, I just want to know where has what speed in order to help me narrow down general areas to consider. --Tango (talk) 22:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

http://www.whitefence.com/ http://www.dslreports.com/ --mboverload@ 01:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those sites seem to contain an answer to my question... --Tango (talk) 18:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Does SamKnows ([1]) provide any help? --Phil Holmes (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the best site I've seen so far - thanks! --Tango (talk) 17:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Quick help with a Joomla task

I am helping someone set up a site with Joomla. This is the first time either of us have used this management system. We are using the "rhuk_milkyway" template and want to delete the dropdown menu that changes how many news items are visible at a time, since we got rid of the news items idea all-together.

I have looked in "Edit HTML" and "Edit CSS" parts of the template manager, and it looks very cryptic. I JUST want to get rid of the dropdown menu that has "5, 10, 15, 20, ... , 100, ALL" in it. Any ideas what lines i should erase or where i should do this?

Thanks! 71.221.23.60 (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Excel

This question is about Microsoft Excel syntax. Let's say I have a spread sheet that records each employee's working hours throughout the week. Each employee had his own row on the spread sheet. I want to add up certain cells on a given row, so I type =sum(B1:H1:J1) for my employee on the first row and this will sum the entries in cells B1, H1 and J1. I want to do the same for the next employee on row two, so I have to type =sum(B2:H2:J2). Similarly for the third employee on the third row; I type =sum(B3:H3:J3). But what if I have 1,000 employees? Do I have to type 1,000 little formulas by hand? I want a command like =sum(B[row number],H[row number],J[row number]) so the spread sheet will substitute [row number] for the row number. So pasting into row one gives =sum(B1:H1:J1), pasting into row two gives =sum(B2:H2:J2), and pasting into row three gives =sum(B3:H3:J3). Any ideas? •• Fly by Night (talk) 20:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Your formula looks a little odd. If you just want to add cells B1, H1 and J1 then the formula is "=B1+H1+J1". "=SUM(B1:H1)" means the sum of all the cells from B1 to H1 (so B1+C1+D1+E1+F1+G1+H1). I'm not sure what it would mean to have two colons in a formula like that. That doesn't answer your question, though. Repeating a formula while changing the cell references is easy: Type the formula in the first row and hit "enter", then select that cell. It will now have a black outline round it with a black square at the bottom right. Click that black square and drag it down to the last cell you want to have the formula in it. It will fill in the formula and change the cells references so they have the same position relative the the cell with the formula in it (so if your original formula refers to cells in the same row as the cell with the original formula in then the new formula will refer to cells in the same row as the cell with the new formula in). For future reference, if you are using this technique but want to keep some of the cells the same, you can write "&A&1" or, to keep the row the same by allow the column to change, "A&1" or, to keep the column the same and allow the row to change "&A1". --Tango (talk) 21:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

You're right, I should have used commas instead of colons. I used the right notation in my general formula: =sum(B[row number],H[row number],J[row number]). •• Fly by Night (talk) 18:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

(Actually it's $, not & for absolute references. You're some kinda C programmer or sumthin'.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I was doubting myself as I wrote it. I blame the font in the textarea - both looked wrong and I ended up picking the wrong one. Sorry for the mistake and thanks for the correction! --Tango (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) 1. Actually you would use =b1+h1+j1 if it were 3 individual cells, rather than the colons; colons in an Excel formula mean "everything from this cell to this cell, including all cells in between." 2. You don't need to type 1,000 little formulas by hand, but you don't need a special formula. Here's how: (a) Put your =b1+h1+j1 statement on the same row as the employee's working hours — let's say it's in cell Z1 — and hit Enter. (b) Using the mouse, drag from Z1 down to Z1000. (c) Hit CTRL-D (for "down"). (d) Examine some of the cells manually. You'll notice that Excel has predicted what you want to do, and has filled in all the cells with "relative" (as opposed to "absolute") cell coordinates. Does that work? Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:18, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Tango. I tried it, and it worked perfectly! •• Fly by Night (talk) 18:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

And if you don't like dragging the formula all the way through 1,000 rows, you can also just double-click on that same little box and Excel will automatically insert your formula all the way down, provided there's data in the column beside the one you're working on. I use gi-normous Excel sheets all the time and love this function. Matt Deres (talk) 20:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

delete

how can i delete files without them going to the recycle bin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.70.66.110 (talk) 22:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Hold the shift key while deleting [2] 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 22:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

July 15

Double sided scanning on a Brother MFC-790CW

I have a Brother MFC-790CW and am trying to easily scan some double sided documents (to multipage .tiff or .pdf files would be great) so far I've had little luck. It has a document autofeeder so I definitely want to be able to use that. So far I have Microsoft Office Document Imaging, but when I use that document autofeeder acts strange. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Xor24 ^{talk to me} 00:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This sounds more like a question for Brother's support line. I'd make sure you are using the latest drivers downloaded from Brother's website. The scanner itself should have come with scanning software from Brother. The Microsoft product may not know all the advanced features your scanner has. (Updated drivers might make it recognize the ability to double side scan). Then again, it might not. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

New softwares/programs automatically installed to computer

Whenever I turn on my computer, I find out that 3 or 4 softwares (antivirus programs) are installed to my computer. The softwares themselves seem viral because they don't do any virus removal for you but merely advertise their own softwares. I keep removing the programs but they are constantly reinstalled to my program. I scanned my computer and removed all the virus found by using a legit antivirus software, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'm tired of constantly having to remove the programs from my computer. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk) 02:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you let us know the names of the programs? Sorry, but without that we're shooting in the dark. ZX81 ^talk 04:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It's impossible to list all the names of the programs because new software programs with different names are constantly installed. A couple of them were PC Cleaner and Antivirus.

(edit conflict) The surest way to get the malware off your computer is to do a clean reinstallation of Windows and all other programs. If you choose to perform this rather time-consuming task ("reinstall") rather than attempt to "clean" the malware off your existing installation, you will need to have the original CDs for Windows, hardware drivers, other software such as Microsoft Office, etc. and must copy all files you want to keep to CDs or an external drive (the computer's hard drive is erased in the process). Some computers may not come with reinstallation discs; you might have to use a program provided on the computer to make a set.

Regardless of which approach you take to remove the malware from your computer, be sure to regularly update not only Windows but also web browsers and plugins (particularly Adobe Reader and Flash) to defend against browser exploits (Secunia PSI, free for personal use, can help with this), and be cautious when downloading and installing software (including the software you had previously installed). PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I've seen Malwarebytes recommended here; but see the virus FAQ for more recommendations. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the "virus FAQ" ought to be deleted as it is only about reinstalling your operating system, and while backing-up you are likely to copy the viruses to the backup. It says nothing about other better procedures for getting rid of viruses or other malware. 92.15.9.213 (talk) 08:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

There was a deletion vote in May and the vote was Keep. The rationale for its existence is mainly that since this question comes up a lot, it was judged useful to keep around one rather comprehensive answer that we can point to, rather than having the answerers repeat themselves a few times a month and miss some items. I totally agree that the page needs a lot of expansion on other procedures; please, do expand it; it's user-editable like anything else on Wikipedia. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I suggest Malwarebytes, followed with a free PrevX scan. --mboverload@ 05:50, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

You could try doing a virus scan in safe mode, so that the malware is defenceless. I assume you have already checked that the malware is not listed in Add Or Remove Programs. Avast! can do a boot-time scan. I would try scans with other legit anti-malware such as Superantispyware or Spybot Search And Destroy, since they do not all cover the same malware. Clean your computer with Ccleaner before doing a scan. 92.15.9.213 (talk) 08:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I check Add or Remove Programs often. In fact, that's where I delete the constantly reinstalled antiviral programs.

