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October 11

Organisation history visualisation

I wanted to make a chart showing the history of far-left organisations in my area. Anyone remotely familiar with the subject will know that such groups quite frequently undergo repeated splits and mergers (for those not familiar, think the People's Front of Judea and its associated splinter groups in Monty Python's Life of Brian) .Is there any kind of software that would be particularly suited to creating this sort of visualisation? I wanted to end up with something looking like this. Obviously it would be possible to do in any basic image editing program, but I was wondering if there was specialised software for this sort of thing. --149.135.146.88 (talk) 09:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

irrelevant discussion

Clicking on your link pretty much took down my computer, so I assume it's some type of video. This seems unnecessary, to me. A simple slide show presentation would be less CPU intensive, and would make it easier for users to step through it, to whatever point they want. StuRat(talk) 15:17, 11 October 2012 (UTC) Uh? Mine or the OP's? The OP's is a blog post with a click-to-enlarge PNG file. Mine is a collection of 30+ thumbnails. Neither page did anything like taking down my computer. I'd suggest the problem's on your end, Stu. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2012 (UTC) I placed my comment so as to make it obvious I'm talking about the OP's link. Yes, it was at my end, and I've since rebooted.StuRat (talk) 16:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC) It remains impressive to me that you can blame the OP for your computer's problems, state quite baldly that you didn't see the page, make an assumption about what must have been on the page, criticize the page and/or OP (who can tell?) for doing it wrong (in your assumption), and offer up a non-sequitur of a suggestion for how to do it better based on your own misunderstanding of what the OP wants (an understand based, as you acknowledge, on your own computer's inability to let you see what they are linking to). What an utterly pointless exercise in foolishness, even by your standards.--Mr.98 (talk) 02:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC) This comment does not belong on the Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 03:01, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Graphviz could be what you're looking for. I've never used it myself, but here are some examples of what it can do. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Accumulated Double Declining Depreciation in Excel

The formula for computing double declining depreciation in Excel is relatively straightforward:

DDB(Cost, Salvage Value, Useful Life, Current Period)

So, for example, DDB(80000,8000,5,3) gives you 11520, the depreciation in year 3.

However, I cannot find a function that will give me accumulated depreciation (ie, the total amount of depreciation in previous periods, and the current one). In the above example, the answer would be 62720, which is basically DDB(80000,8000,5,1)+DDB(80000,8000,5,2)+DDB(80000,8000,5,3). Is there any way I can easily and automatically compute total accumulated double declining depreciation to date? ΣΑΠΦ (Sapph)^Talk 12:11, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

You can use VDB to calculate over an arbitrary period, so you can set the start period to 1 and the end period to the period you want total depreciation on. VDB Documentation209.131.76.183 (talk) 12:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Problems burning a CD-R: On The Fly error

I'm trying to create a backup copy of a software CD and I keep getting the error message "Could not complete the On-The-Fly disc copy process.". Here's the log data:

User Name  : Windows User Company Name : CyberLink CDKey  : REDACTED OS Version  : Windows 7 Home PremiumService Pack 1 C:\Program Files (x86)\CyberLink\Power2Go\Power2Go.exe : Version 6.1.0.3802 CBS.dll : Version 7.7.4810

==================================================================

Total physical memory : 3563MB (3649400KB) Free physical memory  : 2181MB (2233952KB) Memory load  : 38 percent

Number of CPU : 4 CPU Name  : AMD A6-3420M APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics CPU Speed  : 1497 MHz

==================================================================

11.10.2012 Task Type : Copy Disc

09:31:50, File(cl_DiscCopyCD.cpp), Line(90) -> Begin burning process Current drive: <F: ARTEC WRR-52X 2.25> Current writing speed(x): 32.0 ====== Disc Info ======= Disc Type: CD-R Disc Status: Blank, Appendable Num. of Sessions: 1 Num. of Tracks: 1 Disc Capacity: 336223LBs Free Size: 336223LBs Used Size: 0LBs ======================== ->Burn on the fly Current reading speed(x): 16.0 Burn option: w/ buffer underrun protection Burn option: w/o simulation Burn option: w/o overburn Burn option: w/ verify disc Burn option: w/o extra long disc

09:31:55, File(cl_Cdwrite.cpp), Line(2697) -> Setup drive Sessn: 1, Sessn type: Disc At Once Disc physical format: CDROM_MODE1 Trk: 1, Trk mode: MODE1

09:31:55, File(cl_Cdwrite.cpp), Line(1966) -> Start session Sessn: 1, Start trk: 1, Last trk: 1

09:31:55, File(cl_Cdwrite.cpp), Line(1992) -> Start track Trk: 1, Track start addr(LBA): 0, Trk size(sectors): 303348, Sector size(bytes): 2048

09:32:27, File(cl_Cdwrite.cpp), Line(2430) -> Write end/Close disc Burn option: w/ close disc Burn mode: DAO

09:32:27, File(cl_DiscCopyCD.cpp), Line(935) -> Burning Fail, ErrCode: 0xeb020b88

==================================================================

Error Code : 0xeb020baf

Any clue why it's doing this? 199.241.185.195 (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Usually the best way to solve problems like this is to Google for the error message. When I do so, I quickly see the following on a site called TechBlog: "If you ever see the error 'Burning Fail, ErrCode: 0xeb020b88' then I've found the solution today; Turn down the write speed of the CD-R / DVD-R drive to a lower setting and this seems to do the trick.". Looie496 (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course that's basically how you fix any error at all with burning. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

A simpler solution is to dd the existing CD to a file as a backup, and read it in future with something like ImDisk or otherwise mounting as a loop device. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thumbs.db

