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March 9

Windows XP Error Message

I have an hp pavilion laptop with Windows XP. Whenever I start my computer an error message pops up. The title bar says RUNDLL and it says "Error in C:\PROGRA~1\toolbar\1.bin\p3bar.dll" and "Missing entry:S". Is there any way to fix this. Thanks in advance. 173.118.72.51 (talk) 00:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

P3bar.dll is some kind of browser plugin (the "PureDef Music Toolbar"). Try going into Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and uninstalling this toolbar. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

It may be that the toolbar was uninstalled, but not completely. A program like CCleaner may help remove the leftovers. --LarryMac | Talk 14:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I unistalled it and everything works fine again. 173.159.65.45 (talk) 23:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Serialise/deserialise a dictionary in JavaScript

In my job, I have a situation where I need to serialise a dictionary (a collection of key-value pairs) into a string, and also deseralise the string back into the dictionary. For example, suppose the dictionary was something like this:

Key	Value
Nationality	Finnish
Sex	Male
Occupation	Programmer

then the string would be something like Nationality=Finnish,Sex=Male,Occupation=Programmer. This was rather easy to do in C#. But I need to do it in JavaScript so it can run directly on the user's browser without going through the web server. Is there an easy way to do this, possibly already implemented in the language or via a freely available library? JIP | Talk 18:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Does JSON work for you? --Tardis (talk) 18:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Having briefly looked at the article, I think JSON might be overkill. The situation is that I have a string already serialised from a dictionary by my C# code, but I need to modify some key-value pairs in it in JavaScript. All this happens on one single page, in one single JavaScript function. The original reason is that the data needs to go to a CascadingDropDown to make it aware of the context it's being used in, but the CascadingDropDown's interface only accepts one single scalar string as context. JIP | Talk 18:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Javascript does not have a serialize/unserialize function. You must write (or copy) your own. If you are strictly using hash tables in which you have keys and values, you can write a more simple serializer which uses some delimiter known not to exist in the data. For example, you can go through your table and store "|Nationality|Finnish|Sex|Male|Occupation|Programmer|". Then, unserializing is a simple matter of splitting the string on the | character and going through the resulting array using index 0 for a key and index 1 for its value, then index 2 for a key and index 3 for its value. -- kainaw™ 18:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

In most cases, using JSON is preferable to that, since it'll handle escaping, whereas this hand-rolled solution will usually break if a pipe ever shows up in the data. Paul (Stansifer) 02:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

To do cross-platform, cross-language data exchange you need a data serialisation format, of which there are many. But, for someone to have bothered standardising these, they of necessity solve a fairly general problem - the neutral and unambiguous expression of general typed, structured, binary data. Some formats deal purely with the physical expression of data (e.g. XDR), some its structure (like JSON and YAML) and some encapsulate the type environment of the programming language involved (like Java's serialize and Python's pickle). But all of these solve a general, complicated case, and so all are major overkill if your application is as simple as the example you describe. So doing the work yourself is the path of least resistance. You can either split it yourself, as Kainaw suggests (with string.split) or you can (I think) pass a javascript array static initialiser and "load" it clientside with eval(). [ I say "I think" because I'm not 100% that some browsers won't barf on eval for security reasons, and it's a risky thing to use to save something as simple as a bit of parsing.] So tl;dr - if it's as simple as your example, parse it yourself; if it's more complex, use JSON. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian game on the Amiga

I remember having played a platform game based on ancient Egypt on the Amiga, it was probably a remake of a Commodore 64 game. It featured walking mummies which could also climb on ladders. I got it from a coverdisk on some Amiga magazine. I seem to remember that the programmer was actually Egyptian himself, which struck me as particularly noteworthy, but I'm not sure about that. I don't think it's Pharaoh's Curse, as the linked site shows the Amiga remake retains the old-fashioned Commodore 64 graphics, whereas the game I'm thinking of had modern Amiga graphics. Can anyone identify this game? JIP | Talk 19:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Could it possibly be Tutankham? Our article on this game, Tutankham, mentions a C-64 version but no Amiga version. Perhaps the version on your cover disc was a playalike clone. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's most probably not Tutankham. Having looked at the screenshots of native versions (i.e. not remakes) of it on MobyGames, it appears that Tutankham is a more arcade adventure -like game whereas the game I'm thinking of is more of a pure platformer, with the main idea of the game being walking on the ground and climbing on ladders. I seem to remember that the game also only had things like mummies and pharaohs as enemies, not animals. It even had something like "Pharaoh" in the title but it's not the game the Wikipedia article Pharaoh's Curse (video game) is about. JIP | Talk 19:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

What is software?

This edit to the article Amiga makes a point that not all data contributed to Aminet is programs, hence not "software". But what is software? Does it only mean programs, or is it a more general term meaning anything non-tangible stored inside a computer? JIP | Talk 19:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

As stated in our computer software article, "software" refers to a program and its associated data. A .JPG picture file uploaded alone would not be considered software, for example. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Firefox told me to stop scripts; is there an IE solution?

I was at a library yesterday and something similar to this happened. If the library's computer's have IE, there's nothing I can do short of finding IE solutions. But here's what happened on a Firefox computer today.

One page froze--I couldn't do anything--and all the other pages turned white except for a blue border. I got several popup ads with a URL and used those to go to other sites if what I was working on was slow. At the top of the white pages the blue border was wider, with the name of the site and the minimize, maximize and X buttons. Eventually, I was told a script was causing problems--Videoegg, specifically, was mentioned somewhere--and that I had the option to stop the script, which I did. Everything cleared up.

On IE yesterday, one page froze and the other turned white with that blue border and both pages stayed that way until I quit. Other pages worked fine. I had no intention of shutting down the entire Internet (clicking on the red X in the upper right on either page just gave me "not responding") as I had stuff saved that I wanted to send (rather than carry a disk, I emailed the stuff to myself).Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:56, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to sound blunt/rude, but as it's been repeatedly suggested, you need to talk to the IT Staff at the library. These aren't your computers and as such will have restrictions/policies placed on them that you won't be aware of (and we certainly won't know!). Likewise you don't have access to make software changes to the machine so the only people who can really help are the library IT staff...  ZX81  ^talk 20:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not asking to make software changes. I'm asking if there's something that can be done to stop scripts with IE using the existing software.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

According to this, IE has this feature. I have not used IE for a long time so I don't know why it didn't work for you. The article talks about modifying a registry entry to change the amount of time IE will wait until displaying the message, which might be helpful. You could also disable javascript entirely in IE, to prevent the scripts from running at all. This explains how to do that. However as the above editor notes library computers are almost always restricted so you probably won't be able to change these settings, and from my experience of libraries I doubt the staff will have any technological knowledge of the computers to help you with. 82.43.92.41 (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I defintely don't want to disable Javascript. I've had too many problems with that. I didn't ask to get the IT staff to fix anything because yesterday, I was at a library which is many miles from headquarters. By the time anyone arrived there, I had to be gone to get everything done that I had planned to do. And it wasn't a serious emergency. I do have a chance to talk to IT people about a similar problem I experienced in January at a college, except the specific people may not be working on Good Friday, the next time I plan to be there. Maybe they can give me more information. In a similar situation where everything froze I was able to call up a task manager and amazingly, I was not restricted from using it. It solved the problem. Since not everything was frozen, I didn't resort to that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I forgot about this. When I finally quit, there was an option to send an error report. There was a link when I finished doing that. Maybe this link would have told me what happened, but I had lots to do in the "real world".Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

