Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

March 7

How do I insert the image I have uploaded

Do I have to have my account for a certain number of days before I can use the image I uploaded?

The articl went through with no problem, but I am having trouble getting my uploaded image in the article. Help —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blakoutmagazine (talk • contribs) 01:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

• Generally it's not a great idea to write an article about yourself or your friends, acquaintances, etc, see WP:NOTABILITY.--VectorPotential^Talk 01:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Supposing that you were writing about a notable subject, all you'd have to do is replace [[Image:Example.jpg]] with [[Image:Soulfood3.jpg]] as I've demonstrated above by correcting your defunct media link--VectorPotential^Talk 02:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Editor tools on Wikipedia and different than the ones on Mediawiki?

I would like to know where I can get the extra tools I see in the editing toolbar. I have searched high and low for some sore tof extension but to no avail.

Please advise.

--Eccentric67 10:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

XP registry monitor

I have installed XP newly on my system. Is there any good free tool (tried and tested by you guys) available which runs in the background and lets me know if an application tries to modify the registry? -- WikiCheng | Talk 12:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe Spybot - Search & Destroy has this feature. I use it in Windows 98 SE, where it appears to have a problem with the fonts on the pop-up panel that warns of a registry change, but otherwise works. I can't attest to how it runs under Windows XP. StuRat 13:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if Spybot looks for changes in the registry -- WikiCheng | Talk 14:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It does, and prompts you if you want to allow each. If you don't answer yes in a few seconds, it assumes the answer is no and blocks them. StuRat 14:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You might also want to checkout RegMon from SysInternals (whose utilities are now available direct from Microsoft), although I don't think this runs in the background Johnnykimble 19:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, RegMon is an excellent program ("tried and tested" by me) and seems to be what you want, although it's supposedly been superceded by process monitor. Never used process monitor though --froth^T 20:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Imagine RegMon and FileMon plus the greatest process monitor in history for any OS in a lightweight application. That's Process Monitor. I refuse to use a windows machine without it. I can't believe some people are still using the default windows one :) Oskar 23:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I don't need regmon and filemon every time I want to see my processes o_O --froth^t 05:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll try Spybot. Thanks for your help! -- WikiCheng | Talk 07:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I have installed Spybot. As a test, I made some changes in the registry (manually). Spybot didn't alert me. Does it alert only when a software makes the changes? -- WikiCheng | Talk 11:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

That may be, and it also may have settings to turn the feature on or off. StuRat 12:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

GMake

I have a project I'm trying to build from source for which the instructions say to use the command 'gmake ...'. At the command line of my Mac, it says that it doesn't understand 'gmake'. First of all, when I search Google, I only get hits for GNUMake

1. Are gmake and GNU Make the same thing?

Then, when looking for the program, I can only find links to the source code

2. Are there any compiled versions of gmake/GNU Make for macs? Or is building it from source easy to do?

Thanks for any help! -Mary

Googling for gmake mac brings up this, which says:

"Eventually you'll encounter build instructions that include the gmake command. As delivered, OS X doesn't support gmake. But it's the same thing as make, which is supported in the Developer Tools. Here are the steps to make the link for gmake:

which make
cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s make gmake
exit

As always, your mileage may vary, but not by much. Once done, any build scripts that include the gmake command will run the command just fine. I include this here because it fits in perfectly with the living mystery novel one lives when attempting to build stuff on OS X, or any other unix operating system for that matter. Applications assume that certain things are installed, including gmake. It's a reasonable expectation, but someone has to hunt down those things, and that person will be you."

— Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 16:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! -Mary —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.96.110.73 (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

The GNU people put extensions in everything, and then people use them thinking that they're portable standard features. People do not know how to write portable code/files. Mac OS X is a BSD system and Linux is a GNU system, and they sadly have different make programs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.242.20 (talk) 08:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

Page Cannot Be Displayed

I have a Dell laptop , and for the past week I havent been able to connect to the net through it . It says wireless network connected but no numbers next to the WINS server ( if that has any thing to do with it ) . I've connected it to a wire and it still gives the same error page . I have a Dell desktop and its working fine with the same network .. Oh , when open Explorer I get a page saying : page cannot be displayed ...etc. I dont get the window that asks for user name and password .. any ideas how to solve this at home ? Thanks 212.138.113.25 20:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Your router is incorrectly set up. -Wooty Woot? contribs 02:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

ok .... so how can I fix that ? 212.138.113.25 02:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Make sure the software is installed if there was any, and the computer is in one of the branch ports and the hole that is separate from the rest has a wire coming out of it going into your modem? If your router is set up correctly, try using another plug out of the say, five. Sometimes if you get a cheap one, one of 'em doesn't work. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 17:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

March 8

Windows XP - Windows Explorer

Windows XP Operating System.

  Windows Explorer - What, if anything, can I do to fix this problem?

Windows Explorer fails to run for more than an instance, even when re-instated using the ctrl-alt-delete box (Run Command). I've tried restoring Windows' settings back to a previously working date/configuration, attempted to De-bug Windows, and I have yet to use the Windows Restore Disk (because there are files I'd like to keep and have as of yet, not had the chance to back up.)

Is there anything else I can attempt before using the Restore Disk?

216.229.196.31 01:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

J.Williams

What error do you get when you try to run a second instance ? StuRat 03:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the OP means "an instant in time" rather then a second instance. You could get a hold of a live distro and use it to back up the data off the hard disk... Vespine 03:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Could be. Hey, 216.229.196.31, did you mean the program only runs for an instant or that you can only run one instance at a time ? StuRat 08:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Tiscali/AppleMac/Safari

Is any reader using the combination of System X on an AppleMac G4, Safari browser, and using Tiscali co.uk as ISP? If so, are you having trouble with using their new 'Mail' system and have you managed to solve it, if so I would be grateful for your help please.

