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September 14

Using smarthone's GPS without data plan

Is every smartphone able to use its GPS without a data plan (I mean connecting to Google Maps and such)? Could telco companies block this ability to make the client spend more?

The GPS function itself would not use the data allowance, however all that you could get out of it is location coordinates, not an actual map. It is the map data (tiles or vector data) that show where the phone is and the surroundings that do use data. You could feasibly get around this by using a maps app which stores or caches its data offline on the phone, and just uses the GPS to locate the phone on the stored map (downloading the maps over wifi). --Canley (talk) 01:27, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See this page, under the heading "Offline Maps". --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 03:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that a GPS without a data plan is technically possible. I just want to know if a telco could 'lock' you artificially to their data plan. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:40, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's possible (locking the customer out of the physical phone's GPS capabilities - aside from Apple, as stated below (though I can't verify that because I'm far from an Apple expert...)); and I couldn't find any documentations of this ever happening. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 18:10, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've bought offline cycling maps for little money (small single digit EUR), and they work fine with the iPhone's GPS. Similarly, the iPhone compass application will always give you your location in latitude and longitude. The GPS is independent of the data connection, and the GPS API is available to all developers. The question is if you have any applications that make use of it. The Telco cannot block GPS directly. However, if they provide your phone, they can conceivable lock out this feature. However, that would be quite pointless, and I've never heard of a case where this has happened.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A question: Have you ever gotten GPS on an iphone to work without some sort of data connection at the same time? I never have. It's well known that the iPhone's GPS downloads a lot of the meta information for a GPS connect directly, either from the tower itself, or over the internet. Its location based services work on a few levels (local cell, local wifi, actual gps, etc.). I've never heard of the GPS working completely on its own though. Shadowjams (talk) 11:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The GPS receiver needs no connection to any tower or wireless link. It receives data direct from the GPS satellites completely free of charge. Of course, some phone companies may restrict access to the inbuilt GPS receiver, as noted by Shadowjams above. Does Apple really not allow any access without paying? (I keep well away from Apple. I regard it as a rich man's company!) Dbfirs 11:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Last year I visited an exurban valley with a clear sky but out of range of SPRINT towers. My HTC EVO V4G lost its location. I figure it's because of a poor receiver that can't synch quickly without aGPS but you could be right that the company blocked it. Anyway I biked up a hill into Norwood, New Jersey and it worked again. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When you say it lost it's location, did it just lose access to Google Maps to display that location? I assume that you haven't downloaded any maps. Dbfirs 11:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have a Samsung for which I currently have no data plan (nor even a phone plan, for that matter), and the GPS still works. But just the GPS, meaning that if you run an app whose specific purpose is to query the GPS, then you can see latitude, longitude, and velocity. No maps, not even of places where I've used the maps before (unless I'm connected to wi-fi of course — that's independent of any data plan). --Trovatore (talk) 18:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you should be able to make this phone work with other maps then. There are several offline apps available. 83.49.194.226 (talk) 20:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In my case in New Jersey it plain didn't give me a location when out of range of towers. Apparently others have had experiences more in line with theory than mine. Guesses include, maybe my particular HTC phone has a crummy GPS chip that becomes impractically bad when deprived of aGPS, or maybe Virgin Mobile, my carrier, fixed it so it wouldn't work when out of contact, or maybe I didn't wait long enough before giving up and seeking a more urbanized locale to get connected. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:44, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How to add blank lines to an HTML Blog Post

Check out this blog post. It was pasted in from a Word Document, and it seems like every time I do this, it strips all the blank lines between paragraphs. I have this problem less when writing the Blog Post myself in the WordPress window, but I'd like to be able to add blank lines between the paragraph so it isn't a wall of text to the face. Checking the code itself never seems to work; the blank lines are there when viewing the blog post from the editing window.