<DOLPHINTEXT>

Can anyone tell me about the origin of this template. I've never typed this in, but sometimes it appears when I save edits here on Wikipedia. I also get it when sending emails sometimes and was forced to switch to plain text to stop it happening. But I have absolutely no idea where it comes from. Can anyone shed some light on it? Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 20:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22dolphintext%22 Welcome to the internet. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I was hoping for a concise explanation rather than a homework project, but thanks anyway. :) I seem to have found the problem. I find it difficult to read standard sized text so use a screen magnifier to enlarge it a little, and it is that which seems to be the problem according to this discussion. Apparently, the software is inserting its own tags, something I don't think it should be doing. I've been using it for a couple of years, but this problem is only recent so perhaps I'll have to contact the software provider. Incidentally, I wonder if it's worth mentioning this somewhere within Wikipedia as there are bound to be others who use the software. I wouldn't like myself - or any other users - to be accused of vandalism when that wasn't the case. Where might be the best place to do that? Cheers TheRetroGuy (talk) 21:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You could ask at the WP:Village Pump about the best way to file a technical report. I see two possibilities: 1) MediaWiki (the software that runs Wikipedia) mis-interpreted some command; or 2) this text is intentionally added by your third-party software, which is an undesirable feature. I think #2 is more likely - you should investigate if that addition is a documented (or undocumented) "feature" of your screen magnifier / accessibility software. Personally, I would recommend using the Windows Magnifier instead of third-party software (see here for instructions). If, however, it is determined that MediaWiki is at fault, then we can file a Bugzilla Report here. Nimur (talk) 21:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I think it is probably the second possibility as it happens with my email sometimes, but I'll definitely investigate it and file a report just in case it is MediaWiki that's clashing with some aspect of the software. I'll also check out Windows Magnifier as that might solve the problem. I've opened a discussion here to find out if anybody else is experiencing this. Chees TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

See here for further discussion on this.

Off-topic discussion

Comparison of screen readers lists several "Dolphin"s so it might be mentioned on the articles about those particular screen readers; but I doubt that a mention of this weird software behavior qualifies as sufficiently notable to mention in those articles. By the way, Reisio, your last sentence was needlessly rude. I had never heard of this, either. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC) wikt:welcome#Verb. I hadn't heard of it either, but being an old hand at internetland, I knew exactly how to find out about it, and shared that knowledge. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC) If you would like to continue this meta-discussion, please take it to the talk-page. Nimur (talk) 21:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC) Agree with Comet Tuttle. If you don't know the answer, Reisio, please refrain from posting one. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:08, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

March 10

Regex gurus

I'll admit that it's not my strongest skill. :) Anyone know what the find/replace regex would be for this?

[http://www.example.com*] → [http://www.example.com*]{{deadlink=date}}

I'm looking for * to match anything, or nothing, so it would catch all possible links, like

[http://www.example.com]

[http://www.example.com Some site]

[http://www.example.com Lookatme!!]

Et cetera. Is this possible? ^Avic_ennasis @ 00:14, 4 Adar II 5771 / 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be familiar with globbing syntax, where * stands for "zero or more characters". In regular expressions, . stands for "one character of any kind", and * stands for "the previous thing, zero or more times in a row." So what you want is .* to match anything (including zero characters). Note that you'll have to escape the [, ], and ., by putting a backslash in front of them. (though you can skip escaping the dot if you're not worried about [http://wwwoexampleocom Some site]). Paul (Stansifer) 02:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. So, since I'm not expecting any links missing the dots, I won't worry about escaping them. so, I'm looking at something like

[http://www.example.com.*] → [http://www.example.com.*]{{deadlink=date}}

Is that right? (If it helps, I have a job planned with WP:AWB.) Thanks for the reply and the help! ^Avic_ennasis @ 19:02, 4 Adar II 5771 / 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You probably want

\[http://www\.example\.com(.*)\] → [http://www.example.com\1]{{deadlink=date}}

or simply

(\[http://www\.example\.com.*]) → \1{{deadlink=date}}

The parentheses capture a sequence of characters and the \1 copies the first (leftmost) captured sequence. You also need a backslash before [ since it has a special meaning otherwise, and I backslashed the dots as well for robustness. You don't need those backslashes on the right hand side because those characters have no special meaning there. Be warned that there are variations in this quasi-standard regex syntax, and one of the things that often varies is the \1. -- BenRG (talk) 20:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB uses the Microsoft regex engine which is largely (excluding backtracks and lookforwards) identical to the POSIX one (I think). In other words it's pretty much like perl. Grep and sed require you to escape a lot more characters but I think that's really bash in most cases.

But to the point... I actually think for AWB purposes this would work best: (\[http://www\.example\.com).*?\]. The non greedy version will stop at the first ], which is what I think the wikimedia engine does... although I could be very wrong about that. You should ask at the WP:AWB/T talk page... I used to frequent it a lot more... but there are some regex masters there. Shadowjams (talk) 09:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Android versions

Why were some phone companies promising and delivering 2.2 upgrades long after 2.3 came out? Also, many new phones were being released with 2.2 after 2.3 was available? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 05:40, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Due to security issues that had potential to harm the phone companies, the phone companies wanted all 2.1 phones upgraded to 2.2. No such flaws are known in 2.2. So, the phone companies are not demanding an upgrade to 2.3. Because the upgrades are not demanded, the phone manufacturers have no reason to spend resources on developing and testing the upgrade. -- kainaw™ 13:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Additional UI packs

Why do just about all of the manufacturers making Android powered phones bloat there phones with UI packs that replace built in functionality. Isn't Android a complete software package that doesnt need anything except the drivers added to it? Some, like HTC's are so overwhelming the phone doesnt even resemble the stock android at all. whats the point? it just slows down updates and costs tons to develop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 05:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC) \

Because more people like it than dislike it? General Rommel (talk) 08:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

More likely to do with branding and being able to advertise unique features or whatever than a strict polling. But I don't know. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

What plugin is required for this web video, please?

Resolved

 – thanks to Mr. 98 and Finlay McWalter!

Hi. Would someone be willing to take a look at this web page from the University of Haifa? It's in English, but I'm running Linux and my penguins can't figure out what Firefox plugin in needed to play the video embedded on the page. When I click on the help, it's in Hebrew, and mine's a little rusty ;-) I'd be grateful for the help; I just want to note whatever plugin is necessary when I include it as an external link in an article.  – OhioStandard (talk) 12:55, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It's an ActiveX plug-in to run a WMV file. Maybe try this plugin for Firefox? I've never tried to get those to work on a non-Windows system, personally. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It does work for me (Opera and FF, not Chrome or Konqueror), but I honestly don't know which package is responsible for the plugin (it plays in an embedded instance of Totem, by the looks of it). At the worst case, you can figure out the media link (search the page source for mms) and have VideoLAN play it - in this case vlc mms://vod4.haifa.ac.il/p/ac/3062.wmv -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Mr. 98. Thanks, Finlay. Helpful information from both of you. Finlay, I'm especially pleased to know to search for "mms"; I had no idea. The link you provided here does play for me via Totem ( an A/V player ), but I evidently don't have Totem accessible from within my FF browser. I'm not much concerned about that, I apparently don't come across .wmv media often at all in my travels across the web, since I hardly ever have a problem playing anything. But rather than fuss around for an hour or ten trying to "install" a player/codec or whatever the right term is, and getting it to run properly, I think I'll just stick with searching the page source for "mmv", to find the target file, and play it as you've shown me how to do, here. Many thanks!  – OhioStandard (talk) 16:22, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Quick add-on, for Mr. 98: The link you provided to mediawrap looks tempting; I might try it. Anything A/V (including flash) has cost me hours and hours in the past, to get working properly when I've modified my stock (Ubuntu) configuration, but it does look promising. Thank you for taking the trouble to track it down for me. I wouldn't have really known what to look for. :-)  – OhioStandard (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