My difficulty is that I only get the headers when I click on 'New' mail and have to click on 'Print' or 'Forward' to be able to read the body of the message. Furthermore I am unable to compose a new email since I am only presented with the 'To' and 'BCC' lines on the page; nothing else. "Resetting" Safari makes no difference, I do have "Private Browsing" ticked, would that make any difference?

Tiscali seen unable or unwilling to help and the only reply I get relates to PC's and not Macs and they don't seem to care. I am reluctant to telephone the help line as, with all great respect to the Indian call centre, I have grave doubts that they would understand or be willing to help.--88.110.207.121 01:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.110.207.121 (talk) 01:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

When I turn on private browsing it always seems to log me off GMail. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 18:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Tool to get visual basic code from exe?

I complied my Visual basic6.0 code with native compilation rather p-code compilation. I got native code with the help of vb decompiler,

Now i want to get Visual basic code i had written. Is there any third party tool that will give me VB code. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avneet83 (talk • contribs) 03:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

I believe not. Decompilers are still in their infancy, and source recovery is something which people pay lots of money for, I believe? Splintercellguy 03:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not possible. You can decompile the code and get it in assembly, but it is impossible to restore compiled code into VB. I mean, you could look at the assembly code and then reconstruct a VB program that does the same thing, but would defeat the point in this case :) Oskar 23:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Best Note-Taking Program

Is there a note-taking program (ex Microsoft's OneNote) that can include internal hyperlinks. Like maybe I could creat a table of contents and I could just click on a term and go to it. Or on a date list, if I clicked an event next to a date, it would go to wherever I linked that date to in my notes? That'd be really nice. Also, in general, which one of the several notetaking programs is generally considered the best? Regardless of price. Thanks, Sasha

Have you considered personal wiki software? That would let you hyperlink (easily) to your web pages and wiki pages. I haven't found a free note taking solution yet.172.161.102.213 08:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Any suggestions for that? On Mac OS X preferably. I'd like just an offline wikicode complier for me to work in. Notetaking for Mac OS X, your options are these (taken as the best, I mean): CodePoetry]'s Notae, Circus Ponies' Notebook 2.0, The OMNI Group's OmniOutliner (which comes pre-installed), Phil Dow's Journaler, and Snippet Monkey, just off the top of my head. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 18:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. What do you mean by personal wiki software and what would anybody suggest for a pc?

avchd

hi I am student of computer science. i am going to give seminar on 'Advanced video codec high defination' topic. i have searched power point presentation(ppt) on this topic but i didn't get so much material on this topic.please tell me some links on ppt and more information about this subject.

You should probably do research on the subject and create a power point presentation from that. Else, it'd be plagiarism. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at our article on H.264/MPEG-4 AVC --froth^T 09:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Go to a library and read journals and books. Believe it or not, everything is not on the web yet. And please learn to spell definition before writing a paper on it.172.161.102.213 09:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The nice thing about computers is that basically everything about computers is written on computers. I don't see why he should have to go to a library to learn about an emerging technology that's likely not in the library --froth^T 19:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Vista Anytime-ish Upgrade

I have a valid Home Premium installation on my laptop right now. I also have a valid full copy of Ultimate. I'd like to unlock the Ultimate features without reinstalling the whole OS. Is this possible? Will it let me "upgrade" from Home Premium to Ultimate like I upgraded from XP Home to Vista Home Premium, and if so will it just unlock things or will it recopy all the windows files? --froth^T 09:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Help my vista notebook defective

I just bought a Vista notebook but when I shutdown the machine, the screen does blank but the notebook remained powered on for a very very long time before it turns the power off. I took this defective notebook back to the dealer and got a replacement.

But the replacement is also defective. It also refuses to poweroff when I shut it down. I was told the manufacturer makes good notebook but so far all the two notebooks are both defective. Does anyone else suffers from this type of problem? 220.239.111.36 11:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

They probably just do a virus scan or something else that takes a long time when you power them down. StuRat 12:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Tsotsi Piracy.

I have to look up Piracy for a computer project but I cant find anything The questions I have to answer is as follows:

The effect of illegal distribution of DVD’s of Tsotsi and Mama Jack in the south African context

The long term effect of the distribution of DVD’s on the film and music industry

the impact of the use of computers on the environment (also keep the distruction of pirated cd’s and DVD’s in mind

Need an answer as soon as possible

196.25.255.250 11:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Google up things like piracy dvd "mama jack" tsotsi and you will find things (I found a lot of stuff). You can also look up copyright infringement on Wikipedia itself. x42bn6 Talk 11:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I also highly recommend FreeCulture and STEALTHISFILM for a pro-piracy look. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 18:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Financial Calculations in excel

Not sure if this is the right place for this sort of question.

How would one use excel to break repayments on a loan into interest and repayment portions? I need a profile with separate columns for interest and principle portions of each cashflow.

