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August 26

iWork Serial Number

I recently installed iWork onto my Mac. However, the installation requires me to enter a serial number. I can't seem to find number. I've already tried several codes that were on the box but none of them worked. What should I do?--ChromeWire (talk) 00:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Possibly, you had a trial version which requires a serial number, and now have a retail version which does not, and...it gets in a twist, according to this thread, where it explains you need to remove the trial. Maybe that will help, or maybe someone will come along with a more definitive answer. Chzz  ►  01:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I did previously have the trial version so I tried removing iWork from my computer but it still asks for the serial number.--ChromeWire (talk) 16:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep...did you see that thread? deleted all files in the /library/Caches in both root and user accounts and deleted any .plist files that had the word iWorks in them in both Preferences folders and To the above, add /Library/Application Support/iWork '09. It works.  Chzz  ►  12:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Improving reliability of Wikipedia bot

I have written and operated a Wikipedia bot (User:PSBot) that scans the proposed deletion category every thirty minutes to find de-nominated articles. The source code (written in JavaScript) is at User talk:PSBot/Deprods. Recently, my Windows 7 desktop computer (which I have run the bot on so far) has blue-screen crashed about once a month, taking the bot down with it. Additionally, I need to be able to apply security updates to my desktop computer as well. Therefore, I would like to move the bot to a separate computer running Linux, FreeBSD, etc. to improve reliability. Preferably, the computer I would like to use for this purpose is an Apple Power Mac G4 Server with 384 MB of RAM.

• Which distribution of Linux (or FreeBSD, etc.) is the easiest to get working on the PowerPC Mac platform and will work reliably within the limited amount of RAM?
• Currently, the script runs within an Adobe AIR-based application. Which JavaScript environment should I run the code under on the G4 Server: Chromium, Firefox, or another?
• The bot framework I am using is quite limited. Am I better off rewriting the bot, especially since I want to add some more features? (I am aware of all requirements of Wikipedia's bot policy.) If so, in what programming language and using which bot framework? (It has to be relatively easy for a JavaScript programmer to learn.)

Thanks, PleaseStand ^(talk) 05:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Old versions of Ubuntu (6.10) can officially run on PowerPC Mac G4; here is the Ubuntu Apple Desktop Support page. Unofficial ports of more modern versions are also available: read here about newer versions of Ubuntu for PowerPC. (Direct link: Ubuntu-9.10-PowerPC cd-image for Apple G4 and its ilk... this file is around 800 MB).

Regarding architecture changes: yes, think about platform portability. Given that your hardware is now "esoteric" and "unsupported", you will have to migrate at some point in the future (when your widget burns out and you can't buy a new one because they don't make PowerMac G4s anymore...). So start thinking about portable languages. Javascript is a good start, but it probably lacks the performance and the power for an internet-scalable bot. You could rewrite from scratch - but there's another alternative: Rhino. This is a JavaScript environment for Java (if you're unfamiliar, don't let the names confuse you - Java is a full-blown application programming language largely unrelated to JavaScript). This is probably the best "standalone" environment for your JavaScript purposes, because it doesn't carry the overburden of a web-browser (and since you are writing a bot, you don't really need the weight of a browser's DOM implementation layer).

I have only just recently started playing with Mozilla Rhino, but I'm already enthused at how powerful it is. When you desire, you can use Rhino to interpret all of your existing JavaScript; it can be very lightweight and efficient. And when you want, you can write a fullblown Java application, and Rhino will seamlessly hook your JavaScript and Java application together, giving you access to functions and data from all the standard Java libraries, and your own custom Java code. You can thus use dynamic typing, loose syntax, and runtime interpretation - all the while leveraging the scope and utility of compiled Java code and standard libraries. With about ten lines of Java program code, you can basically house your existing JavaScript in a much more powerful framework - and most importantly, it is platform-portable and can be implemented with entirely free software (OpenJDK, for example) - unlike Adobe Air! Nimur (talk) 06:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Disk recovery (part two)

Hello everyone, and a big thank you to everyone who helped me yesterday. Well, events have moved on and thinking that the disk was on its last elbows and only had a limited time left, I bit the bullet and typed

 dd if=/dev/sdb4 of=~/recover

So now I have a 40GB file called 'recover' which I think contains the content of the bad disk. Does any wikiguru know of any tips or tricks to extract file content (just text) from this? I still have the other ideas above in reserve. Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Sure. The fact it went through the whole partition without issue's a promising sign. What was the partition formatted as? If there's no other problem you can just mount it outright. sudo mkdir /recovered ; sudo mount /dev/sda4 /recovered

If the file table's destroyed in some way then it matters what the partition type was. NTFS? NTFS has the MFT at the beginning of the drive and then a copy in the middle. ext2 (or 3 or 4), it has a node system that's robust against failures. Fat32? Whatever the system is the best approach is to try and mount the original system. If that doesn't work then try to fix the original system. Your last case approach is to "file carve" the remaining data. In most cases data will be stored sequentially on the disc, so if you know what file's start and end looks like then there are programs to look for that and export out what they find. It's not an easy process, and you'll have to sort through a lot of junk, but it will find files. Shadowjams (talk) 08:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, in case sda4's gone, but you have the file, you can do losetup -f ./recover and it will allow you to then "mount" /dev/loopX to whatever you want. You need to figure out what X is though. Check the losetup man page. Shadowjams (talk) 08:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It's preferable to leave the choice of the loop device and attaching it to the file (as well as detaching it automatically on unmount!) to mount. Just do mount -o loop ~/recover /mnt (+ whatever other options you want to give to the mount command, such as ro).—Emil J. 11:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you shadowjams. I had no idea you could mount a file. Anyway, one thing at a time. I tried to mount recover as you said but got an error reading "unknown filesystem type 'LVM2_member'". Any ideas? Robinh (talk) 08:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This indicates that the disk is an LVM volume. Mounting LVM volumes on systems where they were not created seems to be a frequently encountered, but solvable, problem, just googling for LVM2_member will give you a plenty of ideas. Since you were able to copy the disk image without errors, there is a good chance that it is actually mountable with the right setup.—Emil J. 12:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Well that suggests that whatever you're trying to mount either isn't a file system or was one but is now damaged. The mount command is very particular, so even a small error in the headers will cause it to balk.

losetup (loop setup) is the best way to mount disc images in linux/unix, but if the image is damaged in some way then you'll have problems. Generally, how did you come to this situation in the first place? Are you trying to recover your entire filesystem or just a few key files? Most data on most file-systems is stored sequentially and so if you were to look at every byte on the drive you'd actually see most data perfectly. Data carving relies on that fact. If files are huge or your drive is incredibly fragmented then you might have problems, but if there's somethign specific you really need then it's probably easier to find. Shadowjams (talk) 09:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I really really appreciate it. I have five or six files (all text); I don't care about the rest. I have discovered that the command 'strings' is good and can do strings recover | egrep -C 100 "whichfern" [the string whichfern is one that occurs in my recovered file]. I will study the manpage for losetup and see if that can work (I'm not sure what X is). Very best wishes, Robinh (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I've gnashed too many teeth with the same problem to have someone else have to go through the same thing. Strings is a great command for this kind of thing. In that case you don't even need to losetup the file, you could just do dd if=file_im_intersted_in.img | strings | grep -A 10 -B 10 'whichferm'. That will probably get most of what you want. You can also do the same thing using |hexdump -C|grep ..... and then grep for it. When hexdump gives you an answer it will be prefaced with a hex number. That hex number is the number of bytes it's seen. So take that number, divide by 512 (because dd does it by "blocks/sectors" which are almost always 512 bytes) and then "skip" that many bytes with dd (e.g., dd if=whatever skip=1024). I realize this is a lot of information to take in, but I think you know what you're doing, so hopefully this provides you with a little bit of direction. Good luck. If you need more help please post here and I'll be back to respond within the next 24 hours. Shadowjams (talk) 09:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If file -s ~/recover reports the file as a valid partition, you can just let mount handle it with (as root)mkdir /mnt/recover ; mount -o ro,loop ~/recover /mnt/recover. That will attempt to mount the disk image read-only onto /mnt/recover. If you've got the disk space, I'd copy the image, and then attempt to recover the image by using fsck -f ~/recover.

You could also try PhotoRec.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec#Media lists DD raw images as supported file format, so your ~/recover file should work just fine.

Also, despite the name PhotoRec, it is able to detect more than 320 different file formats, including various office file types, see: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File_Formats_Recovered_By_PhotoRec

-- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 19:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Java applet issues.....

I run a Java applet to connect to IRC called "PJIRC". Its a very nice web based chat client, but when i play a full screen game and come back to my client afterwards, the area where the applet is supposed to appear is usually black, and i cant interact with anything. I have to refresh the web page, therefore resetting my connection to the IRC server.... VERY annoying.

Does anyone know what causes this or how to fix it? Thanks! :)

74.117.245.62 (talk) 10:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Google

Google keeps bugging me to change the email address from "@googlemail.com" to "@gmail.com". Do I have to change it? Will they eventually forced the change on it? When / if they do, will the old address not work and I'll have to update everything? 82.44.54.25 (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

They use googlemail.com primarily in Germany and the UK because of legal issues with gmail.com. Once those legal issues are fixed, they will have no need for googlemail.com, but might continue using it just for brandname recognition. As for which they prefer to use, it depends on your country. -- kainaw™ 15:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

New laptop battery

Hello all I have a HP pavillion dv6700 notebook. I would like to put a new battery in it, one that lasts 8 hours as my current battery lasts only around an hour and a half. Do such batteries exist for my laptop? If I were to purchase a new one I would like it to fit inside the laptop. Thanks in advance for any help. RichYPE (talk) 16:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

What you need is a 12 cell battery. You can find several of them on Amazon: [1]. Just make sure that it's compatible with DV6500 before you buy. Note that how long the batter lasts deponds on usage and power settings on the laptop. Also, the 12 cell batteries are larger and heavier than the normal 6 cell ones. Have a look at this site for battery maintenance tips: [2]. - Akamad (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for your help. I have ordered a 12 cell battery. RichYPE (talk) 22:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Downloading a clean copy of wininit.exe

My wininit.exe file got infected by malware in my Windows 7 machine. Where can I download a clean copy of it? --Belchman (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You should be able to repair your install with the Windows 7 install disk, assuming you have one. Downloading Windows system files from the internet seems like a bad idea, they'll most likely be viruses. 82.44.54.25 (talk) 18:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

But the thing is that I don't need to "repair" (whatever the "repair" program exactly does) everything, it's just one file. --Belchman (talk) 19:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I would do the repair from disc, too. And of course I'd follow the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing/Viruses suggestions about creating and habitually using a non-administrator account, to reduce the likelihood of future infections. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Another option is to just try running SFC /scannow (as an administrator) and Windows will scan all the system files and put back any that aren't the correct versions - wininit.exe is one of those protected file (assuming it hasn't already put it back that is!).  ZX81  ^talk 19:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've uploaded wininit.exe from my own Windows 7 (32-bit) which you can download [Link removed] if you want. I suggest you try and run the repair program on the install disk first, since my version might not be compatible with yours, and incorporating system files into your OS which were download from "someone on the internet" is not very safe practice (I could be an evil botnet owner or something). 82.44.54.25 (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the link; I don't believe Wikipedia's copyright policy allows it (see WP:LINKVIO). Microsoft Windows system files are copyrighted. PleaseStand ^(talk) 21:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much 82.44.54.25 and others. --Belchman (talk) 06:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think that wininit.exe is infected or that nothing else is? Did a malware or virus scanner say so? Which scanner was it, what infection did it claim, and what directory is the file in? Viruses infect as many executable files as they can, and other forms of malware don't infect files at all. It seems much more likely to me that this is either a false alarm or a malware executable unrelated to the Windows executable by the same name. In the latter case, you should delete it, not replace it. -- BenRG (talk) 23:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Watch

I'm looking for a free program that can monitor several web pages and alert if the page content changes, sort of like the Wikipedia watchlist does, but for any web page. I searched via google but could only find a commercial program 82.44.54.25 (talk) 20:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered using a free web service rather than a program that you have to run? WatchThatPage is free, though they request donations if you're a heavy user or a company. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Screws = Laptop failure?

I have a Dell Inspiron 1200.

I wanted to clean the heat sink (and the fan) - to remove the dust accumulation etc.

So I started unscrewing all the screws I could find, as there was no special compartment for the heat sink, like how there is for RAM, and the Hard drive. Not having read the manual or other instructions...I tried to pull different locations (outside cover) to get to the motherboard.

I still could not get to it...so I gave up, and screwed everything back up.

The laptop would not power up...After pressing the power button...The power led light (along with caps lock, scroll lock..) stayed on for a few seconds...before automatically shutting off.

So then I read the manual on the internet regarding disassembling the laptop.

It said to note where you remove the screws from etc. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2200/en/SM/begin.htm which I did not do, and I probably mixed them when I screwed everything back again.

Per the documentation: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2200/en/SM/sysboard.htm I did the following:

1. Remove the hard drive.

2. Remove the optical drive.

3. Remove the memory module.

4. Remove the keyboard.

5. Remove the Mini PCI card. (there was no PCI card in my laptop)

6. Remove the modem.

7. Remove the display assembly.

8. Remove the palm rest.

9. Remove the microprocessor thermal-cooling assembly.

I cleaned it. Then when I went to put it back together. I believe I lost 1 or 2 screws. And I must have put wrong size screws in some places.

But now it started up fine.

I ordered replacement screws from eBay.

2 weeks later...

When I put the replacement screws inside the laptop (the back of the laptop) - It would not power up (like earlier - the led light stays powered on but nothing starts up).

Anyways, I went and disassembled the laptop again. Then re-assembled it - only this time I screwed as little as possible.

The laptop booted up fine...so then I started putting screws back on one by one...testing after every few screws whether it continued to boot up - to see which one was the culprit.

I was able to locate the area where when it is screwed it causes the laptop not to boot up. This time I did not screw that location.

A few hours later the same problem came back.

Now I removed half the screws from the back of my laptop...just to get it to start up again....

Now should I just leave it like this - unscrewed?

If the screw fits and gets tightened that means I am using the correct screw right?

Why is this happening (not booting up when everything is screwed)?