Malware is not "defenceless" in safe mode! An infected copy of Windows is still infected in safe mode. Under Windows, "Safe mode" just means a bunch of components are disabled, in order to reduce the chance that they are contributing to system instability. Safe mode doesn't mean you're booting from some bulletproof original copy of the operating system or anything. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Once a system is compromised, it is not safe to assume that any of its utilities are intact, including its bootloader, its "safe mode", its software-level antivirus / malware tools, etc. While many "light-weight" malware infections can be removed using anti-malware software, the most insidious infections always require a full reboot. And, it's possible that an insidious infection is pretending to have been totally removed. The only guaranteed solution is to reinstall/restore an uncompromised system with a clean start. Nimur (talk) 16:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm not expert at computers at all so I don't know what choice I have. I don't want to get help from a computer repair store either because it's expensive.

First of all I would try doing scans with the free and well-thought of antimalwares Avast!, MalwareBytes, Superantispyware, and Spybot. Clean the computer before these scans with Ccleaner.

While the latter three are simply on-demand scanners and do not interfere with your existing anti-virus, you would need to remove your existing antivirus program to instal Avast! I think this is worth doing as a) Avast! can do a boot-time scan, search for rootkits etc, and b) your existing antivirus software has not managed to catch the malware. Download the Avast! instalation file while your existing antivirus is in place, save it to eg your desktop. Then turn off your modem if you have one, uninstall your old antivirus, then click on the Avast! instalation file to install it. Turn the modem on again when the computer restarts, and give it a five minutes to sort itself out. You could check to see if any updates are available although it probably will have checked that itself already. I would also download and instal Ccleaner, and run it (I would tick/check everything in the Advanced section also). Then scedule a boot-time scan with Avast! Then try scanning with the other scanners above. Each scan could take several hours, but you can leave them running unattended. If you still have problems then you move on to the next stage, which is submitting a Hijackthis! log file to a forum which specialises in studying them.

You could also instal the free Startup Control Panel by Mike Lin, which is an easy way to see what is starting up when the computer starts. 92.24.182.219 (talk) 10:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Keeping or changing an old password

I'd like to reset my router to its factory settings, which of course means my current password for accessing my wireless network will be erased. Once I go through the usual steps of setting up my network, would it be safe to use the same password I had before? Or would I be better off with a new one? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 07:01, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Unless you feel the security of the old password has been compromised, there isn't any need to change it. But you should always change your passwords now and then anyway. I used my neighbors wireless internet for 2 years even though it had a password because they are relatively easy to break. If they'd changed their password even just once every two months I probably wouldn't have bothered spending another week each time cracking the key. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

If you live somewhere where you have lots of other people living nearby, such as an apartment block or flats, there is an increased risk of your password being cracked so if you lived somewhere like that I would recommend changing it, otherwise if you feel the security of the old password isn't good enough anymore, you don't really have to bother. Chevymontecarlo - alt 11:46, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

chain loading

Loadlin can chain load linux from DOS or win9x. Is there a program, which would allow chain loading some other OS from linux in similar way? (Or linux cannot be overwritten similarily to DOS). -Yyy (talk) 10:33, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Never tried it with something else than another Linux kernel, but you might want to check out kexec. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 18:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Trying to write a Windows batch file

I am trying to write a Windows batch file that will merge two similar folder trees, but I've never done this before and I am not a programmer. Same-name folders are merged, but same-name files are renamed before copying. It seems to be easiest to make a new copy of one of the folder-trees, and then merge the other folder-tree into it. This is the where I've got to so far:

C:\>FOR /R C:\mypath\ %%G IN (*.*) DO CALL :copyfile %%G

copyfile

IF NOT EXIST %destfile% copy %srcfile% %destfile% /V ELSE copy %srcfile% %destfile%.bak /V

1) What is the "%%G" for? What does it do? B) How do I get :copyfile to behave like a subroutine? 3) Most importantly, if it finds that there is a sub-folder in the source folder that is not in the destination folder, how do I get it to copy the subfolder (and all its files and subfolders) into the destination folder? Thanks 92.24.191.1 (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

On the command line, you can type "help for" (or "for /?") to get documentation about the syntax of the for command. In this case, you are assigning %%G as the temporary result of each element of the directory. The %% syntax is used in batch scripts, while %G would be suitable for a direct run on the command-line. This % vs. %% idiosyncrasy is a historic artifact of the way the command interpreter expands variable-names. As I've mentioned numerous times above, all of these requests can be done in DOS Batch, but the toolkit that it provides is both clunky and unintuitive.

DOS Batch does not have subroutines; you can use "GOTO" creatively or put features in separate script files and execute them as needed. In reference to your last question, you will need to construct some complicated logic to wrap your recursive search through the directory tree with a lot of "IF" and "GOTO" statements. These are limitations of DOS Batch scripting. Because you've chosen this toolkit, which is generally unsuitable for this task, you're going to end up with something that looks very complicated to do even a simple task. I really recommend you investigate some alternative tools, like Perl, which have built-in platform-independent file management, directory navigation, and are much better suited to manipulating the text names of your files. See File Copying, Find all files in a directory tree, and so on. It will make your life easier, and your code more re-usable. Nimur (talk) 14:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Alternately, since ultimately I think you just want to synchronize directory trees (and not, presumably, to become the world expert on recursive programming with batch scripts), have you looked at the rsync tool? You should be able to get a Windows version, either using a command-line or a GUI, that can synchronize and merge your directory trees. I'm not sure if this totally satisfies your needs. You could also look at a full-blown content management system or version control system. These programs would be at the edge of their intended-use-cases, but they can store and manage various versions of document directories, and assist you in integrating divergent branches back together. Nimur (talk) 14:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

FOR /R traverses the directiory tree, I believe. Once I have solved 3) above then I should have a quick solution for my problem, apart from tinkering with 2). Perhaps it will do what I asked about in 3) without needed anything else. 92.29.115.235 (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe that rsync or any of the other similar tools will do what is described above - none of them will rename a file with a clashing name. I've tried them and searched for a solution for a long time - none found. Thanks 92.29.115.235 (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

rsync --backup will preserve pre-existing files—by default by adding a ~ to the end of the filename, but you can use a different suffix (with the --suffix option), or move them to a different directory (with --backup-dir). —Korath (Talk) 14:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

4) Is it possible to find out if a directory in the current source folder does not exist in the current destination folder? Thanks 92.29.115.235 (talk) 14:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you've got the path you need to test for, "IF NOT EXIST %dest% GOTO DESTNOTEXIST" would work in batch scripting. Unfortunately, it won't work quite right, since EXIST can't distinguish between files and directories, but on a Windows system, files usually have extensions and directories don't so you may be safe in practice. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:22, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Another helpful tool for copying subdirectories: xcopy /s will recursively copy an entire directory tree. Xcopy is the extended copy tool on Windows; type xcopy /? for documentation of its other features. It may be helpful inside your script at some point, providing features that regular Windows copy does not. Nimur (talk) 16:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Here, you can use this. It will try "file.ext", "file (1).ext", "file (2).ext", etc. until it finds one that doesn't exist in the destination. Change the paths near the top to your source and destination directory names. Change "set op=echo" to "set op=" to make the changes live. If you don't change it, the script will just print the copy and mkdir operations without carrying them out. The script will fail if there's a source directory with the same name as a destination file. It's not clear what ought to be done in that case. The script always copies every file from the source folder. It won't test source files for equality with existing destination files. It wouldn't be too hard to add that capability.

batch script

@echo off & setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion set srcroot=c:\src set dstroot=c:\dst set op=echo set srcrootlen=0 set x=%srcroot% :length_loop set x=%x:~1% set /a srcrootlen += 1 if defined x goto length_loop for /r "%srcroot%" %%i in (*) do ( set src=%%i set dst=!dstroot!!src:~%srcrootlen%! call :copysub "!src!" "!dst!" ) goto :end :copysub set dst=%~2 set n=0 :copyloop if not exist "%dst%" goto docopy set /a n += 1 set dst=%~dpn2 (%n%)%~x2 goto copyloop :docopy if not exist "%~dp2" %op% mkdir "%~dp2" %op% copy %1 "%dst%" :end

By the way, this isn't DOS batch. No version of MS-DOS ever had half the features I'm using here. It's still a clunky language, but call it "Windows batch" or something. -- BenRG (talk) 19:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, it's "a batch file for Command Prompt." Nimur (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the batch file. "The script will fail if there's a source directory with the same name as a destination file." Read that twice: "source directory", "destination file". Would there be any way of checking that before using the script please?