WFM with gecko-mediaplayer ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

E-Com mobile TC-300

I have been trying to connect this mobile to my laptop thro' USB. But "the phone is not detected" is the mess I receive. But thro the same port the phone gets charged. The company and the dealer did not help. I found many users have the same problem. Can anybody suggest a remedy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.30.56 (talk) 14:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You mean T-Com (part of T-Mobile), not E-Com? Sorry I can't help any. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:20, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the port is active for other purposes, i.e. that other devices are detected when you plug them in? It's possible to have a port deactivated in BIOS or via other configuration settings, I know. Probably the first thing you thought of, though, I'd guess. Good luck.  – OhioStandard (talk) 16:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Can I run Sims 3 on this system

Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz 1.2 GB Ram
Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller
Video ram: 96
3D : yes
Pixel shader NO Rahul^{Text me} 17:28, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Well considering the The Sims 3#Development article clearly says "support for Pixel Shader 2.0" I would say no (let's not even worry about how much worse then a FX 5900 or ATI 9500 the 865G is). Even modern IGPs are fairly weak in 3D, Intel integrated graphics chipsets in particularly have never been particularly good in 3D, and the 865G is very old now so really when it comes to any 3D game released in the past 3-4 years I wouldn't count on it even without looking at the requirements. Nil Einne (talk) 17:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

waererewraawer

hyw od omes eoplep erersev het ettlrse fo verey yllsblea? Hist rutyl akesm on enses hyw eoplep od hist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.90.250.34 (talk) 17:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Checked - nothing on Google Scholar about this. If you have an example of a place where this is common, please refer to that. Otherwise, "why do people do...." is not a question that can be answered here. -- kainaw™ 17:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Might be related to this bit that gets tossed around the net now and then:

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

more info here: [1] SemanticMantis (talk) 18:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Note: That meme did not come from Cambridge. It was from a PhD candidate many years ago, but slowly changed to include Cambridge as it got forwarded over and over in emails. -- kainaw™ 19:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Answered by an actual rscheearch at Cmabrigde here. Marnanel (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

CascadingDropDown problem

I found a way to modify the context key string of CascadingDropDown in JavaScript, but now I'm facing a different problem. The actual context in the context key depends on text entered by the user, which isn't known yet when the page first loads. It was pretty easy to put the input into the context key of the CascadingDropDown when it has been entered, but making the CascadingDropDown act on it is more difficult. Changing the selection of the CascadingDropDown's parent dropdown works, but I would want to avoid that. The only way seems to be to call the CascadingDropDown's _onParentChange() function directly, but having looked at its source code, it appears that the function intentionally aborts if it finds that the parent dropdown hasn't really changed. It appears that the only way is to modify the actual CascadingDropDown source code so that it no longer does this. This poses two issues: (1) What if we, or our customers, suddenly decide to upgrade to a newer version of the AJAX Control Toolkit? This would break the hack. (2) Am I even allowed to do this, or does Microsoft have some nasty licence restriction that will get me in trouble for this? JIP | Talk 18:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Parts of PDF print too pale to read

I want to print off this PDF http://www.re-bol.com/rebol.pdf in sections. But although the black text prints OK, the blue text prints too pale to read. Is there any way I could change it all to black text please, or otherwise make the blue text print darker? I am using Windows XP. Thanks 92.28.241.148 (talk) 21:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I have done this in the past by altering my print settings to print black & white only. This may not be what you want, but it has served my needs in the past. On my XP machine, with my printer, I do this by choosing "Print" as usual, then clicking the "Preferences" button, then clicking the "Paper/Quality" tab; then clicking "Black & White*. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I forgot to add that my printer is already set to do b&w; the colour cartridge ran out long ago. Is there any way of changing the whole PDF to black and white, for example? Thanks 92.24.186.163 (talk) 12:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I've discovered that the problem was my printer setting having somehow changed itself from the default of printing in b&w, to printing in colour. Thanks 92.24.186.163 (talk) 13:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 06:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

March 11

email check with phone and encryption

Hello,

I was wondering, when I check my email via cell phone, does anyone know if the password is encrypted between phone and mail server, or is there some point where it gets transmitted in plain text? I use sprint and gmail/work-mail. Is this something that I should worry about, or is it pretty standard to encrypt everything? Thanks,

76.14.36.82 (talk) 05:40, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Assuming it's a modern cell-phone (CDMA/GSM/3G) then the air interface will be encrypted and it will be almost impossible for anyone to eavesdrop your password. At pretty much all the other stages of the journey from phone to server (which are normally physically secure landline or microwave) the password will likely be effectively plaintext. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't Gmail always use HTTPS for login? I believe the password should be safe if the cell phone supports HTTPS (as well as the email itself, if Always Use HTTPS option is turned on in Gmail). Paul (Stansifer) 13:35, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - if your email uses Transport Layer Security (TLS, SSL, or HTTPS), then even if the radio-channel is unencrypted, the password will be indecipherable to an eavesdropper. Most mobile email-application programs use TLS or HTTPS, but not all. You can probably check your application settings. Nimur (talk) 15:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You can also use POP3 to download mail from GMail - I do - and this was the method I was referring to. You are, of course, correct to say that if you're logging in to the GMail webpage, and using https, then the password will be encrypted end-to-end.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't Gmail require SSL on POP3 connections? [2] [3] [4] [5] seem to suggest so... Nil Einne (talk) 16:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point. The OP does, however, also say "work mail" and this may well not be GMail, but plain POP.--Phil Holmes (talk) 10:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Windows audio error, speakers "Not plugged in".

Hello! Today I booted up my PC and watched a movie with VLC media player. Afterwards I opened Spotify (music player), which crashed when I tried to play a song. Control Panel -> Sound, tells me "Speakers *newline* High Definition Audio Device *newline* Not plugged in". I'm using an on-board audio card; my motherboard is GA-MA790GPT-UD3H (Gigabyte with A3 socket). I've tried to disable/enable the audio card, plug in/out the speaker cable, reboot my computer (a few times), uninstall/reinstall the driver from Windows Update, reinstall using the realtek drivers provided by Gigabyte and a System Restore. See, at ~9:30 today Windows Update installed a defender update (around the time my sound died), however System Restore was unable to revert to a previous state. I'm using Windows 7 Pro x64 which I got from MSDNAA.

