Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 20:05, 12 February 2012

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

Shortcut

WP:RD/C

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

February 7

Kindle questions

Two questions related to the Amazon Kindle:

Is there a way to view customer reviews of the kindle version? That is to have it show all the reviews of a certain book but only those that reviewed the kindle version. Normally no matter which version you go to it shows reviews from all versions. And searching the reviews for "kindle" only returns reviews where the customer used the term kindle in the review
Is there somewhere where readers can report any errors/typos in the kindle version which are obviously due to problems with OCR when scanning and converting them? --TuringMachine17 (talk) 06:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(1) I doubt it, unless the reviewer specifically mentions they are reading it on a kindle: go to the reviews page and search (CTRL-F) for "kindle". (2) For new books, this is the responsibility of the publisher: find the contact section of their website and drop them an email. For older books (e.g. out of copyright) that have been scanned by Amazon, try clicking on "update product info" in the product details section.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AWB?

I'm trying to find a program that I could use for editing Wikipedia where a CTRL+F feature would be involved:

It involves finding 5 prefixes at once:

fam
know
best
great
fam

but excluding "family". (If you look at my userpage, you will see that these prefixes normally lead to pov.) So what I am thinking of is something that I could either open up a page and the program/browser will tell me if any of these prefixes are located on the page. Because currently, I use Chrome and I have to use CTRL+F to do this, but I must type the prefix and then search for it, and repeat this process 4 times, for the 5 prefixes. User:John of Reading developed a regular expression:

for use for WP:AWB. Now is there a program developed by the Wikipedia community that would be better than AWB to do this? But also, would using Firefox and adding a macro bet better? I would like to use the least intrusive way of doing this, so downloading the fewest programs and skipping approval (as in AutoWikiBrowser) would be most ~~conveienet~~convenient.

User:John of Reading ~~suggest~~suggested I ask: "Is there a way to highlight all words on a web page that match a regular expression?". Thanks for your help.Curb Chain (talk) 08:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can use Greasemonkey and scripts based on this example to do what you want. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

in general is something like vmware secure?

if I don't give vmware guest access to the internet can i install an untrusted OS in it and then install even less trusted software under that OS? Or can software be expected to break out of vm and mess with my actual computer? I'm asking about in practice, not in theory. thanks.. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 11:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think software can be "expected" to do this unless it is really especially targeted to break out of virtualized environments. Such a thing is possible through exploiting vulnerabilities, but I would expect any software that had this capability to be really quite finely targeted for this purpose. I don't think your run-of-the-mill malware is going to bother trying to figure out if it should be trying to break out of a virtual environment. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would however suggest you deny the guest all network access rather then simply internet access. (Actually if you intend to install dodgy programs in the guest, I'm not sure what the point of denying internet access is other then as good netequitte or to stop your ISP kicking you become part of a botnet or whatever. Well unless you also intend to store private information on the guest.) Or at the very least make extra sure your host is properly firewalled and protected against things it may normally regard as the LAN. Spreading across the LAN, particularly if the host OS is the same, is something malware is often designed to do. (Of course for the same reason many modern OSes no longer trust things on the LAN like they may have done so in the past, particularly over wireless LANs. And this is something you'd want to set up anyway if you have other computers in the LAN you don't entirely trust. But even if you do, there's no reason to give the VM access to anything you don't need it to have access to. And if there are other computer in the LAN which aren't under your control, simple courtesy would suggest either no network access or host only network access would be preferred.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you (OP here)! This is quite the useful advice... I've disabled the virtualized network card and chose to go with the less popular of VMWare or Virtual Box, just in case the author knows how to break out of the more popular one :)...and running the latest version of course. thanks for the heads-up and well-thought-out tip. 94.27.158.198 (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why programs damage images?

for example this [1] How can I get programs to exapand images like that? I want them to show each pixel, not to blurry them... --190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your image scaling program is doing image interpolation, to try to produce a better upscaled result. That's usually a good idea with natural stuff like photos, but it's often a bad idea when manipulating drawn stuff like diagrams, for the reasons your example illustrates. So look in the settings for the image-scaling part of your graphics program, and turn interpolation off (for example, the documentation for Gimp's image scaler is here). 87.114.90.11 (talk) 14:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How that scaling effect is called? Without interpolation Scaling? lol --190.60.93.218 (talk) 16:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In Photoshop it is called nearest neighbor. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've always heard it called anti-aliasing. 86.179.114.39 (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-aliasing is the opposite of what we're talking about, here. The OP was asking about how you preserve the hard edges, not blur them. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, I understand that... I meant that the OP wanted to avoid anti-aliasing. Sorry if unclear. 86.179.114.39 (talk) 01:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right. And the scaling mode that avoids anti-aliasing is called... nearest neighbor. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd want the prog to take out the jaggies but keep the image black and white, like my version here:

Are there any programs that can do that ? StuRat (talk) 19:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of algorithms that try to do similar things. See Image_scaling#Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms. They are not standard to most photo editing packages, but there are implementations for them that one can get the code for. They're most often used in video game emulators, in my experience. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you want that, you should use a vector graphics format, such as SVG. It's silly to try to get vector behavior from raster images. Looie496 (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's not always an option. For example, if I do a screen grab I get a raster image too small to print on a standard sized page. It would be nice to be able to scale it up to print out at a reasonable size, without jaggies. StuRat (talk) 00:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The house could be Live traced though I wanted a big 8-bit appeareance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I get the result you want in Gimp by:

1) Image->Mode->Indexed

2) Select radio button "Use black and white (1 bit) pallete

3) Click convert

4) Scale image

-- Q Chris (talk) 16:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does that smooth out the jaggies ? StuRat (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's exactly like the bottom right image in the picture. I think that smoothing edges is more than just an image processing problem, you would need to start with the assumption that its a straight-line drawing and reconstruct the figure that is most likely to gve the blocks in the original.-- Q Chris (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to this, somewhere there is an Interpolation option, and you can set it to "none." --Mr.98 (talk) 14:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cookies in Windows 7

Hi, how do you get to view cookie lists in Windows 7 / IE 9?

One suggested method, Internet Options > General > Settings > View Files, seems to show only a very small subset of cookies for me, mostly Microsoft and Google. (Why is that?)

Another suggestion is to look in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies. This shows some files, but only useless encrypted filenames where you cannot see where the cookies came from. Also, there do not seem to be as many files as I would expect. There is a subdirectory called "Low", which some people suggest contains the cookies, or more cookies, but I cannot access it. I get "These files can't be opened: Your internet security settings prevented one or more files from being opened." What setting would that be? I have already selected "Show hidden files" and unchecked "Hide protected files" in Windows Explorer.

I seem to remember in XP there was a way to display a user-readable list of cookies. How can this be done in Windows 7?