While rsync looks promising, according to the article it is for Unix systems and not Windows, but I also see that the article mentions some Windows versions DeltaCopy QtdSync and RsyncBackup which I will look at. Thanks 92.24.182.219 (talk) 10:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

All of DeltaCopy QtdSync and RsyncBackup only work over a network, and do not mention anything about not overwriting files, so appear to be of no use for this problem. 92.29.117.202 (talk) 16:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

This script will list any directories in the source that have the same name as files in the destination:

batch script

@echo off & setlocal enabledelayedexpansion set srcroot=c:\src set dstroot=c:\dst set srcrootlen=0 set x=%srcroot% :length_loop set x=%x:~1% set /a srcrootlen += 1 if defined x goto length_loop for /d /r "%srcroot%" %%i in (*) do ( set src=%%i set dst=!dstroot!!src:~%srcrootlen%! call :sub "!src!" "!dst!" ) pause goto :end :sub if not exist %2 goto end set attr=%~a2 if not d==%attr:~0,1% ( echo dir: %~1 echo file: %~2 echo. ) :end

You might be better off with rsync than these scripts, though—I don't know. The chances are that the versions of rsync you found will work for local copies, though rsync's main raison d'être (on all platforms) is network backups. I would use Cygwin's version of rsync because Cygwin is popular and actively maintained. -- BenRG (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very extremely for the extra code. Already mentioned that rsync is not for Windows a little further up the page. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 12:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I should run around shouting "Eureka!" but the utility here says it can rename things in its commands: http://syncdir.sourceforge.net/ On the other hand there is an implication that it overwites rather than merging the same directory names. There are seemingly dozens of things with a similar name. Thanks 92.24.178.184 (talk) 12:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Using PCI Express 2.0 graphics card with 1.0 motherboard?

The graphics card to my first gen Mac Pro died. While the new retail options for Mac graphics card are pretty slim, they are all PCI Express 2.0. Wikipedia's entry on PCI Express says they are supposed to be backwards compatible with v1.1 and v1.0 motherboards (restricted bandwidth, of course). Has anyone tried this? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you asking specifically about the Mac Pro? Because a quick search will show a very large number of people have used PCI Express 2.0 cards with PCI Express 1.1/1.0 motherboards. I myself have used a 9600GT in my PCI Express 1.1/1.0 (not sure) motherboard and my card is a 8600GT which I think is also PCI-e 2.0. Other then asking specifically about your combo, a perhaps better question is whether you could have problems. I wasn't aware of any but there are some random [3] claims here sadly not really backed up by anything. While OT, interesting enough I'm also reading some more definitive reports of people having problems with PCI-e 1.0/1.1 cards in PCI-e 2.0 slots [4] Nil Einne (talk) 00:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Computer speeds 2010 vs 1995

I was reading in Wired that each frame in Toy Story 3 took seven hours to render (on average). But 15 years earlier, Toy Story 1 took 5 hours per frame. How would you compare computer speed then to now? Low MHz unicore RISC Sparc CPUs vs today's GHz multi-core designs. 100x faster? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that a single frame of a cgi animation would take more than an hour to render, even on my crappy computer. Could you link to the page you read that on? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

1,084 days: How Toy Story 3 was made (04 June 2010), and The Toy Story Story (December 1995). Nimur (talk) 19:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

At face value, I would think that both articles use the term "render" in different ways. It is probable that in the 2010 edition, "rendering" includes a whole other host of 3D graphic processing, such as fabric physics, hair / fur, particle dynamics, fluid dynamics, character kinematics, and so on; whereas in the original article, "rendering" probably referred specifically to ray-tracing. From the 2010 article: "FINAL RENDER: Surfaces -- walls, clothing and faces -- are fed through rendering software that simulates light and shadow. It also adds texture to Lotso’s fur, Barbie’s leggings and the carpet. An average frame takes more than seven hours of computing time to render. A more complex frame such as this one required 11 hours. " Nimur (talk) 19:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Another thing not being said is compositing and effects time. Traditionally, you never try to render everything in just one frame. It always needs color correcting, 2D effects compositing, lighting correction, etc --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Something isn't being said, clearly. If it took 7 linear hours the movie would take a few decades just to render, but according to the wired article it only took some 100-200 days. Let's just say it was 200 days, everything worked around the clock, and they only had to render the some 130,000 frames (90 minutes of movie) *once*, which means a frame had to be done every 2.2 seconds in order to meet the timetable. It may take 7 hours of "system time" which gets divided by each core working on it... but then you get incredibly fuzzy since you would need to know how many cores it was divided to, what kind they were, the interconnects used, etc. before you could compare the Toy Story 3 process to the Toy Story 1 process. On top of that there's no mention of the frame resolution; it may have been suitable in 1995 to only render something like 1000 or 2000 lines per frame, but it's probably now desirable to render 4000 or more because projection equipment has advanced quite a bit (and they might want to put it on youtube at some point *grin*). Just something to think about; sorry for not offering an answer! --144.191.148.3 (talk) 14:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

One aspect I think you are missing is that Pixar didn't render the movie on one computer. They've always used massive render farms. So while one frame takes 7 hours, they have 200 computers rendering one frame each. So at the end of 7 hours, they have 200 frames done. I found this interesting tidbit about the Toy Story 1 stats [5] and [6] and IMDB has some more [7]. From it, I gather Pixar used 117 dual and quad CPU SPARCstations as a render farm (294 CPUs total). Comparatively, Finding Nemo (2003) used a 2000 processor render farm [8]. I couldn't find TS3 stats, but I'm sure it's more.

Also this [9] mentions that TS1 was rendered at 1526x922 pixels.  

Toy Story aside, how much faster is a modern high end dual Quad-Core work station compared to a 1995 Sun SPARCstation? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Consider reading our articles on Benchmark (computing) and, for example, the SPECint test suite before looking at raw comparisons. A direct comparison of two computers from different eras, with different processor architectures, with different operating systems, with different peripheral hardware, is of dubious usefulness. Even the names of the architectures reveal a lot - "dual quad core" - so, unless your benchmark/comparison has some meaningful way to compare a single-core computer to a multi-core computer, the raw numeric result is not useful for comparison. However, you can directly run, for example, the single-CPU benchmark provided by the SPECint numerical benchmark on a 1995 SPARC and a 2010 dual quad-core. This archived press release, Sun discloses UltraSPARC-II ... (October 13, 1995), says that "UltraSPARC-II will deliver an estimated 350 to 420 SPEC92int and 550 to 660 SPEC92fp" (UltraSPARC II was released in 1997 and was awesome - but only if you ran Solaris!). Now, if you want, you can run SPEC92 (from 1992) on modern hardware; but nowadays it is more likely to run SPEC2006: SPEC.org lists results for modern computers, including a 3000 MHz Intel Dual-Core Xeon, 1333 MHz Bus Apple system; they quote 2929 on SPECint2000. So, "by dividing these values", you can say that the 2006 Dual Quad-Core is about 7 times "faster" than the 1995 UltraSPARC-II. As I repeatedly caveat: these tests have limitations - most notably, that SPEC2000 is not the same test as SPEC1992, and that both tests are designed for single-cores, and fail account for the fact that one modern dual quad-core PC contains 8 cores and can run 16 threads simultaneously. Nimur (talk) 19:50, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I should note, though - 7x "direct speedup" is a reasonable estimate: from around 1995, there were about 3 cycles of 18-month periods during which "Moore's law" applied directly to double the processor frequency. That brings us to estimate around 8x speedup between 1995 and year 2000. Approximately this time, computer architectures began to focus more on multicore and less on clock-frequency; and since 2000, the maximum clock-rates have hovered around the 2.5 to 3.0 GHz mark. Additional performance boosts have come through bigger CPU caches and multi-core processor systems (not to mention the mainstream implementation of bizarre and wacky things like out of order execution, speculative execution, and Pentium 4's extraordinarily complex and deep instruction pipeline - released Year 2000). Nimur (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

