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August 17

Very large sets of permutations and their application in contemporary music theory

Twelve-tone music is based on an ordered set of 12, unique, pitch classes notated in music set theory as integers 0 … 11. Therefore there are 479,001,600 possible twelve tone rows (permutations of the ordered set). Even if it took just a millisecond to calculate each permutation it would still take about 326 days to perform that calculation, correct? Is there any hope at all that a searchable database of all twelve-tone rows can be constructed? --50.46.100.76 (talk) 00:31, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Modern computers can do calculations far quicker than a millisecond. They can do more like millions or billions of calcs per second, depending on the complexity of the calculation and the computer used. But, even using your mere thousand calcs per second, I still get 5 and half days, not 326 (12!/1000/60/60/24). It looks like you forgot to divide by either the 60 seconds in a minute or the 60 minutes in an hour.

Also, I don't see any point in creating such a list. If I understand you correctly, there would be 12 notes in sequence, and the first could be any of the 12 notes, while the next would be any of the remaining 11 notes, etc., giving us 12! possibilities. If you really wanted a list of all those possible sequences, it probably already exists online, but what use would it be ? StuRat (talk) 03:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, and sorry for my arithmetic error. My interest in having this kind of collection would be to search and/or sort the resulting database for desirable characteristics such as certain kinds of symmetries in the hexachords, all-interval tetrachords, etc. For students of 20th-century music theory this actually has great importance and practical application. I'm not aware of a readily available tool to do this online. (In addition, it would be a proof of concept that I would want to expand into other, more interesting applications in the study of algorithmic composition.)

I know that finding all the permutations is probably the most brute force of many available approaches, however I would want to allow for very broad flexibility in what the user specified as a search criteria. Could a database of this kind be indexed in some way so as to make the search more speedy than the initial calculation by which it was created? And is there some way to split up a calculation of this kind over a number of computers to speed up the process? Finally, how can one calculate the memory size for a database from the number of sets generated? Thanks! --50.46.100.76 (talk) 04:38, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why you're searching. If every possible permutation of notes is in your hypothetical database, why do you need to search it? Every conceivable combination is in there - so the answer to every search is "YES!" - so why search?!? SteveBaker (talk) 05:05, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Steve, as a composer myself, I frequently want to see a selection of sets or chords with certain properties. This database would provide an analytical means of reviewing an inhumanly large data set and selecting appropriate musical material. Remember, we're talking about music represented by numbers. Perhaps the twelve-tone example is a bit obscure, but consider the set of all natural harmonics up to the 9th partial in the string section of the classical, western orchestra (also a set with close to half a million members if we only go up to hexachord-size subsets). Generating every combination of these harmonics reveals every possible chord in that set, each with its own expressive properties. That would be incredibly valuable in the field of contemporary sound art and algorithmic music composition. So, --50.46.100.76 (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah - but that list would also contain every possible jarring, grating, iharmoneous squawk. I'm no expert, but I bet there are 10,000 horrible sounds for every good one. If you have an algorithm for making "useful" chords - then just generate those rather than all of them. How are you going to search this list anyway? The point is that STORING a predictable series is pointless when you can generate the Nth element of the series trivially easily. It's kinda like saying: "I need to divide a bunch of number by 3 - so I'm going to generate a database of the first 100,000,000,000 multiples of 3 and search it to find the number I want to divide into." - there is simply no point in making the list.

If you're planning to generate every possible set of (say) 6 notes - then we can write you code that runs in a billionth of a second that'll produce the N'th element of that series. Pre-generating and storing makes NO sense whatever. SteveBaker (talk) 21:22, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The thing is, twelve-tone rows are not chords. They're never or hardly ever heard in any perceptible form in a final composition. Instead, they are a kind of tool which could be used to construct an infinite number of compositions. The row imparts certain qualities to the resulting work, but is fairly unimportant to the sonic result. In other cases, such as the set of all natural harmonics up to the 9th partial in the string section of the orchestra, remember that the point of music is not to create "nice" sounds. Like all other arts, the point of "art music" is to express something. (That's debatable of course, but certainly the desire is to do SOMETHING beyond creating pleasant sounds.) What one composer finds ugly, another composer will find beautiful. Since the purpose is to make this tool available to all, it must be flexible enough to sort for any quality at all in the resulting sets. --50.46.100.76 (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds to me like what the OP is asking about is more of a sorting algorithm with the database (or else it'd be like assigning keywords or tags to certain combinations, like 'hex' and 'tetra' and so forth...) rather than simply a searchable database. And to add to the mix, s/he is sometimes using the term 'search' above when he seems to mean 'sort' -- or else 'search for the keywords as assigned previously...'. (I know he said 'search and/or sort,' but the conflation of terms after that is perhaps some source of confusion (?) though i can't pretend to know much about the music side of the question. El duderino ^(abides) 06:08, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