I've copied content from computer to computer for the last seven years, and whenever I backup my Windows 7 computer's hard drive, I notice the existence of multiple thumbs.db files. I've read Windows thumbnail cache, but just to be sure, I wanted to ask — do I understand rightly that deleting these images should have absolutely no effect on my system? I'm not going to waste time finding them to delete them, but I've always been mildly concerned when I get a note warning me that a thumbs.db file won't properly copy from place to place. Nyttend (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's fine to delete them. If there is a Thumbs.db file, Windows will display thumbnails from its cache. If there isn't, it will regenerate the cache. — cdwn 16:46, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"Absolutely no effect" is a very strong term. By removing the thumbnail cache, you're incurring a non-zero amount of extra work for the system'sexplorer.exe process, who will re-generate the cache at some point in the future. Now, I'll be the first to admit that this is usually pretty trivial, and in most normal cases, this extra processing load should be, in practice, indistinguishable from zero extra work; but computers are very precise machines, and for the sake of precision, it's usually best to refrain from "absolute" statements. Nimur (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it won't be anywhere close to "indistinguishable from zero extra work" in practise. Image processing is a fairly involved business. —cdwn 17:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see; the article's comments about other forms of image thumbnailing in Windows Vista and Seven made me think that thumbs.db wasn't even used by my operating system. Nyttend (talk) 17:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you are correct; if you are deleting Thumbs.db files from disks originally mounted in Windows XP, and then if you're only using them on Windows Vista or Windows 7 (or newer), the thumbs.db files need not be re-created in each directory. (Recent Windows versions use a centralized database for the thumbnails, as explained in our article and elsewhere on the web). I apologize if I've confused the issue, I mis-read your problem-statement. Nimur (talk) 03:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

ls -d in linux

Shouldn't ls -d show me the directories in a directory? (it shows .) Why is it like that? OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand how ls operates at a low level. You can see what it is supposed to do here:

$ cd "$(mktemp -d)"
$ mkdir foo bar baz
$ tee foo/a bar/b baz/c < /dev/null
$ ls *
bar:
b

baz:
c

foo:
a
$ ls -d *
bar  baz  foo

If you truly want to list the directories, you want ls -d *, or something like the following:

( shopt -s nullglob dotglob ; for dir in *; do [[ -d "$dir" ]] && printf '%s\n' "$dir"; done )

As for why it is like that, it seems expected to me. ls with no files in its arguments runs ls on the current directory. ls -d with no files in its arguments does the same with .. cdwn 17:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

ls -d * lists all files in the current directory, not just directories. ls -d */ is better.—Emil J. 14:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That's not true, it will only list directories (and */ is not defined by POSIX). — cdwn 04:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Did you actually try it? -d means "if a directory is listed on the commandline, print its name rather than recursing into it." It has no effect on the behaviour for non-directories. Try it and see. Marnanel (talk) 04:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread the comment. Either way, as far as I know */ is only defined in POSIX as a symlink dereference. — cdwn 12:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

An alternative might be find . -maxdepth 1 -type d ¦ Reisio (talk) 07:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Does this not work in linux? (sorry I can only test in Solaris): ls -l|grep ^d Sandman30s (talk) 13:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

It works, though my shell insists that I quote the ^.—Emil J. 14:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

email and copyright verification

Note that this question has a legal dimension, but I'm not asking about the legal side, ie. whether something would actually stand up in court. I'm only wondering if there are any holes in this idea from a computing point of view. So let's say I have written a song, and I email the lyrics/ mp3 file to myself, and try to use this to prove copyright. If someone doubted it, I could just log in to my email, and show them the date of posting. Can this be faked? As a side question, I am curious if anyone knows of actual cases involving this, but just for reading interest. It's not legal advice, because I am a long way from having anything to worry about at this stage - just interested firstly in the forensic side, and (while I'm on the topic) if anyone has come across any news items on the legal side. From the legal point of view, I don't care which jurisdiction, just interested in any such cases that have made the news/ blogosphere. IBE(talk) 18:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

An email is just a text file; it's trivial to fake any part of it, including the sender and the date. I don't think one can do what you want withS/MIME either. There are Copyright registration services which, being trusted and accredited third parties, are a reliable way of dating a document; some may accept electronic submissions (I can't see why not). A simple email-self scheme, like other shonky forms of poor man's copyright, leaves many avenues open to later challenge. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

That said, sending it through a mail service often results in that service adding its own header lines. It might be possible for say HoTMaiL to confirm that a given mail was processed by their system at a given time - but as that's not the purpose of those headers, and confirming this kind of thing is HoTMaiL's job, one would not expect that using their headers to prove dates would be a trivial matter. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:08, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

If I email something to myself using, say, gmail, the message will reside on Google's server as long as I don't delete it, and the server will have a record of when it was sent. Unless I could hack into Google's server, I don't see how I could fake that. Looie496 (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but getting Google to confirm (in court) what records the server has isn't easy. Google can reasonably say "we're an email service, not a notary - while we think the date records are accurate, we don't take sufficient steps to make totally sure they are, so we're not going to stand up in court and say so". That's the difference between them and a real notary or copyright registrar - being sure enough to testify about datesis their job (that's why you pay them). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:34, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

We may be talking at cross purposes here. Suppose I actually log in in front of someone. Can I fake things then? The date appears on the email, and is taken from Google's server, and the web address will appear on the browser, so it looks much harder to manipulate. Assume for answering the question that it does not involve contacting Google, just showing stuff on a computer. IBE (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