Regards, 86.179.114.39 (talk) 14:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well you can't just click the folder 'cause it's hiden, it's a hidden file even if you disable hiding hiden files. For exmaple some of my cookies are stored here: "%Homdrive%\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" and some of them are in %temp%... you should check it. IMHO I think they are messed up on your temp files. --190.60.93.218 (talk) 16:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think ie cookies are just not readable, you have to use IE GUI to see them... Microsoft is evil --190.60.93.218 (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I don't mind using "IE GUI" to see them ... but how do I do that? 86.179.114.39 (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

here --190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I already did several Google searches before I came here to ask. I cannot find a procedure that works. 86.179.114.39 (talk) 14:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried using this (http://www.raboof.com/projects/iecache/) utility? It seems like it may be exactly what you want. Lhcii (talk) 21:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the suggestion, but I never download software from random websites that I've never heard of. I was hoping (expecting) there would be something within Windows that would do it. 86.183.2.20 (talk) 00:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is a very good policy and I understand your skepticism. However, I really don't think there is any reason to worry about Atif Aziz's website or any of the software on it.

I searched around a bit and it seems like:

the software is safe, (http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/raboof.com/downloads/startat10/).

and Atif Aziz is legit (http://geekswithblogs.net/AndrewSiemer/archive/2009/11/14/dotnetradio.com---podcast-2-ndash-interview-with-atif-aziz-creator.aspx)

I also ran the software myself (http://i.imgur.com/eewi9.png) and ended up with a short list because I use Chrome. Lhcii (talk) 02:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Different Divs

I have an HTML document with four different div tags for a header, a content section, a side menu, and a footer. How can I give all four of them different background colours, font styles/colours, etcetera in a CSS document? I can change the whole page if I change the "body" attribute, but either I don't know the proper names for the four or it can't be done. Inter change able|talk to me 18:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You have to give your divs different classes or different ids. In your case it shouldn't matter much which you choose. Multiple elements can have the same class, but ids have to be unique. Add an attribute id="someid" or class="someclass" to the div in your HTML. Then in your CSS you can use div#someid {...} or div.someclass {...}. KarlLohmann (talk) 19:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Typewriter effect in Windows Live Movie Maker

I'm trying to create a credit scene where the words appear on a black background, animated with the typewriter effect. I'm using the windows live movie maker that comes preinstalled with Windows 7. I can't find the option for typewriter anywhere. Can anyone help? 117.226.141.77 (talk) 19:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you believe that such an effect is available? All the search results I'm seeing right now indicate that is specifically is NOT something included in Movie Maker. --LarryMac | Talk 19:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, you could create such an effect manually by adding one letter, holding for several frames, then adding the next, etc. To really make it look like a typewriter, make the letters darker in spots and lighter in others, slightly misaligned with each other, and go back and X out a mistake. Typewriter sounds would also add to the illusion (and don't forget the bell and return sound at the end of the line). However, note that people under the age of 40 may not have ever seen a typewriter.StuRat (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Movies still use green VDU characters that appear as if on a 20 baud connection; I doubt one viewer in a thousand has ever used a computer display remotely as slow as that. Wargames set a trope for how movie computers work, one immune to upgrades. Like the heart monitor flatlining when someone dies, it's a movie trope well understood by people who've no experience of heart rate monitors. The Dougie Howser/Jessica Fletcher typewriter thing will work just as well now. 87.114.127.133 (talk) 01:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's Doogie Howser. StuRat (talk) 00:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 8

Joint authoring a document

Hello everyone. I live in NZ and am trying to co-author a paper with someone in the UK. We would like to both work on the same 'master' document (no forking or getting confused about which version we are working on; we especially don't want to email versions back and forth). We find 'track changes' or similar to see what the other person has added or changed useful. I use a macosx and kubuntu with openoffice, he uses windows with office. I am not sure he could cope with svn. Can any refdeskers advise? Thanks, Robinh (talk) 03:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Google Documents supports collaborative editing, and has some support for revisions (I haven't worked with revisions much, so I can't tell how well-implemented that's it). Paul (Stansifer) 03:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

thanks! Looks good to me. I didn't know googledocs had a revision history.

Resolved

Robinh (talk) 03:31, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

computer project

I want to lern about computer project .Please tell me different project nane and there fild. I am Account student in Gujarat University and i want make my own project on Account fild .I also know about managment fild project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niravbhavsar (talk • contribs) 05:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have a hard time understanding you. If you are asking about computer programs in the accounting field, then spreadsheets come to mind immediately. Follow that link to read more. StuRat (talk) 06:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Greater resolutions in Virtual Box

Resolved

I'm running Ubuntu 10.4 in Virtual Box. I'd like a resolution above 800x600 but I don't have any options above that. I'm running the VM on a Lenovo ThinkPad T400. How can I get a larger resolution? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 10:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried assigning more memory in the display->video settings tab? Also, have you installed the VirtualBox ubuntu guest additions (I don't know about a Linux guest, but at least for a Windows guest that installs a more suitable video driver in the guest). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience (Ubuntu and CentOS on MAcOS-X) you always need the Guest Additions for proper video support, including fullscreen mode.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And mine: sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant && sudo m-a prepare then mount guest additions (Install guest additions from VBox menu), and run the Linux installer shell script. ¦ Reisio (talk) 13:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to ensure you actually install it, rather than running live. It's really easy to run live off the CD and think you've done an install. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(OP here) The guest additions got it. Thanks everyone!! Dismas|^(talk) 20:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Google Documents Versioning

As mentioned above, Google Docs includes a versioning facility, although it works slightly differently for Google's native formats and docs saved in their own forms.
I'm trying to save a new version of an Excel spreadsheet. I've done so several times before, but now, it insists on creating a new document with the same name. Can anyone suggest why it's suddenly behaving differently?
Thanks, Rojomoke (talk) 14:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This suggests that true versioning is only for Google Docs format documents, and that for non-Docs documents one saves multiple versions, as it's asking you to do. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but that's what I meant by "works slightly differently for Google's native formats". For non-Docs documents, you save multiple versions, but they should appear in the file listing as a single item. I'm using "Add or Manage Versions" option to add a new version, but it's appearing as a completely separate entry. I hope that clarifies the problem. Rojomoke (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Linux command: dir <number range>

I have a big list of files with number as names. How do I get a list of files number x to number y or higher than z? 188.76.164.174 (talk) 14:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are the names like 1, 27, 316, or are they like 0001, 0027, 0316 ? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are time stamps like 20111231134533 (meaning year, month, day, hour). Higher than x seems easy 2011* will deal with that. But I don't know how to choose a range. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.76.164.174 (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think ls will do that itself; you'd need to wrap it either with grep or with a bash script. Thinking in bash hurts my brain, so I can't help you with that (but it's surely a one-liner). I can easily give you a python script that will do it, if you like. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can include regex ranges in the arguments for ls, for example: ls -l 201112311345[30-33] Keegstr (talk) 18:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't do what you imply: [30-33] (in glob or regexp) is the same as [0-3] (because it expands to [301233]). Of course, in that case you can simply write 3[0-3]. The easiest general solution is to use awk:

ls | awk '$1>=x && $1<=y {print}'

--Tardis (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Server load estimate