Help? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 05:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried   yet? →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 07:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can also wrap your paragraphs in  ...  tags. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 07:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of those have worked. When I add the code (be it  or  ) in the HTML editing window and either save or view it in Visual Editing window, it purges that code and adds <div> code that doesn't work. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 07:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I edited your post slightly for clarity, replacing "<" with "<" and ">" with ">". --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:20, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

MS-Word generates horrible html, so if you copy-pasted directly from MS-Word, that may be the cause of the problem. Have you tried copy-pasting your text from the MS-Word document into a plaintext editor such as notepad, and then copy-pasting again from notepad into the Wordpress editor, and then add the necessary formatting? This should remove all MS-Word-generated html. --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This works! Thanks! --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 04:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

US websites not available

For the last two days, I have been unable to access my Gmail account because Google.com is unavailable. (Google.co.uk is accessible as normal, but my mail is at Google.com and the redirect fails.) I've discovered that two other American websites are unavailable: Hotmail.com and USPS.com (-- there could be others, but these are the only ones I've found to fail so far). Pinging these websites results in either "Request timed out" or "Ping request could not find host". My ISP says that the problem is most likely my router and that these sites might have a larger packet size. I'll try rebooting the router, but does this explanation make sense? Dbfirs 17:15, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please paste the result of running tracert www.google.com into a new pastebin and link to that here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Sorry for the delay -- I've been out. ) I should have mentioned that tracert just returns the message "Unable to resolve target system name www.google.com". Exactly the same message for hotmail, microsoft and usps. Does this mean that the DNS server is not interpreting the url? I should mention that my internet connection can be very slow at times, so perhaps something is timing out? Dbfirs 20:29, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Flush the DNS cache. If that doesn't fix it, change your DNS settings to use OpenDNS or Google's public DNS. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for the suggestions and useful links (I can never remember how to get to the many options). Flushing the DNS made no difference, but using OpenDNS instead of my Internet provider's DNS server solved the problem. Now I know where the fault lies -- they wanted to sell me a new router! Thanks again. Dbfirs 07:56, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It probably still is the router. You are probably leasing your local IP address by DHCP from the router, and it would send you the addresses of which DNS servers to use. That's often the router itself, acting as another layer of caching between you and your ISP's nameservers. If the router is bad somehow, it might be failing in that regard. I could (perhaps should) have asked you to set your Windows DNS servers directly to the ISP's, cutting out the middleman that way - you'd get those numbers either from the router's own config screens (it gets given then when it leases its address from the ISP by PPPoA) or from the ISP's help website. It's very unlikely that the ISP's nameservers are defective, as all their customers would be unable to access those sites, which obviously they'd notice. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 09:16, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because I get my internet access delivered via a series of microwave links, there are several other routers between mine and the DNS server, so I'm not sure which address is the ultimate DNS server. I suspect that it is one of these links that is failing to deliver the correct response, probably because of delays in transmission, but it could be partly my router too -- it is getting old. The problem occurred only with sites in the USA (presumably uncached locally). Anyway, your suggestion solved the problem. Dbfirs 07:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

September 15

Remember when youtube would load the whole video while paused?

What was the problem with that?OsmanRF34 (talk) 04:34, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect having the entire video in memory at once made it easier to make copies. StuRat (talk) 07:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I used to pause to allow my slow internet to download a reasonable amount so that I could watch without it stopping and stuttering, but now this doesn't work. Now I have to download the whole thing (even when I don't want to keep it) before I can watch it. Dbfirs 08:01, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I too have noticed this and used to pause videos as you did, though I now have a 'faster' Internet link. Has YouTube made any 'official' comment on this issue? ψ 220 of ^Borg 11:01, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Weird - doesn't work for me, either. But then again I don't watch YouTube videos nearly as much as I used to, and this was never really an issue on my laptop anyway. Basically if I pause it right at start the video will load to about 5cm (rough estimate) accross the bar and then stop. If I play it, then it will continue loading but if I pause it again, the bar will stop loading. So it looks like there's a little "start-up" loading at the beginning, but after that... nothing. I couldn't find anything online official or recent unofficial (best I could get was forum posts from last year) about this. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 18:15, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Copying YouTube videos is trivially easy anyway. I suspect it probably has to do with total bandwidth usage. By only buffering a small fraction of the video they're saving a fantastic amount of bandwidth on users that, for whatever reason, don't watch the whole video. (Or who switch resolutions before the end.) APL (talk) 05:07, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is the actual question here? Is it an RfC? Yes, I have noticed the difference. I don't mind, as before there was no way to pause loading. Now I just download with real player if I want to see the whole thing at my leisure. The motivation is obviously to save bandwith on YT's part. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

rearm count

how to reset rearm count? Aravindv.nair1999 12:05, 15 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aravindv.nair1999 (talk • contribs)

I assume you are referring to Windows 7 (I Googled "rearm count".) See What is the meaning of the term "rearm count" ? and follow the instructions there. ҩ 220 of ^Borg 14:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling anomaly

Is it possible for words on a wiki page, such as Wikipedia's article President of the United States, to be spelt differently on different users' screens?