No, you're talking about the same thing but missing Finlay's point. You are likely right that items in your "Sent Mail" folder are exactly what you actually sent and can't be falsified by yourself, on a technical basis I would agree with you - but the legal response is "So what? It's plausible hearsay, but it is still hearsay. Where is your confirmation from Google that this specific item was submitted on this specific date?". And all that showing someone that you can log in and look at Sent Items does is let them swear an affidavit that they saw you type at a computer. Did they check where the wire went after it plugged into the wall? Even if you could persuade a judge to let you fire up a laptop in their courtroom, it's still just you typing at a computer. So you will need to get Google to provide a copy from their own server, certified by one of their staff as a true copy - which is just not going to happen, as Finlay says. What you are suggesting is enough to make an assertion of copyright, the same as faxing yourself chords and lyrics, or mailing the old way using a cancelled stamp on an envelope. (Both of which I'd suggest before or in addition to trying email) It will be enough for most purposes and even in court could stand up if combined with other proofs but it is not cast-iron by any means. So if you've just written the next Stairway to Heaven, use a notary or registrar. Or send it to me, I'll take care of it. :) Late note: possibly you could hire a major cyber-forensics firm to do an end-to-end evaluation of the Sent Item as an expert witness, for whatever that's worth.Franamax (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

An email could load external content when you open it. If you send yourself an email today to yourself you could later change this external content and the email message would show the reader what you want to show him. No need to fake date or hack the email server. It's quite simple and only low skills are required. For a better implementation, from a computational perspective, of the same idea see better Trusted timestamping. It's technically doable, but I don't know what to say about the legal aspect, how it stands in a court of law, and so on (it's also not the purpose of the RD). OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer - of course I'm still interested in any further comments on this, but it's exactly what I was wondering. I know the rules about legal advice, which is why I said I didn't care which jurisdiction. True legal advice requires a knowledge of a particular jurisdiction, so American examples would be useless to me in Australia if I were interested in advice. The significance of the legal angle is that it shows what experts have established in front of a judge, when money is at issue, hence establishing facts is taken very seriously. IBE(talk) 21:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I actually think there is a potentially bigger problem then highlighted above. Gmail supports IMAP and therefore it's possible to migrate or import email including sent email [1] [2][3]. I've never done this personally so I'm not sure whether there's any actual sign of when or whether the emails were imported (rather then being added by Google themselves) but it wouldn't surprise me if there are no signs to the end user. That being the case, while Google may very well have their own internal records, getting them to testify about these is likely to be difficult as suggested above. So in fact spoofing emails which appear to have been sent at a certain time but weren't may be a technically trivial matter requiring no real hacking. You could use a service which doesn't provide IMAP, but you'd need to ensure there really is no way you simply aren't aware of to spoof emails on your account and perhaps more importantly, you always run the risk that the service adds something like IMAP which may enable such spoofing since it's unlikely to be a major concern for them as it's not their intention to be a timestamp service. If you use Google Apps and pay for something like Vault [4] it's possible there is something there sufficient but I'm not entirely sure and it seems a silly way to go about it if your sole intention for such a service is as suggested above.Nil Einne (talk) 03:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I've semi confirmed my hunch with Gmail. Using Thunderbird I moved some emails from the sent folder of one of my Gmail accounts to another. Then using the webmail interface and also 'show original' I see no sign that the email was anything other then what it purports to be, an email sent at the time (in 2005). Going further I found that you cannot simply open an email you save as an EML (whether or not you modify it) and then copy it to the sent. While the date shows up correctly with no sign when you open the email it's anything other then what it seems to be (including if you show original), in the sent folder in Gmail it shows up as having been very recent/when it was uploaded (I think or may be it's when it was opened in Thunderbird). The same thing happens if you open and copy it to a local folder and then move it to the sent folder on Gmail. This does not happen if you move stuff from Gmail sent folder to a local folder then to another Gmail sent folder so clearly it's just something that Thunderbird is doing (I guess it's storing some internal date of when it was modified which it sends to Gmail when it uploads the message).

However to further prove the point, I moved some sent stuff to a local folder, modified it including the date and most headers (with a simple text editor when Thunderbird was not running) and uploaded it back. And no sign it was anything but what it purported to be/what I uploaded (well I accidentally added a 'X-Mozilla-Keys:' header but if anything that just shows you can do whatever you want).

I did come across one interesting errata. It seems if the date is before 2005 or sometime between Jan 2004 and Jan 2005 (perhaps when Gmail went public in 2004?), it sorts incorrectly. While the date as shown in the folder and elsewhere is correct, the earlier stuff shows up on the top above everything else including stuff sent after they were added. Albeit these are also sorted, in chronological order (so 1990 shows up before 2004).This IMO is a bug. While this may be before Google Mail existed, it doesn't make sense to sort in that fashion. It's obvious it was before Google existed but if you migrated your email to Google there's no reason you want the older stuff showing up at the top. (And if you're truly spoofing, the person who trusts a date before Google Mail existed is frankly an idiot.)

Nil Einne (talk) 05:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Something which I have been thinking about and which [5] (found while trying to find out what's up with the sorting) suggests, it's possible there are some signs you can find, perhaps via IMAP that everything is not as it seems since I'm only looking at stuff from a very high level abstraction. However again, it seems risky to trust them as it's possible there would be some way to fix those as well (and even more so over many years). For example if doing what I'm doing screws up the IMAP sequence numbers you could likely use some tool to fix these by downloading and deleting all the content and then reuploading it in order. (As suggested there even if it didn't work because of the way Thunderbird handles such stuff.) This does of course mean that if you're are trying to trick someone, other then the fact if they are sufficiently competent they'd realise they can't trust the date anyway, if you don't know what you're doing you could easily leave signs of what you did. Nil Einne (talk) 05:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S. As it turns out the stuff from 2004 and before is now sorting correctly, I guess it was just a temporary issue. I actually seem to recall noticing something like this before but I can't remember when or where. But anyway if you trust my sent folder, you'd believe I emailed Bill Gates in 1990 inviting him to join Google mail. Nil Einne (talk) 05:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the help. Feel free to add more. Also, I'm typing during a coffee break, so haven't had time to read it in full, but it looks clear and quite comprehensive. Just adding a thankyou note in case I'm caught up and have to read the full thing from the archives. IBE (talk) 05:06, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Text in php/html