For an auction website which has data that is regularly updated on various pages (e.g. item page, home page, users' watchlists), I would like to figure out a relation between number of users, number of pages being refreshed (or number of values?) and refresh interval such that the server does not break. Basically what I would like to know is, how often and on how many pages may I refresh for say 100 visitors to the website? Could somebody point me in the right direction? bamse (talk) 16:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To do this analysis I would create a mockup of the auction page so I could figure out which data, and then how much data, will be refreshed; then you can do a little math to figure out the answer. Without the mockup, any guessing may be useless. To perform this analysis quicker you might want to base the mockup on an existing auction website. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you're looking for a "mockup" of a commercial website, you don't have to start from scratch. The "canonical" example of an enterprise server software suite is the Java Enterprise Edition Pet Store, a tutorial and sample code that runs on Java EE. The sample program implements a full AJAX-enabled web front-end, a server and database system back-end, complete with load-balancing. Most of the code is free software; it runs on Apache Tomcat, (it looks like newer versions are even more tightly integrated with GlassFish), or you can run it on your own favorite Java application server. Nimur (talk) 19:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the replies. For the estimate does it matter whether:

N users are watching the same page (i.e. does it count N times or is it the same as if just one user watched that page)?
a page contains only one variable being refreshed or more than one (do the type of variables matter)?

bamse (talk) 16:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, all of these things matter - but any individual item's impact to total system performance depends entirely on your server software architecture. These systems are very complex, and usually require a lot of professional, highly-trained engineers who spend a lot of time to design and analyze them. You might start by reading Profiling an Enterprise Application in NetBeans IDE. Run through the entire tutorial. NetBeans is a very powerful, free, open-source software development environment suitable for tackling this problem. It can be used, for example, to generate graphs like this, showing CPU and Memory and other resource utilization. Nimur (talk) 19:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I will do some reading now. bamse (talk) 08:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cell-phones' OS

Which OSs do cell-phones use/d normally? (excluding the obvious, like Android, Symbian, RIM's and such). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.79.238 (talk) 22:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but your question seems curious to me. Won't the ones "normally" used usually be the "obvious" ones? 86.179.114.39 (talk) 22:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, not long ago, the OS was not explicitly stated by the manufacturer or re-seller. You just got a Nokia this or a Sony-Ericson that. Which OSs do or did these cell-phones had? 88.8.79.238 (talk) 23:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In general, such devices are called embedded systems, and are often powered by commercially-available operating systems such as μCOS, eCos, ThreadX, rtxc, QNX, linux (in many forms), or a Java ME VM system. Perhaps they were powered by a similar, but not-generally-available-for-purchase operating system, in which case this portion of the software system may not have had a marketing name. These sorts of operating systems are very familiar to embedded system programmers; they have the sorts of tools and utilities that are helpful to a programmer who is designing a cell phone; but they often do not have the sorts of things an end-consumer expects from an operating system (like a user interface). For example, on uCOS, it is not even possible to "run a program." (There's no shell, and no fork; just threads, called "Tasks"). The operating system exists only to assist the system programmer in creating a complete product: it provides facilities for management of system resources, like memory, I/O, sharing the CPU, and so on. Nimur (talk) 00:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(treading carefully so as not to ask a dumb question) Sooo, in the article on the Nokia 3310 why is there 'n/a' in the section 'Operating system' in the infobox? Is it just some primitive embedded software that runs the unit? --Ouro (blah blah) 07:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A simple(r) embedded system will typically run a micro executive, which only does a handful of basic things (threads, queues, message-exchanges, semaphores, mutexes, ISRs). That's often nothing more than a library file. That's compiled with the monolithic system software (hardware bring-up, device drivers, and the actual phone application) all to produce a single statically-located binary image (often as a Motorola S-Record or Intel Hex format) ready to be loaded onto the system's PROM. In cases like that there's no isolation (the CPU/MMU doesn't support memory protection anyway) and the "API" that "applications" call is nothing more than a header file which makes direct calls (not syscalls). Applications (like the snake game) are just compiled in with the rest of the system firmware, and changing or adding one requires recompiling the whole thing. This obviously poses low requirements on the system, but it's obviously inflexible, so mobile phones have graduated to more sophisticated systems with proper isolation, real APIs, and separate linking, that we can reasonably compare to the OSes of desktop machines. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From what I've read and seen, most of the cheap Chinese phones using MediaTek chipsets use Nucleus RTOS. Both articles also suggests likewise (although it may be a specific variant of Nucleus RTOS by MediaTek called MAUI). The Nucleus RTOS article suggests some non Chinese phones also used it. [2] while coming from someone involved with the company making Nucleus RTOS has some discussion in the comments on OS usage. (Note as mentioned in the comments and our Nucleus RTOS article this can be a bit confusing because the phone may use a RTOS for the baseband processor but a different OS for the application processor.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And, of course, TRON. ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Nokia 3310 probably runs Series 30 (software platform). 67.117.145.9 (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I at first smiled when a direct answer like that was given, looking at the article for Series 30, it says the 3510 was an early Series 30 phone. Nokia 3310 predates that by three to four years, so I'm inclined to think it runs on an earlier platform. --Ouro (blah blah) 10:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 9

Help (compter reboots after 20-25 minutes)

My PC works like dream when i do stuffs like surfing , watching movie etc but whenever i play any game it restarts after 20-25 min and keeps restarting with very soft beep (teep..) untill i switch it off for 15-20 min. i have cleaned the cabinet, reinstalled windows stil the probelm persists. all of my cpu fans are working 117.224.246.44 (talk) 06:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Open the case carefully and clean it inside as well. Do the fans work particularly loudly? Do they usually work (as opposed to only working when the computer's under a full load)? Is the ventilation around the case sufficient?

Does the problem persist with any game, or maybe just with some of them? Do these games have a common denominator to them (to the best of your knowledge)? --Ouro (blah blah) 07:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

yeah one of my fan which i brought recently works a little loud but i dont think it is a heating issue because i once tried playing games with CPU cabinet open. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.224.246.44 (talk) 07:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That can actually make the problem worse, not better, since it won't get very good airflow that way. RudolfRed (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaned the cabinet again.... Still no improvement 117.224.43.60 (talk) 08:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Has it always been this way? If not, can you recollect any specific event after which the situation had worsened? --Ouro (blah blah) 11:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This problem is occurring from last weak and i cant recall any specific event :( 117.225.24.139 (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Ouro, knowing whether or not this problem persists with any game would be helpful. For example, if your computer crashes when you play a game like Battlefield 3, but it doesn't care if you play Plants vs. Zombies or a simple flash game in your browser, then it helps narrow down the possible causes. It could be that your computer only crashes when it accesses a second stick of RAM (which it might only need to do for demanding applications) that isn't properly seated or has gone bad. It could also be that these games cause your GPU to overheat because its fan has stopped working. You really need more specific information in order to diagnose the problem. Lhcii (talk) 18:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Use one of those "system monitor" (maybe something is built into windows) utilities to check the cpu and gpu temperatures. The fan isn't the whole issue. Just a few days ago someone here had a cpu overheating because one of the heat sink clips was bent and the heat sink wasn't making good thermal contact with the cpu. You might also have something like flaky RAM. Try pulling the ram modules out of the board, cleaning the contacts with an eraser, and putting them back in, making sure to seat them firmly. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While opening the case alone may not solve an overheating program, opening the case and pointing a box fan at the guts on HI certainly will help. Try that. Obviously this is rather annoying as a permanent solution, but will tell you if overheating is the issue. From the symptoms, it does sound like the graphics processor might be overheating. StuRat (talk) 04:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added to the title to make it useful. StuRat (talk) 05:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC) [reply]