--33rogers (talk) 21:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that the screws are actually the problem? After all, you said you "...tried to pull different locations to get to the motherboard". Perhaps in doing so you damaged something else, perhaps even cracked your motherboard. Minor damage can lead to problems when things warm up, things expand and tiny cracks widen and prevent electrical signals being passed around the circuitry. Even worse, if you've got a loose screw or two rolling around the insides, it could be creating short circuits where ever it touches. The screws used in a laptop are often different lengths in different locations due to the tight spaces inside. Using a too long screw can easily cause the end of the screw to touch components under the fixing point. Unfortunately, your lack of care in disassembling your laptop and your later lack of care trying to fix it again (when you "...must have put wrong size screws in some places") may well have damaged your laptop beyond repair. However, if you want to try again, I suggest you carefully take it apart again and ensure you have correctly identified and accounted for all the screws, then reassemble it following the service manual instructions exactly - paying particular attention to getting the right screws in the right holes (for example, if a screw seems to have come to the end of its available turns and the component is still loose, you probably have the wrong screw; do not be tempted to put some force into tightening it a little more). Astronaut (talk) 23:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Slightly off topic as my PC assembly/re-build experience is not with laptops, but the length of the screws when mounting the Hard Disk Drive(HDD) can be a factor. As mentioned by Astronaut, if a HDD (or other) mounting screw is too long it may reach the printed circuit board and possibly damage it or earth a track/trace to the chassis or laptop equivalent. After looking at the "Removing the Hard Drive" instructions it seems this is less likely to be a factor. I also concur with Astronauts other comments.
• 33rogers, did you take note of and follow the advice about "Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge"?, as that might cause weird problems. This link shows the type of equipment you should try to use if you are going to delve inside your computer.
220.101 talk^\Contribs 04:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC) Updated 04:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I did not follow the advice about "Protecting Against Electrostatic Discharge" as I already tried to get to the heat sink (area where dust is collected) without reading the manual beforehand. When it refused to start up, (and probably because I had smaller screw left over and it would not fit), then I looked up the manual. By then I assumed it was too late. --33rogers (talk) 07:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to know for sure which screw goes where, considering that there are now (probably) wrong screws in different locations?

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2200/en/SM/display.htm

"8. From the bottom of the computer, remove the two M2.5 x 5-mm screws labeled "D."

Image Link:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2200/en/SM/displa11.jpg

Now this screw doesn't fit (i.e. this screw does not tighten at all).

Only the M2.5 x 8-mm screws work - probably because I used this one earlier when I was not supposed to?

Below is the first location which when screwed the laptop would NOT boot up; all other locations were screwed.

Then when I tried later, it did not boot again.

(Very frustrated because I spent 6 hours just re-assembling everything) So then I started removing screws, and kept trying until it started.

The screws below are now removed:

Now it starts and works.

Should I leave it as is, with the screws removed, for day to day use?

Unfortunately, your lack of care in disassembling your laptop and your later lack of care trying to fix it again, when you put wrong size screws in some places, may well have damaged your laptop beyond repair.

Do you think it is worth the time disassembling & then reassembling again? --33rogers (talk) 07:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Laptop Screws

Re: "way to know for sure which screw goes where", please see Before you begin/Screw Identification According to the table there, the only 3mm diameter screws(M3 x 3mm) are for the HDD "door", which if you are unfamiliar with the sizes may help you identify them. Note: "M3 x 3mm"=3mm diameter x 3mm long.

• If you are not going to move your laptop around, then I suppose you could get away with leaving the screws out. (Gaffer tape may be an alternative) BUT beware of the fact that pulling tape off the roll can generate a static charge!
• The fact that it does boot up makes me think that it has not been damaged by static electricity, but I cannot be certain. A charge of only 50 volts, that you would never feel, could easily damage the micro-processor or other components as they work on far lower voltages.

Flexible flat cable

• It is possible that a cable is being 'pinched' by the case and shorting out, if it is not in the correct position as you close the case. Sometimes they are simply taped to hold them in the right spot. A flexible flat cable(see pic) may have been loosened, and making intermittent contact that becomes an open circuit as as you close the case. Note they can also be a brownish colour and look like a piece of transparent tape with wires or tracks inside. 220.101 talk^\Contribs 09:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• Here, "Removing the Display Panel" is where this type of cable is used. They may be elsewhere as well, even on hard disks.
  
• Step 4 of "Display Assembly" "Remove the four M2.5 x 5-mm screws (labeled "M2.5x5") that secure the EMI shield to the system board" show some wires and cables under the Aluminium shield, ensure these are not being pinched when it is screwed in place. 220.101 talk^\Contribs 09:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

August 27

Compile error in hidden module: AutoExec?

The message "Compile error in hidden module: AutoExec" shows whenever I start my Word 2000. After clicking OK I can use it normally, but the message shows again when I close it. It seems to be no more than an annoyance. Any idea what this means, and how I can fix it? 24.92.78.167 (talk) 00:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There is an article about this on the Microsoft Support web site; have you seen it yet? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307410 PleaseStand ^(talk) 01:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Built in Anti-virus programs

I was highly displeased at all the flame I got for my last post, now my question is what are the antivirus programs that come with lets say a mac laptop or a pc from either 6 years ago or now. I'm not talking about program trials either, my cousin just got a new mac and want to know if he's properly protected by built in antivirus programs if any. Thanks in advance. Wikiholicforever (talk) 00:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

General information: Most PCs come with only trial subscriptions to antivirus programs (6 months or so), and Macs come with no antivirus software at all. That has not changed much in the past several years. However, there are far fewer malware programs for Mac versus PC. PleaseStand ^(talk) 01:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer, so from what I got your answer is that the majority of pc's don't have any permanent antivirus programs at all??? Are there at least very simple detecters that come packed in?? And I did'nt know that the mac was so badly protected, I'm kind of surprised! I really appreciate the answer, thanks again! Wikiholicforever (talk) 01:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless the particulars of the deal included the vendor installing a full version of some anti-virus program, your cousin's Mac doesn't have any anti-virus software on it. They don't come with any from Apple. That said, in the 18 years that I've been using Macs, I've never once had a virus or other malicious program on my systems. Partially because there are significantly fewer viruses written for Macs as well as the fact that I'm careful about where I go on the net and what I click on. It's not that Macs are badly protected when sold it's that, for the most part, it's just not necessary. It's like someone who lives in the United States getting a malaria shot. The chances of getting malaria in the US are so low that nobody bothers getting immunized for it. Dismas|^(talk) 01:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Windows Vista comes with Windows Defender. Mac OS 10.6 (released in 2009) also comes with a hidden anti-virus program. All versions of Windows also automatically download the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. So, in summary, if he's using an older version of the Mac OS, he isn't protected by an anti-virus program by default.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

That basic protection, though, is very limited. The Windows MSRT only scans for specific prevalent families of malware once a month, so it cannot prevent infection by malware. The Mac OS X 10.6 "file quarantine" only applies to files downloaded using Safari, iChat, etc. and only scans for a small set of Mac trojan horse programs. It won't prevent the user, for example, from spreading a Windows virus or macro virus, or spreading a virus via flash drive (if a Mac virus were to spread that way). [3][4] So I wouldn't consider it a "substitute" for antivirus software, applying security updates to the operating system, web browser, and all browser plug-ins, and avoiding unsafe links. PleaseStand ^(talk) 03:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the answers, I really appreciate it. Over the past two days I've been testing to see if a keylogger would be blocked by a number of computers. What I found out was very similar to your answers. It was detected on 3 out of the 5 computers with just built in antivirus, the keylogger was'nt detected on a mac and another pc. When I went home to see if the keylogger was working, nothing came up so obviously it was'nt written for mac and I don't know what happened with the pc... Wikiholicforever (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Using real malware for testing to see if an antivirus program is working isn't a good idea. The EICAR test file, in contrast, is a safe file specifically designed for the purpose. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Keyloggers are pretty harmless if they are under your own control and don't have a "phone home" feature, and you remember to delete all your logged passwords, but the very simple EICAR file (X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*) is much safer. Just save it as a text file and see how long it takes your anti-virus software to detect it. Dbfirs 02:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Error Box when Googling

My PC runs Windows XP Professional "Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600" and IE Version 7.0.5730.13 (data from System Information)
Recently while using Google the search results appear, but I have also had an error box come up several times saying:

"Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Chris+Madden+hockey&rlz=1R2GGLJ_en&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Operation aborted"

The box has a red cicle with a white X on the left, and an 'OK button' at the bottom to click on.

Refreshing the screen (F5) does not always seem to make the search work. It only seems to have been happening the last week or two.
Any ideas what may be causing this? Perhaps a simple failure to acccess Google for some reason? But the search results are appearing so it seems it is accessing the Google site. 220.101 talk^\Contribs 03:43, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Some cursory Googling suggests it's an IE problem. IE is attempting to contacting Google, fails, and just gives up. This MSDN forum post suggests a number of different potential fixes. My suggestion is to upgrade to IE 8, or a better browser like Chrome, FireFox, Opera, Safari. --—Mitaphane _{Contribs | Talk} 15:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Mitaphane. I'll take a look at what the links say and go from there. I'll also take a look at some of the other browsers. Thanks! 220.101 talk^\Contribs 15:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Implementing a lock for a socket stream

Hello! I'm developing a Java application that uses network sockets to transfer Objects between two computers over TCP though ObjectInput/OutputStreams. My problem is I can't figure out what's the best way to implement a lock for the socket's Input- and OutputStreams so that when one computer wants to transfer an Object, the other is listening. The easiest way seems to be use two sockets and two threads per computer (an up-down socket and a down-up socket, and a thread blocking to read or write on the designated side), but that sounds really inefficient (though I'm not that familiar with socket application, so if that's the way it's usually done, I wouldn't know). I've experimented with interrupting threads blocked in I/O operation for similar tasks in the past, and they seem to ignore the interruption. (It seems like the Java API specifies a different behavior with every subclass of InputStream for interrupts, which gets very confusing and difficult with sockets.) I'd appreciate any related information, especially specific to Java. Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

One socket is sufficient for bidirectional communication; you can "simultaneously" send and receive (on both ends). In other words, both ends of the socket implement an InputStream and OutputStream. Writing to the output streams, as defined in the java.io interface, is non-blocking - so you can write data, and it will get buffered on the other end until the other program is ready to read. When reading, just be sure to check if bytes are available, and only read that many (guaranteeing that you won't block indefinitely); or set up a read-timeout or channel for non-blocking reads. The Java socket API abstracts this for you; you don't have to worry about locking the socket for bidirectional communication to work. (Whether the data is actually flowing both directions simultaneously is entirely dependent on your network card driver; if it doesn't support this, the JVM or the operating system will buffer and serialize the datastreams; TCP sockets guarantee that data will never be lost because of such buffering at any point in the network). In terms of efficiency - well, if you're sending and receiving, you're increasing your network traffic - so if your hardware is maxxing out on bandwidth, you'll be able to measure the slow-down; but it will only affect performance, not functionality. If you implement multiple sockets, (and your hardware and operating system support it), each socket could map to a different IP and network interface, parallelizing the data flow, so that could conceivably benefit you; but only if you actually have multiple IPs and network cards per machine. Nimur (talk) 03:58, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the rapid (less than 10 minutes!) and informative reply, Nimur. I didn't know that sockets supported two-way communication—it sure makes a lot of things easier! Your note about checking available bytes before reading them was also helpful, as it led me to check the documentation for ObjectInputStream's constructor, which blocks and was part of my problem. Now everything is working fine.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 05:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I haven't done any Java socket programming, but OutputStream.write must block because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Writes to a TCP stream have to block when the write buffer fills just as reads block when the read buffer empties. If the write buffer were allowed to grow indefinitely, you could exhaust all available memory by sending a 10GB file on a socket at 30MB/s when the recipient happens to be on a 1MB/s DSL line.

If I understand correctly, you want each computer (call them A and B) to act as an object server for the other. Abstractly, you have four unidirectional message types: requests A→B, responses B→A, requests B→A, and responses A→B. Your original idea of two TCP connections gives you four unidirectional streams, one for each of the message types. Nimur's suggestion is to use one TCP connection and multiplex requests and responses onto the same stream. That would be somewhat harder to implement and I'm not sure if you'd see a performance benefit. If you processed each stream sequentially, you could see a degradation in performance, since a request from B to A couldn't go through while a request from A to B was pending.

You also need to think about deadlock. Is it possible that satisfying the other machine's request for an object will require requesting an object from the other machine? If so, consider what happens if B requests X from A and, to satisfy that request, A needs Y from B. If you're using a single TCP connection and everything is sequential, you're doomed at this point, because the request for Y can't go down the wire until X has been sent. If you use two TCP connections, you're okay in that case, but then consider the possibility that B needs X' from A in order to satisfy the request for Y. The only way to deal with this in general is to implement out-of-order responses. -- BenRG (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your concerns. My socket application is pretty basic (using it as practice—and I'm lucky if I can get a String transmitted successfully!), and uses a server-client relationship (client only asks for objects, and server only sends objects), so I think this avoids most of the problems you mention. As I develop more sophisticated application, I'll keep your advice in mind. I'm a little confusion about your comment "If you processed each stream sequentially, you could see a degradation in performance, since a request from B to A couldn't go through while a request from A to B was pending." Could you explain a little more? Does sequentially mean processing the stream on a single thread per computer?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

'Sequentially' in this case means that if A requests an object, it cannot make another request until B has responded with said object, and vice versa. It's essentially a 'conversation': one speaker at a time, and with one TCP connection you are limited to this. It can decrease performance, if a long response or network latency blocks the connection when a new request needs to be made. If you go for an implementation with two connections, both computers can send requests whenever they need to. The two separate connections aren't automatically synchronized in any way, which might cause other design problems. I hope this helps. Zigorney (talk) 16:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

AJAX/JavaScript problem.

I'm something of a JavaScript newbie (although I have a bazillion years of programming in other languages under my belt). So it may be necessary to speak loudly and use short words!

I'm trying to write a JavaScript application that essentially does the following:

1. Issue an XMLHttpRequest "POST" to launch a CGI program 'A' on the server using xmlhttp.onreadystatechange to register an event handler function. ('A' is a honking great C++ program).
2. Program A will start up and work for ~8 seconds before sending it's response "AJAX-style" using:

   printf ( "Content-Type:text/plain\nFromA: ...60kbytes of ASCII data...\n" ) ;

3. The instant the JavaScript gets the reply from A, it will return to step (1) and re-issue the post.
4. Should it not get a response within 20 seconds, the JavaScript code re-issues the post on the assumption that something went wrong.

That much works GREAT. I get a solid 8 second 'heartbeat' update from the server.

Now I need to complicate matters.

When the user clicks a button, (at any time during the 8 second cycle), I need to kick off a second program 'B' on the server...which need not respond at all - but which (I strongly suspect) is required to send some sort of response to avoid browser hangups. So 'B' responds immediately with a different AJAX-style response:

printf ( "Content-Type:text/plain\nFromB:HelloWorld\n" ) ;

With the "FromB:" part letting me know that this is a junk message from B and not an interesting one from A.