I have a website (php/html) and would like to translate it with poedit. In order to do so I need to write all texts (which are displayed on the site) as: <?= _('Text') ?>. Are there any tools/scripts that help me to find all such "text" in an html file or that find any non-replaced text?bamse (talk) 19:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There are a variety of Linux tools that claim to do that. Would that be helpful to you? If so, try googling for "html2po". I'm not sure what will happen to your php code, though. Looie496 (talk) 23:45, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. bamse (talk) 06:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I would just note that in your case, it looks like the script may already be trying to be internationalized and has some of that already built in. The _('Text') formatting often means, "I have created a function named underscore, which checks this text against a localization table, and then returns whatever the equivalent is for whatever the language settings are." (This is how Wordpress, among other platforms, does localization.) You might poke around to see if there's an easier way than the way you are approaching it — the text may already be in a file, somewhere, either translated or in a format that's easy to translate without modifying the original. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Not sure I understand what you mean. I don't have that _('Text') formatting yet in my html files. I am looking for an automatic way to add this formatting. After that, gettext will do the rest. bamse (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now. I misunderstood before. I thought you were trying to modify code that was already gettext'd. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

October 13

I hate Farmville!

What's the nicest way to stop people sending me Farmville requests in Facebook? (And any other silly nonsense activities?) I seem to get up to half a dozen a day. HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

You could block Farmville or any other apps entirely by going to your News Feed, clicking the pencil icon to the right of the app title (e.g. “Farmville”, etc.), and clicking “Remove App”. Alternatively, you could message them and politely tell them to stop.71.146.0.234 (talk) 06:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Geez, don't have a cow. :-) StuRat (talk) 08:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Good luck keeping Facebook from doing the one thing they care about doing: selling. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

But me getting annoying Farmville requests (and I got a Truth game one just now - hate them too), which I ignore, sells me nothing.HiLo48 (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not about "you" per se those financial analysts on Wall Street are demanding to see scalable monetization. It's about the 10% who do go into farmville, especially online where its all measured by "clicks". Marketdiamond (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

But I see HiLo's point. Once you make it clear you aren't interested in buying a product or service, they would then do better by trying to sell you other products or services, not by continuing to try to sell the same old thing. That's poor marketing. I have a similar complaint about ads for cable TV I get mailed to me about once a week. By now they ought to have a fair idea that I'm not interested. StuRat (talk) 00:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Is the ROI to change the programming at the critical level where those that would completely sign off Facebook are greater than those that would finally succumb to the Farmville ads? Or better question are all consultants under the same MBA brainwashing lol? Marketdiamond(talk) 01:11, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Advertising customized to the individual is the hot new thing on the Internet, and Facebook appears to be behind the ball on this one.StuRat (talk) 01:20, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the above thread. As highlighted by 71, it isn't actually that hard to block requests from Games, games from specific friends etc. And Facebook does a lot of customized/targeted advertising in their actual advertising. The friend game spam is not Facebook advertising per se so it comes down to a matter of Facebook choosing between what their partners (app developers etc) want and what their users want (which varies between the user) although Facebook does do some degree of automatic customisation there (as well as real paid advertising with the recent promoted post feature) it's primarily up to the user to control what they want to see. Nil Einne (talk) 05:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Great points but it's all theoretical until OP (and many more) close their FB accounts because of it (or stop buying en masse). It isn't silicon valley calling the shots its Wall Street now, cause it is their money. There are millions of $s betting OP and others won't leave at the status quo. (For a time there was even more $ betting they wouldn't be effectively monetized but that's a whole other trade). Marketdiamond(talk) 01:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Numbers.doc

I'm sorry if I posted this in the wrong section, but I'm trying to list a team's win-loss record by adding one to the win column for every game won and adding one to the loss column for every game lost. I have the scores for every game played by the team in a season and was wondering how to add one for every win or loss by using the > and < signs with the score. For example, if the team's score was in cell A1, the opponent's score was in cell B1, and the win loss record was in cell C1, how could I say something like “If A1>B1, add 1 to C1”? I'm sorry if I sound confusing, this isn't very easy for me to explain in writing.71.146.0.234 (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd first be tempted to try just what you listed: "If A1 > B1, then C1 = C1 + 1". Apple numbers does have an IF function, although I'm unsure of the exact syntax.

The 2nd approach might be to use the SIGN function: "SIGN returns 1 when a given number is positive, –1 when it is negative, and 0 when it is zero.". So, you could do something like C1 = C1 + (SIGN(A1-B1)+1)/2. This might not handle ties, though. Adding the CEILING or ROUNDUP function in might fix ties. StuRat (talk) 08:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm mostly a spreadsheet-avoider, so this might not be the right answer, but here is what I would try to do. I would first create a column C that would contain a 1 if the game was a win and a zero if the game was a loss. Then I would create a column D that is the cumulative sum of all of the entries from column C on the current line and above (wins), and a column E that subtracts the number in D from the total number of lines (losses).Looie496 (talk) 15:51, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

You can't have C1 simultaneously be a value and add to its own value — that makes it self-referential. If column C is a running total of wins or losses, what you can do is have C2 be something like, =IF(A2>B2,C1+1,C1), assuming row 1 contains score data. Notice the row numbers —it references the cell above it. (If you paste it to different rows, the references should automatically update.) The IF syntax (for Numbers or Excel) is IF([test condition],[value if true],[value if false]). This means that the formula for C1 must be something like, IF(A1>B1,1,0), to initialize the values. Or you could do it the way Looie suggests, which doesn't mean you have to have a different formula for the first row.--Mr.98 (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal Hotspot on iOS

From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3574: "To use this feature, your wireless carrier must offer Personal Hotspot and your devices must meet certain system requirements." Why does Internet tethering on iOS require carrier support? It is technically possible to use Internet tethering with any connection without carrier support, Android phones and tablets prove this. Write English in Cyrillic (talk) 15:46, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