That's easy. Say you owe $200 and the interest is 17% per year (or 1.416% per month). If you only pay $2.83 per month ($200 * 1.416/100 )then the amount you owe will remain $200 forever. If you pay $3 per month then $2.83 goes into the interest and $0.17 goes into the principle (because $3 = $2.83 + $0.17). So all you need to do is to work out the interest only monthly payment amount (ie. $REMAINING_LOAN * 1.416% = $REMAINING_LOAN * 1.416/100 ). 220.239.111.36 12:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd also try using the IPMT() and PPMT() functions. --RobI 13:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

why dont microsoft do a free antivrus?

why do i have to use avast? or is microsft funding them or something?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 91.105.98.171 (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

I imagine if Microsoft started including antivirus software with Windows there would be an uproar from the big AV companies. Anti-trust allegations would abound, big legal messes would ensue. It's probably wisest for Microsoft not to try and invade the market for AV software (I know, it seems counter-intuitive since MS would seem to be in the best position to maintain AV software for their OS). -- mattb @ 2007-03-08T15:18Z

If Microsoft wants to prevent viruses, they should make their OS secure, not full of security holes. For example, the default behavior should be to prompt the user to confirm any registry change, but it's not. StuRat 16:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Remember what happened how Microsoft included Internet Explorer caused a lawsuit with Netscape etc that led to Microsoft being a monopoly or whatever? It'd be the same thing if Microsoft included a good firewall or a good antivirus etc along with their OS. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

This has already happened. Quite aside from including a "free antivirus" (a dorky idea in any case; see elsethread), Microsoft tried to lock down the OS so that programs couldn't muck with it -- which is of course a splendid idea. The antivirus companies called foul, because their programs have to muck around with the OS to install themselves and intercept suspicious system calls which might be virus signatures.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but it is a truly sad state of affairs when they can't make their OS more secure, because it would put the antivirus vendors out of business. (And make no mistake about it, until the situation changes such that there's no market for third-party add-on "antivirus" solutions, Windows will not be adequately secure.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there would be any antitrust problems- Microsoft already includes a firewall and spyware protection. I think it's more a matter of not having the resources or the inclination to include antivirus that there's no av. There are much better ways to nail MS on antitrust than with including extra features in its own product. --froth^T 20:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Prompting the user in such situations is a bad idea. First, most people don't read the content of confirmation dialog boxes; they just want to dismiss them.[1] Second, how can a non-technical user user know whether a registry change should be allowed or not?[2] --cesarb 17:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think a non-technical user would not really bother with installing such an application in the first place; any person who is at least semi-aware of what malicious software is able to do, and who at least is cautious enough to have installed a registry change monitor will be interested and will read what is being told him. Probably. --Ouro (blah blah) 21:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

StuRat's comment, first sentence - concur entirely. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

What should happen is the user can mess up their home directory as much as they want, but they shouldn't be able to mess with system-wide files. To do that users need to be taught to make regular backups. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 10:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well... I agree that most users need to be locked out of root (but for the love of God don't give microsoft the reins) so they don't mess up their system, but if you know what you're doing you're unlikely to mess things up --froth^T 19:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Best OS for a laptop

Greetings, fellow virtual librarians. From time to time I am pondering about finally getting a notebook of some sort (formfactor not decided yet), in recent times quite strongly. Specs, make, model undecided yet, that's not the point, however. One thing that I'm sure of - if it's going to have an Intel chip, I do not want Windows, as there's too much trouble with XP, Vista is not an option (specs, usability, point), and 98 or 2000 are becoming old. Here's the question - do any of you have experience with other OSs (Linux distros, KDE, whatever) in terms of which one would be best suitable for a notebook. If it helps - it will primarily be used for document editing, maybe some graphics, probably a bit of internet, e-mail, maybe a divx movie or two, definitely data storage (like downloading photos from a digital camera on the go). Any input is welcome, and have a good day y'all! --Ouro (blah blah) 16:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, Xubuntu) works very well with many laptops. However, not all laptops have even decent Linux suppport; my current laptop doesn't even go into suspend or hibernate mode properly. You'll want to check to see what type of support the laptop has. I think I recall that Thinkpads, for instance, work well. Windows has its benefits (mostly hardware support, software support) and I'm not particularly sure of what 'trouble' you expect to have with it. However, if it works with your laptop, Linux should be fine for the tasks you've mentioned. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

By trouble I mostly meant resource hunger, security holes and a certain degree of instability. Ubuntu, you say? I will take a look at it. I know Windows has its benefits (am still a 98SE user), but so do other OSes. --Ouro (blah blah) 17:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. If resource hunger is a huge issue, Xubuntu is probably a good choice, as it uses the lighter Xfce environment. To be honest, XP doesn't have noticeable stability issues (usually), and security is okay if you stay up to date, don't run strange executables and don't touch IE (things you should do with any OS). I personally prefer the way that Linux distros do some things; the greater configurability, use of package managers/downloaders rather than hunting around the web for things, heavy usage of the CLI, etc. Every OS has its use. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Acer and IBM/Lenovo make laptops that are good with linux. But I agree with crustacean- XP has grown into a very robust OS and you will not have problems with xp --froth^T 17:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I suggest Mac OS X 10.5, unless you're the sort of person that prefers Windows, or can deal with Linux. Linux just didn't have enough of the right kind of programs for me to use, and wasn't so user-friendly. But I am a total Machead. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 18:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, MacDavis, the issue is still open - and I'd love to get a Mac. My good friend has a notebook from Apple (I think it's an Ibook) and he's very satisfied with it. If I will have a choice, I will definitely consider it. I absolutely do not need to have Windows (I use 98SE primarily because I have not got the time to switch over to a Linux-based system now, although I am getting a second workstation this year and it's probably going to be running on Fedora Core). As for XP, my eXPerience with it is basically that it's not as reliable as I need my OS to be. Not touching IE is absolutely true in any and all cases, agreed :) --Ouro (blah blah) 18:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Not reliable? XP never crashed once for the 6 months I had it on my laptop before upgrading to Vista. --froth^T 19:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

My family yells "MAAAACCCCC!! The computer's broken!!" A few times a day... [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 16:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you're just a pro user; my father is able to crash anything and everything, and he's got XP installed on his machine.