PHP Code

A number of times over the years, while browsing various sites (including Wikipedia) I've been presented with the actual php code of the page I requested. This has in at least one occasion, in this case a small forum, given me the moderators password which was in the php code. After another refresh, the site was back to normal displaying the correct page. My question is, why does this happen, and what can be done to prevent it if one were running their own server with php pages? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

This will occur when apache has not been properly configured to process PHP as php, but rather serve it directly as any other file. Apache must be set to send the php code through the interpreter first and then return the interpreter's output --- if not you will get the raw code as a file. Three things must be in place on the web server:(1) PHP must be installed, (2) The PHP module must be enabled and loaded by Apache, and (3) the .php extension must be routed through the interpeter with a configuration line (usually /////AddType application/x-httpd-php .php////). While I cannot speak for the small forums, I can say that it is highly unlikely that Wikipedia would ever temporarily experience a disabled php interpreter. Is it possible that maybe you were seeing something else? Can you replicate? Also, FYI on an interesting note, any file extension can be set to interpret as php by adding additional lines to the apache configuration (usually in local .htaccess files) .pphhpp, .ryan .tt, anything--rocketrye12 ^{talk/contribs} 19:54, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes, certain error messages will dump debug information, including the line of PHP that caused an error. This is not the same as "delivering" the PHP source - it is printing an error that the PHP script encountered. In the strict sense, the PHP interpreter and its attached web-server module is functioning correctly - it is the script that is failing, and possibly dumping fragments of its own code to the end-user. Most websites prefer never to let the user see such technical error-messages. Wikipedia (MediaWiki) will occasionally spew some PHP error-messages, especially if there are problems connecting to the Settings files or the databases. See MediaWiki PHP Errors for common configuration issues and symptoms. Nimur (talk) 19:59, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the responses :) @Rocketrye12 I'm certain it was the php code; started with "<?php" etc, contained everything you'd expect to see in php code, including a config section with moderator passwords, board settings etc, and the url of the page was something like http://example.com/index.php?page=4 When it happened on Wikipedia I think I was trying to edit a page, but again it was clearly php code with bits of garbled html. After a refresh it was back to normal. I can't replicate it - in however many years I've been browsing the internet I've only seen this happen around 3 times 82.43.90.93 (talk) 00:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

well, if you get just the right errors occurring so that the server doesn't recognize or process the page as php code (could be something as random as a momentary fault that reads a single quote as a double quote), the server will toss back unprocessed instead of processed code. these things happen one time in a billion, but there are billions of pages served every day, so these things happen. --Ludwigs2 00:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

international laptop warranty: Which manufacturers offer it? Alternatives

Which laptop manufacturers offer international warranties (= even hardware failure can be fixed at no cost in countries other than the country where it's bought)? Alternatively, are there other companies offering the same (offering to fix a laptop, cover the costs of fixing a laptop, etc.) for a reasonable price (<100, mayyybe <150)? Or where else do I find people who know the answer to this question (other than calling every single manufacturer)? Thanks a lot, Thanks for answering (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I've had excellent experience with AppleCare. They exchanged the power brick of my old G4 Powerbook (bought in the US, bricked in Scotland) and the motherboard of my Aluminium MacBook Pro (bought in the US, broke in Germany) fast, and without any fuzz, although I never even had the proof of purchase on me. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

When I bought my Dell, I asked this specific question. They said the standard warranty was in your home country only. Astronaut (talk) 10:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

July 16

Need help printing articles with equations.

When I print an article with equations, some of the equations are not printed out--- just blank space. Also the spacing of text with math is different (bad)in the printed version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waperkins (talk • contribs) 00:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Try the "download as PDF" option in the toolbox in the menu on the left, then print the PDF from your PDF viewer. 87.114.72.159 (talk) 01:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Toxic URL

What's the URL to that page that, if you go to it, will cause your computer to break? If I remember correctly, it's somewhere in lanl.gov and they put it there so bots would not systematically download everything. Some pages have links to the "dangerous page" with text that a human would clearly understand describing the consequences. I have an old junk computer and just want to see what happens. Of course if you are able to answer this question, don't make the link active. Thanks! 71.161.47.224 (talk) 01:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I call urban legend. How would a web page "cause your computer to break"? Supposing there were a problem with all web browsers, why would the web browser authors not all fix their browsers as soon as the problem were found? Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the story/explanation has been garbled by the OP. It sounds like they are trying to describe a honeypot or web spider trap. It could "break" some basic automated processing task, like web spidering; alternatively, it might attempt to exploit a known bug and install malware; but no webpage can "destroy" a computer just by being loaded. Nimur (talk) 04:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Honeypot (computing) and spider trap may be better links. You can also Google for general information, for example software damage hardware. I haven't heard of a specific known website but some websites have browser exploits to try to gain control of visiting computers. Then they could theoretically do damage to certain computers with vulnerable parts. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is a person asking the same question you are about lanl.arxiv.org (formerly known as xxx.lanl.gov) and the answer- http://serverfault.com/questions/2562/what-does-the-arxiv-org-anti-bot-search-and-destroy-actually-do If the answerer is right, it doesn't break anything, it just delays the bot for about 10 minutes. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 12:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

In the past there have been webpages that crash your browser. My favorite ones involve tiny gif files that expand to truly monumental images which browser naively tries to decompress and hold in memory uncompressed. If you were lucky this would crash your browser. If you were unlucky your computer would hang and you'd eventually get frustrated and reboot it. I think modern web-browsers are smart enough to avoid this trap nowadays.

APL (talk) 05:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Changing Bookmark Font Size in Google Chrome

Is there any way to increase the default font size in the menus and bookmark folders in Google Chrome for OS X?

Thanks in advance

--71.70.224.6 (talk) 02:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Millions of components cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

Hey guys, I'd just finished doing a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit from Vista 32 bit and everything was running like a charm. I fired up Company of Heroes and was playing a casual (though fairly graphically intensive) game when suddenly all the power goes out in my office (though not the lights). The monitor and speaker both wouldn't turn on, and only started working again when I replugged them in to the surge protector.

I thought I had just suffered a minor inconvenience and could resume playing when I turned on the computer. When I pressed the on button, it powered up, but was a complete no post. Then, when I tried to shut it off manually by holding the power button for 5 seconds, it wouldn't work. Now, the only way I can turn on/off my computer is via the switch on my PSU in the back, which shouldn't happen. To top it off, when I opened the case, nothing was functioning at all- the fan on the processor wasn't spinning, the case fan was off, and I could feel no air coming from the fan on my 8800 gtx.

I'm actually really worried that my power supply (Ultra Power, 500 watt) burned out my components. What do you think is going on? This is way over my head. The only changes I'd made recently were installing two more sticks of RAM (up to 4 GB) and upgrade to Windows 7, and both those could hardly cause a power failure by themselves. Hopefully, it's just the PSU. Otherwise, I'd have no access to a computer (except for this library one) for a long while as I'm pretty broke.