I ask because of Talk: President of the United States#'Juridicial'?. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:59, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible if there was a recent change and there are caching issues, but that is unlikely particularly for two logged in editors and as you said, the article hasn't changed in that way in recent times (and recent changes), if it ever was spelt differently. (Well technically there's no limit to the amount of time and the number of changes that may be preserved but it's a lot less likely a very old version but in time and in number of changes will be preserved.) There are also other more unlikely possibilities like a rogue or intentional plugin which modifies words or attempts corrections on live pages (which you obviously shouldn't use if editing wikipedia). However I don't think any of this is likely here, as I said on the article talk page I expect it's simply confusion over what is being contested. You are saying it says 'juridical' not 'juridicial' which is correct. Zdawg1029 is saying it says 'juridical' or 'juridicial' when they think it should say 'judicial', and they think you are saying it already says 'judicial' or at least does not say either 'juridical' or 'juridicial' (they are course also correct since it does says 'juridical' even if they spelt it wrong once). Edit: Zdawg1029 seems to have confirmed my theory. Nil Einne (talk) 21:36, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. For most of Wikipedia's history, we always linked dates when possible, because it permitted autoformatting; depending on your preferences, 2009-02-03 would appear as February 3, 2009 or as 3 February 2009, and either of those, if typed, would appear the other way if you had that as your preference. Also note how the Chinese Wikipedia somehow is set up to switch between simplified and traditional characters. Given that these are possible, it would surely be possible for something to be set up to switch specific spellings, but I can't see why the developers would want to do that. 2001:18E8:2:1020:34BE:9914:31CB:EBF9 (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

September 16

How can computer convert software to hardware ?

How? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.238.39.250 (talk) 09:29, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps by 3D printing? The question doesn't really give enough information to gain a reasonable answer. You can put software onto a computer chip, which is hardware. Is this what you were asking? 217.158.236.14 (talk) 09:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Our articles on machine code, microcode, instruction set and microarchitecture may help you. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:54, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not possible… software is information and hardware is matter!!
Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 17:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Iskander sums it up pretty nicely... when taken literally, no - software can't be "converted" to hardware. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 23:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do hardware description languages (VHDL/Verilog) count? --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 23:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not really because it's still not the software itself being "converted to hardware"; though I guess that's about as close as you'd get. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 02:39, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the most close computers are on transforming software into anything else is in transforming the software into another kind of software, but I guess we are more in the stage of transforming the original software into “just the same software” but with very little code variations due to data readouts, that maybe… maybe, after a lot of hard work and a lot of god luck, some of this variations improve the original software.
But hey! Be careful, my school teachers always claimed: “do NOT mess the code with the data!” so do it at your own risk
Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 06:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How can a computer that shows us digital information on hardware on form images and other programs?

How can a computer that shows us digital information on hardware on form images and other programs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.238.39.250 (talk) 10:20, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't mean anything in English.217.158.236.14 (talk) 11:07, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to post questions in your native language, and we can translate them for you. But, in case you are asking how digital information can form pictures, I can describe that. The digital info describes a series of dots (pixels) which are drawn on the screen. If you look closely, perhaps using a magnifying glass, you can see the individual dots. For a black and white image, the dots are only two colors, black and white (although they could really be any two colors). If we draw extra large "pixels" here, say using the "O" symbol, you can see how they run together to form letters and pictures, if you stand back a bit:

O   O   O O O  
O   O     O    
O O O     O     
O   O     O  
O   O   O O O

For color images, the pixels can be be many colors, and there is a digital code which describes the color of each pixel. For example, 00000000 11111111 00000000 might describe the color green, for one pixel. I can go into more detail here, if you are curious about how we get from the codes to the color. StuRat (talk) 12:20, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you believe general relativity theory ?