Well yes of course you have to use it intelligently. No OS is idiot proof (no offense to your father) nor should it try to be. It's a sad state of affairs for the 90% of people that aren't even power users, yet alone people who really know what they're doing. Running linux without root is the most idiot proof system IMO but XP isn't bad at all if you know what you're doing --froth^T 20:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

No offence taken. My father, on the one side, is the ever-curious who has to install everything and dabble around (he's been through many things, right now he's 'learning' Flash), on the other hand he calls on me when there's something sensitive to do (he runs some spyware search engine and always needs to consult me before pushing the 'delete' button when it comes to files). Don't know how to classify him. I guess sometimes my father is the proverbial better idiot when it comes to computers. --Ouro (blah blah) 20:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, has anyone any more suggestions on the subject or is the topic over and we're about to have the usual short and witty comments that foreshadow the death of a question on the refdesk? --Ouro (blah blah) 20:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, nicely short and witty! --froth^T 20:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

And have a nice afternoon (checked where you're from, was about to write good night ;) ). --Ouro (blah blah) 20:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I just want to note that having recently bought a MacBook I am immensely pleased. They have greatly improved them over the iBooks of just a few years ago which were already pretty good. And they have Intel chips now, as you no doubt know, and there are already tools available to help you dual-boot (into Windows, but no doubt there are hacks to boot into linux as well). --24.147.86.187 03:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

MacBooks are extremely good. I love how they come with pretty much everything you need preinstalled. Of course, depending on who you are you want specific things, but for the general public, and many who are in themselves computer virii then, it has everything. I'm getting a big beautiful black' one at the end of summer. Anyway, I would have to say since you don't have to get windows because of what work you do, then I would say getamac! They are all around much better. Compatibility as a problem is fairly nonexistent. Definitely buy or steal iWork and Microsoft Office for Mac. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 16:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. It's personal opinion, if it's definite; Macs are not necessarily much better. I spec'd/bought a very nice non-Mac laptop for lower price than I could buy an equivalent Macbook. It's got firewire, a DVD burner, an ExpressCard slot, SD/MMC reader, other miscellaneous things, a decent mobile GPU, and the CPU matched up with the current Macbook Pro of the time. And it was some $400 or more cheaper, as well as being nice and small, and having better battery life. What you get with a Mac over a similarly spec'd non-Mac is a nice looking laptop with OSX. OSX offers eyecandy, some very slick included applications, and a UNIX-like base (with some added security, and a lot of extra security through pure obscurity). Whether a user needs that stuff is, again, personal preference. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

And why pirate an office suite? What's wrong with OpenOffice.org? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well my problem with macs is idealogical- the fact that you do need "hacks" to run linux on your own computer shows that there's something seriously wrong going on. I like having total control of my computer inside and outside, and knowing what my computer is doing. OS X abstracts everything so far out that there's no hint of what's actually going on, and opening the sealed areas of the computer case voids the warranty so it's impossible to get inside. And crustacean, if one has no qualms about pirating, why use second-best OpenOffice when you have the world's premier office suite at your fingertips? OpenOffice is doing very admirable work but my love for FOSS isn't enough to have me using an inferior product- MS Office is undoubtedly a very good package. --froth^T 19:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If the user has no qualms about piracy, then by all means. I'm not certain if Mac Office is quite as good as Windows Office, but it's still probably nice. Personally I haven't found anything I'd need MS Office for, though I'm not an office 'power user', and I don't use the database stuff. I'm probably fairly representative of the majority of MS Office users in that regard, though; OpenOffice would serve many people just fine. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Appreciate all your input, guys. It's gonna be a tad tougher now, though, choosing between a Mac and a PC, as you've raised some issues. However, it's still some time before I'm getting the system. Big thanks and cheers from Poland! --Ouro (blah blah) 20:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Automatically forwarding email

Is there any way to automatically forward emails sent to one account (Yahoo mail) to another address (Gmail)? I've switched email addresses, but I still want to receive any emails sent to my own account without having to check it. Thanks. GhostPirate 19:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes this sounds like something you should be able to set up from the mail client. Sorry i've never actually used Yahoo mail so I don't know exactly how to do it but it will most likely be called a "Forwarding rule" or something similar. I'm sure there are help files where you would be able to find the process. Vespine 21:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Gmail just recently came out with the service. Here's a link to the info page [[3]]. It says your other email must have POP3 enabled to use the service. FruitMart07 22:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

From the looks of it, Yahoo! Mail doesn't allow you to set up forwarding or POP3 access without a paid account. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 09:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The POP3 service doesn't work for me. It says only a limited number of Gmailers (taken at random) can use it, as a beta test in a beta test. But wait, did Gmail come out of beta? Gmail also asks you when you make an account if you want to copy over all of your old mail. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 16:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Many ISPs have partnered with Yahoo and let you link your Yahoo account to your ISP email account. I don't like the idea in general, but it does give your Yahoo account "premium" abilities, such as forwarding your email to another account indefinitely. Check your ISP's website for how to link the two. —Dentarthurdent TC 19:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

SUSE/ndiswrapper Wireless Networking Issue

I followed a guide to setting up ndiswrapper (http://nextgen.no-ip.org/~andrew/linux/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapperinfo10-32bit.php). After completing the guide, I checked the

[code] modprobe ndiswrapper [/code]

which returned no errors and

[code] lsmod |grep ndiswrapper [/code]

which gave me some numbers which I surmise is normal.