The trouble seems to be that JavaScript forgets the onreadystatechange handler that's waiting for the message from 'A' whenever the message from B arrives...so the heartbeat stops coming back and my 20 second timeout is invoked every time I click the button. (At least, I suspect that's the reason).

Is there some reason why it might be impossible to have multiple AJAX-type queries going on at the same time? Can I have multiple XMLHttpRequest objects working at the same time?

(I need this to work in FireFox, Safari, Chrome and (ideally) Opera - but InternetExplorer is already a lost cause for a dozen other things it doesn't do right!)

TIA SteveBaker (talk) 05:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The keyword in AJAX is asynchronous - so yes, you can definitely have multiple independent queries in-flight at any time, going to the same or different programs on the server-side. (This is the whole point of AJAX!) If it isn't working, it may be some kind of a bug in the order that data is returning ("asynchronous" of course means that there's no guarantee on timing or re-ordering of queries - your server could be doing "smart" things at the HTTP layer, etc.). Have you considered wrapping your data and responses in JSON (a very lightweight and simple text-based data object format)? Then, you can easily tag every transaction with its source program (A or B) and some kind of unique transaction ID to ensure it's processed in the correct place / order. This will make it easier to parse your queries and responses and guarantee that data goes where you intended (to the right server-side program / client-side javascript function, and so on). Nimur (talk) 06:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

HTTP/1.1 specifies a connection limit of 2 connections per server. Although browsers recently started increasing this limit for better Ajax responsiveness, you might still run into this depending on what else your application/other tabs are doing. Other than that, multiple XMLHttpRequest objects shouldn't be a problem, and then I'd suspect that somehow your completion handler for B is interfering with the xhr object for A. Do you reuse A and B's XHR object, or create a new one for every request? I've had to work around some odd (mostly IE bugs) with XHRs by calling abort() and resetting the readystatechange handler every time I reused a XHR object. Unilynx (talk) 06:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Number of connections per server can be set by the server configuration; but that's something to check. On reading Steve's code a bit more carefully, I wonder if he's using the same variable name (xmlhttp) for both transactions. This is one of those things that you know not to do in C++. But Javascript makes this problem even more acute, because scope in Javascript is so complex. You can almost always assume that "it's a global variable." I would check closely: are you over-riding Transaction A 's registered callback by assiging xmlhttp.onreadystatechange during the initiation of Transaction B? You're probably mucking with the first transaction object! In other words, Transaction B isn't a new instance of xmlhttp: it's the same object! Check carefully; for safety, use clean, new names for each object; and if that fixes it, good. Follow-up by with some web-searches on "scope in Javascript" - this is a very common programmer-error because JS is so different from normal languages, it's almost impossible to have a "locally-scoped" variable. Nimur (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Number of connections is a client-side restriction too (and there is no standard way for the server to communicate a limit, expect by using HTTP/1.0 instead of /1.1) and requires a configuration change to modify, see eg here where IE7 defaults to 2 and requires a registry change. JavaScript local variables work fine, as long as you properly use the var keyword or put them in objects, and realise that even 'var' variables in JavaScript have function-scope, not block-scope as they would in most other languages. But the issues Nimur mention remain relevant - how exactly do you pass the XMLHttpRequest object to your completion callbacks? Through global variables or closures? Unilynx (talk) 10:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

<drumroll>...and the winner is...Nimur! Yes, I had goofed up the scope of my XMLHttpRequest and was using the same object for both transactions. (I really, deeply, truly **HATE** JavaScript!) Giving each request a different name fixed the problem. Many thanks folks!

@Unilynx: Now you have me worried about the transaction limits! I expect to have 50+ people using this site at the same time - and that means that there will typically be 50 connections to program A - all waiting for their 8 second heartbeat - plus some random number of connections to program B...so there could easily be 50 connections to the server - and perhaps as many as 100. When you say "a connection limit of 2 connections per server" - I hope you mean "two connections TO EACH CLIENT per server" or something - not a total system limit of two connections...right?

I don't intend to support Internet Explorer (it can't run this stuff for LOTS of other reasons) - and I also don't need to support older versions of any of the other browsers either, but I need it to work with the latest HTML-5 versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera (actually, the upcoming as-yet-unreleased versions of those four browsers) - and also on Android & iPhone4 cellphone browsers. SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

2 per server, per client, yes, so no need to worry unless you did something explicitly to your server to limit connections per IP. As far as I know, no browser actually fully implements HTML5, but that shouldn't matter, as XmlHTTPRequest predates HTML5 anyway - HTML5 is just the first HTML spec to standardize it. (In fact, XmlHTTPRequest is a IE/Exchange invention). Unilynx (talk) 22:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

XP Spanned Volumes

I'm running Windows XP and have three 250 GB disks in my machine. I spanned two of them in Disk Management to create one dynamic NTFS drive (D:). If I reformat the system disk (C:) and reinstall the OS, will this affect my spanned volume? matt (talk) 08:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

No, because you have two logical partitions (one extended) and XP sees only the logical partition you choose when installing which you can ask XP to (quick)format. It will not touch or attempt to change any of your partitioning during installation. Sandman30s (talk) 21:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Nonetheless, you should backup all of the data on your (D:) drive. While formatting your and reinstalling your operating-system on (C:) drive normally will not affect any other drives/partitions on the same computer, if something goes wrong, one of your other two disks could be wiped - I presume that by spanning, you mean that (D:) partition resides on two HDDs in a RAID 0 array, in which case the data on both disks is lost even if one disk is wiped. Keep in mind that anytime you're formatting any drive/partition in a computer, you should be prepared to lose all of the data on every partition on every HDD in that computer. Good luck. Rocketshiporion 08:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Nuclear Physics-Package Simulation Software

Hi.

   I am seeking simulation-software which can be used to simulate the deformation and detonation of nuclear physics-packages. It should be able to:

1. Accept input of shape, size, dimensions, mass, etc. of the fissile core, neutron reflector, explosive lenses and package-wall.
2. Visually simulate deformation of all parts of the physics-package (fissile core, neutron reflector, explosive lenses and package-wall) upon detonation.
3. Output numerical values for the following at the moment of detonation;
   1. tonnage (TNT equivalent),
   2. nett energy release (in newtons),
   3. nett force (in Pascals) at various distances from the epicenter,
   4. temperature (in either kelvin or celsius) at various distances from the epicenter,
   5. and percentage of fissile material wasted (i.e. which did not undergo fission).
4. Support designing with the following materials:
   1. Fissile Material: Uranium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Californium, Protactinium & Radium.
   2. Neutron-reflector: Beryllium, Titanium, Tungsten, Osmium, Steel, Graphite, Gold, Lead & Uranium.
   3. Explosive Lenses: Trnitrotoluene, Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, Cyclotetramethylenetrinitramine, Octanitrocubane, etc.
   4. Package-Wall: Titanium, Tungsten, Duralumin, Iron, Steel, Carbon, etc.

   Does anyone here know of any simulation-software (preferably free and/or open-source, but commercial is also acceptable) which meets these criterion? Any information or pointers would be useful. The available double-precision computational power for running this software would be about 2.06 teraflops, scalable if necessary to a maximum of 4.12 teraflops. Thank you to everyone. Rocketshiporion Friday 27-August-2010, 2:45pm GMT.

I would strongly suspect that software packages with the level of detail you describe are mostly or entirely the property of national governments and classified as state secrets. If you are employed by such a government, then you might get access to their software. Otherwise, you'd probably have to develop your own software. I suspect that one could probably find public information on things like models of various explosives, or neutron response curves for various materials. However, the data to comprehensively validate a nuclear detonation model is probably also a state secret since only governments have ever been able to test bombs. Dragons flight (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The hard part is not simulating, it is simulating accurately. For example, AutoCAD and several of its commercial and 3rd-party plugins can do deformation finite-element modeling. And if you home-brew your own full-fledged CAD tool and numerical modeling software, you can do your best to estimate all the necessary parameters, and visualize the output however you like. But do the equations used to estimate the dynamics and the material properties apply to the unique situation of nuclear detonation? The only way you can know this is if you have access to both the software (and all the mathematics behind it) AND access to empirical nuclear test data. As you know (if you use or design CAD tools), accurate equations of state suitable for predicting and modeling are very complicated and are rarely developed from first principles of physics. They are highly-parameterized and tuned for specific experimental conditions. Only a few places - say, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory will be able to have access to these sorts of parameters; and there is an entire profession dedicated to the validation of nuclear weapons physics-packages through computational simulation. And, as Dragons Flight points out, because of the sensitive nature of nuclear weaponry, these sorts of career-tracks invariably require access to confidential and controlled information. Your best chance to get such software is:

1. Begin the long and arduous process of studying an advanced technical field, like computer science, mathematics, physics, or nuclear engineering
2. Apply for an advanced-degree program related to the computer modeling of nuclear weapons
3. Establish good citizenship in a country with a solid nuclear weapons research program, and establish good standing in that country, beyond a reasonable doubt
4. Apply for a position at one of the national laboratories that specialize in weapons maintenance and validation
5. Obtain a Department of Energy clearance to authorize access to the data and software you want (in the United States, this is called "Department of Energy Q")
6. Find yourself in a project team with access to the software.

Realistically, asking here at Wikipedia, this is the best kind of answer you'll get. Such tools are not freely or commercially available. You can always go for "baby physics" versions - in fact, almost any nuclear engineering textbook homework-problems will apply the equations that solve for energy and material dynamics - but do those equations apply accurately enough to model system dynamics for the case of a specific configuration? Nimur (talk) 15:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

... Or you can ask Oak Ridge on Facebook. They're having a conference in Tennessee on October 11, it is not too late to register. Nimur (talk) 15:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I had wondered if the question was meant to test our no-criminal-assistance-answers guideline. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It is not criminal to be a nuclear weapons researcher, unfortunately. But it does rouse suspicion. Anyway, like most complicated systems, nuclear weapon design is not merely about having access to the technology - you need hundreds (thousands, perhaps) of talented individuals to assist in managing the complexity of the engineered system. I have a feeling Rocketshiporion could receive fully documented schematics, blueprints, software, and all the necessary materials, and still be unable to construct a weapon with them. I suspect he or she has a long road ahead - starting with learning that "nett energy" is not measured in units of newtons. Nimur (talk) 17:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

And just as an aside: I posted the link to the SCALE conference because they are actually involved in the design of nuclear-engineering software, and actually offer training courses. If the OP is serious, that is a reasonable line of inquiry. But if this is an "elaborate hoax to test the limits of Wikipedia," well... all I can say is: do not "joke" with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. That would be tantamount to walking into a rifle store and "jokingly" asking for schematics to build your own assault-rifle. You may find yourself way over your head. These things are not "jokes," they are weapons. Nimur (talk) 17:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Technically, in the United States, if you do research that involves Restricted Data, regardless of whether it is officially or privately derived, you are subject to the legal requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. (Our article on classified information does not really explain RD very well. It is not really a classification category in the same sense that "secret" and "confidential" are. It basically means "anything to do with nuclear weapons design which has not been explicitly declassified by the DOE", and carries with it heavy requirements for regulation under the Atomic Energy Act.) Lots of things are declassified — but a lot you would need for the above is not. (Like, say, the equation of state for plutonium under pressure.) Which means that you can't tell anybody about it, basically, or keep it in an insecure location. So it is kind of criminal to be a freelance nuclear weapons researcher, if you are generating RD and communicating it to others in any way. But this is not enforced very often. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

  I will try asking at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for either the software or atleast all past empirical test-data. I don't realistically expect to be successful with Oak Ridge, but it wouldn't hurt to try. My specific interest is in designing small-diameter physics-packages for interplanetary (not interstellar) spacecraft propulsion, definitely not weaponry or warfare. As for the measurement of nett-force, I was under the impression that the SI unit of force is the newton, although the kilogram (equivalent in my understanding to 9.80665 newtons) has also been used as a unit of force, as has the pound. So which unit of force is used in the simulation of nuclear detonations? Rocketshiporion Friday 27-August-2010, 10:54pm GMT.

Before you dive into such details, you might want to read the difference between a nuclear reactor, an RTG, and a physics package - you specifically asked about detonation (which shouldn't happen if you're only generating energy for propulsion). Check your earlier post - you seem to have confused energy, force, pressure, etc. Nimur (talk) 23:20, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Rocketshiporion's name would suggest that he's interested in an application similar to Project Orion (nuclear propulsion), which did propose using (lots of) nuclear explosives for spacecraft propulsion. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

He? Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

There isn't an all-in-one package like that. You can't actually do it from first principles (accurately), you need weapons codes data (derived from nuclear testing), and those are highly classified. The stuff you are asking for is also computationally non-trivial. This report tells about the kinds of crazy computers that the US government uses to try and simulate nuclear weapons designs, and the difficulties of scaling things from the quantum level up to the macroscopic. The physics that happens inside a detonating nuclear weapon is exceedingly complicated. It is more like the sorts of processes that happen inside stars than anything that happens on earth, and yet it is not quite so big as a star that you can generalize so readily about it. Predicting the yield of any given design, for example, is considered to be one of the hardest things to do even for an experienced designer.

The only software I know that would be useful at all for any of this is KB, a "comprehensive educational package of computer codes and reference documents for modeling model materials at high temperature and pressure." If you know what you are doing with the relevant physics, this kind of thing would be useful, but you'd still need to know, for example, the equation of state for plutonium at very high densities, which is, predictably, classified.

Oak Ridge not only won't help you, they legally cannot. The information you are asking for is restricted data; if someone there were to give it to you (presuming you do not have a Q-clearance), they would face decades of prison time! --Mr.98 (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know enough yet about nuclear weapon engineering, but I fail to understand why nuclear detonations cannot be accurately simulated ab initio. I have submitted the Request Form on the KB Product Webpage. As for the computational power required to simulate nuclear weapons designs, the ASC Platform 2007 document indicates that Sandia possess computational capacity of hundreds of teraflops. As I have 2.06 teraflops (scalable if necessary to 4.12 teraflops via addition of another four modules) of double-precision computational power, I should be capable of running Sandia's nuclear weapon simulation-codes, albeit a few hundred times as slowly. Rocketshiporion 02:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You can use KB, for example, to simulate various kinds of explosion overpressures and things like that. You can use very rough scaling laws to tell you what a kiloton of TNT will give you in terms of blast, thermal, and radiation. None of this is very precise, and none of it can be adjusted for arbitrary design differences, much less the kinds of free-form designs you're imagining this for. This is true even for the labs. The holy grail since 1945 has been to be able to accurately simulate a nuke from first principles. They can't do it yet. It's just too large an equation, one where you are running everything from quantum mechanical effects (tunneling, inverse Compton, etc.) and then running them all the way up to give you results with a 10 mile diameter and so on. It just turns out to be very, very hard to do that, even if you know quite a lot about all of the physics, chemistry, metallurgy, engineering involved. The labs today can only do it to a reasonable amount of uncertainty because they have the data from thousands of nuclear tests that tell them, "what happens if you use this as a reflector, and this as the core, and this as the radiation channel" and so on, which they can then use to calibrate their models. Even then they have only limited confidence, hence Livermore's interest in NIF and Los Alamos' interest in DARHT — tools that let you fill in some of the "what happens when..." questions without actually setting off a nuke. An interesting read regarding why nukes are hard to simulate and code for is Stober and Hoffman's A Convenient Spy (esp. chapter 3), about Wen Ho Lee. (Lee was accused of giving the codes to the Chinese, so there was a lot of discussion about what these supposedly were and why they were vitally important both to the US and to China, who has not done as much nuclear testing.) --Mr.98 (talk) 12:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

A previous RefDesk back-of-the-envelope demonstrated that we can't even model a grain of sand from first principles. --Sean 17:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify about not even the labs being able to accurately simulate nuclear weapons from first principles. Is this because

1. the equation is not known in its entirety (i.e. hasn't yet been derived), or
2. the labs simply lack sufficient computational power to solve for all of the variables in the equation?