There's no technical reason; they disable this feature if the carrier doesn't like it. A carrier might not like it because it means more traffic on their network. See the tethering article. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:08, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the situation, the United States Federal Communications Commission has published several regulatory orders requiring service-providers (specific wireless carriers) to cease these limitations. However, enforcement of those requirements is pending litigation in several different jurisdictions. Until these legal issues are resolved, responsible vendors of mobile radio devices are complying with the current status-quo. It may be technically possible to circumvent such regulations (or contractual obligations) on some devices, but selling devices that flaut their radio license or service contract terms is typically a bad idea. You might find the FCC's web page informative:Open Internet, from FCC.gov, explaining some of the technical and legal issues. Outside of the United States is a different regulatory environment altogether: vendors who sell to diverse geographies have to find a compatible way to comply with regulations in lots of different places. You can check your iPhone's radio license by going to the device settings, "Settings > About > Legal > Regulatory" (and in some places, you may see additional licenses and other information). You should also see a radio license shorthand logo printed on the device, somewhere. Nimur (talk) 18:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

October 14

Downloadable Google Books only

Is there any way to search only those books which Google allows to download? --Tito Dutta ✉ 00:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

At this Google page click "Full View Only" under search for free downloads only, or "Google ebooks only" for downloads available both free and charge. Hope that helps! Marketdiamond (talk) 01:04, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Excellent, I have bookmarked the link!--Tito Dutta (talk) 01:44, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Glad to help! Marketdiamond (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Virus

If my computer is infected with virus, and I change the HDD to a new one, is it gone for good? Does the virus infected programs on the stuff like the motherboard? What I mean is when you start a computer, even without HDD, the motherboard has programs showing cpu temperature etc, so can virus infect that kind of stuff? Money is tight (talk) 03:00, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

It is possible, but uncommon, for malware to target specific hardware, or to install itself to nonvolatile memory other than the main system hard-disk drive. Nimur (talk) 03:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

You shouldn't have to replace a HDD to remove a virus - reformatting it should be sufficient. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

And you don't usually even have to do that to remove the virus. StuRat (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

True enough - I suppose it depends on (a) how clued-up you are on removing viruses (most people aren't), (b) how much money you have, and (c) how essential it is to get rid of it - which mostly depends on the value of the data on the drive, and/or how essential it is to have the computer working. If you know what you are doing, and/or aren't too bothered about being absolutely sure it is gone, just deleting it (with the proper tools) may be good enough. If you don't know what you are doing, replacing the HDD is foolproof (apart from mainboard viruses etc...). In between, reformatting the HDD (and reinstalling the OS if required) is safer than the first option, and cheaper than the second. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

If you are going to replace the hard drive anyway, it is vary rare for the virus to remain (ie. only in the case outlined above by Nimur). Otherwise, it is a pretty drastic solution to a virus infection. Try a virus/malware scanner first. (I was now going to mention how to manually remove a virus, but the usual sites I would check for virus information seem to no longer have manual removal instructions). Astronaut (talk) 10:47, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Gateway, Inc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway,_Inc. 1. Is Gateway still a company, owned by Acer now or only a TradeMark?91.79.154.141 (talk) 08:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC) 2. You wrote their Revenue = US$3.980 billion. What Year? Can You give me any reference on this value?91.79.154.141 (talk) 08:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I corrected the revenue number on the article after reviewing that it had not been changed since at least early 2008. As a unit of Acer I doubt there are any public and verifiable numbers on specific Gateway-only revenue. The best source online for public information on companies is Hoovers and they state that Gateway revenue alone is negligble and 0 profit 0 etc. here also that they are a unit of Acer. Marketdiamond (talk) 10:22, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Please refrain from using terms like "you" since almost every article is a collaboration of many editors, unless of course you are referring to a specific editors contribution that you have identified, just trying to prevent any confusion, thanks! Marketdiamond (talk) 10:25, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Coding LinkedIn

Hi, I have a business idea which basically requires me to make a website like LinkedIn, where people can make pages, and add information, and the website remembers it (practically exactly like LinkedIn). I don't have any coding ability, but I don't want to have a professional make it for me because I have no money, and I'm afraid someone will steal my idea and it will be the Winklevoss affair all over again. So, really, I need to know what languages I need to learn. Thanks for any help you can provide. 31.205.106.147 (talk) 13:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Do this class then this class. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you ever so much, Finlay, that's awfully kind of you to provide such assistance. I had never heard of Udacity before, but it appears to be greatly useful for learning new things for free. Thank you once again! 31.205.106.147 (talk) 15:13, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Just in case someone finds this thread in the future and finds the Udacity web pages have disappeared, the course names are "Introduction to Computer Science (cs101): Building a Search Engine" and "Web Development (cs253): How to Build a Blog". PleaseStand (talk) 03:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

October 15

Recovering a deleted iPad note

My iPad 2 runs iOS 5.1.1. I think deleted a note in Notes on accident and I would like to recover it. If I did delete a note then it was made AFTER my last sync. How can I recover it? Jailbreaking is acceptable. --Melab±1 ☎ 01:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I found this tutorial and comment board here that seems to be having success. Marketdiamond (talk) 03:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the method that I need to use only works for the original iPad. --Melab±1 ☎ 03:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that you will only get it back if you synced the the iPad somewhere, such as another iTunes or the iCloud. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Google search PDF URL decoder

This is more a Google search question than a Wikipedia question. That's why I am asking here.

• Shorter version: How to copy the PDF file URL from Google search page?
• Longer version: Go to this search result page (actually I did not search with this weird query, but I want you to get the result at the top of the page which I am trying to show you). The first result is "The human cranium from Bodo". I have downloaded the file and found and want to use it as a reference. But, how to quickly copy the URL? The process I follow is–
• Right click and copy link
• Paste in text editor, take only the portion between http and pdf and delete everything else, replace %2F with / %3A with : etc...