• This sort of thing arises all the time in database programming -- that is, situations where you have a database most of whose index values don't have any entries associated with them. The standard solution is to construct what is called a hash table, which allows the database to be searched efficiently. Looie496 (talk) 14:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

• As far as figuring out the size of the database table, take the number of records (479,001,600) and multiply it by the length of each record. To calculate the length of a record, since each of the 12 positions will hold one of 12 values, that takes 4 bits per position, since 2^4 = 16. If the DB system doesn't support 4 bit integers, then hopefully it supports 8 bit integers, or at least 16 bit. So, we have 12 times 4 or 8 or 16, for 48, 96, or 192 bits. Now, you'll probably want to add some more fields to label this record. These could be binary variables, noting whether this record is or isn't a certain type of combo. So, one bit each would do. If you have 8 of those, that's 8 more bits. So, we now have 56, 104, or 200 bits. Using an 8-bit byte, that's 7, 13, or 25 bytes per record. Now we multiple by the number of records, to get 3.4GB, 6.2GB, or 12GB. The lower two would fit on one side of a DVD, while the larger would fit on a two-sided DVD. All would easily fit on modern hard drives, flash drives, etc.

There's also possible index space needed. That's typically much less than the data space, but if you put an index on every field, it could actually be more, considering that each data record is quite short. To index each of 479,001,600 records, you'd need a 29 bit index, since 2^29 is the first multiple of 2 greater than that number. However, you aren't likely to be able to do that, and will need to go to a 32 bit (4 byte) index, instead. So, you multiply that by the number of records, and the number of indexes. If you had an index on all 12 notes and 8 labels, that's 20×4×479,001,600, or over 38GB for the indexes. You probably don't want to do that, but you could, if speeding up the searches is far more important than the space on the hard drive. So, worst case scenario, we're at 50GB total, for data and indices. You could also be more conservative and only put indices on the label fields, which would lower the index size to 15GB, and the worst case total size to 27GB. If you need fewer than 8 labels, you could lower it even more. StuRat (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Please help me buy the right wire

I want to connect my computer to my TV and be able to watch video/movies on it. I have no idea what connection/wire type I would need to do this or if it's even possible, so I was hoping someone here could be specific and tell me what I need: what type of wire/what type of connection/any adapters and so on.

My TV is a brand new Sony Bravia and it's specs including its ports are here. I want to run to it from my iMac (iMac11,3 Intel Core i5 2.8 GHz). After a bit of research, looking at the back and the searching for what they are, my iMac has four USB 3 ports, an ethernet port, a FireWire port, a mini DisplayPort, an audio out, an audio in and in fact is identical to this.

Thanks much in advance, even if the answer is that I can't.--108.46.97.218 (talk) 01:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, it looks rather incompatible. The inputs to the TV include HDMI, composite, and component video. Both devices have USB ports, but I don't think you can send streaming video over that, it's used more for displaying stills, playing music, etc. (Although maybe USB 3.0 can handle video, I'm not sure on that.) I'd think your best bet would be to get a device to convert the mini display port output to HDMI format, but let's see what others have to say about it. StuRat (talk) 01:40, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

They could get a mini display to HDMI adaptor. Dismas|^(talk) 01:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Cool. So if I got this, and ran an HDMI cable from my TV to it, would it be as simple as (after changing the input on the TV to that HDMI connection) just turning on AVI/Quicktime/Wondershare, and playing the movie?--108.46.97.218 (talk) 02:30, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

There could still be some annoyances. For example, does the movie you are playing match the aspect ratio of the TV ? If not, then you will have letterboxing, stretching, or part of the movie will be off the edge of the screen. You can probably select which option you want using your TV remote. Also, the iMac might not send the full 1920x1080 resolution the TV can display. The TV may then create a smaller pic, or it could try to interpolate to "upscale" the image. Again, the TV remote may have options for which approach it takes.

