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October 24

[NOTE: Some of the answers have been changed by redgate and not all answers below are correct]

== # of Different Instructions for Gemini Guidance Computer -

Hi.

  I'm trying to answer the fourth question for the contest on the website om - the question is How many different instructions could the Gemini digital computer, first machine in orbit, execute? and the answer options are 16, 43 and 35.

  I've tried googling for the information, but have gotten nowhere. Can anyone here help me?

  Many thanks, Vickreman.Chettiar 03:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)   This is not a homework question.

According to NASA's historical treatise Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience, "Experts therefore developed applications programs for Gemini using the tiny set of 16 instructions that the computer could execute." — Michael J 04:45, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Since it is not possible for Dutch citizens to win this trip, hereby all the answers to the questions of space.

First answer = Italy

second answer = BRUCE.CODD

third answer = Kevin Spacey

fourth question = 16 (found on german wiki)

fifth question = FlightArray

sixt question = Laika

seventh question = Ornithorhynchus anatinus

eigth question = COMMUNICATIONS\databases

Ninth question = Chalcopyrite

Tenth question = 14 years

Eleventh question = 11:45 (you need to make sure your computer time is set to GMT +0)

Tweltht question = Shirt (transcript of appolo 13 the movie: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scri ... cript.html)

Thirteenth question = PasswordB

There you go, have fun. A note to Redgate: it's a bit lame to send people an invite email if they cannot win the grand price.....

Name of early 90s "virtual reality" computer game with unconventional packaging?

Bear with me here, because the shape of the packaging itself is not one I can describe with a single word.

Imagine you take the black monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Now fatten up the lower part of it, and pinch the top, and make it overall a bit shorter (not short-short). That's what the box of this game resembled. It may have had a partial-sphere (dome?) or partial-box jutting out of the front, but my memory might be playing tricks on me on that detail.

I remember looking at this at a Babbage's or Electronics Boutique when I was a kid, and the screenshots on the back of the box had very crude 3D graphics. Flat-shaded, I believe, and the terrain was composed of what was mostly a wireframe -- maybe a grid pattern. Entities in the screenshots were crude geometric forms -- the screenshots reminded me somewhat of that Faceball 2000 game, only taking place on terrain instead of inside mazes (of course, I don't think any of the "creatures" in the screenshots were, or had, faces).

That's all I remember, other than the fact that software stores also tended to put a single one of these boxes on a pedestal in the middle of the store like it was something special they were paid to promote for a short period of time, so it may have been a major title.

This was sometime around 1992-1994, back when 3D graphics in games were commonly marketed with the "virtual reality" buzzword. I'm confident in saying this was very likely a game made before Doom existed, and *maybe* even before Wolf3D existed.

--66.235.32.227 (talk) 03:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It was Spectre VR. That is a pretty poor screenshot up top, though; it is apparently of a Nintendo port of the game. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I know nothing of this game, but there appears to be an image of the box here at gamefaqs TheGrimme (talk) 16:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Wolf3D was May 1992, but Spectre VR was 1994 according to its article. My how far games have come since those days. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It was Battlezone played over a LAN; it was fun. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

virtual fix disk running low

Hello, I have an older PC running on Windows XP. I have been deleting programs, and the space made available has been eaten up. Has anybody an idea there this spam gets hidden on the virtual fix disk C:\ ??? Windows\Temp seems ok. I'm thinking of something around 20 GigaBytes !!! --Chris.urs-o (talk) 06:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Overdisk is a good (and free) tool for finding where your disk space is being used. (Other similar products exist.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank u very much. C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Christian\Lokale Einstellungen\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 had 64.4 GB of virtual disk's (C:\) 96.9 GB. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 19:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that I need a tool to kill a trojan, any suggestions ? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. General Rommel (talk) 00:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thx. Hit, 17 malware infections found. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

order a pc online

I want to order a pc online, are these good specifications? http://i.imgur.com/gzesi.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.182.132.103 (talk) 11:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you want to use the PC for? -- kainaw™ 12:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Everything, from lite browsing to intensive gaming and lots of copying of files. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.182.132.103 (talk) 14:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak to how they'll work together with that power supply, but the individual parts make up a decent computer indeed. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I recognize the motherboard. It is not reasonable to overclock it - I'd say you can't, but some people try and get very bad results. Also, the PCI-E slot has a lot of problem notes on various sites. People claim that it just doesn't recognize a lot of cards. The power supply is too small. You want around 600W. I assume that since you got a micro-ATX board, it is suggesting a smaller power supply. But, with a high-end video card sucking up a good 300W at peak, you will need more than 150W for everything else. -- kainaw™ 15:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

??? According to [1] [2] the HD6670 doesn't even have a single 6 pin PCI express power connector so if it's using more than 75 W there's something majorly wrong with it and it could kill your mobo, i.e. turn off your system and return your card as seriously defective. A decent 450W PSU is more then adequate for the system including for resonable future upgrades. Note also even if the card really does use 300W at peak, it doesn't mean you only have 150W left for the rest of the components as no system ever uses all components at peask, no matter what sort of stress test you run as I've mentioned several times on the RD, with references (you can also try running FurMark and OCCT or something and measure with a power meter and see what your PSU is actually drawing bearing in mind this is above the system draw because of the PSU efficiency, as I've said before a lot of people seem to seriously underestimate how much their system draws). Although even considering a decent 450W PSU should be able to supply 450W without problem continously, I would aim to keep it at around 400-425W at peak after any upgrades. Really I think a 600W PSU or a 300W card is questionable with a microATX mobo (which suggests a microATX case) unless you really know what you're doing and have considered how to handle the airflow, space requirements etc (i.e. you shouldn't have to ask here on the specs). Nil Einne (talk) 15:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You might want to consider getting a motherboard that supports USB 3.0. TheGrimme (talk) 16:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

MapsGL inquiry

Dear Wikipedians:

In the youtube video Google Maps meets WebGL, at 0:22 to 0:24 in the video, you can see that the demonstrator "double finger swipe"s the android screen and pivots the map from the top-down bird's eye view to a more normal "pedestrian" view (albeit one where the pedestrian seems to be suspended mid-air).

My question is: how do I do the "double finger swipe" on a PC with non-touch screen? I want to get the pedestrian view on my PC.

Thanks,

L33th4x0r (talk) 15:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a considerable amount of effort that has been put into emulating multitouch without having multitouch hardware; but it's not very convenient. For example, you can see this semi-practical effort, "Emulating Multitouch on Single-Touch Devices". I tried to find further information from the authors by searching the Georgia Tech website, but I found very little useful information.

You don't need a touch-screen for multitouch: every MacBook now comes with a multitouch input device; so if you are programming for multi-touch devices, that will "just work." (Of course, reference-desk regular Reisio will pop by momentarily to explain why a Mac is not worth its cost - and that a PC can do everything a Mac can - except for a few things that the PC can't - but why would you want to use your computer in that way anyway? I presume he is not regularly programming multi-touch enabled software/hardware). For example, I can use my Mac's built-in or external Magic Trackpad to emulate a lot of the application interfaces that work on my iPad, even though I am not touching the screen.

If you must emulate multitouch in WebGL, but you lack multitouch hardware (perhaps you are using a PC or operating system that does not support multitouch?),... then I recommend familiarizing yourself with the JavaScript multitouch API: Touch Interface Working Group and the Touch Events wiki from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, a web standardization body). Multitouch events differ from web browser to web browser; different DOMs support them in very different ways; but you can write JavaScript code for a specific platform (ironically ... platform-specific JavaScript) and cause your web browser or ECMAscript host to fire multitouch events programmatically. Use at your own risk, and keep in mind that all hardware is not created equally. A two-finger swipe on a Samsung Android telephone may not be the same "event" as a two-finger swipe on a Motorola Android telephone.