Try CPUz and GPUz, they can make log files for you to look at to see whether anything was causing a problem or overheating just before the PC shuts down. You should also check and make sure that any BIOS settings for monitoring temperatures and fan speeds are enabled, I have a beep set if my CPU goes over 60 C, just in case something else fails to tell me of any problem that might be there. Chaosdruid (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to install GAP in Gimp

I just downloaded the Gimp Animation Package to use with Gimp, but I can't install it. The problem is that I cannot find the folder that's supposed to launch the setup (Gimp-GAP-2.6.0-Setup2.exe.). I downloaded the file from here, btw: ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/plug-ins/v2.6/gap/ 70.29.244.213 (talk) 09:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

F3 --190.60.93.218 (talk) 17:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is my question not appearing on the page? 70.29.244.213 (talk) 18:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like this forum thread (http://www.gimptalk.com/index.php?/topic/28397-gimp-gap-260-for-windows/) is discussing the same issue you are having. There is a link to the Gimp-GAP-2.6.0-Setup2.exe you mention in the opening post. However, it seems that the 2.6.0 version isn't stable and they suggest that you download the 2.4.0 version, for which they also provide a link. I didn't read through the whole thread, looks to me like you'll find some helpful information in there though. Lhcii (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would this computer be ok for my purpose?

I am looking to purchase a smallish, portable laptop to take to class to take notes using, preferably the 2010 versions of, MS Word, Powerpoint and Adobe Reader. Would an old Mac with the following specs be ok? I will be transferring these notes from the PowerBook to my Windows 7 main PC laptop at home.

Apple Mac PowerBook 12" PowerPC G4, OSX 10.5.8, 1.33 GHz, 512 MB RAM, BUS Speed: 167 Mhz.

Thanks, Acceptable (talk) 09:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does the 2010 version of Office work on a PPC? The 2011 version says it will only work on Intel (in the system requirements section here). In addition, laptop batteries degrade with age - my 5 year old laptop's battery now only sustains the machine for a minute or two. Replacing the battery on the mac would probably obviate the savings you're looking for in buying such an old machine. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is probably the version of Office you will want. If its minimum required specification is anything like Office 2010, I doubt it will run acceptably on a 1.33 GHz, 512 MB RAM system. You can checkout the system requirements for Word 2011 and Powerpoint 2011. Astronaut (talk) 11:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First requirement on the list: "A Mac computer with an Intel processor". A PowerPC G4 is not an Intel processor. It won't work. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you could make it work, but all of PPC, Mac, and hardware that old are asking for trouble. A similar vintage non-Apple computer for the same price will get you significantly more impressive hardware. ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. It also doesn't help that the newer versions of Office run like crap on even new versions of the Mac. I would recommend using the iWork Suite instead, from personal experience. You can export to MS Office formats if you need to and can read them all. Office for Mac is a buggy, crashy, slow program. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hits on webpages

thepeerage.com gives one of my pages as a reference. I suspect as a result that page gets a lot of hits. How can I tell how many, preferably using cPanelX? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You need to be able to read the access logs of the (virtual, perhaps) webserver instance that services your website. Either your hosting provider will have installed their own log analysis package or you'd download the logs and run an analyser (e.g. awstats) on them yourself. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Success. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Grabbing frames of video

Resolved

How can I gram frames of video, (no I don't need a programm that asks to specific frame) I want to have half of the frames of all frames.. I found a programm called Video to image converter, It provides me exatcly what I want. the bad thing is that It doesn't support Matroska files (mkv). (PS: I remember I had a program similar who supported mkv files, but I'm not having good results with google, I just don't type the right keywords) --190.60.93.218 (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DVDVideoSoft's website (http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/guides/free-video-to-jpg-converter.htm) lists the video file formats that they support in the footer. This includes .mp4, so I suggest that you convert the file into .mp4 first (http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_mkv_to_mp4_for_xbox_360.cfm) and then use your program on the newly converted file. Lhcii (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ROfl it's funny you got the answer.. after Deep scanning my hard drive (because i was desesperate) I found a program called freevideotojpgconverter ohh yes! =) I'm so happy lol. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the keyboard not match what it produces?

I am at a library. The key to the right of : says " above ' but produces @, and the key that says @ produces ". Also, the key that produces my signature (~) gives me ¬ instead. The key that should give me | gives me ~. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I expect the OS is configured for a different keyboard then is actually present on the computer. Perhaps a UK keyboard when it's a US one. Nil Einne (talk) 14:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Sounds like the keyboard defined for that PC is a UK English keyboard. Go to 'Regional and language' settings in the control panel and make sure it has the correct keyboard and language settings. Astronaut (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I talked to one of the librarians and he said they're getting new machines soon.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a drastic solution to a 2 minute fix in Windows. Astronaut (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

_{You're computers are damaged? oh don't worry send them to me! If they're so useless for you! 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)}[reply]

Which key produces which character is configurable in software. Which marking is physically printed on which key isn't. It would therefore be quite difficult to always ensure a full 1-to-1 correspondence between the two. JIP | Talk 21:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on Keyboard layouts show the different language keyboard layouts – which should back-up what has been said above. Changing the language keyboard layout should be an option available even to a library users. It should not be an admin only option. If you're blocked and can't change it, ask the librarian for the phone number of their IT support and create hell with them. If you can fix it yourself – do let the librarian know what a little smart-arse you are. He will then owe-you-one if you get any overdue fines etc. Depending on what version of windoz their using, you what need to find is the Language bar, third option along. Hope you find this is useful.--Aspro (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to Astronaut: the librarian saw no point in getting IT to do anything to computers that are being replaced. It's apparently not as simple as it sounds.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 23:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you not fix it yourself? As I said, it's a 2 minute job. Astronaut (talk) 11:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not jump to conclusions: the computers are not being replaced because the keyboard doesn't work. They probably are being replaced and no one is willing to invest any second on them anymore. Add to it that most people are helpless even when it comes down to simple fixes and that not averyone has an admin password at hand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.36.33.29 (talk) 13:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You want everyone and his brother at a library to be able to make changes? The person I asked read what was here and only said they weren't going to bother the IT people when there were upgrades planned.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A couple points:

1) They probably don't allow customers to change the keyboard layout, as that would result in practical jokers leaving it set to Japanese, etc.