Also, you will want to switch to a full screen display of the movie on the iMac, or you will get all the window frame and other junk displayed around the edges on the TV. Note that you won't be able to use the iMac for anything else interactive while the movie plays, because anything you do will also display on the TV. (You could run things in background mode, but they might cause the video or audio to pause or get out of sync.) StuRat (talk) 02:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Worth a shot considering what a pain it is to burn movies to DVD which take up a lot of time (especially now that I always want 1080p).--108.46.97.218 (talk) 03:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

On a side note, you don't have to buy brand name retail, which includes huge markups. There are perfectly good adapters out there for under $5 ([1]) if you don't mind waiting a few days for delivery. Same for the HDMI cables. You can find 25 foot HDMI cables for under $10 ([2]). -- Tom N talk/contrib 06:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The specs for the TV say that it supports WiFi and Ethernet. Why not just network it and watch the videos directly from the TV, rather than via the iMac? --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:16, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that screen mirroring on Sony Bravia TVs is using a thing called Miracast which seems incompatible with Macs. ny156uk (talk) 12:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, that's interesting too! I really don't know where to begin though. So, um, it's a mac, so it only broadcasts via bluetooth right? I thought wifi and bluetooth were not compatible? Any suggestions on how I would "ask" the mac to send a movie that I have on it, and in a way a wifi capable tv would understand it--108.46.97.218 (talk) 12:10, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Phil Holmes assumed that everything you want to watch is streaming video from the Internet, such as Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, etc. If that's the case, your TV wouldn't be connected to your Mac but to your router, using WiFi or an Ethernet cable. In other words, your TV would be like another computer in your home network. TVs that have that capability provide a way to connect to the desired site and start the video, using the TV's remote control and on-screen menus. That should all be in the documentation for the TV.

If you're talking about other video sources such as files on your Mac and DVDs, etc., then the TV's networking support is of no value to you. That is, unless there's some kind of Mac app that I'm not aware of, that would allow you to send a stream from your Mac to the TV through your router.

Bravia is a family of television models. If you could provide your TV's model number, we could be referring you to specific pages in specific manual(s) on the Web.   Mandruss |talk  12:41, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Mandruss. It's a 48w600b. Yes, I am not thinking of using content from the internet directly, but videos on my computer. I have ordered the adapter and HDMI cable, for a grand total of about $14 (thanks Tom N!); thanks all!--108.46.97.218 (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Cool. I'll mark this Q resolved for now, but please come back and tell us if it worked (repost if the Q has been archived by then). StuRat (talk) 17:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Reporting back @User:StuRat], so I got the HDMI cord a few days ago, and the adapter today. Unfortunately, it's the wrong adapter. It does have the exact same symbol on it, but it's not even close to fitting the slot. Apple must have changed the configuration. My slot is sort of the shape of a "D" but the adapter fits a larger, rectangular opening. It was very cheap, Just lamenting that I have to wait for another to arrive. Researching the types of slots now.--108.46.97.218 (talk) 00:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Is it a Mini DisplayPort you have?--Salix alba (talk): 02:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, after an amazing amount of time looking, I finally located what I have and thus that the seller simply sent me the wrong adapter. Sigh. It's a Mini DVI to HDMI adapter. D'oh.--108.46.97.218 (talk) 03:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Automated accepting of cookies in EU

The EU passed a moronic law requiring each and every goddamned website to ask for permission to store cookies on my computer. I would like to grant permission once and for all - is there some way I can communicate this through a browser mod or user agent or some such thing? 129.215.47.59 (talk) 15:23, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I think P3P does this, but it's not widely implemented.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

XML support in databases

I wonder what FREE databases provide XML support. I know PostgreSQL does. What others are in this league? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:04, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Google Chrome - How to remove the white boxes

There are 8 white boxes in Google Chrome that are obstructing the theme I've chosen. Can I remove them and leave everything else the same? I've tried what you can do from Settings and a number of apps. The apps can remove them, but they also remove the background picture. Starfsmanna (talk) 16:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. However, there is a great extension called "New Tab Redirect". When you click on a new tab, instead of going to the boxes, it goes to the homepage of your choice, which can be a website or even a homemade html page on your hard disk. Mine is an html page with a bunch of links I use all the time. So, it is just like the 8 boxes, but I can choose what is there and what is not. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, with your help and a continued search for a solution, I managed to come up with a workaround.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140817094306AAw8dmg

Starfsmanna (talk) 18:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

August 18

Priming/initial charging a lithium-ion battery?