Are you believe general relativity theory ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.238.39.250 (talk) 10:24, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A) Wrong desk B) As I'm not smart enough to know otherwise, yes, I believe it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.158.236.14 (talk) 10:57, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

General relativity is the best theory we have to explain a number of observed phenomena, but then, a hundred years ago, Newtonian mechanics held that honour. Perhaps sometime in the future, we will have a grand Theory of everything that includes both relativity and quantum mechanics, but don't hold your breath. I expect that, at least for the rest of my lifetime, general relativity will be "believed" by nearly all scientists because it provides the best explanation. I'm not sure that I'd elevate my confidence in it to a "belief", but I know that it works, and gives correct predictions. What more can you expect? Dbfirs 15:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This question would be better suited to the science desk. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 23:40, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Automation in arranging and labelling pictures

I have to print out pictures to stick into a logbook for work/PhD project. I've been having to arrange this pictures in MS PowerPoint along with text boxes to say what each image represents. The pictures all have descriptive file names in the form 'Exp.SS.4.4.193 - DF1 - pRHS-98 - Without Antibiotic - Replicate 3 - 15x - Field 2 - Merged B-R - 2013-05-11'. Is there some way I could automate the abhorrent chore, fitting about six images from a specified folder onto each page, with the file name serving to identify each image? To make things harder, the folder also contains images titled as follows 'Exp.SS.4.4.193 - DF1 - pRHS-98 - Without Antibiotic - Replicate 3 - 15x - Field 2 - Brightfield - 2013-05-11' and 'Exp.SS.4.4.193 - DF1 - pRHS-98 - Without Antibiotic - Replicate 3 - 15x - Field 2 - UV red - 2013-05-11' which I don't want to be included in the print outs. Thanks a lot for any help you can offer! --129.215.47.59 (talk) 14:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I had to do huge amounts of that sort of thing for my own data analysis, but I was working in the Unix environment and handled it by writing writing shell scripts and a couple of small helper programs. If you are willing to accept PDF output rather than PPT, you might be able to do this using a program called "montage" that comes with ImageMagick -- it's not clear how hard you would have to work to exclude images you don't want, though. Looie496 (talk) 15:22, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks. I have used Linux in the past and have access to UNIX at university (though I'm not sure in what form) though I don't know how to script and may or may not be able to interpret a prewritten script. Do you still have the script(s) you used? 129.215.47.59 (talk) 15:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

For renaming the pictures there are a handful of programs out there that will let you do basic pattern recognition on renaming files. I would investigate those for the simplest fix of that. As for putting them into powerpoint, that will take a little more doing. There may be some visual basic plugins that you could macro, or there may be a module for whatever programming language you choose. But short of learning some scripting language (perhaps find a CS person who'd do it for a fee?) I can't think of an easy way to put them into powerpoints. If there was a good powerpoint creation module, that would work. Maybe someone more familiar with Office macros could help. Shadowjams (talk) 23:32, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bing

How do I make Bing my search engine? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crescentiaws (talk • contribs) 14:35, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

- Said no-one, ever... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.23.174 (talk) 20:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That depends, what is your Operating System and browser, with versions if you know them ? StuRat (talk) 23:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Go here, then set that page to your homepage. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 23:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions for making Bing your default search engine vary depending on which browser you are using. Fortunately, Bing has a guide set up at www.bing.com/customizeBrowser that explains the various methods. Navigate to that page, select your browser by clicking on the drop-down menu, and follow the directions that appear to the right. If you are a Chrome user and would prefer to follow their directions, you may find Chrome specific instructions here. For yet another method, check wikiHow's "3 Ways to Change Your Default Search Engine" article. Utahpolis (talk) 01:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ALT+0157

What is this character called? It got deleted several years ago (perhaps because it was created by Grawp?), and since all I know is the ALT+4 code, my searches only reveal lists of ALT+4 codes. 2001:18E8:2:1020:34BE:9914:31CB:EBF9 (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Search for 157 in the table at C0 and C1 control codes, which explains, somewhat. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BIOS problem

A friend has this really old pc with an Intel DG965SS, all was working fine but due to a power failure (the power cable got unplugged from the wall) the BIOS lost its information.

A technician checked the board and tested all the components, and everything is OK, including the BIOS chip. When he tried to replace the BIOS from the one in the Intel site, it still didn’t work.

What could the problem be?