For example: Here is a programmer's blog that provides a short introduction to WebKit Multitouch Events - a standardized subset of touch events for iOS and Android versions of the WebKit API. You can write code to generate synthetic events, and that code will be compatible with devices that know how to interpret such events. Nimur (talk) 17:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't have even found this if you hadn't mentioned my name — you have a crush on me? :p Macs are PCs, and there are plenty with multi touch and have been since before there were iPads. You don't have to make it so easy for me. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh I am sorry I did not communicate clearly. Allow me to clarify. What I meant was how do I get "Pedestrian" view of Google's WebGL map on my desktop computer, where I know I can't do the double finger swipe that the demonstrator did on the android phone. I care only about how to get "pedestrian" view, not about how to implement double finger swipe on desktop PCs. Thanks. L33th4x0r (talk) 18:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't figure out any gesture to which they've mapped sic MapsGL's tilt (pitch) motion. The same function in Google Earth is middle-button-drag, but that doesn't work in MapsGL (on Google Chrome) when I tried it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Advice on books

I have been trying for a little while to learn the C programming language, however I am wondering whether I might be better off with a professional book on the subject rather than just reading anything I find on the internet. What I would like is a book that can take me from the absolute basics of knowing nothing about computers (including knowing nothing of the technical language) right through to designing and creating complex real programs that I can actually use, and perhaps even sell or give away copies of. Does any such book actually exist? 148.197.81.179 (talk) 17:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Tons of such books exist. They are used in "introduction to computer programming" classes worldwide. I've used the Deitel "how to program" series before — they have a How to Program C book as well. If it's anything like their Java book, it requires essentially zero knowledge on the subject to begin, but will take you through a pretty careful study of the language and programming concepts in general. It's aimed at beginning undergraduates — it doesn't pull any punches, but it is pretty straightforward to follow. The Java one had all sorts of code you could download from the website. There are probably other good books of this sort out there. The "computing" aisle of your local library or book store probably has a grip of them. Like most thousand page textbooks, they aren't cheap, but you can find used copies for $50 or so online, which isn't bad. They are more or less exactly what you describe. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't try to find a single book for all of that. There are different kinds of applications: business / database, graphics / games, real time / process control, web / services, etc etc. Then you have different kinds of software development processes, debugging, IDEs, version control, testing, etc. Multiply all of that with all the programming languages out there, and all the operating systems, and all the graphics/database/etc libraries. A book that starts from zero and ends up with the exact kind of high level application that you happen to want would be a lucky find indeed. Get your basics from a basics book, then pick other books for the more advanced area in which you are interested. 88.112.59.31 (talk) 17:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The Deitel books do a pretty good job of running the gamut. Obviously they don't do everything in as equal depth, but if you want to not just get your feet wet, but really learn how all of those different components work, they're pretty great. There's an impressive amount of depth in them. (Maybe less impressive given how gigantic they are.) If you were going to pick "one giant book that does everything", the Deitel ones are a pretty good candidate. (If anyone at Deitel wants to pay me a commission for hawking these things, get in touch!) What I also liked about them is that it was easy to skip the parts you already knew (e.g. how basic OOP works) or didn't care about (e.g. graphics). --Mr.98 (talk) 17:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I looked up those Deitel books, though, and now I have found the 5th edition for £24 and the rather smaller 6th edition for £71, and yet the way the two are described, including the long list of new things added since the last edition, is word for word identical, so I am wondering, what actually is the difference between them, for so much of a different price? 148.197.81.179 (talk) 18:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it matters all that much. The new ones add little bells and whistles and sections but don't fundamentally rewrite much, I don't think. The reason they pump out so many of them, I suspect, is because they are used in college courses, and it's a common scam/business model by textbook publishers to constantly put out new editions with different questions, exercises, etc., to deter losing money on aftermarket sales. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned K&R. Pretty good intro imho. Shadowjams (talk) 08:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

http://www.iso-9899.info/ http://www.iso-9899.info/wiki/Books ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yep. Kernighan and Ritchie is the textbook on C. As the lead section of the article says: "Because the book was co-authored by the original language designer, and because the first edition of the book served for many years as the de facto standard for the language, the book is regarded by many to be the authoritative reference on C." It would be nice to get this also as a tribute to Dennis Ritchie who died a couple of weeks ago. Astronaut (talk) 10:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree about K&R. But unfortunately, learning C, the language, is far far far from "designing and creating complex real programs". Knowing a programming language reasonably well is one prerequisite of being able to develop complex programs, but far from the only one. We all can read and write, but it takes both talent and dedication to write like Ernest Hemingway or Douglas Adams or even Isaac Asimov. Similarly, we can probably all sing, but that's a far cry from being Mick Jagger or Montserrat Caballé or Freddy Mercury. Software design is a skill quite different from programming. For most programs, one also need significant amounts of domain knowledge, whether about the stock market, tide tables, or what makes games fun. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

webcam

My new laptop seems to come with a built in camera, I am wondering, though, whether I can use this to record something directly onto my computer, save it there, watch it back, make some edits and then upload it to the internet, or whether I just have to film directly onto the internet with it. If I can, how do I do so?

148.197.81.179 (talk) 17:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer is almost surely "yes". What model of laptop is it, and what operating system are you running on it? If you tell us that, we can tell you what software you need to get to make it work. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently it's a HP AMD Windows 7 11.6" laptop, it doesn't say anything else on it regarding models, does that matter? 148.197.81.179 (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Need more info. Click Start, then right-click on Computer and select properties. In the window that pops up, tell us the Model listed in the System section. The Masked Booby (talk) 05:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

If it came with Windows preinstalled, it'd be pretty unlikely it didn't come with some webcam software preinstalled, which you can probably find in the Start menu, not that there aren't plenty of alternatives. ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, it's a HP Pavilion dm1 Notebook PC, 32-bit, 3GB of RAM, 1.6 GHz AMD processor. Now I will look for webcam software, and prove that all of this was a waste of time. 148.197.80.214 (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

As I thought, I can indeed get to it on my computer quite easily, and surely a bit of work will have me finding where to set it to record and such like. Only trouble is, the image is even lower resolution than I had expected, and rather smudgy as well. But, I suppose I can't have everything. I will have to test it out, see if it is good enough. 148.197.80.214 (talk) 18:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately "dm1" is not specific enough (the full model is often printed on the bottom) for anyone here to confirm (at least not without great effort cross-checking models with that processor and ram, etc.), but for an HP with a 1.6GHz processor, I wouldn't expect an incredible camera. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Mobile Display Technology Standards

Across display hardware for mobile devices like smartphones, is there a standard way to tell it, for instance, to make the pixel at coordinate (X,Y) such-and-such color and brightness? I can find lots of white papers on hobby character LCD displays with integrated display controllers and ROM character generators, but I'm interested in the instruction sets of graphic display hardware used by big 'real' device makers. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 18:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The device that actually sends signal to the LCD panel of an embedded device is called an LCD controller. Lots of people makes these (e.g. here's the documentation for the LCD controller built into an Atmel microcontroller [3]). Largely they work by being attached to some memory (depending on the system their own memory, or they share a section of the embedded system's main memory) and they suck appropriately formatted data out of that, on a timer, turn it into the appropriate pixel signals expected by the attached LCD, and squirt it out the connection to that LCD device. They work in approximately the same way, but differ in the details. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the actual on-the-wire voltage standards for levels and sequences of voltages to make display hardware do things, that LCD controller makers would have to know in order to output, and what panel makers would make their devices accept for input, are created by the folks at VESA and available to member companies and to anyone else for a price (which I'm sure is nothing a casually curious person like me could afford or fully understand or be able to use). 20.137.18.53 (talk) 19:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

TFT LCD#Electrical interface has a little info. This posting is informative; you might also find pulling the datasheets of the parts described, such as the Sharp LCD panel, instructive. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

For higher end devices, such as modern screenphones, the details of the LCD back end are hidden from the programmer entirely; e.g. the Adreno GPU used in the Qualcomm Snapdragon appears to a system programmer pretty much like a GPU on a PC would be (a bunch of registers and memory maps in address space), except perhaps some configuration settings for the specifics of the attached LCD. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Conceptually, a framebuffer is an abstract view of the memory that drives an output screen. Some devices do not use framebuffers. Some devices use framebuffers with weird representations of pixels - ranging from different colorspaces to different geometry. Some devices require multiplanar buffers. Some devices expect compressed codestreams, instead of pixel-value bitmaps. Your hardware may vary; your software environment may hide implementation details from you, and/or forbid certain paradigms of operation. Nimur (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

October 25

What voice-changing Android apps let me alter voices to specific, desired specifications?

I'm hoping for a voice-changing Android app that I can specify gender, age, ethnicity, accent and other variables which will let me sound like other people. (Artificial, fake cartoony voices are okay but not needed; I hope for options to sound like other, actual people with this voice.)