Is it even necessary? Some claim that I should give them an initial charge for like six hours to even a day, while others don't. In the case of a just-purchased tablet with a Lithium iron phosphate cell, do I really need to initialise it? Blake Gripling (talk) 01:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I've never heard of this and I've been using LiPo batteries with remote controlled helicopters and airplanes for years. Did your device come with instructions? That's usually covered in the manual. As far as I know, Lithium batteries do not suffer from memory effect, but that might not be the only reason to charge a battery for that long. Also, lithium batteries are very sensitive to OVER voltage, so any device that's designed to charge them should STOP charging them when they hit full charge, so I can't see how leaving it plugged in for 6 or 24 hours would make any difference. But, like I said, I'd read what it says in the manual and stick to that. Vespine (talk) 03:35, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

It did come with some documentation, but there's nothing in the manual that suggests leaving the device charged for hours to prep a battery for first use. Also, during the time when I bought a Lenovo smartphone, the only advice the saleslady told me (at another store) was not to drain the battery at too low a voltage to curb any damage. Blake Gripling (talk) 04:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

As Vespine has said, you cannot prime a lithium ion battery by charging it for six hours or a day. Unless there is something seriously wrong with charger, it will completely stop charging once the battery reaches capacity. There is no trickle charging or anything like that for lithium ion batteries, if you keeping trying, there's a good chance you could cause sufficient damage to your batteries to cause the infamous "venting with flames".

The good news is that unless you're charging a raw 18650 with a dumb charger or something, it's fairly unlikely you will ever do so. However there is still a good reason not to leave your device plugged in. Because people generally expect their devices to be at fully charge, many will try to keep the battery at full charge when plugged in which has a negative effect on the capacity of the battery over time.

There is sometimes a suggestion you should let your battery charge fully without using it first. AFAIK, the only reason to actually do so for a lithium ion battery is that it may help the device more accurately understand charge state faster. In other words, failing to do so doesn't affect the battery negatively, it just means your device may not be very accurate at reporting battery capacity for longer. (Of course many of these warnings are simply an ancient legacy of nickel based rechargable batteries.)

Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Bitmap Header Field - Importance?

A while back I made my own image enhancement software (just to tinker with), I was going over it and decided to change the header it uses to the standard windows one (it's just for tinkering, so it assumes a certain structure). At any rate, what actually uses the biXPelsPerMeter and biYPelsPerMeter fields? As in, if I left them 0, would the image display differently anywhere? I understand what the values mean, but I can't find anything indicating if they need be correct - and I know that not all bmp headers have them. Just curious. Thank you:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:30, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

My own, rather limited experience, with generating bitmap (BMP or otherwise) headers from scratch is that physical specifications (DPI, DPM, PPI, etc.) are ignored for all but a few print-ready formats (TIFF, PS, EPS, PDF) and even than any actual print job being done, a designer or operator will still check (print-preview, essentially) what's to be printed before starting a job, to avoid nasty surprises - caused by mad suggested-size values in vector media (like SVG) or page size variances in page-aware formats (A4/letter/legal). Back when BMP had some currency as an interchange format, pretty much "what Windows does" was the nearest you'd get to compliance with its rather hazy specification (given that's it's just an old OS/2 "barf your internals into a file" type format). A corollary of your question is surely "if you don't know the physical dimensions of your bitmap, what values should bi[XY]PelsPerMeter have?". If you can, it's surely better to be silent (to not have the entry at all) than to lie. If you have to lie, it's better to lie with a sensible-ish guess than a definitely wrong value like 0 or NaN or -1 - because if some code somewhere does honour it, it'll surely do something like width_in_metres = width_in_pixels/biXPelsPerMeter - and your 0 value will either make the decode fail silently or with an error. Better, surely, to have a default that shows the image (at a wrong but recognisable size) than have the image not appear at all. These days I'd only add "what does libbmp do" and "what does libmagick do" to "what does windows do". Personally, if I were writing my own graphics software now and I wasn't going to use standard formats like JPEG or PNG, I'd probably use Netpbm format (with any of my own info in comments) as a path-of-least-makework. If I needed fancier features like alpha, gamma, compression, or progressive rendering I'd probably use libpng (with my custom data in PNG custom chunks). -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 12:21, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• I'm a strong advocate of following standards in every possible respect, regardless of whether you know why they are written that way. I've never worked with that particular file format, but you can find documentation for the header structure at http://www.herdsoft.com/ti/davincie/davp3xo2.htm, where it states: "biXPelsPerMeter DWORD Specifies the horizontal resolution of the target device in pixels per metre. Applications often use this value to select the resource bitmap that best matches the characteristics of the current device.". In other words, you should specify the device resolution that makes your bitmap look best -- neither too large nor too small. Looie496 (talk) 13:11, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Preventing Spam