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 16:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the CMOS battery died coincidentally near to the same time the cable got unplugged. "Nonvolatile BIOS memory refers to a small memory on PC motherboards that is used to store BIOS settings. It was traditionally called CMOS RAM because it used a volatile, low-power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM (such as the Motorola MC146818 or similar) powered by a small battery when system power was off."20.137.2.50 (talk) 16:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

so... in that case how could it be fixed?

any other idea?

thanks

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 16:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"so... in that case how could it be fixed?" That's just a button battery, probably CR2032, that you can buy at most supermarkets for a couple dollars and replace. It's the shiny silver circle in the image shown at Nonvolatile BIOS memory. 75.75.42.89 (talk) 21:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; I'm looking at a pack I have on hand right now. Price tag isn't on it anymore, but IIRC it was about CAD$2 or less for a pack of three. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 23:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, now I see… you are pointing to the battery, earlier today I was thinking something about RAM, it seems I jumped some lines…
But no, that was the first thing that got discarded… we proved the battery even before taking the whole system to the technician.
Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 06:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That motherboard has an onboard beeper, and has a code (3 beeps) for RAM problems. Try disconnecting everything from the board except for the processor and power supply. If it can't even get to the point of beeping at you then there is a problem in one of those three components. If you can borrow a power supply from another computer you could see if that is where the problem is. Katie R (talk) 12:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

September 17

Can I make my PC beep when reboot is complete ?

That is, at the login panel. I realize that the speakers may not be available at that point, so a beep from the motherboard would be fine. I have two Windows 7 PCs, one 32-bit and the other 64-bit. This beep would alert me that the reboot is complete, and I may now log in. That way I wouldn't need to stare at it to know when it's ready. StuRat (talk) 11:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your question has been driving me crazy - I know I read an article explaining that 7 plays a sound once the logon screen is ready, and it compared it to Vista where the sound could play before the user could actually login. Searches bring up nothing but pages on how to change the sound, but I finally found it: [1]. If your speakers are on, then Windows should play a sound once the logon prompt appears. Is yours not playing the sound, or is there a delay before it does? Or by "speakers may not be available" do you mean you're like me and often have them off, so you need it to use the motherboard speaker? Katie R (talk) 12:39, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's some pages about getting Windows 7 to beep using the motherboard speaker: [2], [3]; I searched around and it doesn't look like anyone has written a program to do this. As Katie mentions above, 7 plays a sound at the login screen, as opposed to Vista where it was before; the reasoning is explained in the link above: "You may also be wondering what happened to the startup sound. In Vista, the sound had to be synchronized with the pearl animation to produce the highest quality experience. This has potential performance impact on some hardware, as we require the system’s sound stack to be loaded to complete the pearl sequence. In the cases when we are waiting for the system’s sound playback to be ready, a delay can occur in getting to the desktop. As such, we changed the sound to now play asynchronously, anytime after the logon screen loads. On most hardware that we tested, this is right when the logon screen displays. We heard customer feedback in Vista that the sound played and caught your attention, but boot was not yet complete. So in addition to performance benefits, this change also improves the user experience by letting users know when their machine is ready for use." Though I rarely hear it on the Win7 desktop I use or my Vista laptop because I rarely have my external speakers on; you'd have to leave them on all the time in order for that startup sound to be of any use. Though I guess a workaround could be turning your speakers up when you leave the computer after choosing "reboot"; then, when you return after hearing the notification sound you can turn it back down. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 03:26, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I currently get a motherboard beep near the start of the boot process, and no sound when it's ready to boot. I have it hooked up to headphones, which are turned on but not on my head at the time. Still, I'd expect to hear sound from them, since they are about a foot from my ears, and I hear other sounds from them. Is the volume quite low on this "ready" sound ? Could it be disabled on my PC ? If so, how do I turn it back on ? Is it one type of sound, which might be currently disabled, while other sounds continue to play ? StuRat (talk) 03:38, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If it is disabled, see this page to turn it back on. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 03:44, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Play Windows Startup sound" was already checked. However, I suspect that this means the flourish played after logon is complete and Windows is running. What I am looking for is a sound to tell me the reboot is complete and it's waiting for my PW. StuRat (talk) 03:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I turned off all other sounds in the room and put the headphones on during a reboot, and found it does make a sound where I want, but the volume level is quite low, relative to other sounds the PC makes, say when I play music. Is there any way to crank up the volume on this particular sound ? I tried switching to some other desktop sound themes, and Savannah seemed slightly louder, but still not loud enough. StuRat (talk) 04:33, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could you modify the sound file used in Audacity? 129.215.47.59 (talk) 10:40, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively just find an alternative file, or even make your own perhaps of you yelling 'MY COMPUTER IS ON'. However I wonder if there is a wider problem here. I'm pretty sure the login sound is counted a system sound. The example given 'relative to other sounds the PC makes, say when I play music' is clearly not a system sound. Is it possible you've turned down the volume on 'system sounds' which is why the logon sound is so soft? I believe 'system sounds' should show up in the mixer pretty much all the time so it should be easy to check. Of course you could turn up system sounds and turn everything else down but this is likely to be annoying particularly since I'm not aware there's a way to make the default for new apps low (although it's not something I've ever needed to look in to). Nil Einne (talk) 12:48, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "System sounds" volume was set to max. I think the system sound recordings just aren't very loud. To substitute my own sound, what formats can I use ? StuRat (talk) 12:54, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops reading more carefully I just realised the problem is in Windows 7 (and Vista and 8) the startup sound isn't actually easily changeable unlike with other sounds as it's just the 'play Windows startup sound' thing rather than letting you select. It seems it is possible in 7 by modifying a file [4] but not that easy, well unless you want to risk tools I can't vouch for [5] [http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/63398-startup-sound-change-windows-7-a.html. On the other hand, if it changes with a theme, there must be someway to customise it without having to modify system files, at worst creating your own theme or modding an existing one. Nil Einne (talk) 13:02, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the other alternative is to just give up on the Windows 7 system sounds to do what you want. It seems to me from experience and also other comments [6] that there's no reason you can do this with scheduled task although I haven't tried this particular task. That way you could even make it us th PC speaker (or both) if you really want, just find or write a program that plays to the speaker. Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the HD serial number (of the hardware, rather than of the volume). Possible?