Moreover, would those apps let me use them on a phone call, or would I be made to only use them while not on a call?

Thanks in advance for recommending some. --98.190.13.3 (talk) 04:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Ethnicity? They make such things? "I want to sound more black!" ... very curious to see any answers to this question O_o The Masked Booby (talk) 05:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Even "Artificial Intelligence" software running on the fastest computers would struggle to make an attempt at changing accents, in fact many human brains struggle to achieve this. Just changing frequency to address a gender/age stereotype would be simple, but the other requirements will probably not be achievable in a phone app in my lifetime (though possibly in yours). It has long been possible to create artificial voices of any required flavour to read typed text, of course, but I don't know what apps are available. Dbfirs 06:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, maybe not ethnicity/accent, but other factors are fine.

So if I just wish to change how old I sound, which app would be ideal for that? --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 09:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't even have an Android phone, so I've no idea what apps are available, but the frequency changing software should be fairly simple to write if the hardware allows the change. A deeper tone tends to make you sound older, but your use of language will easily give away your true age unless you are very careful. Dbfirs 18:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

That's okay; sometimes I may try to see what it's like to sound old, but in order to help me write a fiction book whose protagonist is a precocious child, I need to find out how I'd feel if I heard a child speak with a college student's vocabulary. Hopefully someone with an Androidal background can come along and share suggested apps. --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 00:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you will find any app that will adjust the speaker's vocabulary, but there are many college students who speak with child-like voices, and just a few young children who have a college student's vocabulary. Good luck with your book. Dbfirs 06:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sothink DHTML menus

how can take the code written in sothink dhtml menus to asp.net progrmmes?pls tell — Preceding unsigned comment added by FemiThanvi (talk • contribs) 07:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Section title added - presumably the question refers to this product. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

UPC-A Barcode Check Digit when Calculated result is 10.

The other wise excellent an highly informative article entitled "Universal Product Code" includes information of calculating a UPC-A check digit as follows  : - In the UPC-A system, the check digit is calculated as follows: 1.Add the digits in the odd-numbered positions (first, third, fifth, etc.) together and multiply by three. 2.Add the digits in the even-numbered positions (second, fourth, sixth, etc.) to the result. 3.Find the result modulo 10 (i.e. the remainder when divided by 10.. 10 goes into 58 5 times with 8 leftover). 4.If the result is not zero, subtract the result from ten. ... BUT WHAT SHOULD BE DONE IF THE RESULT IS ZERO ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.Markhigham01 (talk) 08:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Do nothing, so 0 stays 0. Step 4 is an if-then construct with no Else branch. 98.248.42.252 (talk) 10:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

RAM address lines and data lines

what are the difference between the functionalities of address lines and data lines of a RAM chip? Does they both store data? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Intr199 (talk • contribs) 14:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The address lines say where the data is to be stored, The data lines say what data is to be stored. So if the CPU wants to store 0x1234 at address 0xF004, 0x1234 goes on the data lines and 0xF004 on the data lines. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

what does "x" signify in the address: "0x12234"?--Intr199 (talk) 14:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, that's just me writing a 16 bit address in hexadecimal with the C-language prefix for hex (so 0xsomething means that the something is in hexadecimal). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Standby consumption of Virgin Media V+ box

Resolved

Hi. In UK. How much leccy do you think a Virgin Media V+ box uses when on standby? I ask because I usually try to remember to turn off appliances at the mains when not in use, but the V+ box takes forever to reboot, and often gets stuck in the process. The Virgin technician said not to turn it off overnight, but I don't know if that is their standard advice or how they would reconcile it with the general consumer advice to save energy by not leaving applicances on standby. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

According to the company which makes the newest one, about 20 watts at the very maximum. A quick google indicates the older one is similar. 20 watts is pretty negligible really, and if it has some kind of standby function then it won't be using much at all. Nevard (talk) 06:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I would contest that 20W is 'pretty negligible'. If that is 20W 24/7, that gives you around 500Wh per day, or 180KWh/year. At 25p/KWh that is £40/year in electricity costs, which I consider pretty outrageous for an appliance that probably isn't worth that much. Granted, this is max consumption and stand-by (if it has such a thing) is likely(?) to be less. But I wouldn't want 20W just on all the time for nothing 109.158.229.158 (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

"Format' missing from menu

What could cause "Format" to disappear from the menu in Microsoft Word? (On a Mac.) The other options are still there. I.e., File - Edit - View - Insert - Tools.

(Supp question, is "menu" the proper way to refer to these functions?)

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I found Word for OS X missing format menu, which doesn't say what could cause it, but does direct you to the preferences file, which you might want to throw away.  Card Zero  (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Printing calculator

Hi guys.

I am looking to replace my printing calculator, a Canon P60-D, with another calculator that does the same thing. The printer is broken in my current one. The catch is that it must NOT use the "accounting rules" where you press extra keys for operations. To quote a review from a similar product:

"The only thing that I didn't like about this calculator is that to subract [sic] one number from another, you have to press the number, then the plus sign, then the other number, then the minus sign. I don't know if this is how all of these types of calculators are or not, since this is the only one like this that I have ever used... but pressing the addition symbol to subract [sic] seemed a little weird to me."

That is the exact function I do NOT want. To subtract two numbers, pressing 3, -, 2, should produce 1.

Any ideas for a replacement? It turns out these are harder to find than they should be. Alternatively, if I can buy another P60-D from somewhere that would be great too.

Thanks guys.

Sorlac (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Reading QR codes manually

Would it be possible to read a QR code without a computer? On the QR code page, there is an example containing "www.wikipedia.org", and some of the w's and i's match. However, I cannot figure out which direction to read the 2x4 boxes in, and there's some mention of flipping every other row. How are these encoded? KyuubiSeal (talk) 23:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The explanation in the article is a bit unclear, but let's consider the example there, starting with the size byte marked "Len". It appears (1=dark)

10

11

10

11

We flip alternate rows: if you go down from the top you flip every second row

10

00

10

00

To know the order to read this, you need to turn it so you have a block which is 2 wide and four high. Look at the arrow, which runs from bottom to top. You therefore rotate so the arrowhead is at the top (in this case no rotation is required) and read the bits in this order (0=low, 7=high)

01

23

45

67

Normally when you write binary numbers you put the high bit first, so we can decode this from bit 7-bit 0 as 00010001. This equals 17 in base-ten.

You can now move on to the next character which appears as

11

01

11

01

Flipping rows gives

11

10

11

10

This gives you the binary 01110111, which is the ASCII code for "w" (lower case).

The next value is

1011

0001

You first reverse the lower row:

1011

1110

Then you rotate it so the arrow is at the top of the block, like this

11

10

11

10

You can see that's another "w". Now you follow the order of the arrows around the code. Remember to invert the rows before you rotate them.

It's a lot easier to use a computer. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't rotating the second w make this?

11

10

11

01

KyuubiSeal (talk) 14:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You don't rotate the whole thing as a block, you read up the right side, then down the left side. There's more information at v:Reed–Solomon codes for coders, but that's incomplete as well. It gets a lot more complicated with the larger codes, because you have to work around the alignment patterns and deal with the interleaved code blocks. 130.76.64.119 (talk) 15:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay. At least since I can read it more accurately than a camera, I won't need the error correction codes, right? KyuubiSeal (talk) 16:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you can just ignore the EC codes as long as you have a good quality image to work with (both QR codes on this cake are decodable, with some difficulty) and nobody has messed with it. 130.76.64.118 (talk) 16:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

October 26

Digital camera market: all-in one with excellent macro and remote shutter triggers

Hi, I digitally photograph documents, large sequences of documents, to produce research aids. While there are many good light digital cameras, making for easy tripod management; and, there are many light digital cameras with good macro; I've had difficulty finding non SLR cameras with remote shutter triggers. Ideally a foot trigger, or a hand trigger on a long wire or wireless would be ideal. I've reached a point where the ergonomics of pressing the shutter trigger on the camera for six to seven hours a day is a serious negative impact.

The reason for a light camera relates to non-standard page formats in the document series, for which dismounting the camera rapidly and taking a photograph while holding the camera is the best workflow solution.