Rocketshiporion 02:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Certainly number one; potentially number two? They certainly don't know enough of the basic physics to reliably model from first principles — if you look at the Stober and Hoffman book, it describes how they get by with fudge factors based on experimental data. I doubt they have the computational power to actually simulate from first principles anyway. As I understand it what they do at the moment is just consider each "stage" of the problem separately — look at the quantum/atomic stage, look at the chemical separately from that, look at the metallurgical separately, look at the engineering, etc. One of their reports on that site I linked to, I cannot remember which one, has a nice graph showing each of their stages of consideration, with the end goal (probably unattainable without more nuclear testing) to be able to go from the tiniest to the largest in one step. But you're talking about a gigantic simulation, if you are really trying to model the whole thing at the atomic level. Billions and billions of atoms and all. It's non-trivial.

None of this is to say that they can't do back-of-the-envelope, or come up with pretty good guesses. I wouldn't be surprised if, at this point, they could pretty accurately simulate most "standard" changes to the stockpile bombs. (E.g., substitute one type of material for another, or take into account the effects of aging on a different material.) But they don't use one program for that — they have lots and lots of codes that simulate different parts of it. And they always have to compare it against experimental data. And they don't totally understand (at a deep theoretical level) why the experiments give some of the results they do. It's very hard to see what happens inside a bomb as you are setting it off, for obvious reasons. You have to infer a lot based on somewhat indirect evidence (yield, neutrons, "Teller light", etc.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

What is 32kb of "used space" on an empty USB pendrive?

I've plugged an empty USB2 pendrive into my computer. I had previously deleted everything on it and reformated. But when looking at the properties of the drive in WinXp, it shows 32kb as "used space". What is this "used space" used for? Could anything sinister be lurking there? Thanks 92.15.21.39 (talk) 19:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

it will be the space containing information about the drive. I can't think of the name for it (like the 'reserved' space on a cd) but someone will fill you in on the blanks. There's a certain amount of space lost between the advertised size and the size itself (though this is slightly different to that I believe). ny156uk (talk) 20:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• It could be firmware used by the pendrive itself (which would be in hidden files so you can't delete them) - I had a pendrive with an LCD display on it that had a startup Logo that was stored as a file on the drive itself that you couldn't erase or overwrite no matter what.
• It could be directory space and free space map for a FAT filesystem (this is by far the most likely thing).
• It could (maybe) be bad "sectors" that it's mapped to prevent you from using them. Flash memory does eventually 'wear out' and stop working - and fancy flashdrives know to 'lock out' that worn out space so you don't use it again and corrupt a file. Cheap flashdrives don't do that (at least, not that I've noticed).

OTOH, I don't think it's a difference between advertised space and real space as Ny156uk suggets. (eg hard drive manufacturers quote "Megabytes" meaning 1,000,000 bytes and not 1024x1024=1,048,576 bytes so it looks like they have more space than they really do). The reason I don't believe that is because the "used space" that WinXP measures will be in self-consistent units with "total space" and "free space" - there wouldn't be a discrepancy. However you might well seem to have less free space on the drive than it implies on it's case for those kinds of reasons. However, I don't think flash drive manufacturers do the god-awful things that hard drive vendors do. When they say "4Gb", they really do mean "4x1024x1024x1024" - minus the things I listed above. SteveBaker (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually flash memory device (cards, USB sticks and I think SSDs) manufacturers do use decimal based bytes. This always surprised me, since the flash memory internally would seem to be in binary bytes, but I read that it's primarily because the extra space is used for wear levelling, binary prefix#Flash drives now mentions this as well Nil Einne (talk) 22:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Windows Explorer doesn't report the size of FAT16/FAT32 metadata ("directory space and free space map"), so it's not that, unless the volume is formatted as NTFS, in which case the used space would be much larger than 32K. 32K is too small for FAT as well except in unusual circumstances (a very small USB drive formatted as FAT16 might qualify). USB flash drives manage bad sectors internally and don't report them to the OS (ditto modern hard drives), so it's not bad sectors. It can't be an undeletable firmware file because USB drives behave as block devices to the operating system; they can't control what the operating system does at the filesystem level. It's not a difference between advertised and actual size because drives just have one size; they don't know what it said on the retail box.

It could be the RECYCLED/RECYCLER/$Recycle.Bin folder and possibly a desktop.ini file inside it. Each of those will take one cluster on a FAT filesystem. Try configuring Explorer to show hidden and protected operating system files and see if you see anything. -- BenRG (talk) 23:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think about it, it's almost certainly the root directory, if this is a FAT32 volume. Explorer counts used clusters. In FAT16/FAT12 the root directory is stored in a special zone before cluster 0. In FAT32 it's stored in clusters like any other directory. In NTFS all of the metadata is stored in clusters, which is why the reported used space is so much larger. -- BenRG (talk) 23:18, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

About this theme

Can anyone tell me which theme (http://i33.tinypic.com/20k39qd.png) it is? I want to use that theme. Please help me to find it out. Thanks.--180.234.34.141 (talk) 19:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, that's the default Windows Vista/Windows 7 Aero theme. I don't think the theme is available for XP -- Ferkelparade π 20:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

But I am using Windows 7, can't find that theme in OS. Also that theme contains colorful menus, which is absent in Windows default theme. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.234.34.141 (talk) 21:17, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're talking about the menus with red icons in the "Catalyst Control Center" window, those are peculiar to that program. A theme won't add icons to ordinary menu bars. -- BenRG (talk) 23:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Printing multiple slides per page in powerpoint (Office 2010)

Hello, I am trying to print 2 slides per page in powerpoint. I can do it. But, it's small and there is a lot of white space that I would prefer be filled up with bigger slides instead. I did Alt F P to print and where I select to print 2 slides, I select "Scale to fit paper" and it gets a bit bigger. But, there is still an inch between the two slides and 1.5 inches at the top and bottom and 2 inches on each side. I'd love to at least make the slides take up an extra .5 inches each in height. Is this possible? I can't find margin settings any where... thanks. StatisticsMan (talk) 21:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I have had a look at this, though in PowerPoint 2007. I assume you are printing in the 'Handouts view' ?. Try "Design" → Page Setup" → "Slides sized for" and select "Custom". You may be able to set it for larger slides, but when you print it may give an error rmessage as it expects the larger paper to be loaded in the printer. You may (again!) be able to tell it to continue and it will print assuming you have loaded the larger paper. (maybe!)

If you are trying the 2 slides per page via the printer's own setup software, then how it's done will depend on the printer and it's driver software.

You could probably paste the slides into a Word document and manually resize them, a lot of work though! 220.101 talk^\Contribs 10:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I will check this out tomorrow at school. As far as pasting it into Word, way too much work. I'm printing off slides for a class. For example, I have 49 slides just for the first chapter and there are like 15 chapters covered in the class. When I print 2 per page, they are big enough, so not worth any big amount of trouble. But, bigger would be better so if I can do it that would be great. Thanks again. StatisticsMan (talk) 03:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't log into facebook!!

Ok, so here's what happened. I created my facebook acount in the united states, and I later moved to British Colombia in Canada. When I tried to log in, it said something like "your location is unfamiliar with this acount,yada,yada,yada...", so then Facebook made me do a little quiz, where I had to Identify pictures of people on my friends list. The problem is that I have over 450 friends on facebook, and I don't know who all of them are...in fact most of them are random ppl I've met on the internet. Now my question is "is there any way to bypass this, or at least to trick facebook into thinking I'm still in the united states??". Would masking my ip help???? If so how do you mask an ip address??? Any help would really be appreciated, since I really need to log in! Thanks in advance! Wikiholicforever (talk) 22:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never used Facebook so I'm unfamiliar with their policies, but searching google for "facebook proxy" lists a lot of sites which will mask your ip to (usually) a US address. Whether this will solve your problem I don't know. You could also try asking at their help page 82.44.54.25 (talk) 22:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

In case you're interested in the technical details, Wikiholicforever, see proxy server. You aren't simply "masking" your IP address when you use one of these; you are actually routing all your data through a computer in the US. Facebook sees an IP address that appears to be in the US, and thinks everything's fine. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I have two questions: 1)so you guys can confirm that this will work?? and 2) Could you guys provide some links to some good facebook proxy sites, I was trying to find a few but I'm afraid I might stumble upon a phishing site... Thanks for all the help and support! Wikiholicforever (talk) 02:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I could be wrong here, but I was under the impression that it literally means location as in the the IP/block of IPs that you're connecting from. I don't think it's necessarily a country check, but rather the the IPs you would normally connect from. I'm happy to be proved wrong though, I only wanted to mention it incase you do use a US proxy and it still doesn't work.  ZX81  ^talk 05:33, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what zx81 was saying but the proxys did work for one of my acounts, not for the other two... I'm still trying to figure out why its not working.... Wikiholicforever (talk) 16:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I just meant that I don't think being in the same country is enough, I think it has to be from the same block of IPs (at least the same Internet provider) as those which had previously logged into the account. If not it throws up the check.  ZX81  ^talk 17:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I see what you're saying now, I think you might actually be right... In that case does anybody know a proxy that mask my ip to pensilvania???? Thanks a bunch guys! Wikiholicforever (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Just search Google for "anonymous proxies." If you go to Start --> Control Panel --> Internet Options --> Connections --> LAN Settings and check the box that says, "Use a proxy server..." you can enter in the IP address of the proxy. Then, Internet Explorer will connect to the Internet using that proxy. You can also use WHOIS (Google that, as well) and enter in the IP address of the proxy to determine where it is located.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The OP should probably also be aware that all their data, including all text and photos that they and their friends post "only visible to friends", as well as their passwords, is being re-routed through a proxy run by a random stranger. Only you can make the call as to whether you think this is an acceptable risk. Marnanel (talk) 15:38, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thats why I said I was afraid of phishing sites. Wikiholicforever (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Flash video (in embedded player) restarting computer

Resolved

Hello,

I had something quite odd happen to me the other day: a Flash video in a player embedded on a web page (see link below) caused my computer to spontaneously restart (what Microsoft apparently refers to as a blue screen/stop error). Once Windows had started again, the "your system has recovered from a serious error" information box was displayed. No damage appeared to have been done, so I tried to watch the video again and the same thing happened again (at the same point in the video).

I've checked the integrity of my hard drive using CHKDSK and scanned for viruses using both MBAM and Symantec Antivirus and there don't seem to be any problems on either front.

I watched some other videos that use the same embedded player on the same site and they all played without incident. Today, my brother was watching a video on a completely different site that (as far as I can tell) uses a different embedded player and the same thing happened. In both cases, this was in Firefox (version 3.6.8).

So, does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? Could it be video card drivers? Firefox? Giant squirrels from the future? It's not really a major problem, but it's pretty strange.

Information

• First video that caused the problem: "Everybody plays a part" (TVO video that teaches kids about civics)
  • Note that other videos on the same site did not trigger restarts
• Second video that exhibited the same problem: "Thor" (the first video on the page, described as "Tom Hiddleston tells MTV News ...")
• Computer: Windows XP SP3, 2.4 Ghz Q6600, 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770
• Browser: Firefox 3.6.8

Any ideas about what's causing this would be appreciated - I'm pretty curious about how an embedded Flash video could trigger a system restart.

Thanks,

- Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 22:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those videos cause my computer to restart. Click here. What version does it say you're using? You should be using at least version 10.1 of the Flash Player. You probably should uninstall it and then re-install it even if it's up to date, though.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It's probably the video driver. Try upgrading to the latest version. -- BenRG (talk) 23:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

My version of Flash is 10.1.82.76, which that site indicates is the most recent version. I'll try removing it and re-installing it, though, and check for updates to my video driver as well. Thanks for the suggestions. - Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 00:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, updating the video drivers fixed the problem - now I can finally find out how little things we do in everyday life bolster our democratic society! Thanks for the tips, everyone. - Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 01:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Batch download

How can I make my computer/Adobe PDF download all PDF files of an URL of a set format with one minor different? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.159.12 (talk) 22:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If you mean you want to download stuff like http://foo.com/document_0001.pdf, http://foo.com/document_0002.pdf, http://foo.com/document_0003.pdf, etc., then I'd recommend you write a script in the scripting language native to your platform (probably Windows PowerShell if you're on Windows, bash if you're on *nix) to generate the list of URLs, then feed that to wget to download them. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Free Download Manager has an option for batch downloading similar urls which should work. 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 22:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge PDFs?

OK< this is kind of related, kind of unrelated to the above. I've got some PDF documents of the same format and stuff that I need merged into a single big PDF document. How do I do that? 76.229.159.12 (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

pdftk does this. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:48, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Since pdftk is a command-line program, you may want to get the GUI version instead (GUI stands for graphical user interface). If you are looking for a commercial software program, Adobe Acrobat (the full version that is quite expensive) and Nitro PDF (another commercial software program) will merge/split PDF files among other things. PleaseStand ^(talk) 01:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

What you're looking for is PrimoPDF. Just install PrimoPDF as a printer, then open and print each file (which you want to merge) to PrimoPDF. As you print each file, save it with the same name in the same location. You will be asked whether you want to replace the current file or append to the end of it - select Append. Rocketshiporion 08:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Download trouble

This is related to the 2nd post up, not so much to the one right up. I followed the instructions in the first and installed download manager, put in my URL, etc. But the download manager keeps logging a "redirecting" and the files don't work. They are too small and when I try to open them in PDF Reader I get the message "Adobe reader could not open [filename.pdf] because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded". PS: This site requires a username/password so I gave the manager my username/password and checked the box and logged in; it still didn't work. Sorry for all the questions, I need to get these files loaded and there are about 800, so manual downloading won't work. Thanks for your patience 76.229.159.12 (talk) 23:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

When you log on to the site using a web browser, does it show a pop-up window just like [5] or [6]? If not (the log-in screen is in the same window as everything else), the site is probably using HTTP cookie authentication, which your download manager likely does not support, rather than basic access authentication. PleaseStand ^(talk) 01:01, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the download manager uses the cookies from Internet Explorer; did you make sure to leave the site open in that browser? A post on the Free Download Manager forum gives some information on getting it to work (although that post is specific to the RapidShare website, the general concept is the same). The username and password boxes in the download manager itself are irrelevant.