HOOTmag (talk) 14:08, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the serial number is something you'll probably want to try asking the manufacturer about. Most drives will have a disk signature that is often used much like a serial number to uniquely identify a drive, and it is a filesystem feature that can be changed. Format routines are designed to preserve the signature, but in Windows you can use diskpart to change it: [7] Katie R (talk) 13:46, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect the hardware serial number is held on the drive's firmware (as well as probably being printed on the label stuck to the drive casing). Searching for HD firmware flash suggests tools exist, but usually only to update a particular manufacturer's firmware. I haven't yet found if anything will let you change the serial number. But why would you want to do that anyway? Astronaut (talk) 16:03, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

blanking drop-down fields menu items in fillable PDFs, once invoked

Hey all. I often have to fill out PDF forms at work that have drop-down menu items, such as a date, a State and so on. When you start such a form those sections that have a field are blank. You fill out preset items by clicking on an arrow and then choosing from a list. This would not be a problem, except that sometimes I want to revert it back to a blank. The issue is that once I've invoked a field, and chosen an item, I can't figure out how to blank the field again. I can go back to the drop-down menu and choose a different item from the list, but there is no entry for blanking it – there is no "no answer" you can choose. Anyone know a way to blank such a field once invoked? What I end up doing is printing then using white out ribbon. By the way, I am using Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional.--108.27.62.131 (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What happens if you press the delete key? Astronaut (talk) 20:51, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Laptop serving a network?

Can a laptop without an external router host a wireless network? A plain laptop with wireless do it? Are there internal routers? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some 802.11 adapters allow this; some don't. The key part is enabling the hostednetwork option (sometimes called "AP mode" or "access point mode") on the adapter. A howto (which I haven't personally tried) for doing this on Windows 7 is here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Today at work my wife saw a wifi network for a business that is several miles away - way too far for a signal. When a person left early, the wifi network went away. We don't understand what is going on. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:00, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably due to a weird misfeature of some version of Windows ad-hoc wireless network - see the first sentence the "how it works" section in this article. That says the bug was fixed in XP's SP3; thus it shouldn't be present at all in Vista/7/8. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:11, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like what is happening because my wife says that the person does have XP. Also, it is reasonable that they have logged into the wifi that it was showing today. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:20, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've used Windows 7 ap mode with a Ralink 3072 device without major issue. Nil Einne (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