Do users have any advice on seeking such a camera? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:05, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Would a solution involving two cameras be acceptable? That is, could you use a tripod-mounted SLR with an appropriate remote trigger for the majority of documents, and a handheld point and shoot for the handful of non-standard-sized pages?

Alternatively, are you willing to do a bit of mild hacking? Firmware modifications like CHDK allow you to use the USB connector on Canon Powershot point-and-shoot cameras to connect a remote shutter release to a whole family of cameras that wouldn't normally support them. This includes some high-end point and shoots like the S95. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

CHDK is also programmable in a BASIC dialect. You could use the supplied time-lapse script to take a picture every N seconds, where N is the number of seconds you need to turn the page. With more work, you could modify the motion-triggered script to take photos after the motion (page turning) stops, instead of during the motion. -- BenRG (talk) 04:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the grounding advice. The workflow passes from meters of archives, with box numbers, through the camera, towards sequence managed files. A two camera solution has problems in that the date-time would need to replace file number identification in terms of maintaining image sequence... but this is not insurmountable (thanks for the idea!). The workflow gets reassessed about every five years (ie: when I need a new camera / get funding for the same), so hacking _could_ pay off, N second timing would be one way forward, particularly if it could be turned on or off; one problem is that in the workflow the user gets interested in documents, and pays more or less attention to particular pages. CHDK looks like an excellent central component of a hack to solve this, regardless of an external line or a timer being the right way forward. Good on Canon for being "open," or tolerating openness, about their firmware's programmability. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Some companies sell cheap substitutes for dedicated remote shutter releases where you clamp a bracket around the camera which goes over the shutter release, and then a remote switch causes the shutter release to be pressed. If you look on eBay or similar you may find something suitable, or there are online guides on building your own. Although this may not be reliable for extended use. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Who defines partition types and GUIDs?

Who defines the partition types used in the Master Boot Record partition table and the GUIDs used in the GUID Partition Table? Related question: What happens if someone wants to make a new partition type? Companioncube31 (talk) 02:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what registries exist(ed), but GUIDs were designed so that there needn't be a central registry to prevent collisions, and the large number of collisions in this table indicates that a lot of vendors didn't bother to register their 8-bit type codes, even if an official registry did exist. -- BenRG (talk) 04:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Computers and lightning

When there is a thunderstorm, does one have to unplug the PC, modem, etc. even when the storm is several miles away? I always do, but my son insists that lightning can only cause damage to the modem and PC whilst the storm is directly overhead. Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

This really depends on how the power grid near you is set up. A lightning strike would only cause damage if it hit the distribution line between you and the nearest substation. Most of these distribution lines have some kind of surge protection on them nowadays. This isn't to say there isn't still some risk involved, particularly in rural areas, and I personally tend to at least unplug the phone lines (which are often not so well protected- though less likely to actually be struck, given their lower positions) in major storms around this time of year. Nevard (talk) 08:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You can take your time unplugging the equipment when the storm is several miles away, or you can madly scramble to do so when the storm is overhead. I'd choose the former. --LarryMac | Talk 13:15, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

There are some surge protectors that also claim to offer US$10,000 (or whatever) of insurance on electrical equipment, like computers, that suffer surge damage while hooked up to the surge protector. Boom, new computer! I'm not sure of the details, of course, and am not even sure whether these insurance policies tend to exclude lightning strikes from the coverage. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Day-by-day financial program

I'm looking for a program that allows one to track future expenses day by day. Say, like having it add $XXXX.XX dollars every Friday (payday), and having it deduct $YY.YY every day (say, lunch) and $ZZ.ZZ every month (recurring bills, etc.) Basically, something that I can put all my income and expenses into, and be able to see roughly my balances on any given future date. Does anyone have any suggestions? ^Avic_ennasis @ 09:08, 28 Tishrei 5772 / 09:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I use an Excel spreadsheet to do something like this. Leftmost column is the date, starting with (at A2) =TODAY() (but you could use a fixed date) at the top, then going down each row is the next day, eg A3 is =+A2+1. I have one column for each regular incoming/outgoing, eg for weekly (Friday) pay =(WEEKDAY($A3)=6)*9999999 (real amounts are redacted!), for fortnightly income =(MOD(A3-DATE(2011,9,26),14)=0)*999999 where the date is any arbitrary past date on which I received the income, =(DAY($A3)=15)*999999 is once a month (15th in this case). (In case it's not obvious, boolean functions return 1, 0 for true, false, so (X=Y)*Z is the same as IF(X=Y,Z,0).) An extra column for manual entries. Then a column on the right to add them all up, with +same column, previous row for an ongoing balance. MIN() of the balance column ensures that it stays above zero! Simple, and it works for me. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Android Market

How do I 'associate' an android tablet with my Google account? Everytime I try to download an app from the market, I am told I do not have any phones/devices associated with the account. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

What tablet is it? what happens when you try and do it from the device (I'm guessing you are using the web interface?) --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's an Archos 101, and this is the only device I am using, and yes, from the browser. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

for some reason, Android market will not identify some devices, you should still be able to load them via the market place app on the device (you have a market place app right?). --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Open your settings panel, go to Accounts & Sync, and add your google account. Then when you log into the website the tablet will be associated with that account. Just to make sure, download something from the android marketplace on your device (If the marketplace isn't on your homescreen click the Apps button at the top and find it there. 192.84.79.2 (talk) 14:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

PSU for multi-monitor setup

I'm planning to buy an AMD Radeon 6850 graphics card, and a 500-watt PSU is recommended for this. The computer is a dual-core Athlon II with a Corsair CX400 PSU. If the card is used to run a multi-monitor setup, and 3-D rendering is not used, will this PSU suffice? --Masatran (talk) 13:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I run two nVidia cards, each suggesting 500W power in the manual, on a single 550W power supply. I do not do any gaming or 3D of any kind (I only have these cards because they have multi-monitor output). I have not had any issues. -- kainaw™ 13:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Multi monitor will make a tiny difference to power consumed since the monitors are powered from the mains. Your 500w PSU will work just fine, assuming it is actually a 500w PSU. 192.84.79.2 (talk) 13:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

1. I'm concerned about the power draw, not of the monitors, but of the graphics card
2. The PSU I mentioned is a 400-watt one.

--Masatran (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

At a guess the PSU should be able to handle the system although I'm not making any guarantees. The 6850 only has a single 6 pin PCI express connector so shouldn't draw more than 150W in total. [4] shows a higher end system (with Intel but probably still consuming more power) with a 6850 using 278W total (and that's at the plug so is more then the actual system is using) although only the GPU was stressed and it's not clear to me what they used to stress it anyway. I'm presuming you're referring to a quality 400W PSU, the Corsair CX400 sounds like it should be but you may want to check and also keep an eye on the +12V. From my experience most manufacturer power supply recommendations are higher then need be probably partially because they want to rule out the possibility of problems and there a lot of crap PSUs out there. If you have a wall power meter you can try measuring the system under load at the moment and guess how much headroom you have. Although in truth if you're not planning to game or do any other sort of 3D rendering I'm a but confused why you want such a high end card. If you're planning to use it for GPGPU bear in mind this could potentially stress the card as much as 3D rendering (after all that must be partially the point of such a high end card). Even if you want 3 monitors (pretty much all stand alone cards for a long time have supported dual monitors), I'm resonably sure most of the lower end AMD/ATI cards have EyeFinity as well.

Edit: [5] this one is using Furmark shows 253W and 246W and again it's the power measured at the wall and a higher end system, [6] is also using Furmark (although it also has Crysis which is lower) and shows 274 and 292 although the system and measurement method is uncertain and again it doesn't seem like the CPU was stressed (well it would be in Crysis to some extent), [7] shows 284W although the measurement method doesn't seem to be specified and it's using Crysis (as hinted at earlier although this may stress the GPU less it means the CPU is also stressed to some extent) and again with a higher end system, [8] shows 273W at the wall with Left 4 Dead 2 again with a significantly higher end system. From these I'm even more confident you'll be fine presuming the +12V isn't an issue (although even that is looking unlikely to me).

BTW for clarity Furmark is pretty much the gold standard for GPU power consumption and temperature, it's able to stress cards so much that drivers for certain cards detect it and reduce the card speed. In other words, it's the sort of thing that manufacturers are saying can stress cards beyond design specs. (From what I've read the reason given is about power consumption or fear of stressing certain components particularly the VRMs beyond design limits, most cards also have thermal throttling since a long time. In the past it was a simple application detection and just renaming the exe was enough to prevent this behaviour as I can confirm from experience, but now some are using more advanced management methods [9] [10].)