Apparently that advice about ignoring internet trolls and cyber-bullies doesn't always work, since mine is now threatening to send a flood of spam against my twitter account, emails and most likely anywhere else he can find. I am wondering if anyone can recommend some way of blocking him from doing this, pre-emptively protecting myself in case he comes through with his threats?

Thank you

82.132.212.22 (talk) 12:04, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

As previously advised...ignore trolls. They crave attention - they delight in causing you grief. So, don't react. Don't acknowledge that there is a problem. "Dont Feed the Trolls" is excellent advice. SteveBaker (talk) 02:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

yes, random trolls feed on attention, but this concrete case seems much more like stalking by someone the OP knows in real life. Maybe this is a case to be reported to the police, if it gets to far.OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it's time to change your accounts. Only give the new names to people you trust not to pass them along. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

ISTM that the term "Troll" has changed or extended in popular meaning since the advice of "Do not feed the Trolls" was formulated. Back then it was applied merely to those who tried to provoke arguments – preferably between others rather than with themselves – by subtly provocative comments, and of course derived from the angling term "trolling" (often for "newbies"). For such provocateurs, the advice frequently worked.

Latterly the term seems to have been misunderstood as deriving from to the ugly mythological monsters, and is misapplied particularly by the mainstream media to people directing often crude or obscene attacks or continued harassments against other individuals. This sort of behavior is significantly different and the advice will often not work.

This has resulted in people who are suffering the latter type of attacks being additionally seriously distressed by the inapplicability of the advice, not realizing that it refers to a different sort of troll.

It might be desirable to establish consensus for a different term for the latter behavior – "Cyber-bully" is one possible example – and convince the media to use it appropriately. How this could be achieved, however, is beyond me.

Apologies for side-tracking rather than addressing the OP's problem {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Label printers

I'm in need of printing a bunch of shipping labels for my wife's business (http://renm.us) - and it's clear that using our inkjet printer isn't a good option because you have to print an entire sheet of labels at one time.

I see that there are a bunch of devices by different manufacturers that take a roll of stickers - so (presumably) I can print to them one at a time.

My question is how those devices interface to the PC. Are they (in effect) just tiny inkjet printers as far as the operating system is concerned...or do I have to use some horrible (probably!) software that comes with the printer itself?

We use an SQL customer database, with custom web interface software - and I'd like to use our standard query software with a "PRINT ADDRESS LABEL" button. I can write the code to do that if the interface to the label printer isn't something exotic.

Does anyone have any experience with these machines? (Also, if you can recommend a good one, that would be nice).

TIA SteveBaker (talk) 20:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Brother, Seiko and Dymo make affordable thermal label printers but they use special software. Zebra makes higher end printers with a higher price that you can create a print file in ZPL language. --  Gadget850 ^talk 01:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Are there significant problems with the thermal-printed labels fading in strong sunlight and 100 degree Texas days? They won't experience any of those things when they're in our control - but we ship packages around the world. SteveBaker (talk) 02:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