Alternatively, if the site works in Mozilla Firefox, the DownThemAll! download manager extension for that browser might work. It has a "Manager" tool accessible from the Firefox tools menu that allows you to add multiple URLs by replacing the number with [start:end], where start is the first number and end is the last number. Since that download manager is integrated with a web browser, it has access to that browser's cookies. PleaseStand ^(talk) 01:28, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

August 28

Origin of level numbers in Cobol

Hi,
How where the numbers 66, 77 and 88, used for Cobol level numbers, chosen? Apokrif (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This is definitely an interesting question. I did some research, but unfortunately language specifications and such usually don't retain this sort of information. The history of the choice might still be held by a programmer with a beard grayer than mine, but the reason seems obvious. Since these numbers have special meaning, it makes sense to use number combinations that are easily noticed in the middle of the code. It's an early version of Syntax highlighting. Zigorney (talk) 17:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Sony Bravia TV time display

A small black box with the time in it is appearing on my Bravia when I use the PS3 on HDMI and the PS2 on component cables. I've looked through all the menus but I can't find where to deactivate this. Does any one with a Bravia know how to do this? Thanks. ArtistScientist (talk) 02:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

"Internet not connected" messages when internet works fine...

So, I'm obviously on the internet now. I can use AIM, browse the web (i.e. Google, Wikipedia, facebook, pretty much all websites). But for some reason, there are certain things that just WILL NOT connect, and I get "check your internet connection" and "internet is not connected" messages from them. I can't get on the iTunes store, use my iWin Games Manager for anything other than games I've actually bought previously, MSN Messenger won't connect, and when I try to download the daily free game from GameHouse, it won't play either because it thinks I'm not connected to the internet. To clarify, other than these things, the internet works FINE! It's even fast! This stuff is getting really irritating, so if someone could tell me how to fix it, that would be great... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.1.198.239 (talk) 04:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Which Web browser do you use (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome)? PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:58, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Firefox. Always. Not sure what version, but I'm pretty sure it's whatever the latest happens to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.1.198.239 (talk) 05:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

From within Firefox go into the Tools Menu then Options, Advanced, Network and click Settings (Configure how Firefox connects to the Internet). Most likely you want this set on "No proxy", but auto-detect should usually work. Hope this helps!  ZX81  ^talk 05:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No, what was asked for was to get the other programs working, not Firefox. Some programs (malware included) mess with the Internet Explorer proxy settings, which may be used by other software. What you should try doing is turning off proxy settings for Internet Explorer by following Microsoft's instructions, except that you need to uncheck "Use a proxy server" rather than checking it. PleaseStand ^(talk) 05:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

As PleaseStand said, it might be caused by malware, but another possibility would be a transparent proxy or a firewall setting. According to http://en.utrace.de/?query=129.1.198.239, you are at Bowling Green State University, so you might want to ask the staff there. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 10:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

(... and they might tell you that the facility is not provided for downloading music or games.) It sounds like a deliberate bock by the network administrators. Dbfirs 02:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

DHCP irritations

[Preamble: I made a confused question about this back on 10 August, then had to use a different place; now am back with a clearer head.]

There's an ethernet cable in my office. If it's plugged directly into my computer, then when I come in and first turn on the computer, start up a browser and attempt to go anywhere, I'm greeted by a page for DHCP that asks me for my ID and password -- and after I've typed both in correctly I stay connected all day, or at least until the computer falls asleep and is reawoken. By contrast, if the ethernet cable is instead plugged into a wireless hub (router?), and the hub in turn connected to my computer, then after just a few minutes regular browsing becomes impossible: I'm instead served with the log-in page and must again type in my ID and password, which gives me a few minutes, until I'm instead served with (etc etc). Of course the whole point of the wireless hub is wireless and/or a second computer; but for diagnostic purposes I only have one computer (and no printer, etc) connected, and by wire. I don't see why my choice among the output jacks should matter, but I've tried two: each has the same irritation.

What setting of my hub might be relevant? Or if I were to buy a replacement hub, then which "feature" should I look for? -- Hoary (talk) 06:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I remember this question. If it's what I remember, this is a lot of new information, and highlights perhaps some misunderstandings. It's a bit of a non-sequitur to say that you're "greeted by a page for DHCP". When you plug in to your computer, what's likely happening is your computer asks for an IP address, a DHCP server responds with one, and then web server sends you to a login page. When you authorize, it somehow authorizes you.

The most interesting new issue is the "hub", which you acknowledge is probably not a hub. That's probably the case, as it's hard to inadvertently buy one these days. What kind of device are you plugging this into? That is probably an important point. I'm fairly confident this issue has almost nothing to do with DHCP. Shadowjams (talk) 07:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience. I've located the box that this device came in. It advertises its features -- primarily a wireless throughput (measured in some way or other) of 150Mbps -- and I have to look long and hard before I see what it is: a wireless LAN broadband router.

(I transliterate/translate from the Japanese. It looks a lot less like the photo illustrating router than it does the photo illustrating network switch, or indeed ethernet hub. In the store, there are lots of cardboard boxes that all boast stunningly high speeds -- qualified by small print -- and lots of variants on "IEEE802.11". My ignorant choice among these cost me very roughly €50.)

It's got six sockets on the back: power, "WAN", and "LAN"×4. It also has on/off DIPs for multi AP function(s) and router function(s). (The manual -- 130 pages plus, most of which is specific to OSes that I don't have -- tells me that multi AP functions have something to do with security; I've no idea why anyone would want to turn off the router functions of a router. You've guessed it, I haven't a clue what any of this means.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Undoubtedly this intermediate device is involved in the issue. The fact it has a WAN and a separate LAN port designation strong suggests it's doing some management of its own. It's probably some relation to this that's the root of your problem. Is there a model number on the device? Shadowjams (talk) 08:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a Corega CG-WLRGNX. You can see it (all in Japanese!) here. (Corega also has a website in a language approximating English, but I don't see anything looking like this "CG-WLRGNX" there.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Into which port of your CG-WLRGNX are you plugging which cable? As you said, it has one WAN and four LAN ports (let's call them LAN1 to LAN4), and plugging it in in different ways will yield different results. Please tell us where the ethernet cable from your office goes, and where you tried to connect the client computer(s). -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 10:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The ethernet cable from my office goes into "WAN" and the cable going to the client computer was until today plugged into one of the four "LAN" connectors but from today is plugged into a different one of the four. Power cable, ethernet from my employer, ethernet from my computer: these three are all that are plugged in. -- Hoary (talk) 11:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

What are you using the router for? If you're using it only as an extender or to get wirelesss access, consider disabling the DHCP server on it, and plugging the office cable into a LAN port too. That should turn your router into a switch/wireless access point and allow it to directly access the DHCP server on your company LAN Unilynx (talk) 13:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That is basically the idea I had in mind when I asked Hoary. Some important information regarding this approach:

1. DO NOT, under any circumstances, plug the office ethernet cable into a LAN port while the DHCP server on your CG-WLRGNX is still active! This will cause trouble in the entire network, and you might end up with the wrath of one or more severely annoyed network administrators.
2. You will probably lose the ability to access the config interface of your CG-WLRGNX if you disable DHCP and plug the office ethernet cable into a LAN port. You could avoid this by first asking one of your network administrators for a static IP address and assigning that to your CG-WLRGNX (again, do not do this with the office ethernet cable already plugged in - all that should be plugged in is the computer you're using to configure the CG-WLRGNX) before turning DHCP off.

-- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. First, here are the two purposes. Simply, I often use a laptop on a table. I could connect it by ethernet but that's one more cable to trip over and one more irritation when I want to move the laptop, eg to rotate it by 180° to show the screen to somebody else. Further, for a few hours most weeks a second person simultaneously uses a second laptop in the same office. Rather than passing the one cable to and forth, or having more cable forestry, it would be convenient if we were both connected without cable. Right now I'm connected (10 minutes at a time or so) via a cable to this router thing because I figure that if I can't even get this modest function working properly I have no chance of getting wireless to work right. ¶ The device comes with a 138pp manual, which lacks an index. Most of it is made up of screenshots of how to do things in this or that OS that I don't have. There's no mention of "DHCP" in the contents list. I can download a 21MB PDF of detailed instructions; there's no mention of "DHCP" in that, either. The situation (or its mismatch with my ignorance) is obviously ridiculous so I'd better go ask the techie people (who are always polite, but tend to be unhelpful when you're not using the exact same products that most people are using). Oh well. -- Hoary (talk) 10:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Or you might post the link to your 21MB PDF... who knows, there might be a helpful Wikipedian around that can help you figure out how to correctly set up your router, once the manual is available. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 12:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Supplemental: I followed your previous link using translate.google.com and got this http://corega.jp/prod/wlrgnxw/pdf/wlrgnx_detail_d.pdf - which happens to be roughly 21MB in size. is this the file you were referring to? I don't speak Japanese, so I can't tell what it says, but for example Section 4.9.1 does contain something about DHCP - the letters are in there, in rōmaji. It seems that whoever created the PDF made it non-searchable (at least for latin characters), that's what might have lead you to assume it doesn't contain anything about DHCP. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 12:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Second supplemental: Chapter 4.5.2 seems to display a DHCP configuration screen. Does the first option, perchance, say "On/Off" in Japanese? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 12:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Well well, you're right. Well done! I'm back at home now so can't try it. Tomorrow, tomorrow. In the meantime, this calls for a celebratory bottle of Chimay. -- Hoary (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Dōmo arigatō. *bows, hands at the sides* -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 16:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Vista copy paste problem

Hello there, I am having trouble in performing "copy paste" thing in my vista OS. I can't copy or paste any single file within my OS. Even I can't drag or drop any file or folder. All started suddenly. Is there any possible way to fix it? Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thank you--182.160.98.36 (talk) 14:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I used to have Vista and found it's copy system awful, although the fact that you can't copy anything at all suggests a bigger problem. Restart the computer and run a virus check in case your computer is infected, as this problem sounds like something a virus might cause. You could also try using TeraCopy or FastCopy as alternatives to the Windows copy system. 82.44.54.25 (talk) 14:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I've found Vista's copy system works fine, though I tend to use drag and drop rather than copy and paste. The paste option is not available if the focus is in the wrong place. I agree that if neither copy nor paste is working then there is a serious problem. You could try copying from command line, but this just uses the same subroutines as copy-paste and drag-drop, so if these have been compromised by a virus then it will not work. Dbfirs 02:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I have a laptop that sometimes I can't drag icons to copy and paste, even emails in outlook won't drag to other folders, but it doesn't seem to have any other issues, like with typing or anything. I eventually figured out it is somehow related to a keyboard issue, I'm not sure what happens or why but pressing alt, ctrl and esc NOT at the same time, just giving them a flick one by one, fixes this in my case. Vespine (talk) 01:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Excel Graph

Hi. I'm having a (most likely, very basic) problem with graphing some data in Excel and wondered if someone could help. So I have the numbers 1, 2, ..., 20 in one column. I then generate the next column (which lists my x values) by multiplying all of these by 0.2, giving me 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, ..., 4.0. In the next three columns I have some data determined solely by the x appropriate x value being plugged into one of three equations (for those interested, I'm actually finding numerical solutions to a differential equation). I then want to plot the final three columns against my x values but every time I try to do this, without fail, the scale for the horizontal axis runs from 0 to 21 and I cannot fathom how to change it to run from 0 to 4. Any ideas? I'm running Excel 2004 for Mac if that helps. Thanks asyndeton talk 14:35, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried graphing it as a scatter plot? --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:34, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No need. If it is the same as my Excel 2000, then just click on the series tab at step 2 in the "Wizard" and choose your second column for the "category (X) axis labels". Dbfirs 01:54, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

No. All the excel options plot values against value index except for scatter which is the only one to plot values against value. In scatter standardly the lefmost column defines all the x coordinates and all the other 'N' columns define the matching y-coordinates of 'N' lines. -- SGBailey (talk) 07:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Well it works in Excel 2000. I tested it before I posted. Are you referring just to the defaults for the graph-type options? You don't have to accept these! They are configurable at the next step. Dbfirs 07:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Using the category X axis lables can work if the X axis data happens to be equi-spaced (eg 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5) but if it is something else (eg 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.6) then although the names match, the x-separation can only be got right using scatter. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I was assuming equally spaced x-values. I suppose one could engineer this, but I agree that my method is not a solution in general. Dbfirs 09:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You need to exclude the first column from your data, yes? You should be able to do this by looking at the chart data sources. Alternatively, if you double click on the axis you are having trouble with, there is a tab for "scale", which lets you override the default values. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but see SGBailey's reply above. I wonder why Microsoft make life difficult? Dbfirs 09:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Screen

My computer screen is currently at 60 Hertz. It has the option to go to 75 Hertz. What's the difference? Might setting it higher make looking at the screen less headache inducing? 82.44.54.25 (talk) 20:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have a CRT monitor, I'd set it as high as the monitor supports to reduce flicker. See Refresh rate Unilynx (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not a CRT monitor, I think it's an LCD or something. It's flat 82.44.54.25 (talk) 22:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

In CRTs the pixels decay in brightness until they're refreshed, so the refresh rate is the flicker rate. In LCDs they don't decay, so the refresh rate only affects how quickly the image shown on the screen can change. If an LCD is visibly flickering, it probably means the backlight is dying and changing the refresh rate won't help. If your display isn't visibly flickering but you're getting headaches looking at it, you might want to consult a doctor. -- BenRG (talk) 02:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Firewalled download

My connection to the internet is through a firewall. Whenever I try to download some big files ~50 MB, I get an error stating that the response to the HTTP GET request is above the limit. My guess is that the firewall's checking the file size from the response to the get and then disallowing the download. If that's the case, is it possible to circumvent the check ? 218.248.80.51 (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The trouble is that what you want to stop is behaviour from the remote server. I can think of two solutions, but there may be more: 1) run your own proxy somewhere that strips the Content-Length header. This will be heavy on bandwidth and clunky. 2) Make use of HTTP's Range header to ask the server for the file in pieces. I don't know of any download system that allows for this, but it would be quite easy to knock one up in your favourite scripting language if you're a programmer. (Wget does support Range, but apparently only for continuing a previously-aborted download, which isn't much help if you can't even get started.) Marnanel (talk) 15:28, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Splitcam open source equivalent