2) If they are unwilling to fix it, I suggest just labeling the keyboard to match what it produces. I find that cutting off the sticky part of Post-It notes and placing them directly above the keys in question works for the top row (assuming a suitable gap between them and the function keys). This type of label can easily be removed, in case they reuse the keyboards with the new computers. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vchimpanzee, read and learn from Astronaut. Forget what the librarian has said. People, some of them foreigners, wonder into a library (as do mischievous school kids) and should they want to send an email back to friends and relativities in their home country – change the keyboard layout to what they are familiar with – but don't change it back before they leave! It would be daft not to allow their many users to do this. Travel the world and you will find many internet cafe's in cosmopolitan areas with keyboards set to different languages – (have you ever travelled out-side the US?). If their clientèle can change it – then so can YOU. As for the Librarian: Remember those times when everything was written on long scrolls of parchment? Well, this video clip shows a librarian of those times try to grasp new book technology. [3]. Watch, then see if you can make the connection with modern times. --Aspro (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can cycle through the various installed keyboard layouts by pressing ⇧ Shift+Ctrl. Repeat until the right characters appear when typing a key. — Edokter (talk) — 19:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. If I manage to end up on the same computer next time I am there, I will try those last two ideas. If someone else is on it, I won't.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I am here. Let me see what happens.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There must be more to it than ⇧ Shift+Ctrl. That's not doing anything. On the other hand, the video was captioned, so I was able to appreciate it with no sound. Thanks for that. They would expect me to provide my own headphones.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:45, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well the default for Windows 7 seems to be left shift+alt to me. However rather then fooling around with shortcut keys, I would have first tried the control panel which for whatever reason you don't seem to have done. I take it the language bar is not floating or docked on the taskbar (should show up as a a EN or whatever code for the language and/or a keyboard). Nil Einne (talk) 22:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I explored other options but they didn't work either. But it's a library and the control panel is off limits.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 23:34, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Simple question I hope

Resolved

Whenever I download any PDF from an online source (which is like five times a day) instead of opening it saves and I have to go find it in the download folder and open it. I could swear it used to open without this extra step. I imagine it's a settings issue but I don't know if the setting is in my computer or the browser I use or the PDF program I run. I am on a Macmini running Snow Leopard I think. I have Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 and I use Firefox. Thanks.--108.14.197.46 (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox gives you the option to always handle files of the same type the same way. At some point you must have chosen the 'Save as' option rather than the 'Run' option and also told Firefox to always save files of the same type (PDF). In order to change this setting and restore the way it handles PDF's to the default, navigate to Tools>Options in Firefox, then click the 'Applications' tab. There should be a few listings on the left side for 'Adobe Acrobat Document', you need to change the drop-down on the right to 'Use Adobe Acrobat' or 'Always ask'. Note that I am giving you these instructions from version 10.0 of Firefox on Windows XP, so there may be disparity in the instructions. Lhcii (talk) 20:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. It works. Will save me lots of time (over time). Thanks!--108.14.197.46 (talk) 21:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Telling if a company is legit

How can I tell if this company is legit? Charter Global. They sent me a recruitment email and the job looks interesting but I do not want to get scammed. 68.232.119.30 (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing I have found looks particularly scammey. Suggest you email them back and ask them how they found you -which is a reasonable question to ask- and say your interested. Being wary is wise but at the same time it might by legit. I think you (we) need more information before you (we) can make that judgment.--Aspro (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you're being wary, how do you even know the mail came from them? Isn't it still the case that it's trivial to send a mail purporting to come from someone else? I suppose if the return mail is to a checkable domain name then at least you know where you are replying to... 86.183.2.20 (talk) 22:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If they really are trying to recruit you, there's no reason they should be asking for money or credit card numbers. If they ask for those, it's definitely a scam. What could be trickier is if they say they want to do a background check, so ask for your social security number, birth date, etc., which could also be used for identity theft. I'd be rather suspicious if they ask for that info before they meet with you in person. StuRat (talk) 04:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reply directly to charter Global, through their web page if you are interested. Also check past versions of their web-page through archive.org, that will get you an idea of the organization that they are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.36.33.29 (talk) 13:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ActiveX in IE9 / Win 7

Hello!, under what circumstances does IE 9 prompt for websites to run ActiveX (assuming default security settings)? I have Flash installed, and that seems to run on any website without prompting. Yet when I go to http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/browser/activexfiltering/Default.html I am prompted "This webpage wants to run the following add-on: 'Windows Media Player' from 'Microsoft Corporation'". However, when I look at the list of installed add-ons, Windows Media Player is already there, installed and enabled, just like Flash, and even appears in the list of add-ons that can "run without permission". Why am I prompted in one case but not the other? What is the difference?

Furthermore, if a website wanted to run a brand new ActiveX that I did not even have installed, then what would happen? Presumably big red warnings and alarms? For fairly obvious reasons I do not want to seek out websites with unknown ActiveX content to test this...

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could shed any light on this. I cannot find any useful explanation in Microsoft help. 86.183.2.20 (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to remove screwdriver head from Milwaukee Shockwave socket set?

I have a Milwaukee Shockwave screwdriver and drill bit set, and I have a small screwdriver head stuck in the hex socket that fits into a drill chuck or screwdriver body - it seems to be locked in there, and I can't figure out how to remove it - any ideas? THanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.76.48.158 (talk) 22:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These are good tools. Rather than ask here (where you’ll get suggestions like -dip it into liquid nitrogen and it will simply contract and drop out) contact Milwaukee direct. After all, you have paid a premium for quality and thus your entitled to after-sales service that a Chinese back-street work-shop wont give you. See here:[4]--Aspro (talk) 22:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - I will call them tomorrow, but they are closed right now - I wondered whether there was something obvious I was missing, like twisting the chuck or something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.76.48.158 (talk) 22:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK - got it - you just have to REALLY pull them - there is a strong magnet in the base. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.76.48.158 (talk) 23:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Help with Regular Expression (Syntax Searching) Please?

Hello, I'm using a custom word filter, and it uses Regular Expressions.

I'd like to filter out (match) "angst" regardless of type case, or if a 'y' is added after it to become 'angsty.' So that whether it is AnGsTyfjdL or anything else it will still get matched and filtered. Going to do this for a bunch of meaningless adhoms. Hopefully this example will be enough to teach me what I need for all of them. Thank you very much. --68.117.130.106 (talk) 23:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

what tool will you be using for the search? If it's grep, you can do "grep -i -e angst -e angsty". The -i makes it ignore case and each -e is a pattern to search for. RudolfRed (talk) 23:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(?i)angsty|angst -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not using Grep, but doing -i did work. Thanks a lot. --68.117.130.106 (talk) 02:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 10

USB 3 external hard drive

I see external hard drives (HD) that use USB 3.0. My computer has USB 2.0. As I understand it, USB 2.0 speed is slower than the transfer rate of a HD but USB 3.0 is faster (than the HD transfer rate). If I put a USB 3.0 card in my computer, a USB 3.0 external HD would be faster than a USB 2.0 one, right? Would the transfer speed of an external USB 3.0 HD be close to that of an internal HD? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See List of device bit rates#Peripheral. Answer is basically yes. Moondyne (talk) 04:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Thank you. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Computers showing incorrect bit rate of songs question