For the lengths of time that your packages would see those temps, I don't think you should have an issue. Dismas|^(talk) 06:05, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There are basically two types of thermal printing: direct and indirect. Direct thermal uses a print head to essentially burn the label in a controlled way to print. Cash register receipts are often printed this way. They tend to have low operating costs because there's no ribbon or ink, but they do tend to be thermally sensitive. I would definitely request samples and/or specs if you're thinking of going that way. Indirect thermal printing uses a wax/resin ribbon that gets burned onto the label by the print head. They tend to have higher operating costs (but the amount of ribbon you'd need would be negligible) and, IIRC, are somewhat pricier off the shelf as well. In my experience, they do not fade with heat, but you may experience cracking if you print to poly labels (the plastic expands in the heat and cracks the printing). I don't think that would happen if you printed to paper labels. I use a Datamax indirect thermal printer which has done yeoman's work for many years. The software is ridiculously priced, but it can marry up with standard DBF files and so forth. Matt Deres (talk) 17:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I have never seen the term "indirect thermal" used— this is thermal transfer (TT) as opposed to direct thermal (DT). If you need durable labels, then you need thermal transfer with coated paper, vinyl or poly labels and a resin ribbon. The more popular label applications are Neat Label, LabelView and BarTender. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

August 19

Hard disc I/O error

uTorrent can't download to one of my hard discs. It used to be fine. Now, it downloads for a while, then all the downloads stop and say "Error: WriteToDisk: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."

The disc works fine otherwise. I'm running and old version of XP. If you have an suggestions, I'd be most grateful. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:12, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Try running CHKDSK, run "chkdsk /f". I think you run a command prompt "as administrator" and reboot your computer to start it. It may take a couple of hours. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'll give that a try. One thing I did is close uTorrent and start it again with a lower download speed. This is working. I recently renewed my ISP deal and they gave me much greater speed. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Wording: "ID must be numeric"

Situation: A website has an admin search menu with several IDs to look for. Some IDs are numbers, others are strings; and some of the strings are with digits only (with leading zeros added by the search function, if necessary), others with mixed characters. If someone looks, say, for a shop and enters letters in the shop ID search function, while a numeric shop ID is required, an error message is helpful. Is "Shop ID must be numeric" a perfect wording? Can it be used both for numbers and purely numeric strings? If it is suboptimal for any reason, what would be better? --KnightMove (talk) 13:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I might prefer "ID must contain only numerals" -- that way it doesn't matter if it's considered as a number or a string of numerals. I suppose you could even include something like "(0-9)" to make it more clear what is allowed. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Null Zero Deletion in MS Word

How to delete all Null Zeros in Saved MS Word Document?--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 14:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Movie quality

What would be better quality for a movie - an itunes download in 1080p or a 1080p "mastered in 4k" blu ray? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.251.149.21 (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

All other factors being equal (bitrate, source), the 4K Blu-ray will be higher quality. Simply because iTunes 1080p uses h264 encoding, while 4K Blu-rays use its successor. However, in the real world, it's really a case-by-case comparison, because the bitrate, source, and what's being encoded all affect quality. --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 18:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, there's no such thing as a 4k Blu-ray. The format is technically still under development [3] [4] with no one sure what's going to happen with it. What the OP appears to be referring to are Blu-rays where the source material is 4k until it's converted to 1080p for the Blu-ray. In that case, while there are various reasons the mastered in 4k could be better, there's no guarantee it will be.

However the blu-ray will frequently be better quality. Even though they spend a fair bit on many different languages (at least one maybe more in lossless multi channel), extras and stuff, the video bitrate tends to be quite a bit higher on the Bluray than most download formats. The compression format is frequently the same h.264 (some still use VC-1, MPEG2 is very rare nowadays and unlikely for a mastered in 4k), I'm not sure if iTunes generally uses a higher profile than that allowed by Blurays, but it wouldn't generally be enough to make up for the bitrate differences.

It's also possible the source material will come in to play. While the mastered in 4k isn't that important, download sources don't necessarily get the same level of attention that Blurays get during production.

Of course whether you can actually notice the difference during playback on your specific output device is another question. (And some people may prefer the higher compressed version for whatever reason.)

It's clear many people don't care hence why streaming and download formats are dominating and Bluray is starting to have problems. Even among copyright violating sources, it's frequently difficult to find material where the video is untouched. Heck even finding Bluray sourced material can be difficult for TV series compared to that taken from the TV stream or deDRMed web downloads (which themselves are not always easy to find in comparison).

Nil Einne (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Did the hardware logic been?