But, any easier way to copy the actual URL of a PDF file from search result? --Tito Dutta (talk) 07:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Try this online tool; basically it seems to automate the steps you take under 'longer version': http://industrystandardsoftware.com/online_tools/converters/convert-serp-link-to-direct-location-for-copying-and-pasting.htm. Alternatively, if you use with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome you should be able to find a Greasemonkey to do the work for you. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello, using IndustryStandardSoftware, I could not extract the PDF link given in the example above (see first line of "longer version"). I have installed this userscript, still have not found out how and where it is working! Thank you! --Tito Dutta (talk) 08:17, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

What happens when you use the tool? From your link, I get the first result as https://www.google.co.in/url?url=http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/archaeology/Publications/Palaeolithic/The%2520human%2520cranium%2520from%2520Bodo,%2520Ethiopia.pdf&rct=j&sa=U&ei=2817UI38MYnNhAedjYHIDA&ved=0CBQQFjAA&q=Bodo%2Bfossil+filetype:pdf+%22++The+human+cranium+from+Bodo,+Ethiopia:+evidence+for+speciation%22&usg=AFQjCNFSY5PqFSoMi0JIjyYnJ67Bb-qW7Q. Pasting this into the tool gives me http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/archaeology/Publications/Palaeolithic/The%20human%20cranium%20from%20Bodo,%20Ethiopia.pdf. Is that not what you needed? Apologies if I've read the question wrong. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

(If someone could provide better formatting for the link above so it doesn't spill over the edge of the page I'd be very grateful.) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:55, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

In Firefox, I:

1. download the pdf
2. go to the download's entry in Firefox's Downloads window
3. right click -> copy_download_link

And you get the real PDF URL, not the Google redirector link. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The OptimizeGoogle and CustomizeGoogle extensions used to be good for this. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Also: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22The+human+cranium+from+Bodo%22+pdf ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Replacement for Console in Windows

I like to have a Unix-like environment ready for myself for numerous reasons, notably that it provides many programs I need like SFTP, SSH, etc. In Windows, I settled on Cygwin. However, Cygwin (obnoxiously) doesn't provide tabbed support. Console provides such tabbed support for Cygwin.

However, Console has two very obnoxious feature omissions:

• Lack of support for UTF-8, which leaves much of my Wikimedia bot's output as mojibake.
• Lack of Ctrl-C tunneling. If I try to ctrl-c abort out of my PHP script, nothing happens! I have to actually open a task manager and shut it down from there.

Is there a Console equivalent that has support for these two things, and also allows a tabbed console window? Magog the Ogre (t • c) 20:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

rxvt for Cygwin is certainly a better unix console on Windows than the NT console, but I don't think it currently supports unicode; its brother Rxvt-unicode does, if you can get that to work on Cygwin. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

You can indeed. I also suggest using screen for an equivalent to "tabs", although there are a number of even more GUI'd terminal emulators available for Cygwin. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:12, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

mintty doesn't do tabs but it does support Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab for switching between currently open mintty windows. It supports UTF-8 and ^C. -- BenRG (talk) 17:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Good Books for Learning JavaServer Faces

Any suggestions? I've done a bit of Java programming but was only introduced to JSF last week so am brand spanking new to it. Thanks. 78.146.75.224 (talk) 21:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it's also worth mentioning that Java is the only computing language with which I have any familiarity, which specifically means that I don't know any HTML, XHTML or CSS. Is it worth exploring one of these languages first to facilitate my learning of JSF? 78.146.75.224 (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

October 16

internet svc

my internet svc keep cutting off at work would like instructions how to run forefront to check for virus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.241.76.237 (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

It's highly unlikely that a virus is your problem. If you're running Windows and can't get an IT person to help you, you should go into the Control Panel to the Network part, and find the function that allows you to troubleshoot the network. Looie496 (talk) 19:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Faking EXIF metadata?

I've raised a WP:PUF for an image with confusing EXIF information — specifically, a public domain notice in the metadata. I'm quite uncertain of what's going on, and the only other person who's comment on the image isn't certain of everything either. Could someone who knows about EXIF metadata chime in on the technical side of things at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files/2012 October 16? Nyttend (talk) 18:25, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The copyright license metadata field for images is easy to change in Photoshop. There is no "faking" — it's just a field you can fill in, edit, or not. It's not a technically-created field, in the sense that the camera doesn't generate it. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Not directly relevant to the original question, but for all your EXIF needs I recommend ExifTool. Free as in both beer and speech, and you can work with all the fields, not just copyright. One particularly nice feature is the ability to add or subtract a constant offset from all date fields -- take a picture of an accurate clock before you download your photos, then adjust all your pics by the delta that makes that one come out right. --Trovatore (talk) 23:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

October 17

VERY basic C Questions I can't find online!

Hi, I have experience with Javascript and am trying to jump into C, but I am finding some problems before I even start!

First of all, is C like Javascript in that I can just type my code into notepad? If so, what then? Do I save it as a .something file and run it in firefox? Or is there some other completely different process to even viewing the result of C code?