Hi, I use Splitcam to play avis as a webcam. Do you know any open source apps doing this? 83.31.86.106 (talk) 23:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

AviSynth, a free and open-source tool, can construct connections between almost any kind of input video source and almost any kind of video output source. Its "user-interface" is far from user-friendly. There is extensive documentation, but you will basically need to write a short script to open the AVI file and deliver video output to your webserver. What exactly do you mean when you say "play avis as a webcam"? Clarifying this will help narrow down your options. Nimur (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

August 29

Dissolving Exclamation Point

In the Finder Window on my Mac there is a different icon than there has been in the past next to my External Drive on the side under devices. Last week it was a partially dissolved exclamation point and now it is an almost completely dissolved exclamation point with a red octagon as a background. While this does worry me, the drive it self is working fine, able to save, copy, compress, and paste files with the same ease as in the past. Can anyone give me some insight? Thanks! schyler (talk) 01:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Getting windows key from an old HD

My previous computer went kaput, and I removed the HD and put it in an external case, which can be connected to my new computer via USB. Before I delete Windows, what is the easist free way to retrieve the windows keys etc from it, just in case I need to use them again? The software available from Nirsoft apparantly requires using command lines, the Magical Jelly Bean Finder has no option to choose another drive and its website is not working for me. Thanks 92.15.13.10 (talk) 13:01, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've found that the Nirsoft software can do this with its GUI, not just command lines. 92.29.127.133 (talk) 16:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Magical Jelly Bean Finder is the site, and it also currently hawks recover-keys.com, a paid solution. (I notice the latter has a "Try it free" link, but I haven't tried that.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I downloaded the Magical Jelly Bean thing, and you cannot get it to choose another drive. 92.15.1.224 (talk) 19:01, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Did you try the poorly-named "Load Hive" menu item? The FAQ seems to say that's how you do it. For me, the "Load Hive" menu option does bring up a dialog box asking me to choose the Windows directory to suck the keys out of, and it lets me choose different drives. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've already done it with the free Nirsoft software above. 92.15.9.145 (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

IRC help

last night I downloaded an IRC connection program for the first time, Chatzilla, and was trying to explore how to do basic things like just chatting. Anyway, I actually got into a chat room and it was working, but the name I was logged in under, automatically, was the name I assigned to my computer, which contains parts of my real name. I want to choose a different login name and not have my real name displayed. How do I change my displayed identity? thanks in advance.--141.155.148.156 (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I have a second question. I just logged in to Quakenet and went to join channel and the IRC browser found 56,000+ channels. Then I went to the search box and typed in something so I could find the channel and now its "filtering" the channels to find the ones matching my search but it's doing this for 56,000 channels so it's taking forever. Is there a better way, or a way for me to tell it to only go through a lower number?--141.155.148.156 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

List of Internet Relay Chat commands lists the generally available commands. I think the one you're looking for, for your first question, is the NICK command. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:53, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks that works. However, it doesn't solve my issue. Once I join a chat room, I then change my name and have a new chat name. However, as far as I can tell when I do that displayed for everyone is the change from the old to the new. In other words, everyone sees my real name, and then they see something like "john doe has changed his name and is now logged in as jake doe". I was hoping to find a way to log in originally under a different name than the one assigned to my computer.--141.155.148.156 (talk) 15:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

That's specific to your client, not IRC as a whole. In Chatzilla, open the preferences dialogue, select the General tab, and under "Identification" there will be a space saying "Nickname". Fill that in. You may need to do this once for each network you connect to (the network list is on the left of the window). Welcome to IRC, it's an amazing place. Marnanel (talk) 15:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The answer to your second question is the /rlist command, which you follow by the string you're looking for, e.g. /rlist wombat to find all channels with "wombat" in their name. (If you just list all the channels and there are 56000 of them, it won't only take ages, it may get you kicked because it looks to the server as though you're flooding.) In general, I find it's better to find the name of the channel you're looking for through other means (such as the web) and then just go there, rather than connecting to a server in the hope of finding an interesting channel. But that's just from personal experience. Marnanel (talk) 15:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Roadrunner

Hi. I'm currently using DSL right now but I'm about to switch to roadrunner. I would like to have a dynamic Roadrunner IP (the modem is already installed). With DSL my IP changes every time I turn the modem off (or every 24 hours, which ever is shorter) My Roadrunner IP, however, doesn't appear to change when I turn it off for a few minutes. How do I know if it can be changed, and how do I do it? 68.248.229.115 (talk) 15:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Allocating your IP address is the business of the ISP, and how Roadrunner do it may not be the same way anyone else does it. It may well be remembering your MAC address and reassigning the same IP to it. (I think I would go crazy if my ISP was in the habit of changing my IP address every twenty-four hours. How the blazes are you supposed to keep a connection open?) Marnanel (talk) 15:32, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Cheap software

This website is offering Microsoft Office 2010 Professional for £97 UK. This seems like a very good bargain, but is there likely to be a catch? --rossb (talk) 17:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

[Sentence redacted after a previous comment was removed.] Anyway, as to the original poster's question, yes, it's suspicious, as that site is for downloads, and Microsoft's own UK download page lists Professional for £429.99. I can't think of any way a legitimate download site would list the same product for so much less. Even if it were the "upgrade" edition, requiring you to own a previous edition of Office, the Amazon UK price of the old 2007 upgrade is currently £199.99. I'll wager my money on "pirated copy". Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I would be suspicious; if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Searching for their domain name in Google shows almost nothing. The site claims to be a Microsoft web site (in the footer) but is almost certainly not; among other things, the WHOIS information for their domain name is cloaked by "Domains by Proxy". If you buy counterfeit software, you put yourself at risk for malware, and Microsoft may disable the counterfeit software at any time through software activation and updates. You could also get hit by hefty fines, especially if you are a business and you get audited by the BSA, for example. Buy software only from reputable resellers (legitimate local stores, not from eBay, etc.). According to their web site, the official Microsoft web site for download sales of their software is http://store.microsoft.com/. PleaseStand ^(talk) 19:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

It's really impossible to know what they're doing without seeing the licence information they send you. So, speaking in general (no reflection on these guys, of whom I have no knowledge) I've heard of several things being done. (I wrote a lengthy post here, listing seven ways I could think of, but on reading it back it's rather too close to me telling someone how to manufacture a dodgy Windows licence, rather than how to avoid inadvertently buying one). Using these methods (which aren't all that dark and secret, but still...) someone could give you an entirely kosher original MS Office disk (or download) and a licence code (particularly a digital one) that is indeed a valid MS licence that will pass Activation, and that you could continue to use the software, quite possibly forever. But all these (bar perhaps one that's particularly perverse, but might just sneak under the wire) fundamentally break the licence conditions. Such software might well work for a few years and then stop (or stop being updated) and probably wouldn't survive a corporate licence review. Or, as others have noted above, it may be downright pirated. I can't think of a way (but maybe I'm not imaginative enough) to produce a licence free and clear for that price point. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Or to put it another way: if you bought this, you're paying for pirated software. There are two things wrong with that approach. One is that it is pirated software. The other is that you are paying for it! If you are going to get pirated software, you might as well just pirate it yourself, for free. If you aren't willing to do that, paying for it doesn't make it any better. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Advocacy of alternatives to MS Office collapsed

The OP could remove all fears of buying pirated software and save a lot of money as well by downloading the roughly equivalent and free Open Office instead. I'm saddened that this same comment was deleted above. 92.29.119.94 (talk) 11:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC) Or indeed NeoOffice, for the same attractively low price of zero -- though its authors would appreciate a token payment. -- Hoary (talk) 14:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC) I've collapsed this advocacy because it's not what the original poster is after. I also have a big problem with the claim that OpenOffice is "roughly equivalent" to Microsoft Office; this statement could only be made by someone who has never tried using OpenOffice's version of PowerPoint after having used the real thing, and who has never used Excel with its PivotTables and then had to make do with OpenOffice Calc. But, as I wrote, this is a derailing of the thread, hence my collapsing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC) And I think we've long established that saying "go open source!" when it is not appropriate to do so (e.g. when the question is not about alternatives to pay software) is considered to be non-productive and potentially even trolling. ("Get Linux!" is not a constructive response to a request for help with a specific Windows problem, for example. "Get OpenOffice!" is not a constructive response to a question about the price of a given software package on a given website.) If someone wants to know whether OpenOffice is a good replacement for MS Office, by all means, advocate its pros and cons all you want; just don't inject such advocacy into threads that are not germane. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

iPad and editing Wikipedia

Does anyone know of an iPad app designed for editing Wikipedia? Editing articles in Safari on the iPad sucks, mainly because the on-screen iPad keyboard lacks arrow keys, and to type a [, ], {, or }, you have to hit two buttons to get to the "symbols" keyboard, then the symbol you want, then another button to get back to the regular keyboard. There are several Wikipedia-article-reading apps, but none I have found for editing — I have been hoping someone has been able to either (a) modify the on-screen iPad keyboard, or (b) write an app that has its own on-screen keyboard for this purpose. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Internet (part 2)

I asked this question a while ago about why switching an ethernet cable from a cable modem between two computers caused the internet to go down for up to 5 hours before coming back. I finally resolved the issue with my ISP VirginMedia, and they said because I don't have a router (I refuse to use it because of wireless signals, and there's no option to turn them off) the "host table" on their DHCP server had reached it's maximum allowed allocation of ip address. They cleared the "host table" and the problem is gone, however this presents a question. Since I'm still not using a router between the computer and the cable modem, will this problem likely occur again? It's taken almost 2 years since the installation date of the cable modem for the problem to manifest, but I'm fearful it might happen again. Is this a common problem? Are VirginMedia being stingy with the ip addresses, like they are with everything else (bandwidth, upload speed, download caps etc) or is this a common thing ISPs do? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 18:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Side question, could you mention what brand and model number of router you have? It bothers me that any wireless router would lack a feature to turn off the wireless radio entirely, and I feel compelled to investigate. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The wireless router they supplied is a "Netgear WGR614-9VGUKS", however it appears to have been modified by the ISP and rebranded with their own config page, which lacks any options to turn to wireless part off. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is Netgear's firmware download page for the wgr614-9 router - just an idea, but if Virgin's "hacked" config page allows an upgrade, maybe you'll be able to de-neuter the router thusly. Can't hurt to try if you are not using the router anyway, yes? Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I followed the instructions but there's no option to upgrade in the routers config page. I don't really want a router anyway, I'm happy switching the cable. I just need to know if it will run out of ip addresses again 82.44.55.25 (talk) 10:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Frontpage dying

I am having problems installing Frontpage 98 on a vista system. It doesn't let my webpages remain where I want them. What is the best current alternative to FP for editing html? Kittybrewster ☎ 21:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I use the NetBeans IDE for developing web pages. Worth a try. Mo ainm~Talk 21:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to develop anything. Just edit html pages. Kittybrewster ☎ 22:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

If all you want to do is edit, then the ultimate HTML editor is Notepad. It is free and already installed on your system. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 22:32, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

If you want something with a few more features than notepad for raw HTML editing (e.g. regular expression support and syntax highlighting), but still lightweight and easy to use try Notepad++ or check out the comparison of text editors. If you want WYSIWYG check out the comparison of HTML editors if you haven't already.

FrontPage has been replaced by Expression Web. That's what I use. It's light years ahead of FrontPage, in my opinion.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Kompozer is pretty good, and free 82.44.55.25 ([[User talk:82.44.55.25|talk]]) 11:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Old computer upstairs wants Internet

Dear Wikipedians:

i have an old computer upstairs with only an RJ-45 port for Internet connectivity. I have an extra TRENDnet router. I am wondering if there is anyway for me to configure my TRENDnet router to wirelessly login to my Cisco router downstairs so that my old computer upstairs could access the Internet.

I have attached a diagram that I have drawn myself to illustrate what I would like.

Thanks.

L33th4x0r (talk) 21:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The behaviour you want is for the TRENDnet to run as a "bridge" rather than a router. Some routers have that capability, many don't. If yours doesn't (you'd need to check its config screen and manuals) you may be able to install the OpenWRT replacement firmware on it (not, I fear, for the technically nervous), which does have a bridge mode. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

If that doesn't work, there are plenty of USB wireless internet adapters, or adapter cards you can insert in the case (if it is a desktop computer) or in a PC card slot (if it is a laptop). Astronaut (talk) 00:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks alot! Finlay's bridge solution is exactly what I am looking for. Thanks also to Astronaut for your contribution. L33th4x0r (talk) 00:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

google web accelerator

I remember using google web accelerator a few years ago, but it seems to have been discontinued now. Are there any other free alternatives? I don't want Opera turbo because I don't use Opera (unless opera turbo can somehow be used on firefox, ie and other browsers / programs) 82.44.55.25 (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

All of the accelerators that actually do something useful and safe are served by your internet service provider. You run a program on your computer that converts web requests to accelerated requests. On the ISP side, the data is compressed (like a zip file) and sent to you. Your program uncompresses (unzips) the data. Because less data is transferred, it takes less time to transfer the data. This is good if your computer isn't overworked with the uncompression. It is limited to your ISP because there is no such thing as a universal accelerated web request. How Google did it was a matter of rerouting all web requests to Google. They acted as the ISP and (surprise surprise) kept a log of every web request everyone made even if they weren't using Google's search functions. So... knowing how it would work, there are people who are more than willing to offer the same service. They will act as your ISP and keep track of all your web traffic - especially all the traffic you expect to be private. I wouldn't trust them myself. -- kainaw™ 00:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the background info. So what are these other services you mentioned that offer a similar service to google web accelerator? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 10:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

See Web accelerator. There are some respectable ones listed there. Just don't expect a huge increase in speed. The increase is small and limited to specific types of data. -- kainaw™ 12:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Factory Reset