Did the hardware logic (instrument logic) been or it been only the program logic?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 17:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Could you try rephrasing the question? I'm not really sure what "instrument logic" is. Are you trying to ask about physical logic gates versus software logic, e.g. conditional statements? --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 18:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Could the math physical logical of material crystals of chips beening, is it a program (software) logic? I think that, the program (software) logic is simple section of chips, is it right? I seen that, the program (software) logical is been definite of all logical of computers, is it right?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 09:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems me, that the static memory of structure of materials proves that hardware logic been.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 11:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your asking, but maybe Hardware description language will give you the answer. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks much. In simply case, I interested in that, did the logic been without program languages?--Alex Sazonov (talk) 14:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Alex, can I make a specific request that you go and learn how to conjugate and use the English verb to be, please? You really can't just use the past form ('been') indiscriminately for everything. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:23, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Well. I suppose that, the crystal structure of all materials always is mobile, however it had a static memory, that’s why the simple logic without program language be.--Alex Sazonov (talk) 15:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you realise that your response has nothing to do with what I said? AlexTiefling (talk) 15:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

When using a VPN, do web-pages know their users are connecting to it through one

If yes, do web-sites like online banks or ecommerce sites care or at least raise a red flag due to it being a potential fraud? (in a scenario where a user connect both through a VPN when on public spaces and to the same page without said VPN from home or from the office).OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Silverlight - What Does It Do?

What does Silverlight do? The only times I have ever seen anything about it on my computer (ANY of my computers) is when I get a message on my browser saying it has stopped working. What exactly is it supposed to do? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Our article Microsoft Silverlight gives a basic description of what it is and how it is used. --Mark viking (talk) 22:10, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

For the most part, it's an Adobe Flash substitute. Netflix, for example, uses Silverlight to stream their content. Without Silverlight, you'd see a blank page. They do have some HTML5 support, but it's in the infancy. --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 22:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

This site claims that only 0.2% of websites use Silverlight. Other than the very notable example of Netflix, which Wirbelwind mentioned, I can't remember ever finding a site that I wanted to use which needed Silverlight to work. 87.112.89.107 (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Microsoft provides a list of Silverlight features. Among these, I find the video streaming technologies to be the most interesting and useful, because the feature-set for streaming video is significantly richer than that available in the HTML5 specification. For example, Silverlight supports adaptive streaming from multiple sources at variable bitrates, using client-side cooperation built into the Silverlight plug-in to monitor streaming performance and adjust the server-side parameters accordingly. This would be very difficult to re-implement using only HTML5 - so there's an immediate value-add for video-streaming providers who want a software solution that already works. Silverlight also provides state-of-the-art security and authentication, assuring integrity from the network layer all the way to the hardware layer - again, by relying on cooperative security provided by the client-side plug-in (addressing a very difficult problem, which is that content is consumed on machines that categorically cannot be controlled by the content-provider). This plug-in solution ranks among the more secure ways to execute digital rights management (digital restrictions management) - for better or for worse, this means that it's more difficult (prohibitively difficult) for users to save, copy, or inspect digital content in ways that the developers and providers do not authorize.

Nimur (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Basically, Silverlight is only one case where "somebody else is innovative, and Microsoft makes an inferior knock-off product". (This sounds bad, but it isn't always a bad thing. In some cases, the MS product isn't too bad, and actually good enough for 90% of the users.)

Some examples, not all of them bad
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(This is a list, not a discussion, hatted only to save space. Notable examples may be added.) WordStar – Microsoft Word Mac OS – Windows Netscape Navigator – Internet Explorer Stacker (disk compression) – DoubleSpace (which is IMO one of the good examples: disk compression software had to "cheat" the OS, so the MS product is at an advantage. Most of its perceived "shoddiness" were results of HDD errors; I/O errors + disk compression = Bad ThingsTM) Android (software) – Windows Phone Flash (software) – Silverlight

The bad part is that Silverlight cannot possibly replace Flash, due to the popularity of Flash, which makes Silverlight a solution without a problem. If Silverlight becomes more popular, internet users are in big trouble; both products have quite a record of bad (browser-breaking) updates. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

A lot of Microsoft's products are better than the competition's. IE certainly was for a while, mainly because it worked while Netscape was so buggy it was almost unusable. (And don't forget that IE introduced DHTML and Ajax, which everyone else then copied.) I suspect Silverlight is better than Flash for similar reasons, but it's hard to know when no one develops for it. -- BenRG (talk) 19:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, IE, rather than Netscape, was the one with lots of misaligned items. Many other bugs were not in the original NN but popped up with changed API standards, with malice aforethought.