I recently downloaded a song that was around 3 minutes long and was over 8 MB, which for that length in that size would be at 320 kbps, but when I right clicked the audio file, then clicked the properties options, and then clicked the details tab; I saw that it said that it was 192 kbps, which I know is incorrect. It should say 320 kbps based on the size and length. Also, I noticed there have been many past circumstances where I would download a song that was not 320 kbps, 256 kbps, 192 kbps, 160 kbps, nor 128 kbps, but a kbps between those numbers like 260 kbps or 172 kbps for example. However, when I looked at the Details section of Properties, the computer would register it at 320 kbps instead. So, why would the computer sometimes display the wrong bit-rate of songs? Is it the computer or does the error have to do with the way an audio file was compressed or made? What causes these errors? Willminator (talk) 01:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many audio files use a variable bit rate. It sounds like you are asking for an average bit-rate, which seems like the most intuitive measure of a VBR file; and your program is displaying "something else" (perhaps, bitrate of the first compressed frame, or bitrate identified in the ID3 tag, which might be incorrect). Nimur (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Slow computer

Over the last week, my computer has been very slow. This suggests to me that perhaps something is running in the background. How do I determine if something is doing so and how do I get rid of things I don't want to be there? I haven't downloaded anything other than my emails 72.136.132.216 (talk) 02:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I forgot to add that I am running XP. 72.136.132.216 (talk) 02:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think this works on XP: do ctrl-alt-del and start the Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab. Then the CPU column will show you what percentage of the CPU each process is using. You can click on the CPU heading to have it sort them by CPU usage. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Almost. The "CPU" tab has some weird two digit numbers, most of which are 00. There's a "CPU Time" column which does what you said. You need to click on it twice to sort in descending order. Of course, CPU time might not be the limiting resources, so the "Mem Usage" column and others should be checked out, too.

Then, if you find some process you can't identify taking up an inordinate portion of the resources, kill it and see if things improve or if it manages to restart. If, on the other hand, some process you actually need (like your browser) is the culprit, then you might need to reinstall that app to get rid of whatever has infected it. You could try running some anti-malware progs first, like AdAware and Spybot Search & Destroy. StuRat (talk) 04:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those two-digit numbers in the CPU column are the percentage of the CPU that the process is using. The "CPU time" column is the CPU time it has used since it has started. I'd look first for something using a high percentage of the CPU (unless something is accessing the HD a lot). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone. I will go through these steps. I frequently run spybot and will do it again before I try these steps.

72.136.132.216 (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Xbox 360s Hdd

Hi, I have an Xbox 360s with a small hdd, I want to buy a new one that has more storage, but I noticed that all the drives are internal. So, I had two questions: is it hard to install the drive? And can I keep the original drive and run it alongside the new one, or will I need to somehow remove the old drive, install the new one, and transfer everything to it? Thank you for any help:-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.252.235.206 (talk) 05:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See our article section Xbox 360 accessories#Detachable hard drives. The drive is a 2.5" notebook drive that's encased in a proprietary case and has proprietary firmware. Here is Microsoft's article on how to use a proprietary transfer cable to copy the contents of the old hard disk from the new one — though I think this article is about the old-style Xbox hard disks, not the "S" disks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No need for extremely complicated passwords

The advent of brute force and dictionary-based password cracking has compromised many computer systems, e-mail accounts, etc. thanks to the raw computing power of advanced password crackers. The usual response has been to ask people to make up ever longer and more complicated passwords, which in turn may be forgotten by the users.

However, I've thought of a far simpler way, which would both help users stay with relatively simple passwords and solve the brute force cracking problem virtually forever: why not design all computers and encryption systems such that, if you type the wrong password, you have to wait for five seconds before you can type the password again? It would only be a very minor inconvenience for human users, but it would immediately render useless the raw computing power of advanced password crackers, regardless of how performing they may become in the future - who cares if your password cracker can calculate one billion passwords per second if it can only enter one password every five seconds? Even dictionary-based attacks with a relatively small search space would take decades or even centuries to carry out.

So... Is there a technical reason why this has not been done everywhere, or has nobody ever thought of it before? Leptictidium (mt) 10:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a technique already widely used; as is allowing only a certain number of incorrect guesses before locking the user account and requiring an admin reset. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well yes... Maybe I worded my question poorly. My question is "Why is this not done everywhere"? Leptictidium (mt) 10:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's how it works already. Massive dictionary cracking is mostly done when someone has stolen a copy of a password database and is cracking it on their own computer. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 10:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(EC with below) Also the OP doesn't appear to understand how password cracking works. You can't design a local encryption system such that if you type the wrong password you have to wait 5 seconds. If you enforce a software limitation, this is fairly pointless since anyone who wants to crack the password will just break the software to remove the limitation. Actually few would brute force by trying to use the program anyway, this imposes unnecessary interface limitations.

What you can do is make the computation expensive and this is sometimes done. However this is not going to guarantee it will take 5 seconds per password. Someone trying to break the password is likely to have access to far more computing resources, so will be able to do far more then one per 5 second. (You'd generally not want it being much more then 5-10 seconds even if the person has some junky slow old single core.) Worse they may be able to use the GPU or dedicated hardware to vastly speed up computation (possibly in the order of 200x of more) if they're really interested.

And while this works for local passwords, it doesn't work for remote ones (where the server serves many users) since if the computation is very expensive this means it will be very difficult for the company to serve many users without spending a large amount of resources. As FM said, most companies will impose limitations on the frequency or number of tries per account which since it's remote. you can't avoid. But this doesn't help you if the database is stolen. When people do bruteforce passwords on remote computers, they usually rely on parellisation of accounts. (Actually most do this all the time.)

Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Something to be aware of when enforcing a waiting period is that it can be used for denial of service. And the concept is not applicable to encryption, where the premise is that about everybody could have access to the encrypted data and you would remain safe. If it takes only 5 seconds per password to check if it was used for encryption then it takes less than 60 computers to check for the million most common passwords in 24 hours. --145.94.77.43 (talk) 13:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to create a range of passwords that don't get confused or forgotten

Hi. The above question made me think of this one. Like most people, I use a range of different passwords for different machines, websites, software etc. The ones I use often, I tend to remember, but the others get confused or forgotten.

Worse, some of the passwords I need to use have to be changed regularly, and the system won't allow old passwords to be used.

I don't want to do anything unsafe, like write them down or use just one for the lot of them.

I guess this is a common problem for techies (not me, you! This is the reason for posting here, rather than at the Misc board) so, I'm wondering if you know of any tips out there for creating suites of easy to remember safe passwords. --Dweller (talk) 10:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I use Keepass to generate and store insanely un-memorable passwords. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 10:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sophos suggest generating a nonsense word that you can easily re-generate from scratch each time you need it. See here. On the other hand, xkcd suggests using dictionary words in unusual combinations, like this. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So now you know, when hacking into a geek's computer, forget trying pet names, go straight for correcthoresebatterystaple. Works every time. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it's just for web sites, Firefox's built-in password autofill feature works pretty well. Otherwise, there are various password manager programs you can use. Generating passwords can be done with a "key derivation" function like PBKDF2. You'd choose a "master password" from which the others are generated, and use the name of the web site you want to log into as the salt. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 00:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How can I tell if I have USB 3.0?