Does anyone have any idea on what could be the problem, and what I could do to resolve it? I'd appriciate ANY help! I've been stuck here for two and a half hours and I need the audio in order to watch tutorial movies for school. Thanks! Cybesystem (talk) 15:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This might sound dumb, but are you sure it's plugged in to the right port? I've had a computer with two ports that looked like audio-output ports (little circle ones), but one was for input or something. If there is another spot to plug it in, you might try it. Or, if the computer has speakers built in, you could always use those. --Thekmc (talk) 19:39, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply :)! It's a completely valid question, although I'm sure I've plugged them in correctly. I did not tinker with the cables when the audio died, and when I tried to pull out/insert the cable I was careful with what port I used. Cybesystem (talk) 13:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I have very little experience with Windows, so I don't know too much else to suggest. However, I did find this website. Scroll to the very bottom of the first page, and, in bold, is a possible answer. Again, I really don't know much else to tell you after this, although google had countless results listed for "windows speakers not plugged in." You could try that search as well. Good luck! --Thekmc (Leave me a message) 20:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

About SFA

Respected Sir, I want Notes on Sales Force Automation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.200.187.150 (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Our article is called sales force management system, and describes automated systems and outsourcing companies. Nimur (talk) 15:27, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Annoying Ads

While using Mozilla Firefox 3.6.15, a new window opens on its own every five or seven minutes with an advertisement. How to stop this annoying business ?

It sounds like you may be afflicted with some malware. What does the advertisement say? --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:53, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I would be concerned about that too; I would download the Malwarebytes scanner and look for malware; and if there's none, what website are you visiting? Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You could also use Adblock to stop annoying in-window ads once you clean your computer (if that will solve the problem) General Rommel (talk) 10:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

How to draw a circle around a word(s) in Open Office?

It should as easy as setting a word - or group of words - in bold or italic. Highlighting is not an alternative, since I want to mark the words indicating that they belong together (the same applies to setting word in bold or italic). And, a further requirement is that it is consistent, meaning that simply drawing a circle with the drawing tool won't work, it has to be in the same alignment with the text. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:12, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It isn't that easy. I don't even think MS Word has a "draw a circle around this text" format option. You have to manually draw the circle (or rectangle in this case). Click View, then Toolbars, and then make sure Drawing is checked. At the bottom of the screen (usually) you will see a selection of shapes. Click a shape and you can draw it on the screen. There is a "Square/Rounded" option within all the shapes that you will probably want. -- kainaw™ 17:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

That is the only way. You can lock the graphic to the word by changing the anchor of the graphic to character then change the alignment to character. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers so far. And what if I use another program for that? Like Scribus or Inkscape? 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:52, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Inkscape has almost no character formatting. You have to draw the circle (or oval or rounded box) and move it where you want it. -- kainaw™ 18:07, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

You can do it if you use OpenOffice Draw. Enter you text and then draw an ellipse around the group of words. Set the transparency of the ellipse to 100% for just the line to appear or 85% if you want to see a slight background colour for extra highlight. --TrogWoolley (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

@Trogwoolley: that can be done with Open Office too. But I am searching for a more simple solution, where the ellipsis/rectangle circles the words (without twisting several parameters). It has to be simple enough to bedone several time in a text. Just compare to the act of circling a word on paper and commenting in on the side. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 18:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I'm currently preparing a presentation in Racket's slideshow language, in which, a couple hours ago, I wrote a function to do just this. Since slideshow can be difficult to work with, even for Racket programmers, I doubt this is of use to anyone, but...

in the unlikely event anyone needs it
(define (box pict margin c) (pin-over (color c (filled-rounded-rectangle (+ margin (pict-width pict) margin) (+ margin (pict-height pict) margin) 5)) margin margin pict))

It is much, much easier to draw a square than a circle... if you want to just outline groups of words, highlight them and turn on their "borders". --Mr.98 (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Macbook shuts off at 50% power

I typically keep my Macbook plugged in while I use it, but whenever it's not charging and I'm using it, the computer shuts down around 30-50% power. I searched around a bit, saw that there were updates for Macbook batteries, but none of them were needed (said my computer). Is there anything I should know other than see about getting a new battery? Thanks! 69.207.132.170 (talk) 21:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried resetting the SMC (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964)? The PRAM and NVRAM (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379)? These are a few suggestions coming to mind. --Thekmc (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, go into System Profiler (Option-click apple menu, click top item), then click "Power" on the side. In the view on the right, check "Condition". It should read "Good" or something better than that. If not, you might need a new battery. Maybe, if it says "Fair," it might be okay to keep that battery a little longer, but the battery might just be deteriorating. --Thekmc (talk) 01:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It would probably help to calibrate the battery. if the macbook is shutting off at 30% power that either means that the battery is bad or that the battery's on-board microchip thinks the battery has less power than it actually has. calibrating the battery will fix the latter. --Ludwigs2 02:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

March 12

RAM

Hello. I have a laptop with 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM. I recently took is apart, and could only find one RAM card, labelled as 1 GB. I want to find out if this is a mislabeled card or if I have another card somewhere on the computer. How could I find out? Isn't there some sort of memory check you can do? It's running Ubuntu 10.10, if that's any help. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 02:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think it has 2 GB ? StuRat (talk) 06:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That's what the eBay seller said, and the system monitor and VMware Player say the same. Yes, I am sure it has 2 GB. Now how would I check my RAM? I downloaded a MemCheck for Windows and tried to use it with Wine, but it didn't work. --T H F S W (T · C · E) 07:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I would search for a manual for the specific manufacturer and model of the laptop. e.g. "Acer ABCD-123-XYZ". Often you can find a PDF file that shows all the parts and locations. You can also run sysinfo, as described here. If you want to test the RAM, run memtest86+ (should be available in the GRUB boot menu or on a Ubuntu live CD). --LarryMac | Talk 13:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the other 1GB is soldered directly on mainboard. (I had on such a laptop long time ago). -Yyy (talk) 13:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the laptop model and operating system? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The BIOS should display the memory it has found during boot in its status screen (you may have to interrupt the boot process to see this). The Linux kernel displays the RAM it sees (which is almost always what the BIOS tells it exists) in /proc/iomem as System RAM (in hex; you'll have to do the math yourself). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

As to testing memory, a very commonly used free tool is Memtest86, which is present as an alternate boot option on the LiveCDs of many Linux distributions, or can be burned as a free-standing bootable CD of its own. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

An alternative: run sudo dmidecode --type 6, which lists all the memory devices that can be found on the System Management Bus; note that empty sockets (whether actual physical ones or logical ones that don't actually turn into a header on the motherboard) will still appear, but with "Installed Size" of "Not Installed". -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Both of my Thinkpad laptops had two memory slots in two unrelated locations, one easy to find and the other difficult. You should be able to find servicing instructions for the laptop online which will tell you where the slots are. An obvious way to test if there is another memory module is to try powering on the machine without the one you found. -- BenRG (talk) 03:50, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

WPA2-PSK 802.11g

Hello, My other computer was stolen in July of 2010. I recently got on wireless. I noticed that my computer was broadcasting it's unique name. On it's unique name I found the information in the subject line. I am trying to find out who the internet service provider is for the above information.

I believe the stolen computer is still in the apartment complex in which i am living. A police report was made at the time of incident. I want to make another one but I am trying to do the foot work so I can give the Internet Service Provider... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meakahorse (talk • contribs) 02:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

A hostname has nothing to do with the internet service provider. You need the IP address or domain name (preferably the IP address). -- kainaw™ 03:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that whatever you are seeing has any relation to your stolen computer. "WPA2-PSK 802.11g" is a standard method of wireless networking, far too common to single out a particular computer. Computers do not normally broadcast a unique name. Unless your computer was unusually configured, you are probably seeing the wireless network that you used with your previous computer, not the computer itself. -- BenRG (talk) 11:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a little hard to know what you're actually seeing. Could you provide more information? There are unique features to some machines, most notably the MAC address. But it seems highly unlikely that you would see, let alone recognize that. More likely are programs that broadcast the PC name, which can include windows filesharing, and a number of mac daemons, in addition to other stuff, like itunes shares, etc.