I opened Konquerer and tried to access the internet but "the host was unknown". I tried rebooting and got the same issue.

I note that:

When I boot WinXP, the green LED next to my antenae lights up early in the booting process. When booting Suse, the light is always off. Is the absense of power to the LED a useful indication of something?

The card appears in the list of hardware attached to the PC (please forgive that I don't recall the module I used to gain this information - these modules and programs are still new to me).

During the network setup sequence, the "Firewall zone" is set to "No zone. All traffic blocked" but no mention of this is made in the guide I was following, so I left it was it was.

Based on WinXP Device Manager: my "device instance id" is 1ABB&DEV_1FAA - this seems concordant with the idea that my card is listed as number 21 on http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawi...ndex.php/List#M

I am trying to connect to an open wireless network. By virtue of WinXP, I know that there are two open networks in my vicinity. One is close enough to be detected but not connected-to. How do I determine to which, if any, network my Suse 10.2 is trying to connect?

I also note that the 'network manager' icon on the kickerbar lists no networks detected. Although my signal is weak in WinXP, it is there, and it is usable. Still, the whole fact that the green LED is not lit probably means that there is no power to the card. --Seans Potato Business 20:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

DVD audio out of sync

Hello, When I burn video files onto DVDs or VCD, the video starts off fine, but after some time, the audio and video go out of sync. It works fine on my computer, but when I burn it on a DVD this problem occurs. I use Nero by the way. What can I do to fix this? Thanks --(Aytakin) | Talk 21:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm really taking a guess here but this may be something to do with NTSC to PAL (or vice versa) conversions. I remember reading that some UK Babylon 5 DVDs had audio out of sync and it was because of the differences in frame rate between the two systems.--Kiltman67 21:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kiltman67 - does it work fine on your computer _as a DVD_ or just as .avi or whatever movie files you have there? If it works as a DVD itself it probably is a problem with your standalone player. If it works as regular files then there is a problem with the conversion to MPEG2 and AC3 for DVD so you should try to check there. Aetherfukz 14:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Accessing java classes via a web interface

I'm interested in any generic application which would allow me to click on a web page hyperlink and execute a java class on the machine serving the website, as well as receive the return value (even if it takes a few minutes to come back) as well as pass values (inline is fine, i.e. http://domain.tld?arg1=val1&arg2=val2). Does anyone know of such a thing? 80.187.208.47 22:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)Wael

I believe JavaScript can interact with Java applets, but not the actual classes installed on the computer. For one thing, that could well be a security risk. So I guess if you embed the class into an applet and tinker with JavaScript. x42bn6 Talk 22:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It certainly is a security risk, I know applets can get close to doing what I want, but they can't cross that last mile. I think JSP may be able to do it, my main concern is a extensible piece of code that can just run a "java javaprogram.class" command on the host and take a return value (including one that requires waiting).

80.187.208.47 22:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)Wael

Java servlets? It doesn't sound like Wael was talking about client-side JVM invocation. -- mattb @ 2007-03-08T22:17Z

So I am familiar with coding C/C++ in a purely local manner, no client server technologies - essentially, I just need to be able to invoke a java class via the web and exposing the input parameters for the function via the web as well. I'm sure this must be possible. I recognize that generally speaking this is a security problem, but I'm looking to deploy this in a purely intranet environment and I'll be integrating the whole thing through LDAP, so security shouldn't be an issue.

80.187.208.47 22:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)Wael

Yes, servlets will get you there. Start reading some of the resources on that page. JSP can also do what you want. -- mattb @ 2007-03-08T23:02Z

How about Java Web Start?

Welrifai 00:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)Wael

Zoom in IE 7

When I click zoom in to 150% in Internet Explorer 7, it automatically prints the top-left corner. Is there a way to change the area that I want to print (ex: the center of the page). 68.193.147.179 22:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

syncning a flash drive

any one know of a free program that allows me to sync my usb files with files on my pc without having to copy and paste every time?--Colsmeghead 22:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Give Microsoft SyncToy a shot. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 23:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Try using a "briefcase." ;) DebateKid 03:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've had several bad experiences with briefcases. I can recommend rsync (and particularly the minimalist cwRsync package for windows) - although rsync is typically used for copying files over a network, it also does a great job of replicating one local filestructure to another. If you need two-way synchronisation (that is, if you want to be able to change files on the usb device and have those changes copied back to the PC, and vice versa) then you'd need a two-way syncher - Unison (file synchronizer) is highly regarded, although I have no personal experience with it. Darryl Revok 13:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I should mention that one-way synchronisation (like rsync) will work unattended, but a two-way synchroniser (which will inevitably run into conflicts, where you've changed the same file, differently, in both stores) will need some input from you to resolve conflicts (either during the synch session or later as part of a conflict-resolution activity). Darryl Revok 13:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Laptop LCD broken

I recently broke my laptop's LCD - a pair of headphones I used had a knob volume control setting on the cord and somehow it got caught. On bootup, the top is blank and the entire middle of the screen is random pixels. I'm thinking this is just physical damage, but the rest of the monitor that still works has inverted color. Could the inverter board be broken as well? I didn't do anything that might damage it, but still, seems a little weird. -Wooty Woot? contribs 22:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The screen is broken, you have to get a new screen or new laptop. What's the problem? --froth^T 00:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering if the inverter board might be broken as well, or if this is typical of simply LCD damage. -Wooty Woot? contribs 00:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In the damage to the LCD screen, you probably broke the proper connection to "ground" for the screen. So, there's no telling what colors you'll get as the voltages will all be off. --Kainaw ^(talk) 02:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