Nil Einne (talk) 17:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

120 bang for the buck

http://www.techmtaa.com/2011/10/04/kaboo-is-this-the-first-kenyan-designed-tablet-computer/

 CPU: VIA WM8650 (800MHz 300MHz DSP)
   Operating System: AndroidAndroid 2.2
   Screen: 7-inch resistive touch screen
   Storage: 256MB DDR2 RAM and 2GB internal storage
   3G : Supports external 3G (USB 3G) Modem
   Card Reader: Supports High-speed Micro-SD card (maximum: 32GB)
   SoundSound reviews: Built-in speaker, Built-in micphone
   CameraCamera reviews: 0.3M Pixels Web Camera
   Orientation Sensor Automatic steering display screen
   Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
   Supports adobe flash 10.1
   HighHigh reviews-sensitivity G-sensor embedded

Is this product any good? It's cheaper than an ipad way cheaper. What are its cons. I'm looking for a good tablet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.24.111.249 (talk) 13:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's running an old version of the android OS, it's got a resistive touch screen (As opposed to the multitouch capacitive touch screens modern devices have), it has hardly any ram, a tiny webcam, and is probably pretty slow. edit: Compare Capacitive Touchscreen and Resistive Touchscreen192.84.79.2 (talk) 13:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

how do i set cookie exception in firefox

for locally hosted files? tried localhost, file, 127.0.0.1, c, all do not work. all punctuation is truncated. using firefox 3.x on an office computer, cannot upgrade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.17.226 (talk) 14:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have a locally running HTTP server and are using an http:// url, localhost or 127.0.0.1 should do it. If you're using a file:// url, you might be out of luck. 130.76.64.119 (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

jt open toolkit

why is there not a differentiation between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT_%28visualization_format%29#JT_Open_Toolkit and the IBM i5OS java toolkit open source project (JTOpen) at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/software/toolbox/index.html, and on sourceforge???

) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wessonjoe (talk • contribs) 17:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Amiga emulation

Now that I have a full copy of my Amiga's hard drive on my Linux PC, I started wanting to actually use all those applications and games. I do have a real, physical Amiga 4000 on my desk right now, but I'm not sure if it works OK any more, and it's a bit of a hassle to use two computers instead of one. So I would be interested in emulating the Amiga on my Linux PC. What sort of Amiga emulators exist for Linux? Surely they're able to read files on the host Linux filesystem? Do I need to somehow transfer the Kickstart ROM from the real Amiga to the emulator? If so, how can I do this? JIP | Talk 20:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at these Amiga emulators for Linux

• http://www.amigaemulator.org/
• http://xfellow.sourceforge.net/abt.html

TheGrimme (talk) 21:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, I took a look at the links and downloaded the source code for both UAE and XFellow. I couldn't get either to even compile. UAE didn't compile because of a problem with GTK+, and I wasn't able to get XFellow even past the "./configure" stage, because I didn't even find the "configure" script. But then I found that my Fedora 12 Linux installation already included E-UAE, so I started it.

First it complained that it had no Kickstart ROM. Then I remembered that I had already bought the Amiga Forever CD-ROM, so I copied its contents to my Linux system and used the Kickstart 3.1 ROM, as my real Amiga has Kickstart 3.1. I set UAE to emulate a 68060 CPU, which my real Amiga has. When I started it, I got a message "Invalid 68040.library!" So I switched it to emulate a 68020 CPU instead, which is inferior to my real Amiga's CPU. Then it started up and loaded Workbench, but the screen was all messed up. It turns out that my real Amiga has a Multiscan monitor and is thus able to use the DBLPAL screen mode, but UAE doesn't know how to emulate this. So I loaded up the ScreenMode preferences and switched to PAL Super-HiRes Laced instead. On a real Amiga, this would have flickered irritably, but current flat-panel computer monitors don't have this problem, so I was able to see the display all OK.

When I got Workbench working, I tried to play some of my installed commercial games - Benefactor and Ork. WHDLoad worked perfectly under emulation, but then I found that although the graphics worked perfectly, the sound was messed up. It played correctly, but with a horrendous lag that caused it to play so slowly that it had trouble keeping up with the notes, and missed some notes. So now I have an almost perfectly working emulated Amiga. But what can I do about the sound? JIP | Talk 18:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks like [11] you want to fiddle with the sound_latency value in the config file. Update: having said that, I've been trying to run a game in WinUAE, and can't fix the sound - at low latency values it's crackly, at high latency values it's choppy. This thread [12] says that an unreasonably powerful PC is needed to make the sound emulation work properly. "Am I the only person that finds it incredibly amusing that you need a 2,000 + mhz windows computer to properly emulate an 8mhz amiga?" says the poster, and somebody else comes up with a pat justification. I'm not too impressed. To paraphrase Apple's motto, "It just doesn't work". (And the sound on games on my Linux PC suffers from similar problems - due to there being a mess of different sound libraries which games don't support - even without running UAE on it, so I dread to think of the problems caused by combining the two.)  Card Zero  (talk) 23:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking at it briefly, the Paula's audio function doesn't look that hard to emulate on modern hardware; it's mostly a digital sample shoveler, like almost all modern audio interfaces. On the face of it that would make it much easier to emulate than a chip like SID or the EMU8000, which have extensive analog-side synthesis, modulation, and filtering (all of which require the emulator to do DSP for each element of the emulated analog circuit). The Paula seems to have only a single simple filter, processing for which isn't that hard. And SID is emulated very well by lots of systems. The only thing of note is that it appears the Paula emits samples at some rather unusual rates (e.g. 28867Hz). It's the job of a modern sound server like WASAPI or PulseAudio to take sample streams emitted by different clients at different sample rates and mix them altogether into a single sample stream (at whatever rate/width they've configured the actual audio hardware for). Audio servers usually have optimised plugins for common conversions (e.g 16384Hz -> 44.1kHz) with hand-tooled optimisations for the resampler; given a conversion they don't know how to do (and if they're seeing weird sample rates from the emulated Paula, which is keeping in time with the emulated video) they'll fall back on a general resampling engine, which can be considerably slower. PulseAudio, in a addition, has several different resampling engines - the highest quality ones are the slowest. In the worst case you can suspend PulseAudio (or JACK) and run the emulator straight on the ALSA hardware interface (but even the, if it's emitting samples at a rate the hardware doesn't know about, it must either resample or slur). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea about the internal workings of Paula, SID, or modern audio drivers. How can I choose which audio interface UAE uses? There doesn't seem to be any such option in the UAE configuration file. I tried playing Stargoose, and the music was nearly faithful, but not entirely so. On the other hand, Utopia: The Creation of a Nation and Ork had severe problems with the music. Is the problem because my Linux PC's CPU is not fast enough? It's already over 2 GHz. Or would a dedicated sound card help? Currently I only have a sound card integrated to the motherboard. JIP | Talk 19:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it helps, but I did notice that there's a driver for AHI (Amiga) available, [13] which works with UAE (UAE is listed as a "soundcard" on that page). It comes with WinUAE in a directory called "programs", but isn't pre-installed, and I can't figure out how to install things so I don't know whether it solves the problem of the sound or not.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No, that doesn't seem to help. I installed AHI and the UAE driver on the emulated Amiga, and the AHI preferences opens OK, but when I select the UAE device and click on "Play Test Sound", no sound is played. JIP | Talk 11:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

comverting FROM ePub?

Hi - I have an ePub document I need to send to someone whose machine can't read that sort of file, and he's doing me a favour, so I can't implore him just to download the necessary software; I'd like to convert it back to PDF or Word, something like that - is there any way of doing this? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

calibre (software) -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You can do it online here for free: http://www.epub-to-pdf.com/ TheGrimme (talk) 21:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks heaps, both of you - I might download Calibre another time, but for the nonce, the online converter worked a treat 22:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

October 27

Force a section to wrap in HTML

I have some code that looks something like this:

<TABLE border="3"><TR>
<TD>HTML code text 1...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 2...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 3...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 4...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 5...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 6...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 7...</TD>
</TR><TR><TD style="valign:top; align:center;" colspan="3">HTML code text 8...</TD>
<TD style="valign:top; align:center;" colspan="3" >HTML code text 9...</TD>
<TD>HTML code text 10...</td>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD> (etc.)