It's possible, but probably unlikely. If you could tell us exactly where you're seeing this "broadcast" it would help. Shadowjams (talk) 03:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Telephone Service Factor, How to do the calculation. Any formulae??

Telephone Service Factor, How to do the calculation. Any formulae?? This is specifically for call center useage.

logins across subdomains

Hey there.

I'm wondering, is it possible to set up a website such that a login "carries over" between subdomains?

The problem I'm having is that http://www.{domain.tld} and http://{domain.tld} are both valid addresses and return the same pages, but they don't redirect from one to the other.

So when someone accesses the website and logs in using the www.-address, and then clicks on a link to (or manually accesses) any page without the www-subdomain prefix, their login isn't recognized.

Would redirecting between the two address variants solve the problem? So that one of the variants is effectively removed since it always forwards to the other variant?

Thanks a bunch in advance! --87.79.112.135 (talk) 10:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If your site's concept of "login" depends on http cookies, what you need is a cross-subdomain cookie. If I read this and this correctly, a cookie set with the domain .domain.tld (note the leading period) will be readable by all subdomains. I haven't tried this, and I'd be interested to know, if you try this, how you get on. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! I'm bookmarking your user talk page and will let you know how it goes (if it goes). --87.79.112.135 (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Keeping my unsecured wireless connection connected

When out and about with my laptop I somtimes look for an unsecured wireless access point (WAP), particularly if the hotel charges outrageous fees for their own wireless internet (eg. €17/hour on one recent trip!). Unfortunately, my Windows Vista laptop has a tendency to drop the connection on some occasions. Maybe dropping the connection is related to the detection of a stronger signal from another WAP, even though that stronger signal comes from a secured WAP, but then again maybe this is unrelated. When first connecting to an unsecured access point, I note the warning about the connection being unsecured and choose "connect anyway", I do not choose the "save this network" option and if prompted I choose the "public location". Is there some other step I should take to ensure my laptop stays connected until I choose to disconnect (or someone throws me off :-)? Astronaut (talk) 12:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Depending on your jurisdiction it might well be illegal to connect and use other peoples wireless connections without their permission. The Reference Desk will not help you commit crimes. 79.91.233.169 (talk) 13:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

• Here's what Microsoft says about the issue:

• Prevent your computer from switching between wireless access points (Vista)
• How do I prevent my computer from switching between wireless access points? (Windows 7)

It appears there is no way to globally stop Windows from switching to a stronger signal, you will probably have to apply the steps every single time you connect to a new access point. 87.79.112.135 (talk) 14:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Perl, remove initial characters until string that matches argument is found

I don't do Perl at all, but am nevertheless trying to modify this script, to automate the conversion of a large number of Mediawiki-markup files to html. Here's what I've got now:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use lib ".";
use CGI qw(:standard);
use Text::MediawikiFormat;

my @userinput = <STDIN>;
my $wikimarkup = join('',@userinput);

# Do we have any work to do?
if ($wikimarkup)
{
   my $decoded = Text::MediawikiFormat::format($wikimarkup);
   # This is where I need help!
   $decoded =~ s/\303\270/&oslash;/g;
   $decoded =~ s/\303\245/&aring;/g;
   print <<EOF;
$decoded
  
EOF
}

exit(0);

What I would like to do next, is to remove the beginning of the string $decoded, which begins like this:

 <a name='PageTitle'></a><h1>PageTitle</h1>

such that everything until the first occurrence of <h1> is removed, i.e. I want every file that is processed by the script to start with <h1>. I suppose this is a one-liner, and would appreciate help on how to proceed. Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know the Perl syntax, but can't you just find the index of the first occurrence of the sought string (python calls this simply string.find) and then truncate the string from there. The python would be a[a.find('<h1>'):], surely Perl's version is yet more succinct. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:21, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Which is substr($a,index($a,"<h1>")) in (probably highly unideomatic ) Perl. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that both break if there isn't an h1 in the page (as both search functions return -1) -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

$decoded = substr($decoded,index($decoded,"<h1>"));

did the trick. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Indexing strings is generally unidiomatic in Perl, where strings are streams and indexing may be slow (for the same reason that seek and tell operations on a file opened in text mode may be slow). It would be more usual to do this with a regex, like so:

       $decoded =~ s/.*?(<h1>)/$1/s;

The other advantage of the regex is that it fails sensibly, by leaving $decoded unchanged and returning a false value that you can test in an if statement.

I notice that in s/\303\270/&oslash;/g; and the next line you're apparently matching against UTF-8 byte sequences. It would probably be better to convert the string to Unicode with decode_utf8 and match against the code point values (\x{00F8} and \x{00E5} in this case, or just \xF8 and \xE5). I'm sure there is a Perl module that will do these standard HTML entity replacements for you, as well.

In lieu of the intermediate @userinput array, there's a weird idiom for reading an entire file directly into a string that looks like this:

       my $wikimarkup = do { local $/; <STDIN> };

Finally, the print statement could be just print "$decoded\n\n"; instead of the multiline <<EOF construct. -- BenRG (talk) 03:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Now $decoded =~ s/.*?(<h1>)/$1/s; was more like what I was expecting the perl version to be like :-). Thanks also for the decode_utf8 advice. I'm keeping the multiline <<EOF construct because I need to insert html, head and body tags as well.

It turns out that what I really need to do, however, is to remove every occurence of <a name='Something'></a>, not just the one at the beginning of the string. Is there a regexp way to do this in perl? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Found it':

$decoded =~ s/\<a\ name.*\<h/\<h/g;

does exactly what I need. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

javascript >>>

What does x >>> y do? I saw it here but couldn't find any information about it in Google, Yahoo or Bing. 82.166.216.211 (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

unsigned shift right. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:15, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the H Drive

I've just noticed that in addition to my C:\ drive, I also have a H:\ drive on my PC, which appears to be a second hard drive. Is this the case or is it for something else specific? I discovered it by chance after copying something to my memory stick (on the J:\ drive) and choosing the wrong path by mistake. There's nothing saved on the H:\ drive at the moment, but I would welcome the extra space if it is a second hard drive. Thanks. 86.135.227.101 (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Among other things, it could be a hard disk, a partition of a hard disk, a memory card reader, or a USB storage device. Of course, the disks and their designations vary between different PCs, so we cannot tell you how your PC is configured by the information given above alone. Here is what you can do: Right-click the drive and select "Properties" to see all its properties. If it is big (hundreds of gigabytes), it is probably a hard disk, or a partition of a hard disk. You can also use Disk Management to see all installed disks and their partitions. In addition, you can always open the case and look inside the computer. That way you can easily see the number of physical hard drives. By the way, are you sure that the disk works all the time? Sometimes memory card readers (many computers have a lot of them -- four, say) are shown even if there is no card inserted. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have Windows 95 or 98, when a hard drive was compressed with DriveSpace on those operating systems a hidden "host drive" would be created with the drive letter h: 82.43.92.41 (talk) 17:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. It is a Packard Bell Windows Vista 64bt system and the H:\ drive has around 141GB on it. I was able to retrieve the file I saved on that drive, and although no files are showing in the directory, Properties indicates that 94MB of space is occupied by something. Properties also gives its function as a DATA disk (C:\ is shown as DS which I assume is Disk Space) and its type as a Local Disk. I wouldn't want to attempt to open the unit as I'm not that technically minded, but I hope this information is helpful to anyone who can answer my query. Thank you. 86.135.227.101 (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