Computer specs (this is a cheap HP I upgraded with my friend's unwanted parts):

crappy OEM Athlon 4200+ dual core (2.26 ghz)/ OEM mobo / 4 GB RAM DDR2 / Nvidia 8800 GTX / Ultra Power 500 watt PSU / standard 320 GB HDD

Thanks for your time. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 02:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If I understand that correctly: when you turn on the PSU at the switch, the PSU fan spins but nothing else connected to the motherboard receives power? If so, it could be that the PSU connector to the motherboard or the wire leading to the connector has melted during the power surge. I've had a switch melting before during a power surge (even with UPS connected) but it's very unlikely that all your components have fried so you can breathe easy. Are you able to borrow another PSU just to try? It's also possible the motherboard was hit; the power switch on your board (between the PSU and case switch) can be tested (sometimes with a screwdriver) but you'd need to be a real techie to find that on the board. Sandman30s (talk) 06:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Actually, as soon as the PSU receives power, it turns on, oddly enough; normally, it will only turn on when the switch is the on position and I press the button in the front of the computer. I'm unsure if this unusual behavior warrants a replacement PSU. Somehow, the mouse is still receiving power while the keyboard is not. Thank you for your advice, it's a huge relief. But I really hope it was just the PSU and not the whole motherboard. I don't have an extra PSU handy, but I've heard that Fry's will do free testing on your computer parts.

EDIT: I've confirmed that it's only the components attached to the motherboard. The DVD drive and HDD both seem to be fine. The fact that the mouse is getting power is very curious. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 13:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the power supply is only supposed to turn on when the motherboard tells it to turn on (because of the power switch in the front you mentioned); see the ATX article and look for the text "PS_ON#" in the "Power Supply" section. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

'Curious' is the perfect word to describe this. Look, everything connects to the motherboard. DVD and HDD connect via IDE or SATA in most cases and your keyboard and mouse most likely use USB connectors which all attach to the motherboard. I'm not an electrical expert so I can only guess that your PSU is somehow not distributing power evenly. The PSU is usually the component that goes first - some advanced PSU's have fuses and surge arrestors (not that surge protection is ever guaranteed to work) and what not. I see you have access to technicians so I think that's your best bet, they should be able to test each component. Sandman30s (talk) 19:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I just fixed something like this. Finally unplugged the media bay and it booted. Apparently the customer's cat had peed on the front of the computer. Extra charge for biohazard cleaning. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:35, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

It *was* the PSU. Thanks a ton, guys. My friend gave me his old 500 watt, so all's well that ends well I guess. Thanks again. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 21:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Test power supply

I have a power supply that might be broken but I'm not sure. I am planning to swap this power supply with one from a working computer to test if it works. However, I am worried that if this power supply does turn out to be broken, it will cause damage to the other parts of the computer. Is this possible? (I want to know because if so, then I would rather just throw out the power supply than risk damage to the computer) Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.144.35.27 (talk) 07:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely correct to worry about possible damage. A "faulty" power supply, described in such vague terms, could have any number of problem symptoms: there could be an over-voltage, an over-current, or a leak of AC signals onto the DC lines. Any one of these faults could be dangerous to your board, or to yourself. Once the "fault" is characterized, it can be more reasonably determined whether the unit is safe to handle and/or to connect to your PC (which does have some protection from certain levels of over-current and over-voltage - but not "infinite" protection from any power-supply error). Typically, the first step is to test the voltage levels that come out of the power supply. Let me again state, to be very clear: if you have a "faulty unit", such testing may expose you to high voltages or the AC line. Usually, for this reason, power supply units are specifically labeled as "NOT USER SERVICEABLE" - i.e., "if it doesn't work, don't touch it." So only proceed if you are experienced in dealing with high power systems - an AC fault could electrocute / kill you. (We can't know what is wrong with a "broken" power supply just based on your description). If you have a multimeter, you can probe the power supply outputs - which should be 12 and 5 volts. If they are not, then something is wrong, and the unit is cheaper to replace than to repair. But for the eager hobbyist, you can still do some diagnostics - but unfortunately, beyond measuring voltages, a modern power supply is a bit complicated and often has digital control pins; so you will need a power load (a specialized hardware test unit that simulates the power consumption of a computer). Even if the voltages are correct, the power supply unit may deliver insufficient current (or too much current); it may be spitting out high-frequency noise; it may be sending garbled commands over a digital interconnect line. If you have a very new unit, there may even be active digital feedback control; A Practical Introduction to Digital Power Supply Control, a free course from Texas Instruments, will train you in everything you need to know to diagnose those problems. In practice, unless you have thousands of unit-failures, it is cheaper and easier to replace the PSU than to try to repair it. Nimur (talk) 15:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with testing computer power supplies is twofold - one is that they often only power up a minimal amount of circuitry on the PC until a signal is sent to bring them out of standby mode. That means that unplugging the supply from the computer and probing around with a multimeter won't work. Secondly, they are often switched-mode power supplies and they don't show the right voltage until they are under load...so again, you can't tell much with just a multimeter. Instead of plugging the bad power supply into a good computer (and possibly wrecking it) - you're better off taking the good power supply out of the good computer and plugging that into the computer that isn't working. While it's quite likely that a bad power supply could damage a computer...it's unlikely (but not impossible) that a bad computer could damage the power supply...and that's a risk I'd certainly be prepared to take. Also, if the worst comes to the worst, it's much cheaper to replace the power supply than the computer - so risking a good power supply in a bad computer is much less risk than a bad power supply in a good computer. Look at it this way:

• Worst case scenario: You plug the good power supply into the bad computer and blow it up. Now you have two bad power supplies and a bad computer. Well, replacing a computer is costly - and the extra cost of buying a new power supply for the 'good' computer is pretty negligable in comparison. If you don't do this test then you'll have to buy a power supply anyway - and if the fault isn't in the power, then you'll have to buy a new computer anyway. So the worst case is no worse (financially) than what you were going to do anyway.
• Best case scenario: With the good power supply plugged into the bad computer, your machine comes up and works just great - so you buy a new power supply and you're done.
• Or you plug the good power supply into the bad computer and it doesn't work - but it doesn't wreck the power supply either.

IMHO, power supplies are much more likely to be the cause than your motherboard - so the 'best case' above is by far the most likely thing that'll happen. One word of caution though - make sure the 'good' power supply has enough wattage to drive your computer...otherwise bad things might happen. Also, the most common cause of early death in power supplies is that you're using close to (or over) their maximum rating. The closer you get to the maximum, the hotter the power supply runs - and the sooner it dies. So if you do have to buy a new power supply - get one with more capacity than the one you had before. It'll add maybe $10 to the cost - but it'll double it's lifespan...which is a good deal. Read reviews of the power supply you intend to buy - sometimes the manufacturers lie are "optimistic" in the assessment of their wattages and talk about "peak wattage" and quietly don't mention their "sustained wattage" - which is what you actually care about most of the time! SteveBaker (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

how much for a desktop workstation?

How much should I pay for a desktop workstation with at least 4 GB of RAM, at least 1 TB hard drive at a fast speed, and quad core i7 or i5, plus an appropriate video card for image editing, and windows 7? Thanks. 84.153.219.234 (talk) 11:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a pretty huge jump in price between i5 and i7. If you buy an i7 core, go for the i7-9xx series, these have larger caches and use QPI, while i7-8xx will use older dual-channel memory bus. Your price is going to vary significantly on these kind of choice (a factor of nearly 30% or 50% between an i5- (HP p6580) and i7- (HP e9150t) workstation based on some cursory scans at major vendors). Another way to rephrase your question: are you still uncertain which processor you need, and is price more relevant? If so, the i5 is a fine chip - but you will definitely see a performance boost with the i7- if you are doing CPU-heavy or memory-intensive tasks. You should pay in the neighborhood of US $500-700 for an i5- system; and in the neighborhood of $700 - $1200 US for an i7-system depending how much you deck it out with RAM, graphics, and where on the spectrum of specific processors you choose to land. Note that if you include the keyword "workstation" in your search for desktop PC, you will end up finding yourself in the "business purchases" section of the vendors' websites, and they will charge you more for essentially the same hardware. Nimur (talk) 15:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Also the most expensive i7 costs the same as four i7-930s. 121.72.166.173 (talk) 06:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