How can I tell if my computer has USB 3.0? I think it is only USB 2.0, ut I want to check. I tried control panel/system, Speccy, and Belarc Advisor, but none of them seem to say. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Open Device Manager (Start -> Control Panel -> Performance and Maintenance -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager). Look for the entry for Universal Service Bus Controller and expand it. If you see 3.0 mentioned, you're all good. If not, look for 'Super Speed', which indicates USB3.0. 'High Speed' or 'Enhanced' denotes USB2.0. If you don't see any of these, you can right click on each entry, choose Properties and then click the Advanced tab. Again, you're looking for 'Super Speed' for USB3.0, or 'High Speed' for USB2.0, like in this picture. Bon chance! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative is to figure out which USB controller is installed and look up its capabilities. For example, Device Manager (on Windows 7) reports my machine has an Intel 631xESB/632xESB I/O Controller Hub. Reading the datasheet for that one sees that it supports eight USB2.0 ports (but no USB3). Doing the same for any machine should be similarly straightforward. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Thanks, I don't see anything that says 3.0 or Superspeed. I do see "hub is operating at high speed", so it must be 2.0. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TV brightness

I have a perpetual problem with night scenes viewed on Netflix streaming being too dark to see on my CRT TV. No doubt most of the problem is at their end (either when a digital recording is first made or when converted to streaming digital), but I'd like to also be able to fix it at my end. This is what I've done so far:

1) Turned off all the lights and installed black-out drapes to darken the room.

2) Turned the brightness and contrast to max on the TV.

While these help, it's still impossible to see anything at times. I'd also consider getting a new TV. However, the "brightness" rating they give seems to be how bright it is when displaying a white scene. What I need to know is how bright it can be made when displaying a dark scene.

A) How can I get this info before making a purchase decision ? The only way I can think of is to hang out in showrooms and wait for very dark scenes to appear, then trying to compare models. Of course, this would only allow me to compare them at their current settings, as I'm not likely to be able to turn the brightness and contrast to max in the showroom.

B) Also, would a computer monitor used as a TV generally be better, worse, or the same as a regular TV, in this respect ?

C) How would the format, such as CRT, LCD, DLP or plasma compare ?

D) Would a dynamic contrast ratio help (where the back-light level is adjusted depending on the scene) ?

E) Any other suggestions ?

StuRat (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding A, TVs in the showroom will invariably be already set to max brightness/contrast, in order to make them seem as vibrant and eye-catching in a brightly lit store. This setting is typically inappropriate in an actual home viewing setup, and having the contrast too high may be a major part of the problem you are suffering.

D may help, but I would have thought it unnecessary in a darkened room.

To get everything set up well at your end I would recommend using a calibration disc. Many DVD and blu-ray movies will actually have this function, so it may not even require a special disc if you already have such a film in your collection - for example this page discusses the item on THX labelled DVDs. You could also check the manual for your TV set, as some models are capable of displaying built-in test patterns. AJ Cham 00:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

no isp

1) if you dont have an isp, is there a way to hook a pc to a phone jack and use the internet? thanks, jake (p.s. i forgot my password, to here and my email. must. kill.) 70.114.254.43 (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2) also, two more quastions. can you write a program that starts itself?

3) and, how do i block sites with the hosts file on windows 7? thanks again, jake 70.114.254.43 (talk) 00:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I numbered your questions for you:

1) Not really, although some ISP progs will let you use them for free for a bit to test them out.

2) No, but you can have a program that's started at boot-time by the O/S, then stays dormant until it decides it's time to do something. StuRat (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

thanks sturat. 70.114.254.43 (talk) 03:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a couple of decades at the end of the second millennium, when they had phone lines but didn't have normal Internet yet, you could connect a computer to a PHONE line (a physical phone line), have it make a call (make phone tones, as if it was placing a call), another computer would answer, and then they would "talk" (over the phone line) and you would get Internet at like 0.05 megabits. It cost almost as much as a phone line itself costs (you paid to the company owning the computer that "picks up"), but of course you also had to pay your own phone company (what today would be an ISP) so you would have your own phone line and any charges you accrued at the same rate as a real voice call on that line (so some people paid by the minute, some people got a free local number service from their phone company, didn't have to pay extra locally on their land line phone). I don't know how the companies that picked up the phone when your computer called got on the Internet though, as it seems this just wouldn't scale. There had to be something else, as obviously they didn't have a phone line between your Internet company and every web site you access, so I dunno. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As an interesting point, I heard that AIM started out as this kind of service too. I forgot to answer your original question, but I heard that some people were still paying AIM even though there's already home Internet, (which is a joke), but you should look it up. It should be possible to pay for AIM, and then dial in on a LANDLINE from your computer and have it talk to aim and get the Internet. It probably works on a cell phone too, but unless you have unlimited minutes you better watch out. Maybe AIM has made this a free service by now, I don't know. The point is, it should be possible to get on the Internet using nothing but a phone if you don't have an ISP. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about a dial up ISP? Or just basic modem communication? The early days of ISPs were bulletin board systems (BBSs), the more progressive of which would have an internet link. But, while this is kind of tautological, if you're connected to the internet, however you're connected is your ISP. So no, you can't get on the internet if you don't have an ISP. Shadowjams (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another point... I'm going to start feeling old here, but by AIM I assume you mean AOL, which was a large intricate online community (like a BBS) that began to add internet connectivity. By the time of the AOL Instant Messenger I think they offered internet access to all their customers. AOL did indeed have dial-up computers, and I suspect most people here over 25 remember the familiar modem tones when they connected with their modem. Shadowjams (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WRT the hosts file, the path is c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. The HOSTS file has no extension; there may also be a example version hosts.txt - make sure you don't edit the wrong one. You can edit it using notepad, but will need to do so using an Administrator account. The HOSTS file contains examples, but you can add something like:

127.0.0.1 www.site-to-block.com

which will redirect attempts to visit www.site-to-block.com to the localhost. --Kateshortforbob _talk 11:29, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 11

Status of the internet

Is there a page where I can view the live status of the internet, like the global sea cables and stuff? 62.143.31.173 (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.internetpulse.net/ ? ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Appearance" of the identity function

To quote Nothing:

To instruct a computer processor to do nothing, a keyword such as "NOP" may be available. This is a control abstraction; running processors are always computing something, if only the identity function.