So will popping in a new one, hooking up the power and video input cables work? Or are you saying there's a problem with those connections farther down by the inverter or down to the video output? Are the connections you're talking about internal to the LCD, and the damages simply wrecked those when it was damaged? If so, I'm happy all I have to pay for is a new screen. :) -Wooty Woot? contribs 03:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite get how did you get your problem. How did the volume control on your headphone break your LCD? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It was stuck between the laptop screen and the keyboard when i closed it. Somehow it found a space to stick in between. When I went to use it yesterday, i noticed it was stuck. I gave it a little more pressure and it popped open. -Wooty Woot? contribs 05:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Quite possibly you have loosened the connection to your LCD. Try disassemble that part (if it's out of warranty) and push in all the elastic pcb back into the socket. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Already ordered a new LCD - the connection looked fine when I disassembled the top and disconnected the LCD. I'm still under warranty (probably not anymore, though, haha), but I didn't think they'd cover accidental damage like this anyway. The inverter board looks OK externally, and so do the cables. -Wooty Woot? contribs 05:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The glass that makes up the LCD has a criss-cross matrix of transparent electrodes. Each (sub-)pixel on your screen represents a place on the grid where the horizontal and vertical electrodes cross. These electrodes are driven from the edges of the LCD. When you break the glass, you usually disconnect all the electrodes that cross the (now) gap in the glass. That means that all the pixels above or below the break are disconnected from their driving circuitry and will stay "stuck" at clear or dark.

The backlight inverter is usually at the bottom edge of the screen; there's no special reason why it would have been damaged by your accident. Heck, even the backlight CCFLs are probably okay, but the new LCD assembly will likely contain a new backlight assembly (CCFLs and the diffuser) as well.

Atlant 11:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I took it apart, popped in a new LCD, and it works great! -Wooty Woot? contribs 19:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

yeah there is no such thing as an 'inverter board' it would have just been another damage connection in the screen causing weird inversion like colours.

March 9

Video Wallpaper

Are there any programs (free) available with no strings attached (spyware, virus etc.) that can play videos as the wallpaper?

VLC media player does it. There's an advanced option, under Video -> Output modules -> DirectX in the preferences. Overlay mode has to be enabled ("Overlay video output" in the Video section, and DirectX must be chosen in the Output modules). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course, DirectX is PC only. But then again, so are spyware and viruses! --24.249.108.133 00:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

crossposting from Help Desk -- IPA font question

Hello. When I look at Wikipedia articles, most of the text is easy to read, in a nice-size Arial font. But IPA pronunciations are not so clear. They show up in a very light serif font, and some of the strokes are so thin that they disappear. Is there any way to change the way IPA text is displayed? (I realize I asked this same question on the Help Desk before, but it was about nine months ago and there was never a response. I'm hoping maybe new people are looking at this now that didn't see the archives.) — Michael J 20:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear about your question not being answered, we receiv many questions here and occasionally we do lose track of one or two. Do you mean then pronounciaton for a place when it is different font style and some letters are bakcwards. As far as I know there is no way to change this, however their could be but as far as I'm aware there isn't. However I could be wrong so keep checking back here within the next 24 hours and another editor may know how to or beable to give you further advice. Regards - Tellyaddict 21:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe if I show you a little screen-shot of what I see (from the article on Hawaii):

As you see, the IPAs are hard to read on my screen. — Michael J 21:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how to answer this and I know some very knowledgable people frequent this reference desk, so I'm crossposting here. I'll let the user know, so replies here are fine. — coelacan — 03:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like bad hinting with bad anti-aliasing to me, try turning off cleartype to see if it's better, and use an alternative font. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

How are those things done? I'm not aware of any place on Wikipedia that lets me choose my font. — Michael J 08:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Turning off cleartype can be found in display properties (can't tell you more information, haven't used Windows for a while), and if yo use firefox, you can force it to use a font in Preferences/Content/Fonts & Colours/Advanced/ and uncheck the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts..." option. Then you can select the font you want in the same window, although I am not quite sure where does IPA belongs... --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Display properties (right click on the desktop, then select properties from the pop-up menu), and go to the Effects tab (I think), and take a look there. This would also be my first diagnosis, that it's an antialiasing problem with the font. Tell us if it helps. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You can choose your font on MediaWiki by using a user stylesheet. The selector in this case is .IPA (from {{IPA}}). If you are using MSIE, you could also try using another browser; since MSIE is the only modern browser which is unable to automatically choose an alternate font when a character is not found in the current font, Wikipedia uses a hack to force MSIE (and only MSIE) to use a different font for IPA. --cesarb 17:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

css selectors

/* Don't display some stuff on the
user page */
body.page-Main_Page #lastmod,
body.page-Main_Page #siteSub,
body.page-Main_Page #contentSub,
body.page-Main_Page h1.firstHeading {
   display: none !important;
  }

1. What is the syntax for specifying the selector for a particular page, in the various namespaces?
2. And more importantly, where is this documented?
3. Also, I can't find any documentation on the body.page selector, nor any of the selectors of the set that it belongs to. Please point me to them if you know.

In my monobook.css, the above syntax works for pages in the main namespace, but doesn't work on my user page, for instance. (I swapped out "Main_Page" with "User_The_Transhumanist_(AWB)", but nothing happened. And yes, I cleared the cache). I also tried a colon after "User". Nuthin'. The Transhumanist (AWB) 04:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Check the page's generated HTML; the class MediaWiki generates for that page is page-User_The_Transhumanist_AWB. --cesarb 17:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiousity...