antivirus software

What is the best antivirus software to buy? Norton didn't protect my computer at all! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomjohnson357 (talk • contribs) 11:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The best antivirus isn't software, though. It costs $60, and it is an hour, or an hour and a half, of a computer expert's time, who will explain to you how to surf safely. If YOU do not bring viruses on board by actively downloading, and then running them, by not inserting USB sticks in a way that will autorun them (and their virus payloads), and so on, you will be almost totally safe. Real computer experts use no antivirus software at all; they don't need 'em. Spend that hour listening and you won't either. 84.153.219.234 (talk) 13:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I concur. Though, this was not always true, and may not be true in the future; it has historically been the case that serious errors in the operating system made infection possible even if the user took no action to initiate it. In previous years, an additional layer of protection was sometimes necessary. However, such security-holes are extremely rare in 2010 - and usually get fixed by the operating-system vendor within a few days of becoming known. At this point in time, the safest thing for your computer is to understand how and when it can install programs - and only take actions that install programs you trust. Nimur (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no "best", they are all different and have different strengths and weaknesses in their detection rates. I would suggest a free antivirus such as Avira, and 84.153.219.234 advice above. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The free antivirus software is just as good as the pay-for kind, and there is quite a choice. I currently favour Avast! as the resident antivirus. There are other things you can have also such as Ccleaner and SpywareBlaster. Good malware on-demand scanners are Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Superantispyware, and Spybot – Search & Destroy. 92.24.182.219 (talk) 13:25, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

How is CCleaner an antivirus? --mboverload@ 22:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

92 did not say it was an antivirus, although it does clean cr*p out like tracking cookies that malware scanners pick up on, makes malware scans quicker by removing garbage that would otherwise have to be scanned, and removes any bad things that may be lurking in the cr*p. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 09:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I, as a Windows user, use the free Microsoft Security Essentials. I agree with 84 that a lesson in safe surfing is very valuable (but disagree with the cavalier implication that "real computer experts" should just go without antivirus software). An important tip is to create an account on your computer that has no administrator rights, so even if you do something foolish like download and run an executable file from an untrusted source, the virus will have a more difficult time compromising your system; see the virus FAQ for more suggestions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Security Essentials is great and what I recommend to everyone not in an enterprise environment. --mboverload@ 22:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I've been very happy with free AVG for the last few years after McAfee systematically destroyed my one computer. Sandman30s (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

One of the most common tricks these days is for the virus/malware authors to watch for new OS security upgrades and to target the bugs that this patch addresses. (On the grounds that a lot of people won't upgrade immediately). So one thing you can do is to always upgrade your PC the very moment the patch first becomes available. Practicing safe-surfing is also a good idea. Putting a hardware firewall between you and the Internet is another thing that can help. Best of all - don't use Windows...but that's not useful to most people. SteveBaker (talk) 23:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me just say that anyone that says you shouldn't run an antivirus does not understand what they are saying. How do I know? I used to be one of those people. Viruses often get installed completely out of the hands of users themselves. Exploits in Flash, Java, PDF, etc will get you infected without doing anything. With infected ad networks you can (and people do) get infected on website like the New York Times. YOU NEED AN ANTIVIRUS AND ANTIMALWARE. Period. End of discussion. You ALSO need to keep Windows updated, keep Windows Firewall on, and keep all your browser addins updated.

Being an non-administrator, while very, very helpful is not complete protection against viruses. There are now a proliferation of user-mode rootkits and viruses thanks to Mirosoft's UAC.

I personally recommend Microsoft Security Essentials/NOD32 for antivirus. Paid-for versions of PrevX or MalwareBytes for antimalware.--mboverload@ 22:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Why won't Google index the PDF that I've shared on Google Docs ("Public on the web - Anyone on the Internet can find and view")?

Hello,

Last week, I uploaded a pdf as a google doc and set it to "Public on the web - Anyone on the Internet can find and view", and pasted the link in my WP:user page. Yet the pdf has still not been indexed in google searches. Does Google not index Google Docs pdfs? Do I need to post the link to some other webpage? Or something else?

Thanks. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 16:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if Google indexes them, but Wikipedia's external links use nofollow, so linking to it on this site won't help get it indexed regardless. Reach Out to the Truth 16:38, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

And along with the above, it can take Google a long time to index pages in my experience, if it is not on a domain that it is updating its index on regularly. (Wikipedia changes are very quick because Google is constantly updating its Wikipedia index... but that won't help you, for the reason given above.) On some of my web pages, it has taken weeks for changes to thoroughly filter through the Google index. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Apparently they don't yet search PDFs. --Sean 18:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if that's true (that thread is mostly from 2008, anyway). I've seen lots of PDFs that not only have their content searchable via Google, but PDFs that aren't actually OCRed to begin with—which implies that Google runs its own OCR on the PDF when indexing it. Whether that applies to Google Docs or not, I don't know, but it's certainly not beyond Google's own capacities in general. (Here is an example. The first hit is not an OCRed, searchable PDF, yet Google has clearly done some OCRing of its own, given how it represents the summary and returns the document.)--Mr.98 (talk) 21:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

See Scribd. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

embedded addresses of an ad

when I have an ad on my page trying to get me to click on an image or button, when I place my curser over the image an http address appears at the bottom of the page. If I move the curser away from the image the address disappears and the word Done appears. when the address appears it is sometimes too long to fit in the space given and shows up incomplete...how can I see the complete address without clicking on it, as it redirects the page and has the homepage address but not the one embedded. please send me an answer to: e-mail address redacted thank-you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.160.183 (talk) 17:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I've removed your e-mail address to try to save you from spambots. We don't respond to e-mail addresses here anyway; any responses to your query will be posted right here, so others may read the answer, correct it, benefit from it, etc. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You can try right clicking the ad, and selecting "Copy link location" in Firefox, "Copy shortcut" in IE, or similar depending on your browser. Then paste that into a text document to view it in it's entirety. You could also view the pages source code, by going to View -> Source / Page source, and try finding the ad that way. However many flash ads don't display their links in the html source code, so this method might not work 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Strange "redirect"

I figured I'd be told this was a browser problem and not Wikipedia.

So, copying from the Village Pump Technical:

I was looking at a very long article, but if I went back to it the computer would have to scroll down to get back to what I was reading. However, it didn't do that. It jumped forward to an article whose link I clicked on earlier while looking at the very long article, and the back button was no longer blue, meaning it couldn't be used.

I've asked similar questions before but no one seems to have an answer for this. Sometimes with very long articles or emails the back button won't go back to them, or the forward button won't go back to them.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

And it just happened again. I used the back button several times and it wouldn't go forward again because THIS page is so long. I should also add I have IE8 and Vista.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the answer is something other than the length of a Web page, or everyone on the Web would be familiar with this problem. Do you ever use tabs? (Try holding down the Ctrl key while clicking this link, for example.) You'll notice that the newly created tab has no history; the Back button is not colored blue. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually - there have been problems with long articles in the past (see: Wikipedia:Article_length#Technical_issues and Wikipedia:Browser notes) - there used to be a rule here that articles shouldn't go over 32k bytes. However, the problem was with INCREDIBLY ancient browsers (early versions of Internet Explorer, I think) and Wikipedia removed that rule a couple of years ago. If you're still running something that old then the answer is to upgrade. If you aren't running FireFox 3.6, go grab it now. SteveBaker (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

He said he's running IE 8. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I used to have the problems at libraries too, with very long emails. I've reported it here and never gotten an answer. But it's always very long pages that seem to cause the problem. And no, I hate tabs. I want all my web pages at the bottom of the screen. That's why I won't deal with Firefox.

It's not going to the page once that causes the problem. It takes several edits on such pages for me to discover I can't go back beyond a certain point.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions ·

JavaScript cursor.