I'd appreciate an answer as soon as possible, and I'll be asking more questions once this one is answered! Thank you! 169.231.8.73 (talk) 07:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

C is a compiled language, so you must save as a *.c file (or *.cpp or *.c#, for variants), then compile that file, which generates an object files (*.o). Those object files and libraries are then linked together to form an executable (*.exe file), which you can run. There are free compiler/linkers out there, such as GCC. There also might be interpreters out there which can run C source code directly, but those aren't the norm. StuRat (talk) 07:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I need more help. I reached here, then here, then here, where I downloaded gcc-4.7.2.tar.bz2 I have no idea if this was the right thing to do, but now my computer tells me it doesn't know what program to open it with. Help me with figuring out how to get the compiler to a useful state? 169.231.8.73 (talk) 10:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

GCC is usually used in UNIX/Linux environments. The file you downloaded is probably for one of those, and is possibly source code that needs compiled as well. There are pre-compiled Windows version available with Cygwin and MingW - you can find links here. (A compiled program is called a binary) However, you may be better off downloading Visual Studio C++ Express Edition. It is a C++ compiler, but aside from a few minor differences C is a subset of C++. It will give you a nice editor, compiler and debugger all integrated into a simple interface. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 12:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, 169, but compiled languages like C are very different from interpreted languages like Javascript, and you don't yet have enough clue to understand the answers to the questions you are asking. I strongly recommend that you find a basic introduction to C to read -- you can find a number online, such as http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~ir/KS/Data/RMiles/contents.html. Looie496 (talk) 14:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Looie496's assessment. At my undergraduate college, before any engineering or computer science student was allowed to take a programming class, they were required to pass the Introduction to Computing course material. You may find the free online text very helpful. While this frustrated many students who believed they were "computer experts" - myself included - this simple class presented a formal introduction to material that is absolutely essential to understanding how a computer works. You must master these concepts before you attempt to program in a language like C. Before you understand these fundamentals - things like the way file systems work; or the role of the operating system in mediating software- and hardware- access - the best you can do with the C language is to copy-and-paste other people's code (and build-scripts); that approach has very limited utility in teaching you, or in getting useful work done. Nimur (talk) 17:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

[6] takes you through the steps of installing Code::Blocks and running a simple "hello world" program. I've never used Code::Blocks, but the page makes it look like a pretty good place for a beginner to start. That site also seems to have a bunch of tutorials aimed at beginners. (I'm working under the assumption you're running Windows. If not, let us know what you are using.) 209.131.76.183 (talk) 17:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Some follow-ups:

1) Are you on Windows ? If so, what level ? XP ? Vista ? Windows 7 ?

2) I disagree about needing a class before moving from an interpreted language to a compiled language. It actually is more difficult moving the other way, IMHO, as then you have to worry about defining functions before you use them, etc. You might want to start with a "for idiots" book (no offense, I use them, too).

3) However, C is a rather unpleasant language, and is more difficult to learn than many others. BASIC might be an easier starting point.

4) While you can use any old text editor to write source code, there are also editors customized for computer languages which will do things for you like highlighting incorrect syntax. Those can be quite helpful. StuRat (talk) 18:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say except the suggestion to learn BASIC. Dijkstra put it well: the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.[7]. And the same goes for that pit of insanity they call PHP. For heaven's sake learn Python or something else structured! Marnanel (talk) 20:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm learning Python now, and it has some annoying, unnecessary complexities, like arrays starting at zero. And one thing it has that I find rather unstructured is implicit variable definitions. In FORTRAN, I always use the line "implicit none" at the start of each program and subroutine, to force me to think through the exact definition of each variable. Python also allows global variables, which is about as unstructured as you can get. StuRat (talk) 20:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Any programming language that isn't a toy defaults to arrays starting at zero. Using one-based arrays is a foolish concession to foolish programmers which fills anything more than trivial uses of array indexing with endless minor adjustments, and I note that since the OP is experienced in JavaScript they won't have a problem in that direction anyway. And (let me make sure I understand) are you actually criticising Python's ability to use globals while simultaneously suggesting the serious use of BASIC? Marnanel (talk) 20:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

My point is that you might as well start with an easier language, if neither BASIC nor Python is well-structured. Also, FORTRAN is a serious language and defaults to 1. The idea is to make it more closely aligned with how human's count, rather than how computer's count, to make it easier to use. When human language changes so you say "my zeroth transaction today was...", then it will make sense to program that way. Until then, the computer should figure out that array element 1 is at memory offset 0, so the programmer and end user don't have to concern themselves with such trivialities. StuRat (talk) 20:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help guys, but so far I'm still pretty clueless :(

My assignment is this. I cant even figure out how to get something on my screen that lets me write C code. Code::blocks doesnt seem to be working. And is there a way to view the source code of the drawings already submitted? 169.231.8.73 (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A) That says you are to use GCC under Linux. Are you even on Linux ? Don't they provide instructions on how to install GCC ? If you're not on the Linux operating system, then you either need to get that or use one of the Windows versions of C compilers listed above. However, that would mean the instructions given in the class won't always apply directly, since you aren't using GCC. So, perhaps getting some version of Linux would be easier. Don't they give instructions for doing this at the start of the class ?

B) It also says completing labs 0-7 is a pre-req. Did you do those ?

C) I expect that such a class would have included detailed instructions on how to set up the environment.

D) They are using a "make" command to compile and link together (this uses the "Makefile" provided).

E) It says you're supposed to have a partner. Do you ?

F) As far as writing code, as I said, any text editor will work. For this project, you're supposed to edit the file "ourDrawing.c", which they provide. If you use the Linux operating system, it won't have Notepad on it, but will have similar text editors.