141GB is a bit large, but it might be a recovery partition containing Windows install files. Usually these are only 10GB or so though 82.43.92.41 (talk) 19:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Sounds like a possibility as C:\ is also showing up as a Local Disk, and also happens to be 141GB. Interestingly, I have a window open prompting me to make a back up of the factory settings about five minutes or so after switching on, so that must be where it would take the data on to make the disk. Going back to C:\ for a moment, C:\ says OS rather than DS (so that must be Operating System?). 86.135.227.101 (talk) 19:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you have a 300GB hard disk that was factory partitioned into two 150GB (=140GiB) volumes, with the intent that you should use the first one for the OS and the second one for personal files. If you don't need the space, you can ignore the second volume. Or you could use Logical Disk Manager to delete it and resize the first volume to fill all of the space. The 94MB of used space is probably NTFS system files. -- BenRG (talk) 03:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

date

In cmd on Windows, I can use

md %date:~-4,4%-%date:~-7,2%-%date:~0,2%

to create a directory with todays date as its filename. However the date stamp changes format on different computers depending on their regional settings. So I found a nice command line program which outputs the date in a standard format called "timestamp.exe". However I don't know how to make it function like the previous example. Using

md timestamp.exe

just creates a directory with "timestamp.exe" as its filename, not the date timestamp.exe outputs. What do I need to do to make it work? 82.43.92.41 (talk) 16:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

In the Bourne shell, on Unix-like systems, you can surround a command in backquotes to substitute the output of it. I don't have a Windows system convenient to try it on, but md `timestamp.exe` might work. Paul (Stansifer) 18:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I tested, and it just included the backquotes in the filename :( 82.43.92.41 (talk) 19:12, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Try this:

       for /f %i in ('timestamp') do md %i

Really, though, if there's any way you could use something other than cmd.exe for your programming, I would recommend it. Using cmd.exe is an exercise in unnecessary pain. (Likewise the Bourne shell, for that matter, though it's better than cmd.exe.) -- BenRG (talk) 04:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That's perfect, thank you! What would you suggest I try using instead of cmd? 82.43.92.41 (talk) 11:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I might have posted too soon. That code works on the command line but doesn't work from a .bat file, which is very important 82.43.92.41 (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a vague recollection that all percent signs need to be doubled up in Windows batch file, but not on the command line. (This only reinforces BenRG's suggestion. I'd suggest using bash under Cygwin.) Paul (Stansifer) 17:50, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

DVD +RW

Is there a limit to the number of times you can go through the cycle of burning erasing, burning erasing to a DVD+RW? Take it as a premises that the disk is treated perfectly, never smeared with grape jelly covered fingers or scratched. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.143.65 (talk) 18:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

For DVD+RW Imation says here says "1,000 cycles" (in the features tab). By way of (no) contrast, for DVD-RW Pioneer says "more than 1,000 times". -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Good to know. I've been cycling the same disks and It occurred to me that there must be some actual physical change that must take some type of toll on the disk and I became curious.--141.155.143.65 (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Apple Keynote: how to split presentation into sections, with section titles in header

Hello,

I am learning how to use Apple Keynote, and I find it has many options my usual Latex Beamer does not have for scientific talks.

However, I can't figure out how to do something in Keynote, which is relatively ease in Beamer: How can I partition my presentations in to groups of slides, in such a way that there is always a bar somewhere so viewers can see what part of the presentation is being shown?

Many frequent users of Keynote told me that they do not know such an option, but I seem to remember at least one Keynote-presentation where such a thing was used.

Many thank, Evilbu (talk)

You can visually sort your slides in the slide sorter, by simply dragging them to the right under another slide. However, that's about the extent of grouping you can do. It can't (that I know of) automatically give each group a title that is shown in the presentation. You could do it manually, but not automatically. I hope this is what you were looking for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thekmc (talk • contribs) 20:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I do it manually quite easily. Just edit the master pages so that there is a bar with a text box at the top. You just change the text box whenever you want it to say something else. There is no way to make it automatically add section titles to a header. What you saw was surely something like this. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Editing the master pages seems like an efficient solution. However, if I would want to put all section titles on top of the slides, and let the title of the currect section be bold or in another colour, how could I do that? Keynote does not allow me to make changes in an individual slide.Evilbu (talk)

Saving contents of an array to file (VB)

I want to save the contents of an array that I am building to a file on click. So far, I have been able to make it work by using a "Dialogue Box" and the name of the file is chosen. I would rather have it work so that the current date and time are utilized rather than having the user decide on a file name. I am not overly familiar with StreamWriter - which may be my issue. Here is what I have in the Save Records button:

Dim FileName As String
        If dlgFileSave.ShowDialog = Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
            'Capture the filename from the dialog box
            FileName = dlgFileSave.FileName
            'Open/create a file using the FileName the user has entered
            FS = New StreamWriter(FileName)
            'Set up a loop to process each element in our array of names
            For I As Integer = 0 To cararray.Length - 1
                'Pull each element out of the array and separate the elements with the delimiter character
                Recordtosave = cararray(I).carchoice & cararray(I).trimchoice & cararray(I).enginechoice & cararray(I).optionscontent & cararray(I).colourchoice
                'Write the record to the file
                FS.WriteLine(Recordtosave)
            Next
            FS.Close()
        End If
    End Sub

What must I change to allow the file to be saved with date/time and no user input into a dialogue box?24.89.210.71 (talk) 20:03, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of formatting your code with the Mediawiki source tag, to make it easier for others to read -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:44, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Just get rid of the line starting "If dlgFileSave" and the "End If" line, and replace the FileName = with something like FileName = DateTime.Now.ToString().Replace(" ",""). That gets the current time, formats it as a string, and gets rid of the spaces. You could delete the .Replace bit if you want spaces in the date/time string.--Phil Holmes (talk) 11:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

settings for opening Web Page Blocked?

Web Page Blocked

You have tried to access a web page which is in violation of your internet usage policy.

URL: www.sbilife.co.in/ Category: Finance and Banking

To have the rating of this web page re-evaluated please click here.

---

Powered by FortiGuard. Tne notification written above are seen on many sites while I try to open . How can settings be changed so that sites blocked can be seen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.96.217 (talk) 20:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The network administrator of your organisation (I guess it's a company or educational institution) has installed FortiGuard's web filtering proxy, which is blocking the insurance company website you're trying to look at. You'll need to ask that administrator to remove that website from the filtering proxy's blacklist. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Fast PCs in the $5000 price range

To my horror, my super de luxe dual core bla bla bla computer (AMD processor, 2 HGZ) bought in 2009 is only about twice as fast as my antique Windows-98 computer bought in 1999 (500 MHZ processor). Of course, the former PC has much more RAM memory, so you can surf the web must faster with it. But when it comes to doing computations that can be done well within the 64 MB memory, the speed difference isn't that great.

I can make my computations run effectively 4 times faster by starting up two instances of my program simultaneously, each processing different part of the huge data set I want to process. Are there any commercial PCs with perhaps less than the, for me unecessary, 1 GB RAM memory, but one which is much faster? Count Iblis (talk) 22:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

What are you doing that's CPU-bound? There really aren't a lot of things people use computers for where RAM size is more important than CPU speed. CPUs are way way way faster than hard drives, so the primary concern is making sure the hard drive is needed as little as possible.