I'm using some JavaScript to change the cursor to a small image map on my browser-based game:

   document.getElementById("canvas").style.cursor =
                      "url(\"http://blah.com/mycursor.png\"),move" ;

...this works OK - but the image is an 'aim cross' - a circle with a + in the middle. The trouble is that the system assumes that the 'aim point' of the cursor is the top-left corner - and I need it to be in the middle.

Any ideas how you'd adjust that? SteveBaker (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You could use a .cur or .xbm image that has the hotspot defined in it or follow the url with two integers, defining the hotspot. Don't put commas there, just use something like document.getElementById("canvas").style.cursor = {"url(\"http://blah.com/mycursor.png\") 8 10,move"};

Awesome! That works great. Many thanks. I couldn't find anything like that documented anywhere - and it's not exactly obvious! SteveBaker (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to make it easier to find if you need something else... It is called a "hot spot" not an "aim point". Googling for "javascript cursor hotspot" found this. I agree, it isn't obvious. -- kainaw™ 02:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hash calculator + cracker

Is there a free program for Mac and Windows that can compute hashes (from various algorithms) from a text string or file, and can also attempt to crack any hash (back to a text string), i.e. using brute force, wordlists, etc.? I'm talking about something like this, with the added ability of being a hash calculator (from a file or a text string), too. Samwb123^T-C-E 22:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you can't use two separate programs?121.72.166.173 (talk) 06:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

C+

I've heard of the languages known as "C" and as "C++", but has there ever been a programming language known as "C+"? Nyttend (talk) 22:51, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

no. the '++' comes from the peculiar convention of incrementing variables using ++ or -- notation. i.e. 3*x++ means multiply the variable x times three and then increment x by 1. --Ludwigs2 23:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

C++ Etymology, and from the C++ WikiBook, C++ History. See also, C programming language history; you can trace the language nomenclature all the way back as far as you like. Nimur (talk) 23:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I read through C++; apparently I missed the etymology section. Thanks for the other links, none of which I knew existed. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

July 17

Removing images from a PDF, using Adobe Acrobat Professional

Assuming that the file doesn't require a password, is it possible to remove images from non-locked PDFs with Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional? A discussion is going on at Commons:Commons talk:Licensing, section "PDF with possible unfree images", about a PDF that's marked as free but has images that may well be non-free; people are talking about deleting it because the images can't be removed, but it seems silly to delete if it's not too hard to remove the images. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Go to Tools → Advanced Editing → TouchUp Object Tool and select the image, then hit DEL on your keyboard. You can also right-click on the toolbar and select Advanced Editing, then click on the TouchUp Object button.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I was expecting the first response to be "sorry, it's not possible". Removing them was quite easy. Nyttend (talk) 10:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

How to find current Mac OS version usage

Is there any place where I can learn what percentage of Mac users are currently using Cheetah, Puma, Tiger, Panther, Leopard, Snow Leopard... and even Mac OS 9? --68.102.163.104 (talk) 05:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Here are the polls I've seen: [10], [11]. Nothing in the last few months, but it seems as though 10.6.x accounts for roughly 65+%, 10.5.x accounts for about 20%, and 10.4.x accounts for around 7%, with the remaining few percent tapering off on 10.3 and lower. --Ludwigs2 06:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Sound won't stop

Just a couple of minutes ago, I accessed a site with music playing in the background, then Internet Explorer closed itself, but now the music is continuing playing! Apart from muting the computer's sound, as well as restarting the computer, how can I stop that music? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 06:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you are running a Windows computer, my first weapon would be to kill any remaining Internet Explorer processes. Hit ctrl-alt-del and launch the Windows Task Manager, then click the Processes tab, click iexplore.exe, and click the "End Process" button. Repeat until all the iexplore.exe processes have been killed. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

availability of multipurpose 'Light Emitting Diode'(LED) monitor

is there such a LED monitor available in market that can be connected to CPU,DVD player,internet, any USB and a cable network simltaneously for the respective purposes06:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.64.129 (talk)

I'm not really sure as to what you're looking for, but yes, there are monitors out there with TV tuners built in. The CPU and DVD could function as one, I assume the internet access is meant for the computer, and the cable network could come from a DVR box hooked up to the monitor. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 07:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There are however few true LED monitors. Most things sold as 'LED monitors' or TVs or whatever are actually LCD monitors with LED lighting Nil Einne (talk) 11:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu 64-bit - Not recommended for daily desktop usage?

The Ubuntu download page advises against using the 64 bit version for daily desktop usage. My questions are (1) why?, and (2) which version would be the better choice for virtualizing Ubuntu with VirtualBox on a PC running 64 bit Windows 7? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 07:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04, 64-bit, on a laptop. Mostly works great. But there's a certain amount of consumer software that hasn't been completely ported. For example I have to run a beta version of Skype, and it doesn't seem to want to let me select the output sound device. There's a drop-down box for it, but only one entry in the box. So I can't use my USB headphones, which is very annoying. --Trovatore (talk) 08:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --80.32.202.187 (talk) 11:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC) (NorwegianBlue, not logged in)

Weird computer flying shadows after Windows update

I did a Windows update yesterday on my XP computer and when I turned it on this morning it displays weird behaviour. Unfortunately I also installed a Java update, a Flash player update, and an Adobe security patch, so not too clear what is responsible for the problem. It was working OK after I did all this yesterday. 1) When I put the cursor over any icon on the desktop, a dark blue 'shadow' of the icon and its text flies off to the right. 2) When running programs such as Ccleaner, the buttons do not function. What might be the cause please? How can I fix it? Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2010 (UTC) Update: After writing the above post, the computer behaved normally again. Perhaps something was protesting thast it needed time after start-up to do whatever it had to do. I'd be interested to know what it was. Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 09:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Google Street View

I use Google Street View in the UK. What is the significance of the yellow line that is sometimes displayed in place of the white line? The views are shown as a series of panoramas at regularly spaced positions along the street. Is it possible to get Street View to display the view in between these positions? Is it possible to save an image to HD? Is it possible to drive or cruise along the street without needing to keep clicking the arrows? I recall a freeware program that allowed this, have not been able to find it aghain. Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 12:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Which yellow line, do you mean double yellow lines? If near the kerb in the UK, they mean no parking. If in the middle of the road in the USA, they mean no overtaking. The single yellow line near the kerb in the UK indicates a restriction on parking.

I haven't succeded in getting Street View to show an intermediate image. As I understand it, a Google car drives down the street taking still photos at fixed intervals - intermediate images simply do not exist. Images can be saved by pressing print-screen at any time. An image editor can be used to manipulate the image as you wish. However, the resolution in which the image is saved is dependant on your screen resolution. Astronaut (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

No I do not mean road markings, but the line that Google shows over the image. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 08:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

sequential numbers

I need a program that can make a list of urls with sequential numbers at the end. For example, if I wanted everything from http://example.com/page1 to http://example.com/page50390000 I've been using a javascript snippet someone here posted a few weeks ago, but it does not work for very large (5000+) numbers. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

can you link or copy the script you're using so that we can modify it? --Ludwigs2 15:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Here, but I'm unsure if using my browser to to this task is wise for very large numbers of links. I'd prefer a stand-alone program if possible 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

well, then we'd need to know what platform you're working on (unless you want something written in PHP, and have PHP enabled on your system). --Ludwigs2 16:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 82.43.90.93 (talk) 17:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

well, it's for someone else, then - not something I work with. --Ludwigs2 18:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not just do it in Excel? Set cell A1 to 1. Then set cell B1 to: ="<a href=""http://example.com/page" & A1 & """>http://example.com/page" & A1 & "</a><br>" Now just set A2 to: =A1+1 . Then copy and paste A2 to as many you'd like (it'll auto-update the reference), and copy B2 down the column as well. If you want to start with a number larger than 1 (because I think Excel can only have 32,000 rows or so), just change A1 to be whatever you want to start with (e.g. 5000). If you copy all of B2 and paste it into a text editor, it'll just output as a list of HTML links. If you want the output formattedly differently, just modify B1 and re-copy. This is how I'd do it, anyway—easier than scripting. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't have Excel on my computer. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You could do it in OpenOffice Calc, as a free alternative. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Powershell is standard on Windows 7, isn't it? (I only have Vista and XP boxes handy.) If so, then 1..50390000 | foreach { echo http://example.com/page$_ } should do it. —Korath (Talk) 19:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The Javascript you linked does work with large numbers, but it has a hardcoded limit of 1000 URLs (to − from ≤ 999). You can search for "999" in the code and add some more nines to increase that limit, but you will probably crash your browser if you try to list 50,390,000 URLs at once. -- BenRG (talk) 22:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 start menu + hovering