From a purely economic POV, the way Microsoft made competing products was the right (and logical) way to go. It is worth noting that in many cases, only when MS offered their product as part of their OS (as they did with DriveSpace) it became popular. Users are more likely to use a feature if it comes with the OS than to pay extra, as they had to with Stacker, before DOS/Windows offered disk compression. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 07:09, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

As our article says, Microsoft has basically abandoned Silverlight so whatever they were planning to do, it's largely a moot point now. Nil Einne (talk) 13:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Replacing RAM with old RAM still in the system

I have a set of 2x4GB ram running at 1600mhz. One of these sticks has gone bad, and it has been determined it is not a socket problem. The other one is not, so I'd like to get another stick of 4GB ram to replace the bad one. 2 questions here. Must it be the same model or manufacturer? (they are Patriot Viper 3s) Does it have to be the same speed? I'd run them in dual channel. KonveyorBelt 23:31, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I find it prudent to swap it with the stick of the same speed, i.e. 800Mhz on a board that takes DDR2-800s. Not sure if mixing speeds would be bad but I bet it is. It should be alright to use different brands though. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:43, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe the problem with mixing speeds is that they all then work at the lower speed. StuRat (talk) 23:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It may be alright to use different brands, but if you can get the same brand and/or model, by all means do. One can occasionally run into serious problems with otherwise identical sticks by different manufacturers; I know I did a few years ago!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 20, 2014; 19:32 (UTC)

August 20

McAfee Security Scan Plus

Hi there. One day I found this application installed on my computer. I never asked them to install it. I am surprised the application showed up, just like this. Roughly once a month it "runs" which takes about 30 seconds and declares that my computer is free of malware. I googled and found a few websites with mostly negative information. This is one of them. I wonder what people visiting this Reference Desk would say. I decided to ask here before I uninstalled it. Thanks, - --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It is offered with Adobe Flash Player- if you update, you have to opt out. I have a low opinion of McAfee security products. --  Gadget850 ^talk 01:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It's so bad even McAfee himself hates it. Based on personal experience, yes it is indeed no better off than not having antivirus protection, as what I observed with a friend's laptop. Blake Gripling (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

A better way to restore files?

I accidentally deleted a directory and wanted to restore it using MozyHome, but I had to choose between restoring a single file and restoring everything. Is this the way it works with all the online backup services? --Halcatalyst (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

• Well... I discovered the backup Mozy keeps locally on my computer, and it IS organized by directories, and so I'm OK. User education error. --Halcatalyst (talk) 03:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

August 21

Cannot add or change Chrome search engines

It is driving me nuts. It is this thing. But, I cannot add a new one. Also, I cannot change the third column entry with the url. I just keep getting red boxes and no saves. Please help!!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:58, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, it decided to work. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:42, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Mastered in 4k

Do mastered in 4k blu rays really have better quality on a 720 or 1080p HDTV than other blu rays? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.251.149.21 (talk) 12:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It's marketing hype that you should ignore. As mentioned in the previous thread, a "mastered in 4k" Blu-Ray disc is still only 1080p. It probably just means they filmed the thing in 2160p and then downsampled it for the Blu-Ray disc. This won't automatically give you a better picture than filming in 1080p. It might make a difference, but it's much less important than the quality of the camera and the technical and artistic competence of everyone involved. -- BenRG (talk) 18:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Android :Data connection get lost automatically

My Mobile phone is Karbonn A50 Android version 2.3.6 . My problem is that while using internet continiously through Mobile network, suddenly wifi turn on automatically and itself get turned off. When I continue using internet then the internet sign get lost. The only option that remain is to restart to gain the signal. I first thought it was dur to malware and performed complete reset but even the problem persists. What may be the reason behind it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amrit.ghimire13 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Windows 9

Do we have an article on Microsoft Windows 9? I can't seem to find anything. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Since Microsoft apparently won't announce it until the end of next month, there's nothing yet to go into any article. We try to avoid speculation about future events. Rojomoke (talk) 17:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. But, it is quite common that we write articles in advance of events (for example, Super Bowl LII in 2018, the 2028 Summer Olympics in 2028, etc.). I had assumed this would be the same. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

There is solid, proven information that exists for those events: The Superbowl has a venue and the Olympics have preliminary meetings that are already established. Windows 9 has none of those things. The time will come, shortly, I imagine. Mingmingla (talk) 00:51, 22 August 2014 (UTC)