Anyways, processor speeds have hit a wall. It takes a signal passing through a certain number of transistors to execute an instruction, and transistors can't really be sped up. For the last twenty years or so (probably longer), increases in processor speed have come from executing multiple instructions at once. But since the semantics of machine language is to execute instructions in order, there's a limit to how many things can be usefully done at once (since working ahead involves guessing, and bookkeeping to deal with wrong guesses).

The solution is to split problems up into pieces and do them on separate processors. If you have an embarrassingly parallel problem, this is easy, and you can make it go faster by throwing more processors at it. Otherwise, it's an ongoing problem in computer science and software engineering to figure out how to make it faster. Paul (Stansifer) 23:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

My first thought is something is missing here. If everything else is equivalent, the AMD 2GHz should be much more than 2x faster than your ancient 500MHz computer. If you're saying a current gen processor with no RAM is twice as fast as doing large amounts of computations than an ancient processor with GBs of RAM, then ok, I can see that. And you need to provide much more details, such as if you're looking at single precision floating point calculations, which GPUs can calculate at much faster rates than your desktop CPU. And $5000 range? Did you mean $500? For $5000, you can build a decent array of PS3s. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

What I'm doing is large amounts of computations that, per computation, involves only a few megabytes. Then, my impression is that the modern PCs with 1 GB of RAM are not optimal for this purpose, because to keep such PCs affordable, the speed of the RAM memory hasn't been increased a lot since a decade ago. What would be better for me would be to have smaller but faster RAM memory. Count Iblis (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not about affordability, it's an honest-to-goodness technical limitation. Supercomputers are just big piles of ordinary components, working on data-parallel problems. It'd really help to hear what kind of computations you're doing; the way you describe it, it sounds trivial to parallelize and farm out to a bunch of cores, or even to a bunch of independent computers. Paul (Stansifer) 17:42, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you writing to/from the HDD repeatedly in whatever you're doing? There must be something that's choking performance, and that's a pretty reasonable one; hard drives are faster now, but not enormously so. Is there anything else that it could be blocking on, like network input or something? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You can't just drop fast RAM into a standard motherboard; everything else on the motherboard would also have to change. I think you're in the $100,000 or $1,000,000 range at that point. What you can do relatively cheaply (<$5000) is get an Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron-based machine, which will have more fast cache RAM than the home-user models. You will typically see a big jump in performance if your computation's working set size fits inside a cache level. Note that the largest cache level is shared among all cores, so if your working set is 4MB and you want to use all four cores of a quad-core Xeon then you will need at least 16MB cache. These chips are still disproportionately expensive for what you get, because they are one way that Intel and AMD segment the market. And they will only help if your computation really is RAM-bound and if the working set is small enough. -- BenRG (talk) 21:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

March 13

Google searches

I have a recurring problem that I do a Google search, find what looks to be the right article, from the preview on the Google page, then, when I pick on the article, I can't find that preview anywhere within it. So, what is happening ? Here are some possibilities:

1) The article has changed and no longer matches my search criteria.

2) Some type of error at Google, causing the articles to be mis-indexed. If this is the case, how do I keep from wasting my time with Google articles which are mis-indexed ?

3) The preview is contained within the large article, but the "page find" fails to locate it, for some reason.

Here's an example. In response to a request to prove that animals with higher metabolic rates also have a higher rate of cell division, I used the following search terms, together: "metabolic rate" "cell division". The top article sounded promising, with this preview: "Because metabolic rate and the rate of germ-cell division increase in smaller species, the association of fast rates of molecular evolution with small ...". There was no cached version, but I tried both the regular PDF [6] and the Google Quick View, and couldn't find it under either. StuRat (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If you scroll to the bottom of the SERP, you can click on "Give us feedback" and open this page.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You can find the sentence in the PDF at the bottom of page 4090. This PDF is not searchable, probably because it represents the pages as images rather than as arrays of text. Looie496 (talk) 01:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. But how did Google manage to search the page if we can't ? StuRat (talk) 09:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Might they run OCR software on the image? Is there any free software available to do this from a PDF image (or other image) without printing? Dbfirs 11:05, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, some details here, here, and here (for example). Sorry, I was too tired to search! Dbfirs 07:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Google runs their own OCR software on PDFs that they then use to index it. Obviously they can't replace the original file, though, which did not have OCR run on it. So when you open the original PDF, it will look just like a bunch of images. If you run OCR software on it, then it becomes searchable. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Although it doesn't seem to be what's going on here, the ACM OCRs the old papers they publish and put the OCRed text invisibly into the resulting PDFs, so you can read the original text, but you can select (and search engines can see) some approximation to it. Paul (Stansifer) 18:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Google needs to provide a cached version that's like that, rather than "toss out" the OCR'd version. That's a waste. StuRat (talk) 09:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

By the way that refers to germ cell division, which are not the same as ordinary cells. 92.24.186.239 (talk) 13:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Dell Latitude d620 CPU replacement

Resolved: Magog the Ogre 2 (talk) 04:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The power socket on my laptop (see title for model) has gone bad. A friend and I tried to solder it off and replace it, but it proved undoable as the parts are glued on as well as soldered. As such, I want to buy a new motherboard [7]. However, I can't tell if the board has the CPU still attached.

Assuming it's not attached, would it be reasonably possible to remove the CPU from the old motherboard and reattach it to the new one?

No need to advise me to ask the seller on if it's attached or not. I have already done so. As such I'd appreciate if you could handle the question above in lieu of going on an aside regarding contacting the seller. --Magog the Ogre (talk) 12:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the same item on the non-mobile eBay page I can enlarge the photo and clearly see the CPU is not installed in the pink socket to the left of the fan. The CPU should be easy to remove from its socket in your broken laptop. However, note that changing the motherboard on a laptop is a very tricky business - in my opinion, the service manual is an essential guide to dismantling and reassembling your laptop. Astronaut (talk) 14:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, in fact you're right (I couldn't see the page from my mobile device). Now I will have to remove the processor and put on a new one, which scares me. I may ask for advice shortly on that below. Magog the Ogre 2 (talk) 04:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

php

In an above thread I was recommended to use something other than Windows cmd.exe, but what would be a good alternative? The only other thing I have very basic knowledge of is php. Can php do everything cmd.exe can do? How would you run a program, like say wget --page-requisites --span-hosts --convert-links -P "%date%%time%" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page" in a php script? 82.43.92.41 (talk) 15:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried Cygwin? --Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)--Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Because I don't really understand the overall goal, this seems a bit silly. I assume you have wget and you can run it from the command prompt. In PHP, you would run: passthru("wget --page-requisites --span-hosts --convert-links -P \"%date%%time%\" \"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page\""); Then, at the command prompt, run: php my_script.php (or whatever you call the script). So, you end up running something at the command prompt unless this is embedded in a web page. Also note that I used passthru because I think you want to see the output. Using exec doesn't show all the output. -- kainaw™ 16:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

One possible way would be to write your own C program, which calls system() with various arguments. system() takes a string argument, and then uses that to run an external program, optionally giving it command-line arguments. This way, if you have the C coding skills, you can use any logic imaginable to get the arguments. But if you don't know how to program in C, this might not be of any use to you. Also, bear in mind that you can't use input/output redirection with system(), as its arguments aren't parsed in a shell but instead given to the program directly. JIP | Talk 18:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, system() does invoke the shell. -- BenRG (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If you can make cmd.exe do what you want then you don't need to switch, but

1. Sooner or later you'll find something that it can't do, because it doesn't have a general set of facilities for programming, just a few special-case hacks. You got lucky this time.
2. It gives you lousy feedback when something goes wrong—for example, the bug in my code above (%i instead of %%i) causes a mysterious failure instead of a helpful message. For another example, my code will silently do something stupid and wrong if datetime.exe doesn't return what you expect. In the long run this will cost you a lot of time, unless you never make mistakes.
3. Data gets repeatedly encoded as strings and then re-parsed, which causes security/reliability problems that you probably won't notice in testing. I seem to recall there was a shell script bug in an early version of Mac OS X that would wipe the user's entire hard drive on an upgrade if some folder happened to have a space in its name.