The HTML code is created on the fly. Now 99% of the time it works, and all of the columns have an automatic width and line up pretty. But 1% of the time I'll get some God-awful URL which will look something like this:

http://he.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%A6%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%93%D7%A6%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%A8_2009&action=edit&uselang=en&reallyobnoxiouslongdumbvariablewhyisthisevenhere=42&h=77.3

This totally goofs up my table view. How can specify in HTML coding that a table cell must wrap after so many characters? For aesthetics, it's not very important to me whether it wraps around a certain character or not. Magog the Ogre (talk) 05:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

<table border="3" width="100%" style="table-layout:fixed">
	<tr>
		<td width="25%" style="word-wrap: break-word">http://he.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94_%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%A6%D7%AA/%D7%9</td>
		<td width="25%">HTML code text 2...</td>
		<td width="25%">HTML code text 3...</td>
		<td width="25%">HTML code text 4...</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td style="valign:top; align:center;" colspan="2">HTML code text 5...</td>
		<td style="valign:top; align:center;">HTML code text 6...</td>
		<td>HTML code text 10...</td>
	</tr>
</table>

—Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

You could also use the CSS max-width on the cells property to specify a pixel width that causes the cells to wrap. You can't do it by character any easy way (with Javascript, there is always a way, but it is not worth it). If you set it to something like (1000px) you'll never notice it unless things go fubar. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Table cells auto-size to the width of the longest word. In your case, the URL is a word because it has no spaces/tabs in it. Even if you use something like auto-scrolling, the cell will size to the width of the word BEFORE turning on auto-scrolling. Since you say it is automatically created, I'd use a substring function in the script that makes it to limit the length of URLs. -- kainaw™ 20:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

mass uploading to internet

Hi, hope this is the right ref desk for my question about pan-uploading to the internet. In the program Midnight Man the main character arranges for his daughter to put a CD into her home laptop and upload the information to the internet so that the villains are exposed by its contents. It's screened in the newsroom and appears on TV news. All we see is the disk going in, then she clicks on "Upload". How is this possible in real life? or is it just totally fiction. Manytexts (talk) 05:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Movie and television computers often do not act like real-world computers. It's totally fiction in the sense that it doesn't literally work that way. This is one of many examples of the Viewer Friendly Interface — a fake computer operating system that makes it easy for the television viewer to see what is going on without explanation. Presumably more plausible ways of disseminating the information — which generally take a lot longer and are not necessarily successful — would derail from the plot.

That said, we do live in an age where making high resolution video and other such things massively public is easier than ever (e.g. YouTube). On the other hand, the very ubiquity of such stuff means that uploading random conspiracy theory documents makes you one but one of many such nuts doing it. Fortunately the evening news does not cover all such uploads... --Mr.98 (talk) 11:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

My favourite instance of such a thing is in the film Independence Day, where the protagonists upload a computer virus to the alien mothership's computer, despite not knowing anything about the processor architecture it is based on. JIP | Talk 18:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Except, that's not what happened in that movie at all. The virus was developed on a stolen alien computer which they'd had access to since 1947, then it was uploaded to the mother-ship using stolen alien communication equipment that had been hacked so that it could be partially controlled with a Macintosh computer.

Presumably, the aliens had very poor computer security, but that's not unbelievable if their race has no crime.

(I can't stand it. An entire movie full of ridiculous, impossible things, and everyone picks on this one detail that's actually fully explained if you pay attention!) APL (talk) 07:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well if I did miss this, then I am glad other people did so as well. =) JIP | Talk 20:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Many operating systems prompt you for actions upon connecting/inserting/utilizing devices. There wouldn't ordinarily be a preconfigured option for 'Upload' there (though many companies associated with OSes promote their own online storage systems [SkyDrive, iDisk, Ubuntu One] and might have/in the future have something like that,) but it'd be relatively easy for someone familiar with computers (or just motivated/patient/informed, etc.) to configure such a shortcut. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. I guess it's still dreamware unless you've got special access from the storage system or can get into it (which won't be me). Thanks so much for your answers. Manytexts (talk) 18:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Unless you have a storage site and a preconfigured shortcut in your new device popup, yeah. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

True, thanks Reisio. Manytexts (talk) 07:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the backwards E?

It appears with Internet Explorer at the library sometimes in place of the arrow or hand when I move my mouse.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 13:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Screenshot? ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the I-beam cursor, that looks a bit like this:

     ---
      |
      |
      |
     ---

If so, see Cursor (computers)#Mouse cursor. 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC) Martin.

I've known about this one for as long as I've been using a mouse. This is a relatively recent development. I was all set to send a screen shot, but doing anything to the screen was going to make me lose it, and it hasn't come back in such a way I could get one of those. It's a capital letter about the size of several lines of text.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Does it appear only on a certain site? For instance, this Amiga retro gaming wiki [14] changes the mouse pointer in a delightfully retro way.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like it's too big for a standard cursor, but the system administrator at your library can select or define almost any cursor they want, so it sounds like they made a mistake, or they set it up for one purpose and forgot to reset the default afterwards. Or could it be an escapee from another application that defines its own cursor shapes? Maybe you should ask the library staff to correct it.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

"Ask the library staff" has been suggested many many many times. He apparently refuses to do so. -- kainaw™ 13:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see it yesterday afternoon, so maybe it was only on the one computer. I could ask, but I doubt that will help.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

And it's not a situation where the cursor always looks like that. What I think might happen is I'll ask someone what it is and it won't appear for a long time, or it'll be gone by the time the person shows up to look at it. This is why I was thinking about a screen shot.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

processors

How many processors can motherboards use? Can I use the processor from my old computer to make my new computer faster? I am not talking about cores. 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Theoretically an infinite number, but realistically only however many they were designed to use. You could use the processor from your old computer (again theoretically), but if you're asking I dare say you haven't the expertise to pull it off. What you could do more simply is network together the two computers and have software pretend they are one whenever possible ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand that answer. A motherboard only has a fixed number of processor slots (usually one), and can only use processors that are compatible with those slots. The odds of being able to use a randomly chosen processor in a randomly chosen motherboard are not very high. Looie496 (talk) 17:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Two other things you should note: (1) Taking advantage of multiple cores is still an ongoing research problem. For almost all day-to-day tasks, anything more than one or two cores provides no noticeable speedup. (2) A multi-core processor is nothing but multiple processors on the same chip. "Core" and "processor" are frequently used interchangeably. Paul (Stansifer) 17:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a simpler answer. Consumer motherboards always have exactly 1 socket for a processor. Higher-end 'server' motherboards may have sockets for 2 or 4, but they are expensive; and the processors in these sockets all have to be identical. You can't use your processor from your old computer to make your new computer faster, sorry — no motherboard does this, and your new computer is going to have a much faster processor than the old one, anyway. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

7zip

Which is better for long term archiving of html, text and images; rar or 7zip 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

7z (the format) compresses more than RAR; 7-Zip is open source and licensed to remain so indefinitely (which means it will always be free and anyone will always be able to improve/maintain it), WinRAR is closed source and unlikely to ever be otherwise. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Realistically, they are both about equal. I would choose 7zip because somebody in the future will not have to buy WinRar to extract the data. If you are dealing with archiving large amounts of data on a server, you might want to consider Tar.gz. TheGrimme (talk) 17:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

RARLAB provides a free open-source RAR decompresser (unrar), so you probably don't need to worry about long-term decompressibility. Still, you're probably better off with 7-Zip. -- BenRG (talk) 20:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I like 7zip more than RAR, but RAR does have recovery volumes, something which 7zip currently does not. This means that if damaged, RAR files have a slightly better chance at being repaired and salvaging the data contained inside them. You could of course use something like parchive to help recover damaged 7zip volumes 82.43.90.142 (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

motherboard

What is the best motherboard I should look for when buying a computer? 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

One you can afford to pay for and/or endure using. Unless you're assembling this computer from individual parts, you won't need to be concerned much with the specific mobo included. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

For some people the number and type of expansion slots is important; for other people the memory capacity is important. But people in those groups generally know what their needs are. Looie496 (talk) 17:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

As my erudite RD colleagues have pointed out, most users have no need to know the technical details of their motherboard(MB). Unless you have some specialised application for your PC, such as producing 3D animations or 'high level' gaming (sometimes using 2 video cards), then almost any MB will, very likely, be more than enough for 'general use' such as gaming, web browsing, text editing, e-mailing, spreadsheets, database etc.