This is a bit complicated to explain, but on Windows 7, whenever you hover over the name of a programme in the start-menu, a list of recently-opened-files-with-that-programme pops up to the right. This all worked absolutely fine for me until within the last day or so, when Microsoft Word 2007 completely stopped responding to this. Every other piece of software is OK, but Word has stopped. Any clues? (Diagram here if it helps...) Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 07:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Scam using Logmein123

I got phone call other day from indian gent telling me my computer was infected and I had to go to logmein123 website. When he asked me to put in pass word I refused and hung up. What is this scam? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.91.109 (talk) 22:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you expand on your question? It's a scam - not sure what else could be said? --mboverload@ 22:32, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Nothing about it on WP.--88.104.91.109 (talk) 23:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, no, but there aren't articles on thousands of other scams that are out there either. They have to be notable for inclusion here. Perhaps there's something at Snopes. Dismas|^(talk) 05:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Essentially, you log into the site and you're prompted to install an ActiveX control that allows the remote technician to take control of your computer. I've seen it used by legitimate technicians for troubleshooting, but it can obviously be misused, as in this case.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

July 18

Finding things on my cluttered desktop

I wanted to know if there was an easy way to find things on my very cluttered desktop. I am not looking for advice telling me to clean it up. I like having my files there and I hate when I download things and they go somewhere in my C drive and I have to hunt for them. I clean it pretty regularly of junk, but there' still many files. What I wanted to know is if there is maybe an equivalent of the find function you can use in your browser, just hit ctrl+F enter in some desk and it highlights what you're looking for lickety-split. The search your computer function is no equivalent. Oh, I guess I should mention: Dell PC running windows XP. Thanks.--162.83.139.249 (talk) 02:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Click on "Start", "Search". This should bring up the dialog with the stupid dog. Click "All files or folders". There's a drop-down labeled "Look In" there's an item marked "Desktop". Choose it and use the search dialog like normal.

The other option is to click on the desktop and just start typing the filename. It will select the first/best match as you type. It does this by literally matching the first few letters in the filename, so you have to know that filename exactly. (And if you're looking for "My absolute favorite cat photograph 00003.jpg" but not "My absolute favorite cat photograph 00002.jpg" this method would be pretty tedious.)

Finally, you can browse the desktop like any other folder. Which can be handy if you're looking for the largest file by filesize, or the newest. Or if you simply want to see a list in alphabetical order. APL (talk) 05:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Aha! I just tried that click on the desktop and start typing—that works great. By the way, I don't think you read my message to the end. I specifically discounted using the computer's search function as not what I was looking for.--162.83.139.249 (talk) 07:46, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you aware of the technique where you click on an empty area of your desktop and start typing, and it'll highlight the file whose name you are typing? Sorry to suggest something so basic but from your original post it sounds like you may not know about this. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

HP C309g-m Photosmart Printer Network

Hello. I usually leave my printer on all day so I do not lose my network settings for my computers that are networked wirelessly. My computers are networked through a modem equipped with a router. Even if I do turn off my printer, it takes a long time for the printer and computer to register to the network. During this waiting time, I cannot print, scan or copy. Is there anything that I can do about this? Thank you very much in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 02:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Give your printer a static IP address instead of using DHCP. Most routers allow IP addresses from 1 to 99 to be used statically. For example, 192.168.1.10 is a static IP address. 192.168.1.123 is one of the DHCP served IP addresses. Once you program the printer to use a static IP address, set the computers to use that IP address, not a domain name. They won't have to wait for DHCP resolution to trickle through the network. -- kainaw™ 02:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, keep the final number in the IP address between 2 and 31 (1 is often used by the router). The subnet mask would be 255.255.255.0. PleaseStand ^(talk) 12:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

infomoneyservice.com pages malware! Somehow Google-related...

I am using Firefox version 3.0.18 on Windows XP. Lately, I have been noticing weird things: first, when I would exit, I would occasionally get a popup asking if I wanted to save before exiting, which I only used to get if I forgot that I had an extra window open; however, I only had the one window open. Second, I would get a popup saying you have chosen to open "blank.php" from infomoneyservice.com . I had never heard of this website and have never gone there, to my knowledge. Third, the most recent thing I discovered, is that this is somehow related to Google -- not necessarily that it is on Google's servers (but who knows?), but certainly it is at least targeting it. I found that a consistent, reproducible technique to see this funny business is: 1) Start up Firefox; 2) Go to google.com (whether by using the bookmark that has been there for years, or by typing it in directly); 3) Click on the History menu and voila! there are all sorts of references to infomoneyservice.com in the history! It seems to be going there by itself (with invisible windows?)! I haven't seen this happen with any other website so far. It must be caused either by some malware on my system, or could it possibly be a malicious script on Google's end?!? It seems to be script-related because I have the NoScript extension; I had had google.com as a trusted site (as I do wikipedia.org) because it is used so much (search, maps), but after I discovered the above technique to reproduce the problem, I removed google.com as trusted, redid the technique, and it stopped happening!

Troubling footnote that mean nothing, or maybe not: I did a search on Google for "infomoneyservice" and didn't find anything notable. Searching for it on bing.com though, and I find an entry that seems to indicate someone else having the same problem (on bleepingcomputer.com)! I hope results aren't somehow being scrubbed from Google by this thing...

Anyone have more info on this? TresÁrboles (talk) 06:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to do with malware. I searched google for the site, and it looked suspicious. So don't go to any banking website etc and clean your system with Malwarebytes anti malware, and if it still plays up, sometimes a Spyboy SD botcheck can resolve it. Or you can refer to the Wikipedia Virus help page(may someone add the internal link?) Sir Stupidity (talk) 08:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

As was written above: I currently favour Avast! as the resident antivirus. There are other things you can have also such as Ccleaner and SpywareBlaster. Good malware on-demand scanners are Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Superantispyware, and Spybot – Search & Destroy. The so-called antivirus FAQ is just someones idiosyncratic and inappropriate approach to dealing with them and should be deleted in my opinion. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 09:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if our virus FAQ is so inappropriate, why don't you improve the section about removing malware in place? It's an important approach that is favored by most people, and the section needs expanding. The problem is of course that you can never be sure that you removed every scrap of virus from your system. If you're comfortable with knowing it's likely that you removed the malware, then using all the above is perfectly appropriate. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Laptop scroll

Hi. Often I accidentally press a certain combination of keys on my laptop computer, and the screen ends up scrolling to the top of bottom endlessly, and I have to close the window and log out to fix the problem. Any ideas on what causes this, and how to fix it without having to close the window? Also, which keys or buttons set forth this effect? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 16:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

java - pass command to OS then return

I know this is absolutely not the point of java, but, is there a way in java to pass a command (eg as a string) to the OS, and have java capture it's return value or string eg a=system.notjava("dir c:/home") or a=system.notjava("notepad.exe") 77.86.59.77 (talk) 17:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Headphones

When I plug headphones into my computer, the speakers stop producing sound. I would like sound from the headphones and speakers at the same time. How can I do this? The computer is Windows 7 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)