Reading Identity function, I'm not exactly sure what this is. What does the identity function "look like"? I'm imagining that the computer writes this function to a document until there's enough to cover a single printed page. How would the finished page appear? Nyttend (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The passage is not very well worded. What it is really trying to say is that a running CPU is constantly executing machine language instructions, one per instruction cycle. It may be executing instructions that have no effect, but it is still, in each cycle, executing an instruction and then moving on to the next instruction in the currently executing program. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Looie496 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 11 February 2012‎

I've heard people use this fact to suggest that it doesn't matter how much you're computing in relation to heat from the processor... which is not at all true with modern processors since they change voltages and scale down their operations in response to load. But that's an aside... Shadowjams (talk) 23:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the original 8086 instruction set (and probably the rest of the x86 derivatives), the NOP instruction is opcode 0x90. The rest of the 0x91-0x97 opcodes are things like XCHG BX AX; XCHG CX AX; XCHG DX AX, etc. In fact, all of the original user-modifiable 8086 data registers are there, except for register AX. From how things are laid out one can deduce that the NOP opcode is actually the "missing" XCHG AX AX instruction. That is, exchange the value in register AX with the value in register AX - effectively a do-nothing operation. As modern processors use microcode, though, so the internal implementation of the NOP operation is unlikely to still be XCHG AX AX. The other issue is that modern computers typically do multitasking, so most often when a program has nothing to do, it hands execution over to the OS and says "wake me up in 100 ms". The OS then hands out the extra available time to other programs running on the computer. If there's absolutely nothing that the computer can be working on, there's usually a "system idle loop" somewhere in the OS where the OS then obsessively checks for any new work "did he move the mouse? type on the keyboard? any network activity? ..." There may be some NOP opcodes in the loop to slow things down, but I believe most modern processors have the ability to throttle their execution speed, saving energy, so instead the OS would tell the processor to slow down until you need the speed again. -- 67.40.215.173 (talk) 01:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The same system of interrupts it uses to say "wake me in 100ms", it can also use to say "wake me when you get input" or "wake me when you finish reading from the hard drive", so the OS doesn't need to poll for activity ("obsessively checking for new work"). Also, preemptive multitasking is much less failure-prone than cooperative multitasking, so programs get kicked off the CPU every once in a while whether or not they think they're done. Paul (Stansifer) 04:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that the passage is misleading. The identity function is a function, so it takes an input and produces an output (in this case, the same value). This works to describe NOP, if you think of opcodes as functions on the state of the whole machine ... but people don't typically think of machine code that way, unless they're trying to do some kind of software verification. Paul (Stansifer) 04:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When there's absolutely nothing to do, HLT. It's basically an infinitely long NOP. That's what you'll find in the idle loop of a multitasking OS if you look deep enough. It's the original (and simplest) power-saving interface. Also, I agree that "identity function operating on the machine state" is a definition of NOP that only a pure mathematician could love. 68.60.252.82 (talk) 11:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Except that a NOP is not an identity function in that context since instruction pointer gets incremented. --145.94.77.43 (talk) 17:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Limited WiFi Access

Hello. Is it possible for restaurants to limit WiFi access? If so, how can clients be tracked for the amount of time online? Can't be IP addresses, eh? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Probably by mac address 82.45.62.107 (talk) 00:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another way is to change a password daily, and publish it in the restaurant so that only genuine patrons can use it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:14, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think this is a more likely possibility then by MAC address for a restaurant or other similar scenario. Another common method is to print a ticket/voucher with an access code that's likely entered in to a captive portal. A ticket/voucher can then be provided on request to patrons, provided to customers with every order or even integrated in to the receipt system so one is given with every receipt. In this case since each customer gets a unique access code you can easily limit usage per customer if you feel is necessary. (You can try to do this with MAC address but it's trivial for a technically competent person to change on many laptops.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:42, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 12

Firefox and cookies (yet again)

Admittedly, I'm probably more paranoid about online security than I need to be; here's the situation I've put myself in. I'm on FF9, but this behaviour hasn't changed in many releases.

My cookie settings are: "Accept cookies from sites" is ON, "Accept third party cookies" is OFF, and "Keep Until" is "Ask every time" -- which means I get prompted for a LOT of cookies. Mostly, I'll Allow For Session, but the Google Analytics __utm-series, I deny -- hold down Alt-D until it stops trying (sometimes 20 or 30 attempts!)

And, about half the random sites I visit HANG at that point, with the message "Reading google-analytics.com" in the lower left corner. Note, this is NOT the "Transferring from.." message. Progress indicator keeps circling. My usual response is to stop the page load, then shift-reload. Sometimes several times until the whole pages loads, and sometimes it just never does.

(Finally, we're getting to the questions:) BUT, if I simply click Deny for Site at the beginning of the session, the page loads fine. AND, if I use the private browsing features, it loads just fine. WHAT'S the difference between denying individual cookies, and denying them site-wide, that causes a site or google-analytics itself to hang on one and not the other?

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parametric types and Generics

Is there any difference between type polymorphism and generics? They both seem to me (with a limited understanding) to be identical, but in different contexts no one ever switches between them (no one ever talks about generics in Haskell for example) so I was just wondering if they were actually synonymous? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SlakaJ (talk • contribs) 02:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The term polymorphism covers a lot of ground. Generics are very much like Haskell's parametric polymorphism, method overloading is vaguely related to Haskell's type classes, and subclass polymorphism has no straightforward equivalent in Haskell. -- BenRG (talk) 02:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A question about audio tone-changing...

Well, I was watching an episode of Naruto Shippuden and I heard the choral piano music at one point (http://www.narutoget.com/watch/666-naruto-shippuden-episode-138-english-subbed/ - music starts at 13:50). Then I watched the episode in Spanish subs on Tu.tv, but I noticed the choral piano music had a different tone (http://tu.tv/videos/naruto-shippuden-138-sub-espanol-3-3_1/ - music starts at 00:35). As I heard it, I thought it might be possible to make music sound in a different tone. I wanted to try out taking a music clip or sound and change the tone to a different tone. Are there software programs or tricks to do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs) 13:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is possible; it's called pitch shifting. The reason why you hear TV music in a different pitch however, is due to a process called PAL speedup during conversion from a NTSC video source to PAL. Sometimes, pitch shifting is used to counteract this effect, resulting in the music having only a higher tempo, while the pitch is maintained. — Edokter (talk) — 15:14, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This explains a lot everything... --190.158.184.192 (talk) 17:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Client-side wiki software

Hi,

I'm looking for a client-side-only wiki software which would run on Windows XP. I found TiddlyWiki, but it is a single-user wiki, while I'm looking for a multi-user wiki (I assume there will be only good faith users, so I don't need a real user authentication system, although this could be done through encryption and digital signatures). Also, I prefer avoiding the use of Javascript in a web browser, because I'm not sure which web browser will be available, so there could be compatibility issues with a software like TiddlyWiki.

Thanks.

Apokrif (talk) 18:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"AirPort"

I use an AppleMac and it's Airport for syncing with my iPad and iPhone via my router. This is a puzzle to my wife, and being non literate in these matters I have difficulty in explaining how "AirPort" works. Any ideas please, I guess 'radio waves', but this does not seem right somehow.--85.211.170.102 (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Types of 3d in games

Are there words for different types of 3d in games? I don't mean those new games with 3d effects, but, for example, a differenciation between a cube on a screen, which is shown only from one angle and a cube that can be twisted. The second would be more 'real'.

@@ Line 217: / Line 217: @@
 I use an AppleMac and it's Airport for syncing with my iPad and iPhone via my router.  This is a puzzle to my wife, and being non literate in these matters I have difficulty in explaining how "AirPort" works. Any ideas please, I guess 'radio waves', but this does not seem right somehow.--[[Special:Contributions/85.211.170.102|85.211.170.102]] ([[User talk:85.211.170.102|talk]]) 18:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
+== Types of 3d in games ==
+Are there words for different types of 3d in games? I don't mean those new games with 3d effects, but, for example, a differenciation between a cube on a screen, which is shown only from one angle  and a cube that can be twisted. The second would be more 'real'.