• Picking a motherboard beyond what Looie496 pointed out: "type of expansion slots ... memory capacity is important", would be a rather complex issue, though computer magazines pcauthority.com & online sites tomshardware.com, cnet.com, motherboards.org & mbreview.com do reviews of them which may steer you in the right direction. If you need/want to use older cards then you might need some PCI slots rather than all PCI-Express(PCI-E). The vast majority of current video cards require a similar PCI-E slot, not the near/obsolete AGP slot.
• On the subject of slot numbers, commercially produced 'general purpose' home PCs assembled by major manufacturers seem to have very limited expansions slots both for expansion cards and memory, (presumably) to reduce initial purchase costs. This is likely to be compensated for by the computer having adequate memory installed, and all of the usual interface connections already available on the MB. 220.101.30 talk^\edits (aka 220.101) 15:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

iPhone playlists revert

I edit my iPhone's playlists on my iPhone, but whenever I connect my iPhone to my computer, any of the playlists I have on the iPhone revert to some previous version. (Say "Random" used to have songs X, Y, and Z but I edited it on my iPhone to have A, B, and C...when I connect my iPhone to the computer, then "Random" changes to have songs X, Y, and Z again.) It doesn't do this with the "Purchased" playlist that is automatically built, and I have my iPhone/iTunes settings set for me to "manually manage music and videos" and I have automatic music syncing turned off. How do I stop it from reverting my playlists whenever I connect my iPhone to my computer? I have an iPhone 4 running 4.2.10 and iTunes 10.4.0.80 for Windows 7. Thanks in advance, Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 18:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried disabling synching? TheGrimme (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

October 28

32 bit verses ?

I was just on some website and I got some type of pop up message from my computer or from Firefox, something like "a plugin is trying to connect that requires a 32-bit connection. Would you like to switch to 32-bit and restart?" I meant to click no but I clicked yes by accident and Firefox restarted and relaunched. I can't see any difference in my surfing experience or the way anything looks as of yet but I was just wondering what I have done. First, is this just Firefox, or did I just make a change to my computer, or the way it connects to the Internet? How do I change it back if I wanted to? What did I have before if not a 32-bit connection? Are there any advantages or disadvantages to what I switched to verses what I came from (which I don't even know)? Some specs: I am on an iMac11,3 Intel Core i5, 2.8 GHz, 4 core, 8GB.--108.46.103.88 (talk) 01:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

A while back Apple switched from the PowerPC line of processors to the cheaper Intel ix86 line. The ix86's have had a lot of features hacked on to a 1970's design over the years, and the latest one is 64-bit support (already implemented on PowerPC some ago). What this means is that your computer can access all 8GB of memory (or considerably more)- rather than only 4GB as would be the case with a 32-bit processor. Individual applications can also use more memory. However, there are compatibility issues, especially with software that hooks in intimately to other software, as plugins do to browser software. Hence why Firefox is able to revert back to 32-bit mode, and why new versions of Internet Explorer still don't operate in 64-bit mode. If you want to avoid this message in the future, figure out what the plugin is and investigate whether a 64-bit version is available. Nevard (talk) 02:10, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Eh? IE has had a 64bit version since Windows XP x64 and IE6 and AFAIK has been installed by default in every version of Windows x64 since then and updatable along with the 32 bit version. It may not be the default IE so may not be used much but is there. P.S. I'm presuming you're referring to Windows since I thought, and a quick search confirms Internet Explorer for Mac has been dead for a long time (2003) Nil Einne (talk) 04:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I also wanted to call for a reference on Intel CPUs being cheaper than equivalent PowerPCs. It is notable that all of today's video game consoles are based on PowerPC chips, and as consumer electronics there's an emphasis on cost savings over performance. However, in my brief research yesterday, it looked like PowerPC chips stopped trying to compete with the Intel equivalents around 2004-2005. My point of comparison was the PowerPC 970 chip of 2003-2004, the first 64-bit PowerPC chip, which had a single core that ran at 1.6GHz to 2GHz; and I was going to compare it with the contemporary Intel Xeon CPU of roughly the same time frame, which ran at 2GHz. However, I have never found a great site on the Web that lists the retail prices of CPUs over time, to my regret. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Obviously it did help that IntelCyrixAMD invested a hundredfold more than IBM did. Nevard (talk) 23:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There's probably no reason not to run Firefox in 32-bit mode all the time. It will probably use less RAM that way, and might be faster. In any case, it makes little difference, so don't worry about it. -- BenRG (talk) 02:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I do agree with this. When software is available in 64-bit and 32-bit versions and you have a choice, I've noticed that software from Adobe Systems runs noticeably faster when using the 64-bit version; software that doesn't shovel and manipulate as much local data around, not so much. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Running Android on a Windows Mobile smartphone

Can it be normally done? Could it be something like running Linux on an originally Windows PC? Quest09 (talk) 19:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure someone has/will manage/d it, out of sheer boredom. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Argh. It is not necessarily possible. Maybe the architecture is too different. Quest09 (talk) 19:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Check out the forums on XDA Developers. It's been done on quite a few of the Windows Mobile devices and I've personally had versions of Android running on an old HTC TyTN II and an HTC Touch Pro2 without too much of a problem!  ZX81  ^talk 20:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Compiling code on a smartphone

Smartphones are getting more and more like computers, is it yet possible to compile code on them? Quest09 (talk) 19:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Smartphones (and also not smart phones) _are_ computers. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but modern wash-machines are also computers, but cannot compile code. Quest09 (talk) 19:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh some probably can, but I was using your definition of computer, as one that can compile code. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Smartphones are general purpose programmable computers - i.e. is in principle capable of executing any program, in particular a compiler (as opposed to your washing machine that probably has some hardwired logic, that although executed by a CPU, cannot be changed). Typically however smartphone apps are programmed in a simulated/virtual machine type environment on a PC - not because the cannot be compiled on a smartphone, but because application development is a lot easier with a proper keyboard. 109.150.107.49 (talk) 21:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It's absolutely possible, although you first have to get a compiler onto them, which means, for the iPhone at least, getting App Store approval (or jailbreaking the phone), and Apple has funny rules about stuff like that. But on more developer-friendly platforms, like Android and WebOS, it's not very hard to do, and I've heard of it being done, albeit as more of a party trick than anything.

On the other hand, the JavaScript engine in each JS-capable mobile browser almost certainly does Just-in-time compilation, so in that sense, they already do. Paul (Stansifer) 22:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

More briefly, sure; it's just a SMOP. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Folder renames by itself

hello,

I have currently an odd bug; nothing serious, but it is worth to fix it. I have a folder with the name "ZZ Top", consisting of songs by the band ZZ Top. So far so good; however, it renames by itself to a random letter, for example to "C". If I rename it again to ZZ Top, it still do that. Do you know what is wrong here? Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_{N 21:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)}

• Windows, Mac, or Linux?
• Does the folder get accessed by anything like iTunes?
• Is it just this folder? Or is this just a random example?