G) I don't know what "Code::blocks" means. Can you explain ? StuRat (talk) 23:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, OP. You need to follow the step-by-step instructions closely. You need to be on computer with an installed C compiler, in this case gcc, ie one where typing gcc --help will produce some bumph on the screen. For this project you also need make, which chains together the calls to gcc from something called a makefile, saying "if you've not got this do that". Installing gcc and make are hard, probably impossible if you've never used them. Your instructor has provided an installation on your departmental machine, you should use it. When you've had a bit of success with that, by all means have a go on your own computer. Departmental admins spend a lot of time getting machines with the right stuff on them and while shared machines may seem like an evil communist plot and a bit skanky, they're the way to get things done until you're able to manage your own machine. Use notepad in this case to edit the c files. There's stuff that's prettier but that will just add to things to go wrong at this stage, just concentrate on getting this example going. A C-program takes files ending .c and .h and turns them into .o's and then globs them all up into an executable. An executable is an application just like a browser is or a game is or a CD ripper is. It's nothing particular to do with the web. You run it from the command line as mentioned in the documentation by typing the executable name. In this case it seems to generate GIF files. You can view them later with a browser but that's not the point: the point is that this software makes them. The examples are goofy but it could easily be a fractal or a ray trace with only a little more work. As other people write above, C is difficult to write. It's good for a few things. First, it's very, very quick (if written well). Second, it can access the underlying system with unparalleled accuracy and precision. Third, it teaches you about how systems work. There are /a lot/ of C jobs out there, it's well worth learning for itself and for what it teaches you about how stuff works: this isn't your teacher being old-fashioned or random. You almost certainly won't understand other languages as well, or see where things like performance problems are coming from until you've learnt C. It's worth sticking with, even if it takes a long time to do not so much. For now, follow the instructions you linked to. For example, open notepad and write in a file called hello.c.

 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 int main(void)
 {
   puts("Hello World!");
   return 0;
 }

Now run this command on the command line

 gcc hello.c -o hello

Now run the application you just made from the command line

 ./hello

81.141.91.145 (talk) 00:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The OP has linked to his assignment instructions, which clearly state the required prerequisite knowledge: "Before starting this project, you should have completed the labs up through lab07. In particular, you should be comfortable working with arrays, structs, arrays of structs, and passing structs and arrays of structs to functions." Have you completed Labs 0 through 7? If you expect to start at Step 8, without completing Steps 0 through 7, you will never be a very good programmer: programming is about exact adherence to procedure; or rather, the definition of exact procedural steps so that a dumb-machine can follow these instructions. Creative use of procedure can only really be achieved after you've got the basic technique mastered. Nimur (talk) 01:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The due date for the assignment is March 11, 2010. I imagine the original poster just found it online and thought it would be a good starting project. (Which it probably isn't.) -- BenRG (talk)

The professor who assigned this to his class in March 2010 is my professor now, and he is asking that everyone in class complete this lab to gauge everyone's prior knowledge. The original prerequisites and everything are not part of this course, this is our first assignment of the quarter. So I do not have any of these things already, I am attempting to finish this completely by myself. I have a meeting with the professor tomorrow, it's possible I might have to drop the class if I cannot complete the first assignment :( I've spent every minute of free time these past three weeks trying to learn this too... 169.231.8.73 (talk) 03:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

openoffice calc - graphing "wild" data

I've been asked to graph weekly hit stats for our website. Most of the time, the range of the data is 0 to 500, however we had two weeks where the hits were in the 2000-3500 range. This makes most of the graph very difficult to see as it is so small. What would be the best way to graph this data so that all the data is visible? Is it possible to have two different scales on the y-axis, with 0-500 taking up the bottom 3/4's of the graph so the data is visible and the rest of the axis in a small scale to show the bigger numbers? Thanks! --TrogWoolley (talk) 13:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You might want to try plotting on a logarithmic scale. It should be an option for the chart axis. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure about those figures? You should normally exclude robots, plus as well as the normal probes for weaknesses every so often sites get some hacker trying out all sorts of stupid things on it. But I agree if you are having sudden surges of interest then a logarithmic scale is what you want. But then again it may be right just to have the rest go invisible if you wnat to show the actual amounts overall. Dmcq (talk) 14:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

What information do you want a person who looks at the graph to be able to pick up from it? Looie496 (talk) 14:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Another option is to put a break line (doesn't Wikipedia have an article on this ?) in the tall bars in a bar graph, and write the number above them. I don't know if OpenOffice supports this, however. StuRat (talk) 20:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Torrent Download Problem

While downloading a torrent file , it just shows " connecting to peers " , and the download doesn't begin . How do I resolve the issue ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jug9 (talk • contribs) 14:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The only possibility is to use a different Bittorrent program, but that probably won't work. It is impossible to download a file if your program can't find a peer who will provide it to you. Looie496 (talk) 14:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Try another port. Many tracked torrents also are entirely unseeded. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It would be worth trying to find out whether the trackers think there are seeders; whatever site you got the torrent from ought to say, somewhere. If there are no or very few seeders then it's possible there may just not be any peers to connect to. If there are lots of seeders and you still can't connect, you will need to troubleshoot your client and/or your router and firewall settings. But not knowing your torrent program, your OS, or anything else about your situation, it's not possible for us to give any really specific debugging information or suggestions for you. There are just too many possibilities. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

css nonsense

Hi, I have the following code in my css sheet:

div.selectorFormSection.override {
   font-size: 20px;
}

Only problem is, it is constantly being overridden by something in jquery ui:

element.style {
   font-size: 16px;
}

I've checked with Firebug, and my code is definitely present, it's just getting crossed out. Now surely my own rule is more specific, since it has two classes. As I understand it, for the style rule to be applied, an element must have both classes. That makes it more specific than the jquery rule, which only has one class. I don't want to have to write junk like "!important" every time I do something simple, so please, can someone tell me what's wrong with my code? Thanks, IBE (talk) 23:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

element.style in firebug isn't really a CSS selector. It means that this content was inside a style element on the tag in the HTML or has been added as if such by javascript (more likely). Something in jQuery UI is going in there and explicitly setting the font-size to 16px. It's usually easier to use themeroller to roll a jQuery UI theme with the correct sizes in them than to argue with it over particular tags. 81.141.91.145 (talk) 23:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I see. Since it's my own html, I'm pretty sure it's the second option: javascript. I've been wondering about this irritating "element.style" for the longest time, so very glad I asked. I won't put "resolved" in case someone has more to add, such as suggested workarounds, but that pretty much solves it. IBE (talk) 00:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)