My Dell is running very slowly these days. It takes a long time to do things, or freezes altogether. I'll click on something and it won't do it for a while, or it does it and then the sound comes along 10 seconds later. I defragmented my hard drive, but that didn't work. I bought an external hard drive to free up ROM, but that didn't work. The laptop isn't quite three years old, and it was quite high-spec when I bought it. I was thinking about doing a Dell Factory Reset. It will revert the software to what is was once I bought it. Would that help to fix the problem? Would the laptop run like it did when it was new? Any other suggestions? — Fly by Night (talk) 21:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Few suggestions: 1: Add more RAM, you are using the page file too much it seems. 2: Check for viruses and malware. 3: There could be too much background programs running, disable some of them from starting up automatically in msconfig. 4: A better way to defragment would be to download Defraggler and running it. It is much faster than Windows built in drefag program. However I do believe it's lack of RAM, judging from your description Sir Stupidity (talk) 22:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Sir Stupidity; the original poster's symptoms are totally typical of an insufficient-RAM situation. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments! I have 2 GB of RAM, which is enough for what I use it for. I guess there must be programs running in the background clogging things up, i.e. using up all of my precious RAM. I can't really get extra RAM: it's a laptop and it's notoriously difficult and expensive to get extra RAM. If I do a factory reset then I'd get rid of any useless programs running in the background, right? Would my laptop run like it did when it was new? Is there another procedure, like a formatting that I could do, or does a Dell Factory Reset include a format of my hard drive? — Fly by Night (talk) 06:49, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure. I wouldn't use those recovery disks, because I don't know how to use it! However, when you first started using your laptop, do you think it was fast? And are you using Vista? Sir Stupidity (talk) 07:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Every PC I've ever had has slowed down over a couple of years, only to miraculously speed back up again when I've reinstalled Windows and all my other programs. However, I really would not use the recovery disk which will send your PC back to how it was with all the bloatware pre-installed by Dell; instead, reinstall Windows from scratch. The advantage is you get to pick exacly which options to install, which Dell bloatware you get to install, and review which programs you actually use; and at the same time you remove any viruses/spyware that could have accumulated on your PC. However, reinstalling is a big step and requires some preparation: Backup everything including your emails, contacts list, anything you have downloaded and paid for, etc. Locate the installation disks/URLs for programs you use and any associated license keys. Locate the Windows installation disk (which has been supplied with every Dell I've ever bought). Finally, this will take some time, so set aside the whole day. Astronaut (talk) 09:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

For the record, after not having purchased a Dell for years, I bought a Dell this year and had to pay extra for the Windows installation disc. Comet Tuttle (talk) 13:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You will also need to backup everything. Assuming all you store on your computer are some programs, songs and movies with a fair bit of pictures, what you will need is a large External hard drive to accommodate your files, back it up (This can take quite some time) locate your program installation disks and if a program you want is not there you should copy the program folder under C:\ (usually)Program Files. Make sure you take everything because reinstalling your computer will wipe your disk space, so you will not be able to retrieve things you may suddenly want again.Sir Stupidity (talk) 11:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I did the factory reset. All I had to do was hit F8 while it was booting up. I backed up all of my files to an external hard drive. It worked really well. It doesn't stall or freeze any more. It's as good as new. I wouldn't have liked to have tried a manual re-installation. I tried that once a few years ago and it all went horribly wrong. Thanks to everyone for all of their help! — Fly by Night (talk) 19:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Lavabit

What happened to Lavabit, a permanent bug ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 22:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Our article Lavabit doesn't mention any problems. What is the problem you are observing? Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, we have a page on that ! Never knew (in fact never even searched Wikipedia for that - didn't knew Lavabit's that important.)Well, it's rejecting my password everytime. (Win XP and Outlook Express 6). Thanks Tuttle  Jon Ascton  (talk) 01:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you entered the right password? Is it possible someone hacked your account? Have you tried logging in to your account via the website? If none of this helps and it's only beena few hours I would just wait. Sometimes problems happen Nil Einne (talk) 09:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Hacking ? Do you think that's practical ? You are scaring me. What should I do now ? Lavabit people seem to be dead

There is no reason to assume there is a problem with Lavabit because you are failing to login. You may have started using the wrong username. You may be using the wrong password. Someone else could have logged into your account and changed your password. There are many issues that have nothing to do with Lavabit having a problem. -- kainaw™ 15:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Computer does not recognize DVDs

I wanted to play a DVD in my computer, but when I stuck the disk into the computer drive, I waited over ten minutes for the computer to find and recognize that I just put in a DVD. When we went to the My Computer section, I found out that the DVD drive was empty, with no idea that a DVD disk is in it. We want to know what is wrong here? And help us on how I should fix the problem? 64.75.158.199 (talk) 23:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure it's actually a DVD drive and not just a CD drive? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 00:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Go to Device Manager and see whether it's a DVD drive or not. Right click computer, then Manage.Sir Stupidity (talk) 00:55, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It might be the disc itself and not the drive, though. Check whether the disc is not scratched or damaged in any other way (i. e. it might have been lying in direct sunlight or close to a heat source for a while). Check whether it is supposed to be full. Maybe it is of a type not recognised by your drive? Finally, use a second source: insert a different DVD into the drive, and/or insert your initial DVD into another DVD drive, and see what happens. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 05:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Nope, everything is undamaged. The computer doesn't seem to recognize any DVD that I put into any drive. It easily recognizes game and software disks, though. I don't know if rebooting my computer would work, would it? By the way, what happened to my last question, the one that was about Trackmania? 64.75.158.193 (talk) 10:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

As I suggested, do you actually have a DVD drive? Go to Device Manager by right clicking Computer, then selecting ManageSir Stupidity (talk) 11:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

DVD and other optical drives are notoriously unreliable; they are mass produced and tend to degrade over time. Try that DVD in another drive and see it's your drive or the DVD that is the problem. Regarding Trackmania: if you haven't received a reply, it's because we don't know or haven't seen a similar problem before. Specific games questions are better directed to online forums that specialize in those games. Try contacting Trackmania support if they don't have a forum. Sandman30s (talk) 11:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

August 30

Add-ons

My firefox has been slowing down and crashing as of late, so I disabled all the add-ons to see if the problem was with the browser itself. It runs fine without the add-ons, so now I have the task of trying to track down which add-on(s) is responsible for slowing down my browser. I have 40+ add-ons, so how do I go about narrowing it down? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 06:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Add 20 of them back in and see how that goes. Then if ok add half of whats left, if bad remove half of what's there. Etc -- SGBailey (talk) 08:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The good old divide and conquer algorithm. 213.122.35.55 (talk) 08:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Hebrew font identification

Can anyone help me in identifying the Hebrew font used here? It says רבי מורתי and I think it could be an italic variant... Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►senator─╢ 09:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

VB.net

when we creat a project then we want to devloped a setup for it project. How many step invovles to make a project run setup to the help of VB.net? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manojjnp2010 (talk • contribs) 10:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm having trouble figuring out what you are asking. Are you asking for how many steps it takes to make an Installer application for a given VB.Net project? I seem to recall that VB.Net has a pretty automated system from creating a "package" that can self-install (and if need be download the appropriate VB.Net runtimes, make registry changes, etc.) that can be as little as one step if your installation is very simple (e.g. just making sure it ends up in a directory and that they have the VB.Net runtimes). --Mr.98 (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Compare code

Is anyone aware of a tool I could use to compare the source code of two websites. I am doing a bit of research on phishing sites and have came across a fake site, how could I compare the code that is on the fake with with the real site. I suppose I could do it by just scrolling through it but it is a mass of code and wonder is there an easier way thanks Mo ainm~Talk 17:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Download them both with wget and run diff on the directories containing the downloads. --Sean 17:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Use fc.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 18:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Notepad ++ can do this. Paste the different source codes you wish to compare into separate tabs, then go "Plugins -> Compare -> Compare" or "Alt + D" 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 19:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all, I used Notepadd ++ seemed the handiest. Mo ainm~Talk 19:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

High x16 PCIe 2.0 Slot-Count Barebone System

Hi.

   My current computer is a Tyan FT72B7015 (B7015F72V2R) Barebone System with the following components installed in it.

• two Intel Xeon Six-Core X5680 3.33GHz/12MB/130W Processors
• eighteen units of Kingston 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 2R RDIMM x4 with Thermal Sensor (KVR1333D3D3R9S-8G)
• four nVidia Tesla M2070 6GB GPU Computing Modules
• two Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB 2.5” SATA II SSD (SNVP325-S2/512GB), in a RAID 1 Array
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Edition
• Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Workstation Edition

   The Tyan FT72B7015 (B7015F72V2R) Barebone System has only eight x16 PCIe 2.0 Slots spaced one slot apart from each other, due to which I'm only able to add a maximum of another four nVidia Tesla M2070 6GB GPU Computing Modules. I'm wondering whether there are any barebone-system(s) currently available which provide atleast ten (preferably twelve or more) x16 PCIe 2.0 slots spaced one slot apart from each other. It would also be very good if the current RAM (Kingston Part No. KVR1333D3D3R9S-8G) and Intel Xeon Six-Core X5680 3.33GHz Processors could be reused on the new barebone-system.

   All help and information is appreciated. Rocketshiporion 17:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

country ip masking

Is there, and/or will there ever be any way to mask your IP and fool a server into thinking you are from somewhere else without directing your entire data stream through a proxy? Is it even theoretically possible to make a server believe you are from some place, and yet not be limited to the bandwidth restrictions that inherently arise through using a proxy? Thanks. 174.114.145.144 (talk) 18:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It isn't hard. Just use VPN. It is similar to a proxy, but not identical. For example, if I want to access IEEE or ACM papers, I can do it for free if I VPN to one university I have an account with (since they are an engineering school). If I want access to medical journals, I can do it for foree if I VPN to a different (medical) university. My computer's actual IP address doesn't change, but the servers (such as the ACM journal server) thinks that my IP is different. I am, in a sense, using the VPN as a proxy. So, get VPN access to a network in a different country and servers will think you are from that network. -- kainaw™ 19:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's definitely viable; but a VPN is basically a trust-worthy proxy with whom you have an encrypted connection. So you're still technically proxying. You can also use a proxy without encryption, if you so desire. I think the distinction is whether "proxy" is being used as a generic conceptual term, or in reference to specific protocols like SOCKS. Nimur (talk) 21:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

In any case, it doesn't sound to me like this is what the OP cares about. The OP doesn't seem to care about security or privacy. They just don't want to be limited to the bandwidth a proxy provides. However there's nothing inherently bandwidth limiting about a proxy. If you pay for a commercial proxy service with a bandwidth promise there's no reason that's going to be more expensive then using a VPN, it could even be cheaper. Clearly you should have no expectations of a public/open proxy or perhaps not even intended to be public/open one.

However as others have pointed out, if the server is smart enough, there's no real way to get around the fact that the server has to see the IP of the proxy at all times, so all the data has to go to the proxy/VPN/whatever then sent on to you so you will ultimately be limited to what bandwidth is available to the VPN/proxy.

In fact a VPN is potentially worse in this case for the OP. I know from experience it's difficult to set up Windows to use different connections for different servers. This means you're going to have all your data going thorough the VPN, as long as you're connected (you can use a different computer or a VM of course), something you may not want and which are of course more likely to create bandwidth problems.

Okay it may be possible to set up if there's a defined subset of IPs you want to be able to access or if the VPN it set up in such a way that it will only grant access to such a subset but even so with a proxy it's IMHO far easier. Just set up one browser to use the proxy, and use that when you want to be proxied, and everything else just goes thorough your normal connection.

Most proxy setups like SOCKS do limit what you can do, e.g. may not be suitable for P2P but again it doesn't sound like this is a problem for the OP. Their only problem/concern appears to be the bandwidth issues.

To put it a different way, if your problem is bandwidth, you need to look for a service, be it proxy or VPN that meets your bandwidth requirements. (If your problem is a proxy isn't working for your app or you care about privacy/security or whatever that's a different matter.)

Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Nil Einne, you've actually explained exactly my problem. Services like Hotspot Shield "work" for my purposes, I'm not really that worried about security/encryption, but paying for bandwidth is always a problem, and at the speeds that HSS operates at there are a lot of things I can't do. The trend now on the internet seems to be much more restrictive to people living in other countries around the world, but I guess there is no easy solution. 174.114.145.144 (talk) 21:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear 174.114.145.144, let me reword your question: Is it possible to receive a reply to a letter you sent off with a deliberately false sender's address on it? See if you can give yourself the answer for that question, and your original question should be answered as well. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You don't have to use a "false" return-address: you can proxy paper mail as well. You just need a trusted agent to do this for you, while maintaining anonymity: e.g., a Post Office box. Like a SOCKS proxy, if the post-office decided to betray your trust, they (the Post Office, or the SOCKS proxy) have the necessary information to make your identity public to a sender; but because you trust that the proxy will not do this, anonymity is guaranteed. You can additionally encrypt your data, so that even if the Post Office (or the proxy server) decides to snoop your mail, the contents are meaningless to them. And you can encrypt the data-path between you and the proxy as well. Nimur (talk) 21:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Some servers only check your location when you first connect, issue you a cookie, and assume all subsequent requests from your browser are from the same location. Clearing cookies and using a proxy, then switching to your standard connection might be enough to fool it into thinking you're connecting from the proxys location for the entire session. 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 19:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers! I'll see if there's some way I can access VPN. 174.114.145.144 (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

usb peripheral switch

I have a "usb peripheral switch". What exactly does it do? It looks like a hub, but apparently it's sort of the reverse? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it allows you to plug a single set of peripherals into the device, and then switch which computer they are connected to.

Similar to a KVM Switch. APL (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Arcade Fire's Wilderness Downtown

Any ideas why I can't get this working in Chrome, using any address? Aaronite (talk) 21:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It could be that the developer of the site did not program it so it would work under any browser. Why not try it with Internet explorer?Sir Stupidity (talk) 00:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I should have been more clear: it was designed specifically for Chrome, and shouldn't work, at least not well, in other browsers. At any rate, it works now. Don't know why. Aaronite (talk) 02:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Hard Drive

I plugged one of my external hard drives into the computer (via usb) and immediately it started making access noises like it was being read/written to. I've disabled the windows search indexer, and anti-virus, yet it makes access noises the moment it's plugged in. I checked with Process Explorer and nothing is showing as reading or writing to the drive. More strange is that even once I "safely ejected hardware" on it, it was STILL making these noises until I unplugged it from the power. The noises it's making sound perfectly normal access noises like if I was copying a large file over or something, it's not weird grinding noises like if it was failing. I can access every file and everything is working as it should. Also it's only happening on this drive. Any ideas what might be wrong? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 22:13, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Did this happen when you used it for the first timeSir Stupidity (talk) 01:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've had the drive for a few months, yesterday was the first time it's done this 82.44.55.25 (talk) 10:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Try restarting Windows. If it still does the same thing try it on a different computer to see if it does it there as well. Report the outcomes. --jjron (talk) 15:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've restarted the computer and it's still happening. I tested the drive on my other computer (Windows XP) and it doesn't happen, so that at least narrows it down to being something going on with my Windows 7 computer. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 19:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

August 31

CD ripping -- byte perfect?

Let's say I take a copy of a CD, put it into a computer, and rip it into MP3s using iTunes.

I then take the CD out, put it into an identical or similar computer, and rip it into MP3s using iTunes, with the same settings.

Will the subsequent MP3s be identical? If I made md5 hashes of them, would they match?