Dismas|^(talk) 21:26, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing that it's Windows and actually a drive rather than a folder, but more info would certainly clarify the situation. Looie496 (talk) 21:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have Windows Vista, yes it is accessed by iTunes, it is just that folder. And no it is not a drive :P. It occurs sometimes and unfortunately I don't know when. Now it seems to be normal though.--♫GoP♫_T^C_{N 22:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)}

If you have iTunes set to manage your music automatically, it will do things like rename folders according to the meta information stored in the music itself. It seems probable to me that it's something of this nature. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was going for. If you're going to have iTunes manage your music files, it's best to just let it do its job and leave the folders alone. It's likely getting its name changed because your music files say the artist is named "C" and not "ZZ Top". Dismas|^(talk) 23:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

October 29

Caller ID history

Does anyone know an app that does this? I'm using an Android phone, and I'd like an app which displays the recent history of an incoming call while it's incoming. This is because I run a substantial amount of business through my phone, and it's useful to see if I've had dropped calls from this person before or if I've picked up for this person before. Magog the Ogre 2 (talk) 01:32, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

irc.freenode.net's #android channel would be a good place to ask, though you must first register & identify with the network's nickserv. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Parameter passing

Please see Q. 22 (b) (ii). I don't understand why the passed parameter (fingers) is necessary. Would it not be possible to forget about the parameter and transform the function CountFishFingers into a procedure which initialises fingers = 0 at each execution? So you'd have

BEGIN MAINPROGRAM PackFishFingers
WHILE system_on = true
ScanCarton(scan) 
IF scan = true THEN
CountFishFingers
CloseCarton
ENDIF 
ENDWHILE
END MAINPROGRAM

BEGIN SUBPROGRAM CountFishFingers
fingers = 0
WHILE fingers < 100
ScanChute(scan)
IF scan = true THEN
fingers = fingers + 1 
ENDIF
ENDWHILE 
END SUBPROGRAM

That seems legitimate, so why is a pass necessary? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Why would you bother to count the fish fingers if you are not going to do anything with the number you get? Looie496 (talk) 15:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm not understanding the way ScanChute works, but it seems to me that within the subprogram CountFishFingers, scan is only going to be true (and fingers will only be incremented) when a fish finger falls. So it is doing something. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 20:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Question about a line in fstab (Linux)

Hi. My fstab has a line beginning "Label=/boot"; is the boot partition the device usually referred to by this label? I'm salvaging a really damaged system and when I boot it tells me that there is no such labeled device; so, I figured I could just replace it with actual device name. The os does boot, though. On another matter, the system keeps telling me that various hardware components have been removed and that there configurations remain; could this be related, if not, any ideas? The os is redhat; not sure which version; I literally started this project with everything basically sitting in lost+found and am needing to restore all the system files where they ought to go (various reasons, I cannot just do a clean install.) Thank you for any help :-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 09:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds weird. You say it doesn't recognize the line but it still boots? Are you sure the contents of /boot/ (kernel images and the like) are even on a separate partition? (They'd be on the partition you mount for / otherwise). You can make a new label with (for ext filesystems, for example) e2label, or you can replace LABEL=/boot with the device path (/dev/sdX#). Probably take less time and be safer to do a reinstall, though, with CentOS if necessary. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not that weird. The bootloader has its own way of finding the kernel image, which doesn't depend on the label, and the only other time you need to access /boot is when you're installing a new kernel. It's plausible that the label, or even the whole superblock, could be mangled but the kernel still boots and everything works except that /boot doesn't get mounted. If this is the case, then you should find /boot to be an empty directory, and you should find a partition in the partition table that doesn't correspond to any mounted filesystem. If on the other hand you have a /boot directory that's full of the correct files and all existing partitions are already mounted, then the label=/boot entry in fstab must be a relic from an earlier configuration that you don't need. 67.162.90.113 (talk) 22:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge conflict frequency

How does the number of programmers working on a project affect the rate of merge conflicts and the amount of extra workload resulting from them, under a continuous integration policy? NeonMerlin 09:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Asking for ID and "justificatif de domicile" for buying in the internet

I'm currently based in Spain and I bought via credit card a table (just a bit over 100€) in a French online shop (www.road-plaisance.com) and they want me to give them a "pièce d'identité et un justificatif de domicile" in order to prevent "fraud". I haven't done anything remotely suspicious to expect fraud from me, but whatever. Can I expect this to be a scam or is this just part of normal French online business? --Sinloni (talk) 10:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"pièce d'identité et un justificatif de domicile" or "ID and proof of address". Realistically someone with your credit card information could get your address from it (and besides how are you receiving this table?), so it's not as if you're risking additional personal information. It's possible they're assuming you are currently residing in France (again how are you receiving this table?), and are balked at why your credit information says you're in Spain (etc.). My understanding is that this sort of request comes up in France when dealing with foreigners, but aside from that it does seem like it would prevent fraud in some instances. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. My guess is that they're doing this in order to prevent someone who got my credit card number somehow from ordering things with my card, could this be? I'm receiving this table via express mail or something like that (can't recall its name). Well, they shouldn't be surprised my credit card says I'm in Spain because I chose Espagne in their drop-down list. --Sinloni (talk) 12:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes it isn't uncommon of companies will ask for additional verification often including a photocopy of ID (although some times they just ask for both sides of the credit card) for credit card orders from overseas (using and international credit card) even for physical delivery. For an unsighted credit card order, they're pretty much taking full responsibility for fraud. I've seen this requirement for both US [15] and UK companies so it's by no means unique to France. Ideally they should have told you before you ordered but perhaps they do say so on their website and you just didn't understand it? I'm not of course saying there is no risk of it being a scam, simply that it definitely happens a lot in non-scam cases. Nil Einne (talk) 13:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

To their credit, it was in their terms & conditions page. I read like half of it, but it was quite long, so I just skimmed the rest. --Sinloni (talk) 13:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Is this a trustworthy site?

Is this a trustworthy site? I have never ordered anything online before and I don't want to give my details to them and have them just steal my money and not deliver the computer. Any advice? Buildingacomputer1234 (talk) 11:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

If you're unsure about a site, one way to see if it is trustworthy is to run its URL through Google (put it in quotes). I don't see anything that suggests its a scam, and you'd expect something if there was (people are nothing if not quick to complain on the internet). The fact that they have a reasonably large and active set of forums also suggests to me that they aren't fly-by-night crooks. Caveat emptor, but they seem fine to me. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the Windows blogs mentions them. It's a bit promotional in tone, so it might just be a press release, but they appear to at least be a legitimate company. Buddy431 (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I generally look for purely negative feedback. Positive feedback is easy to fake and can be misleading. Negative feedback is hard to take down, by comparison. If there aren't lots of people saying, "it's a scam, I lost all my money, etc.", then it probably isn't one. My experience in general is that the internet is biased towards negative feedback (because most people who are satisfied with service don't go out of their way to say so, whereas people who are extremely dissatisfied are often quite motivated to say so), so if you don't find lots of negative feedback, you can at least assume that it's not a total scam. It might not be a good deal, it might not be great, but it's probably not just a criminal front. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The Web of Trust Firefox plugin rates the site as trustworthy. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What the CheckRate link at the bottom of the right side bar is for. ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Just wondering, but how would one know if the CheckRate site itself was legitimate? Personally I've never heard of it before. 82.43.90.142 (talk) 19:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That's what the VeriSign link is for. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

kill

What is the Windows equilvant of

kill <pid>

? I don't want to forcefully kill a program, I want to "soft kill" it, eg tell the program to finish gracefully and then close. 82.43.90.142 (talk) 23:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

taskkill without the /f option. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

October 30

template talk archive not fully displaying

I added to a template talk archive page but it's not all displaying, while the content is still in the edit field. There should be many more than 8 topics/sections displaying, with posts through last August. The table of contents (TOC) is not updating, either. I asked at the current talk page, but there's no answer, although it's still soon. What should I do? Nick Levinson (talk) 00:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Demonic possession of keyboard

Every so often, my keyboard starts acting up (like now) and some the characters I type are not always the ones that show up: e.g. when I press the front slash, the screen shows an é. How can I fix this without restarting FirefoxÉ |||| (supposed to be tildes).

...are you saying it's a problem only with Firefox? ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like your keyboard has been switched to French. In WIndows 7, try clicking the keyboard icon in the bottom right, and making sure that it is set to US. Thanks, 99.240.226.174 (talk) 02:28, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it's restricted to Firefox since I use it 99.9% of the time. It fixes itself if I restart Firefox, so I doubt it's a language switch. As you can see, I've done just that, but just in case, I'll check the language setting the next time. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:45, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Ubuntu Dual-Boot Hangs Before Login Screen

I recently received an HP Pavillion tx1000 laptop running Windows Vista as a gift. I installed a Wubi installation of Ubuntu onto the laptop and set Ubuntu up fine. I did not know the password for the only adminstrator-level account on Windows Vista, so I used the Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor to clear the admin password. Since then, the Ubuntu installation appears to hang before it reaches the log-in screen. I only had a chance to try the computer twice since I cleared the admin password, but both times it has hung in the same place. DOes anyone know what the issue is and how to solve it?

Thanks, gENIUS101 02:53, 30 October 2011 (UTC)