For the most part these problems apply to other shells, including bash. It's just not a good programming environment and I don't think it's a good idea for anything other than one-liners or software that absolutely has to run on a stock OS install.

Python (to pick a random example) has much better error messages, and it has libraries that can replace the functionality of most programs that you would run from the command line, and they usually have more options and make it easier to manipulate the output data into the format you want. I think the up-front cost of learning Python programming will probably pay off in the long term.

All that said, you may want to continue to invoke wget in this case, because it's a complicated program and I wouldn't trust there to be a library that duplicates its functionality exactly. You can run it from Python like this (for example):

    subprocess.check_call(['wget', '--page-requisites', '--span-hosts', '--convert-links', '-P', date_time, url])

Yes, the shell has a more succinct syntax for running programs, but I stand by what I said above. -- BenRG (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

What am I doing?

I'm using Firefox on OS X on a MacBook Pro. Every once in a while, I inadvertantly do something or another that moves a tab to a new window. I think it's a gesture, but I'm not sure! Any ideas? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you are dragging the tab down and dropping it on the page it's displaying. That closes the tab and opens it in a new window. 200.118.156.145 (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

INDEED! Thanks. Mystery solved. Instead of move-to-tab then click, I'm probably sometimes doing click-then-move. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

You may want to increase your drag threshold in your mouse settings. I have to keep mine rather high because I regularly drag icons and tabs all over the place instead of clicking on them. By making it require an offset of about 30 pixels to register a drag event, it is harder to accidentally drag instead of click. -- kainaw™ 05:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Erasing data on old laptop

I'm donating an old laptop to charity and want to ensure that I leave no personal data on it, what is the best way to achieve this apart from the obvious of re installing the OS which I don't want to do. Mo ainm~Talk 22:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe DBAN 82.43.92.41 (talk) 22:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Offer to install and set up an operating system for the charity. Simply, reformat the hard drive and install whatever OS they prefer. The installation process and running the system a few times will deter all but the determined snooper who has access to computer forensics tools. Of couse, the truly paranoid will take a hammer to the hard disk after securely wiping it, but that leaves it useless to the next owner. Astronaut (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't wan't to re format the HD as I don't have copy of Windows to put onto it and the charity don't either and I also don't want to install Linux onto and then have the hassle of looking for drivers, so any other suggestions were I won't need to re install an OS onto it. Mo ainm~Talk 00:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

It's very difficult to ensure that there is no remaining private data without reinstalling the OS. You could try deleting any personal files you know about, then deleting your user account (this will require logging in to another user account that you don't normally use and that has administrative privileges), then running something like SDelete. However, your best bet would be to use Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to determine the Windows product key, find a Windows CD of the appropriate version, wipe the hard disk with DBAN, and reinstall Windows using the product key. It's the only way to be sure. -- BenRG (talk) 01:14, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Reinstalling the OS is, as others have said, the only way to be sure but it also requires wiping the drive first. Reformatting doesn't, in many cases, overwrite data on the disc. Some NTFS types of formats do write zeroes, but I haven't ever tested/heard if that's a complete wipe. There are several commercial and free "wiping" programs that will help, but the least trouble, practical option would be to write zeroes over the entire disc (this is the standard linux/unix program to do this) and then reinstall the OS. Shadowjams (talk) 03:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I've used Ben's suggestion of deleting accounts and files (from an admin account) in the past, then overwriting all disc space with a mixture of small and large dummy files (just by copying recursively). It doesn't guarantee that old files are irrecoverable, but it's a reasonable compromise. SDelete will make a more thorough job of overwriting fragments. It depends on how paranoid you are, and on how confidential the data was. It is unlikely that any subsequent user is going to use sophisticated data recovery tools, but you don't want them to be able to just "undelete" your personal files. Dbfirs 07:56, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Facebook and Mediaplex

In the last half hour, I have used my Firefox bookmark and the link from Google to try and log into Facebook. Instead, in each case, after a half dozen tries, I get Mediaplex at [http://www.mediaplex.com/}. Anybody else have either the same problem or an explanation? Bielle (talk) 22:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My first thought was that it may have a virus or something. Try running Malwarebytes, then proceed to try it again. General Rommel (talk) 00:18, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

What is Malwarebytes and where do I find it? Thanks Bielle (talk) 00:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Malwarebytes is a malware scan and removal tool that has a good enough reputation. It can be downloaded from here. Astronaut (talk) 07:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Can cookies be blocked by name?

I use the current version of FF on WinXP. Cookies can be blocked by site, and (with varying degrees of success) by the session/permanent attribute. Can a script or some other addon block selected cookies by name, independent of which site is trying to set them?

My thought is, I'd like to block all the __utm* cookies; I could then set "allow for session" as a default for most others. I've looked briefly at GreaseMonkey, but am not sure if what I'm trying to do really is a scripting problem or not.

Any suggestions? DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If "FF" means Firefox, then Firefox can do this itself: click on Tools/Options/Privacy/History/Exceptions. To get other cookie-blockers, click on Tools/Add-ons/Get Add-ons. You should be able to find many add-ons which can block cookies, many of which should be able to block them by name. I cannot be bothered to find out which ones can specifically do it, but I have BetterPrivacy, CookieCuller, and Ghostery installed. I also use Ccleaner which offers the choice of deleting named cookies. Not sure if SpywareBlaster can do the same. 92.15.11.100 (talk) 11:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

March 14

Time synchronization

My computer (running Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2) fails to synchronize to Daylight Savings Time. I live in the Central Time Zone (Americas), and when the DST shift from Central Standard Time to Central Daylight Time occurred, my computer did not update my time zone to reflect this. It still says my time zone is CST and in the menu to change time zone it does not offer a CDT (I think it predetermines whether or not the DST shift has occurred). I tried manually having it synchronize to an internet time server, which it said was successful, but this did not change it to DST. How do I get it to reflect the DST shift automatically? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 03:57, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Windows is just being annoying? Go to Windows Update using IE and see if Windows can find any updates to install. General Rommel (talk) 07:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

QVOD player

My mother uses a Chinese program called QVOD player to download movies from the internet. There are three tabs labeled Net Tasks, Playlists and Channels. However, after a period of time, the items in the Net Tasks tab - downloads completed or paused - disappear. This is a recurring problem which I am unaware of a solution. What should I do? --Blue387 (talk) 04:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Garageband playback help

My mother needs help with Garageband. She's doing a very long mix and wants to play back the track starting from a section, but every time she presses Space or Play it starts again from the beginning. So, how do we play back the track without starting from the very beginning? Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 04:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

google books problem

Hi. [macosx 10.5.8, firefox 3.6.15]. If I google for "google books" and click on the first link, firefox takes me to "Raven login", which is my former employer's login page. Typing "http://books.google.com" in the address bar takes me to raven as well. What do I have to do to get rid of this behaviour and go straight to google books? Robinh (talk) 08:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)