I know that obviously if you change the settings, and probably even use different rippers, you would definitely get different results. But what about same rippers, same settings? (I guess you don't even need two computers to test this — you could just rip the same song twice and compare.) Is there some kind of random influence here or would it be identical? --Mr.98 (talk) 00:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The simple answer is it depends on the software used, quality of the CD (whether it's badly scratched or not) and drive. Probably other factors too. Red Book (audio Compact Disc standard) wasn't exactly designed for bit perfect data transmission. For example, it has very limited error correction compared to a mode 1 CD-ROM. During playback, the reader justs reads and usually averages any errors to avoid glitches which works okay if the CD isn't too badly scratched. Not all drives are equally good in how they rip audio. For example some drives don't report errors in the ripping, some even say they don't but don't do it properly. Another problem is that precisely whether to start reading a track is something drives don't agree on. Some even vary from read to read. For this reason, some CRC implementations designed for use with CD audio ignore null samples at the beginning and end, i.e. they only work with the actual audio data. Of course some CDs are semi continuous and the sound from one track flows on to the next in which case this isn't going to help. My impression is drives are better then they used to be and there are good software programs like Exact Audio Copy which will enable you to get generally get bit identical streams compared to 12+ years ago (about when I was first interested in such things). Of course having an unscratched CD also helps. Note that any good (IMHO) CD ripping programme already has some sort of CRC or other double rip comparison function/option built in. There are also databases where you can compare your CRC to user submitted CRCs online e.g. [7]. See also [8] [9] [10]. Nil Einne (talk) 09:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Opening image in new tab in same window in Internet Explorer by middle mouse

I am having trouble in opening image in new tab in Intenet explorer by using middle mouse. In mozilla, if I click on image by middle mouse then it automatically opens in new tab under the same window. But in IE 8 it opens in same tab. I want image to open in new tab by using middle mouse. Is there any way to do it?--180.234.22.214 (talk) 00:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Is tabbed browsing turned on in your IE 8? Go to Tools->Internet Options and pick "Tabs" near the bottom of the "General" tab. There you can configure how IE 8 handles tabbed browsing. It has always worked for me, but I do have a vague recollection of having to put a tick in a box to enable tabbed browsing when I upgraded from IE 7 (or was it IE 6?). Astronaut (talk) 10:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Motherboard: The new 'chairman'?

I just got out of a meeting where the person leading it said the word 'motherboard' and then quickly admonished themselves and muttered something about not using that word. I asked around the office here and the opinion from my co-workers is that it's probably some political correctness thing. I've never heard any objections to motherboard before, so is this a new wave of overzealous PC or what?

And yes, I thought about putting this on the Lan. desk but figured there would be more input from IT industry people here. Dismas|^(talk) 00:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure concerns about the word motherboard aren't new and have existed for 10+ years. It's the primary reason AFAIK why some vendors started using the term mainboard and that's been going on for quite a while. If anything I think people care less nowadays. I seem to recall Asus made the switch circa 1997 but they seem to have gone back in recent year. Nil Einne (talk) 02:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's pretty lame. I had never heard of this. It reminds me of the "controversy" over using the terms "master" and "slave" for IDE hard disks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Preventing Windows Mail from marking email as phishing

I've just begun grad school, and one of the non-scholastic requirements of this program is that I subscribe to a school-wide listserv for announcements. Two of today's emails from professors to us students have been marked as phishing upon arriving in my Windows Mail inbox, for a reason that I can't understand. Is there any way to tell Windows Mail to whitelist all email coming in from a listserv? I've found instructions on turning off the filter and on whitelisting specific email addresses, but I want the filter to keep working, and as many professors and department staff post to this listserv, it would be a waste of time to try to whitelist all of their addresses. Nyttend (talk) 01:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you link to the resources you found to whitelist specific email addresses? Nil Einne (talk) 02:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I went into the Help dropdown menu, selected View Help, typed "phishing" (without the quotes) into the "Search Help" bar, and got the results of what I speak. The most relevant page that I found is one called "Security and privacy in Windows Mail", which says that one can create a list of "Safe Senders" to ensure that your friends and relatives don't become blocked by the phishing filter. Nyttend (talk) 02:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've looked in to this a bit more and I'm not sure if it's possible. Am I right you get a red shield warning you it's phishing? I was wonder if the 'safe sender' thing was just telling you how to set up a filter but it appear it's a specialised function seperate from the Windows Mail filter ('mail rule') option so I don't think you can use this to help. I've looked in the filter options and can't see anything there to help either. If I am correct, the only options I can think of are either use a mail client other then Windows Mail or use Windows Mail but disable the built in filters, perhaps using some other filter addon or external filters if necessary. Nil Einne (talk) 04:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Some lists are also available as digests. While a digest won't arrive in realtime, it usually comes from the same e-mail address, so switching to the digested form of the list, if available, might help. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 08:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

This list isn't available as a digest, but it's rather important to me that emails come in as soon as possible. Nil Einne, you're right about the message: I get a shield, and every column of text for an email marked as phishing displays as red in the Inbox. It's not a big deal, so if there's no easy way to disable it, I don't think I'll bother. Thanks for the help! Nyttend (talk) 12:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Problem on saving DDS images with alpha

OK, so I'm trying to mod an HUD texture in Mafia II, and whenever I try to save it as DDS, the alpha channel gets borked as 1-bit instead of an explicit one, even if I try to use the DXT5 option. I'm using Photoshop CS3, along with Nvidia's latest DDS tools. Blake Gripling (talk) 02:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Must I retain Acrobat update files?

After upgrading my office computer to Acrobat Standard v9 a while back, I now seem to be accumulating a shitload of files in C:\PF\Adobe\Acrobat\Update. Standard name is of the form X_modulename_nnn.rtp, where X is mostly the letter H, but some A's and M's too, and nnn corresponds to the release number, 910 for 9.1, 934 for 9.3.4, etc.

By this point, I have up to five copies of each file (with increasing release numbers), taking up a couple hundred megabytes.

• Can I safely get rid of all but the latest version of each file?
• Having installed the update, and verified that it works, do I even need to keep the latest version?

Thanks, DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• It's quite likely that all of these are just temporary files used for installing the update. If you can't find any documentation suggesting otherwise, it might be an idea to back the folder up somewhere, then delete the original. If Acrobat continues to work as before, then you've answered the question - if it stops working, just restore the folder from the backup. ~ mazca ^talk 14:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Error message on XBox

I keep getting error message on my xbox. It says w-0000-0000,x-8000-0013,y-0000-0000,z-0000-0000,ID-FFFF-FFFF. It is on my wireless system and I have tryed two devices. I get on for less than a minute then it go to blimking. To me this all started when they came and made it wpa2p from wep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.113.213.249 (talk) 04:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Does the error message go away if you switch back to WEP? Astronaut (talk) 09:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

spam filter "throwing out" political messages

Hi, I have an email account with a big internet company. I support a particular candidate for federal office. I subscribe to the candidate's email newsletter, which I just realized is being put into the spam file. I'll keep an eye out for it, so the problem is solved for me, but is it possible or likely that major internet companies are intentionally favoring some candidates by marking newletters as spam? If so, I want to know. Thanks,Rich (talk) 10:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

My first guess is that it is unlikely. A more likely scenario is that something about those emails attracts the attention of the spam filter. For example, many spam filters are suspicious of mails where your address is just one of many in a mailing list. Astronaut (talk) 10:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

There are many ways an email can fall foul of a spam filter. Internet and email companies regular check several of the spam blocklists (e.g. http://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx ) to see if a domain has been flagged on any of them, besides doing their own filtering on email received. How does a domain get flagged in the first place? Well, they could have sent an email to a honeypot trap, they could be using too many BCC contacts in their email which their own ISP would then flag as potential spam, they could be the victim of identity spoofing (very easy with emails) which would cause their domain to be wrongly identified as a spammer. There must be many more ways, no doubt someone more knowledgeable will enlighten us further. Zunaid 13:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Processing-Core Price Disparity

Hi Everyone,

   I want to know why CPU cores cost twenty times as much as GPU cores. What is it that CPU cores can do that GPU cores can't, which makes soo much more expensive? Please refer to the table below for more information.

Product Name	Number of Cores	Unit Price	Effective Cost/Core
Intel Xeon Six-Core X5680 3.33GHz/12MB Processor	6	$2,400	$400.00
nVidia Quadro FX5800 Graphics Card	240	$5,475	$22.82
nVidia Tesla M2070 GPU Computing Module	448	$8,000	$17.86

Thanks to everyone, reader and respondent alike. Vickreman.Chettiar 12:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

GPUs can only process photos and videos, while CPUs can process everything. And it probably costs most to make CPUs than GPUs... Elspetheastman (talk) 12:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Because you're paying for more than just a set of cores. Marnanel (talk) 16:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

A Xeon core and a Tesla core are designed for different needs. One of the most important requirements of the Xeon core is high single thread performance. This requires very sophisticated microarchitecture and circuit design in order to get things done as quickly as possible. And this is very expensive. There are only three companies that have the capability to design Xeon-class CPUs: Intel, AMD, and IBM.

A Tesla core, in comparision, it is very simple, consisting of some execution units, simple (two-way superscalar, Xeons are four- or six-way superscalar IIRC) dispatch logic, a register file, and misc. interface logic. Because of their simplicity, a Tesla core is not designed for performance, it is designed to be small and to consume little power so a few hundred of them can be placed on a single ~500 mm² chip to exploit massive parallelism, which the Xeon was not intended to do.

Another reason why Xeon cores are more expensive than Tesla cores are differences in circuit design and fabrication. The Xeon, as I mentioned before, requires sophisticated circuit design. That means they'll be designing the critical paths in full-custom logic, using circuit types such as dynamic logic. (Assuming that Intel doesn't synthesis a significant amount of logic first and then optimized it extensively over multiple generations as they did with the Pentium 4, instead opting for lots of full-custom design.) This requires lots of experienced engineers, lots of time and lots of tools. GPUs, I think, are still designed using commercially-available standard cell libraries. This is easier to design with: it requires less engineers, less tools, and less time. The fact that GPUs have more cores than the Xeon doesn't matter, for both designs, the cores are simply designed once and replicated multiple times.

Differences in fabrication also contribute to the price differences. Intel develops their own process to fabricate the Xeon with. And process development is done in conjunction with circuit design so both teams can optimize for each other. This is expensive. But less expensive than the fact that Intel fabricates the Xeon themselves. This is very expensive. Fabs cost billions of dollars. In contrast, Nvidia uses a commercially-available process from a foundary, in this case, TSMC. They have to buy capacity from TSMC, which shields them from the investment in process technology and the fabs. Another difference is that Intel's process is much more agressive than TSMC's, in regards to things such as features, ect. Process technology is not merely quantified in μm or nm. You can have two 32 nm processes, and one can be 40% slower than the other.

Finally, you ask what can a CPU do that a GPU can't. Many things from a microarchitectural view. For example, a GPU cannot execute instructions out-of-order to help mitigate long-latency events such as division or a load. A CPU can. Another thing is branching. CPUs have very sophisticated branch prediction, GPUs don't. I am not sure as to the exact reason why, but the way that each GPU core is connected has something to do with that.

This is as many differences as I can think of right now. There might be more, and some of my comments might not be 100% accurate (GPUs are foriegn to me, CPUs less so), but this should be a fair outline of why CPU cores cost more. Rilak (talk) 17:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) "What is it that CPU cores can do that GPU cores can't..." - well, to be blunt, a GPU "core" isn't a "core." It's only an ALU. So when you see a "240-core" count, that's number of EX stages, not number of true "cores." (Well, "core" is weakly defined in computer-architecture, and varies for each type of architecture). Each GPGPU core lacks its own Instruction Fetch, an Instruction Decode, and a proper memory writeback unit. A GPGPU is therefore typically programmed to operate in SIMD mode - so it shares one (or a few sets) of this hardware over the entire chip. In lieu of a per-element decoder, Teslas use a sort of "bitmask" to turn on operations chip-wide or per-thread block. This severely limits what you can program 240 Tesla GPGPU cores to do:: they must all operate in lockstep, because they share the computer hardware that determines what instructions to run. In other words, you can run six different programs on a 6-core Xeon; but you can only run one program on a 240-core Tesla. (In this loose usage, "program" means "unconditional set of instructions"). You basically have 240 copies of the same program. You can read about the basics of instruction pipelines - like the classic RISC pipeline - to become familiar with how this works. Modern CPUs like Intel use a extraordinarily sophisticated instruction pipeline - while a GPGPU like NVIDIA's Tesla series use the much more restrictive Parallel Thread Execution pipeline, defined by the PTX instruction set architecture. Nimur (talk) 17:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Like a glorified array processor such as the Thinking Machines CM-1? Rilak (talk) 17:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. But, unlike predecessor array-processors like CM-1 and Cray, CUDA NVIDIA's hardware and software allows "SIMT" - "single instruction, multiple thread" - which does permit much more configurable and customizable programs. This essentially means you can perform different instructions on different subsets of the array. (Though, you really harness the full peak performance of a GPGPU when you treat it as if it were an "old-fashioned" SIMD array-processor with the same exact operation for every point, and carefully manage memory accesses). Nimur (talk) 18:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Google Mail

Does google mail delete accounts which have been inactive for a long time? I know Yahoo! Mail deletes stored messages if you don't log in every 6 months, but the account remains usable. Does the same apply to google? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

According to Gmail#Competition "The Gmail system flags as dormant every Gmail account which remains inactive for six months. After a further three months, for a total of nine months dormancy, the system may delete such accounts.". --jjron (talk) 15:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

By "delete such accounts", it means that they have the option to delete the email. They do not allow the username to be reused. It remains registered. -- kainaw™ 19:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you clarify, by "delete the email" do you mean they delete all the messages in the account, but the account is still accessible? So even after say, 5 years of not logging in, you could still log in and send messages from that address? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Jjron's referenced quote is pretty complete. They say "the system may delete such accounts", which means everything in the account is deleted, and since the account is deleted, you would no longer be able to log in. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

SSD Roadmap

Is there any good way to predict the features / sizes / cost of solid state drives in the near future? Samsung and Toshiba have been making noises about toggle-mode NAND [11], but haven't shipped any actual products yet (AFAIK). I am wondering if this new technology is likely to have a significant impact on SSD sizes / cost during the next 4 months or so, or whether it is more likely to make only a small difference compared to the current technology. Dragons flight (talk) 19:29, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Buying a kindle edition book from amazon

...without owning a kindle? I really don't know much about the kindle, but I'd rather download the kindle edition of Star Maker for five dollars instead of buying it for thirty. Would I be able to still read the book on my Macbook? Thanks : ]  ?EVAUNIT^{神になった人間} 21:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)