September 18

Folder Overwrite upon Installation

I had a folder dedicated to saved in-game files copied to my new computer before I installed this game onto the new computer. I think the folder may have been replaced with a new one because they had the same name. Is that possible that all my old custom files were deleted upon installation of the game and replaced with an empty folder? 128.101.184.181 (talk) 00:07, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, quite possible. Better install programs will prompt you to either "replace all old files from previous installs", or "install a new version, preserving the old version". However, many install programs don't bother. StuRat (talk) 03:30, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah; it's always a good idea to make backups of important files like this. Though it wouldn't be a problem if all installers took into account the fact that the game/program/etc may have been installed before by the user, or some old files may be present on that computer. Strangely, a really interesting glitch in the AVG antivirus program caused the files of the older version to be retained when the user updated to the latest version. This caused the two sets of files to conflict, and made the AV go haywire and identify every single incoming file as a virus. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 03:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Turing thesis

Does Turing thesis entail that every algorithm must have a "starting point", i.e. a first step starting that algorithm? 84.229.81.123 (talk) 06:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The definition of algorithm already implies that. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When & Why does WIn 7 Re-arrange Desktop Icons?

Recently I booted up my Toshiba Satellite L750 (PSK2YA-05210) laptop PC from sleep mode and found that my desktop Icons had all been re-arranged. They were previously spread out in groups across the desktop as I wanted. Now they are in a row of 3 down right across the top, and 3 across on the left side of the desktop. Even a few desktop gadgets (weather, clock & calendar were pushed up on top of each other into the top right hand corner. The icons don't seem to be in any particular order i.e. not alphabetically, or by file type. Thus about half the screen on the centre & lower right is now completely clear.

I occasionally have to force a re-boot by powering down without shutting windows first, and might have expected strange results, but the icons always seem to stay where I left them.

Is there a set of conditions where Win 7 will automatically re-arrange the desktop? € 220 of ^Borg 12:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've experienced something similar when gaming occasionally. If the screen resolution is changed then things do get moved like this. Could that explain what you experienced? Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 12:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, while I had that problem in previous Windows, that changing the screen resolution, then changing it back, would leave your icons all messed up, they seem to have fixed that in Windows 7. Presumably it now stores the icon layout at each screen res and restores the layout when you return to that res. However, if you change the icon layout at the new resolution, it might no longer return to the original layout when you return to the original screen res. StuRat (talk) 12:58, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I know what you mean Jenova20 & StuRat, but I haven't changed the resolution and haven't been playing any games for a while. I Just un-slept the PC. ю 220 of ^Borg 13:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've experienced this kind of behavoir, certainly on Windows Vista and maybe on Windows 7 as well. As far as I can tell, it gradually collects various icon layouts (and a few other parameters too) per user, per screen resolution. I think it sometimes has a hidden default, one that might not be owned by the currently active user, when it is unable to find one that it already knows about, eg. when in sleep mode for the first time. The good news is that as it collects more, the problems will eventually go away. Astronaut (talk) 14:09, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've had this happen with several versions of Windows and it happened to me yesterday with Windows 8 when I restarted. I don't know why it happens. But it moved only ones that had been recently added to the desktop. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:04, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I had this problem until I installed Fences (software).--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:41, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen this on XP and 7, but not Vista. More specifically, I have a switch which allows me to go back and forth between an XP computer and a 7 one, with one monitor. Sometimes, whenever I'd switch back to 7 from XP, this would happen. There was pretty much two variations to this; the first being that all the icons would be rearranged (as you saw.) Or, the resolution would be drastically altered so that the icons were about four times their normal size; and - once I had fixed the resolution back to it's normal ratio - the desktop icons would be rearranged due to "shrinking" from the overlarge incorrect size back to their usual "smaller" size. Then I would have to manually rearrange them. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 01:11, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

September 19

Bad Javascript extension?

I posted the following request for help at WP:VPT, but it got archived without any suggestions on how to resolve it.

IE8, Windows 7, Monobook. In the last few days, occasional pages have started not to appear: I go to a page, the elements appear as they're downloaded, but as soon as everything's downloaded, the screen goes white. Completely white, as if the page had no code on it at all! At the same time, I know that things are downloading and not simply cached, since the little bar at the bottom right of the browser says "Downloading imagenamehere.png", "Accessing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pagenamehere", etc., until it displays "Done" once completed. I can view the history page and the edit page fine (although I have to go directly to the URLs, since the tabs don't appear), but if I preview an edit, the screen goes completely white. I have no clue what's causing this, because it's rare — I've only encountered this on four pages, and all of them are just in the last few days:
Commons:COM:ADMIN

Commons:COM:VP

Norway

CAT:CSD

Japanese yen Added at 02:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

At first, I thought it was something weird at Commons, so I asked for help at their VP (using Firefox, which didn't have a problem with either Commons page) but was given a snarky response and nothing that helped to resolve the problem. Now that I've encountered it on two vastly different pages here, I have no clue at all what's happening. Nyttend (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

These are the typical effects of a document.write statement being used somewhere in an async executed Javascript. You hardly have any JS installed on this wiki as far as I can tell, so my suspicion is a broken browser extension (which are also JS normally). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Other pages have started not appearing, such as mouse (computing), train station, and France. Whenever I try to load one of these three pages, I get a long message at the bottom (where the browser tells me what it's loading) immediately before the screen goes blank. With France, I first get Downloading picture data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAA4AAAAgCAMAAAAVMLmlAAAAA3NCSVQICAjb4U/gAAAACXBIWXMAAA3X [the string is longer, but it gets truncated here because it's too long to fit in the bar], and after that I get Downloading picture https://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.22wmf16/extensions/TimedMediaHandler/MwEmbedModules/EmbedPlayer/resources/skins/kskin/i [again, truncated for length]. Any idea what I should do to fix the situation? Changing to a later edition of IE isn't possible for various reasons. As far as I know, since this started happening, I've not upgraded my browser in any way, except for installing any routine updates from Microsoft that might have come along. Nyttend (talk) 06:25, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you had a look at the javascript console. You might see the javascript errors there? (You might need to get hold of the developer toolbar to inspect the javascript).--User:Salix alba (talk): 09:08, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Vista Media Player

It used to display the time, but I've lost it somehow. How can I get it back? Clarityfiend (talk) 08:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DVD write problem

when i try to write a new dvd it fails and shows Invalid block address F: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20L. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.99.144.221 (talk) 08:42, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could not connect to system event notification service

I have a PC running Vista Home Premium, with 1 admin login and 2 user login accounts. Today it refused to allow users to logins, reporting "Windows could not connect to the system event notification service service". The admin login still works, but without Aero. How can I fix this? I googled this error and found sites that tell you to use netsh via a command line to winsock reset. However this returns "This command requires elevation", whatever that means. Looking in the event log shows no errors that are unique to today. 121.215.151.4 (talk) 10:10, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I have since realised that "elevation" means elevate in privilege level, ie requires admin level. I forgot that when you invoke the command line when logged in as admin does not automatically mean the command line has admin rights. You have to explicitly tell it (right click). I fixed the problem by running sfc /scannow. Thanks. 121.215.151.4 (talk) 12:51, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Color reduction of a pic with one just one pixel to every color on 24bit pallete

I was reading about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_quantization.

Anyway, lets imagine someone made a big picture with every colour from 24-bit pallete, each colour having just one pixel and then reduced it to a 256 colours pallete how this pallete would be? And the 16 colours one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.138.193 (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it depends on the quantization algorithm that is used, but basically you end up with colors distributed more or less evenly throughout the color cube. Looie496 (talk) 14:56, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Android Chrome browser history

How can you access browser history on Chrome in Android (4.1.2)? Entering "chrome:history" or "chrome://history" in the address box as suggested by various websites just opens a page of Google search for the term which is essentially identical to the search results that told me to do so in the first place. And yes I am being very careful to type it into the address box not the search box. 70.91.135.89 (talk) 16:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 137: / Line 137: @@
 :Well, it depends on the quantization algorithm that is used, but basically you end up with colors distributed more or less evenly throughout the [[RGB color model|color cube]]. [[User:Looie496|Looie496]] ([[User talk:Looie496|talk]]) 14:56, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
+==Android Chrome browser history ==
+How can you access browser history on Chrome in Android (4.1.2)? Entering "chrome:history" or "chrome://history" in the address box as suggested by various websites just opens a page of Google search for the term which is essentially identical to the search results that told me to do so in the first place.  And yes I am being very careful to type it into the address box not the search box. [[Special:Contributions/70.91.135.89|70.91.135.89]] ([[User talk:70.91.135.89|talk]]) 16:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)