...does a screensaver count as a program, and make a button appear on the taskbar (which, paradoxically, the user cannot see because of the screensaver)? Sometimes when I move the mouse to turn the screensaver off, I catch a faint flicker of something on the taskbar, which looks like a program button disapppearing. Battle Ape 08:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a screensaver is a program. It might make "a button on the taskbar" because it creates a new fullscreen window to draw on. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 10:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Screensavers are executables, with scr or exe extensions --froth^T 18:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

IIRC you can, in fact, change any (or nearly any?) executable from a .exe to a .scr extension and plop it into your Windows or Windows\System32 directories and use them as screensavers. However, unless they're designed for it, they won't quit when you move your mouse. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Virus? Trojan? Malware?

I opened a setup.exe, and it obviously was a piece of malware, because it did nothing. When I boot up my PC, it will click (the click sound when you browse folders in explorer) and what seem to be IE windows open for a split second then disappear. This causes the current window I am using to lose focus. This is mildly annoying. After about 5 minutes of this, it will freeze whatever window I have focused, and try to copy a load of files to somewhere, it looks like every file it hits the cancel button, then selects NO on the "are you sure you want to cancel" window, then copies the next file and repeats. Then after about 20 seconds it asks for a disk to be enetered for a certain file. Of course I hit cancel at this point, and it stops. The window I am using is now frozen and must be closed through task manager. After this file transfer behavior, it seems to not do much more. But I left my PC on overnight, and when I woke up there was a guy talking about some product, and a very high pitch (like it's sped up) audio playing too. I couldn't see anything untoward in my task manager. I have tried running hijakthis, ad-aware, and mcafee virus scan. The only thing that was picked up was a trojan by mcafee, but removing this didn't solve the problem, when I virus scan the trojan is back. I've done this both in normal boot and safe mode. Does anyone have any idea what this malicious code is? Searches on google for the symptoms come up with nothing. Capuchin 11:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No, but you could go to forums with your Hijackthis log and they should be able to solve it. I quite like [4] for these issues. x42bn6 Talk 11:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I did put it through a Hijakthis Parser, and nothing obvious came out of it. Capuchin 11:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You need to run HijackThis, ask it for a log file, and submit it to the forum x42bn6 suggests. Or submit it here. Neil (not Proto ►) 12:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I will do, I am at work at the moment, I'll post in on the board and post a link to the thread here leter on today, I don't want to fill up the reference desk with my log. Capuchin 13:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Posted thread on the suggested forums here: [5] Capuchin 16:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I gave it a once-through and I don't see anything (except SecuROM but that's ok if you're fine with it). Are you sure the setup.exe was malware? It could just need a good compatability mode run. Try scanning it with AVG or Avast or some other free av --froth^T 18:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It's definately opening ie windows, most of them to ad pages. I think maybe the file copying that i described was a thing doe by one of these websites. It opens a huge number over about 5 minutes, then stops for about a day. then starts again. very weird. However I dont think it's trying to take over the computer. Capuchin 17:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Try checking your windows Scheduled Tasks --froth^T 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would guess the trojan that keeps coming back is the problem. What is it's name ? Try doing a google search for that name and see if there are any solutions documented out there. StuRat 23:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

All these problems? Why don't you use Linux or Mac OS X? --24.249.108.133 00:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)--24.249.108.133 00:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have 4,000 pdf files on my computer. How do I manage them?

The 4,000 pdf files have a number of subjects (some multiple subjects) so a simple hierarchical directory tree isn't suitable (some would need to be in multiple branches). I would like to write long (ie paragraph) descriptions of each file. Searching isn't that important, just browsing a list of lists then browsing a list of files with paragraphs attached is enough.

The best idea so far is a html page where I just write a paragraph of notes with a link to the pdf file. So apart from this, is there a freeware Windows program that can help me out? Thanks. Mjm1964 11:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Writing 4000 paragraphs is a lot of work. Have you considered google desktop? --Seans Potato Business 12:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have the same problem, but with several hundred. I categorize them and give them all the best name I can without reading them all, and I also use Yep.. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 16:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC

Check out Smart Folders in Mac OS X. You can build virtual directories that live update according to search criteria like file size, date created, etc. --24.249.108.133 17:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen a good tool that allowed for EASY and PRACTICAL categorizations of PDFs (I have thousands as well). I've thought about writing one for a long time but it is hard work. Sigh. Maybe someone here will come up with one. Things like Google Desktop, etc., are nice for finding SPECIFIC things IN the files or specific files but not useful for large scale categorization by topic at all. Ditto with Smart Folders -- they don't let you do anything based on the CONTENT of the files in any meaningful sense (sorting by size is almost useless for such things). Usually in such cases I end up making custom little database systems to keep track of them but this isn't very practical nor is it generalizable. --140.247.252.156 18:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You could create a primitive database with a link to the file and then build on this to allow for tags/descriptions/creation date/source etc. This way you could run queries against your thousands of PDFs to locate 'specific' ones quite easily. The setup would take time but ultimately if you have links to the file the acutal location of the file is less relevant, what would become more relevant would be ensuring the file deosn't move once you add the 'file pointer' to the Access DB. I use something similar to this to track procedure-documents in my office. ny156uk 23:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It is terribly time consuming to create such databases from scratch, even if you know what you are doing. And most people don't. --24.147.86.187 00:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a Unix weenie, so my approach would be to grab the text out of the PDFs, and then just grep for things I'm interested in. The setup would be like:

cd MyPdfCollection

for file in *.pdf; do
    pdf2txt $file $file.txt
done

and then if I'm interested in the ones that contain information on, say, Venezuelan beaver cheese, I'd do:

grep -li "beaver cheese" *.txt

and hopefully get some results which would tell me which PDFs to read:

FamousCheesesOfTheWorld.pdf.txt
ThingsThatMightNotExist.pdf.txt
FoodsTastierThanCaerphilly.pdf.txt
FreshOut.pdf.txt

Just using the usual Unix text tools is a lot more flexible than any customized solution. --TotoBaggins 14:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[6] has just released a beta version of something that looks really good. It's not freeware and it's for macs so I haven't tried it out but I wish I could! Aaadddaaammm 22:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

An application for this sort of thing is what I expected to see in Vista (in fact, it was the only thing I wanted to see in Vista), but as the release date approached it was clear it wasn't going to make it. Microsoft have been at it for over a decade and the project was originally code named 'Cairo'. Its current form is WinFS. This is a file system that is based around metadata, which is precisely what you need. Hopefully this will make it into the next version of Windows, although that's probably wishful thinking... Johnnykimble 19:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Serial Key

Suppose I get a software with my laptop which is already installed. and I want to check its CD-key. Where do I go t check what my produts CD-Key is? Do I have to edit the registry for this?

It depends on the software. Some of them show them in plain sight in the registry. Some of them show only hash values in the registry, or hide them. Some of them provide another means of seeing keys without poking around in the registry. And there are utilities for some software that lets you see the keys easily when the software doesn't provide a means to do so. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Magic jellybean keyfinder will do the job for XP and Office. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.83.72 (talk) 06:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Just save your .nfo files :D --froth^T 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried to install the software on vista. It got installed and it started working but suddenly it showed some error and only the vista serial key was shown and not the office 2007 serial key that I actually wanted. What do I do?

A request...

I'm trying to make Wikipedia's most effective tools as easy to understand and as useful as possible. Please take a look at it and let me know on its talk page how I can improve it. And if there's an especially useful tool that I've missed, please let me know! Thank you. The Transhumanist   17:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Transporting RAM

I need to transport some RAM (not very far, just on foot, more or less) but I don't have any of those static-free pouches they usually sell you it in. Is there a worthwhile substitute? Does it matter much? --140.247.252.156 18:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that you'll ruin it by carrying it a short distance, but by all means if you have a static-free pouch then use it. And whatever you do, don't touch copper --froth^T 18:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a static-free pouch, as I said. --24.147.86.187 00:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes well I'm urging you to find one if at all possible because that's the ideal solution. --froth^T 18:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Anything which prevents static buildup or averts a static differential across any component or lead will help. The anti-static bags have a coating which conducts electricity, so anything consistently conductive would work. How about wrapping it in clean aluminum foil? Even a small paper bag would offer some protection. —EncMstr 19:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We seem to be missing an article on antistatic bag. I'd put it on a small conductive metal box; any static charge will migrate to the outside of the box, leaving its inside free of static. --cesarb 19:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --24.147.86.187 00:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Just don't use fibre or plastic. The simpliest way is to simply wrap it in paper.--155.144.251.120 04:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

History of the computer interpreter

When was the first computer interpreter designed and who designed it? Does it predate the computer compiler?

Computer programming in the punch card era? Not 100% sure that's the first, but it gives you a start for your homework if nothing else. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Backing up a music library to DVDs

My father wants to back his entire music library (~40 GiBs) to DVDs. Problem is, you can't just copy the folder because it is to big. Is there a good way to "segment" the folder into 4 GiB chunks so that it would be easy to do this? Oskar 22:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The big trouble is actually getting it back again in a couple of years. I would try to 'naturally' break it up into directories that are the right size, such as by musician, date, etc. --Zeizmic 23:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

iTunes will do this for you. Just click burn disc and follow the on screen directions.--Ryan 03:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

March 10

Installing Windows Vista - UNSOLVED

I am trying to install windows Vista on my computer. I currently have windows xp professional and i am installing the acadeimc upgrade edition of Vista homee premium on to a second partition on my hard drive. I have tried to install multiple times except it crashes in the "completing windows installation" phase. I have tried to use Microsoft's tech support for a week now, but they have been unable to get it to work. Here is a list of the error messages that have been produced (there is not always a error message)

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
BAD_POOL_CALLER
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

System specs:

• Radeon x1950 pro
• 2gb ddr2 ram
• samsung sp2504c hard disk
• abit kn9s motherboard
• amd x2 4200+ processor

If amyone could help it would be greatly appreaciated Thepalm 00:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have any nonstandard components, like external hard drives, an unusual video card, network card, etc. remove those (and replace the video card with a vanilla version). It looks like a little-used device driver has a problem. —EncMstr 00:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed everything from the computer - the microsoft texh support guy even made me unplug my headphones. I have no other graphics card that supports dx9.0 so i dont think swapping the graphics card is an option. Do you know what specifc driver may be having a problem and howto install these during the vista install process? Thepalm 00:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Several, slightly unrelated questions to hopefully stumble on the solution: Does XP still boot? Is the Vista install disc bootable, and does it boot okay? Was there any trouble setting up XP (a few years ago)? Was it necessary to install anything special for XP to work? —EncMstr 01:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

In my personal experience, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL often points to bad memory, stuck CPU fan, or other similar problems. Did you try to run memtest86+ for a while to see if it finds any errors? --cesarb 01:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Wtf is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL meant to mean? Interrupt ReQuest *what* is not less than or equal to *what*? Better start up the kernel debugger. Oh no. "The kernel is protected by your shiny TPM chip. Get lost." --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 02:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

In answer to suggestions above: Windows XP does still run normally and has done so since it was installed normally in December last year without any problems. As far as im aware, the cpu fan does is not stuck. I ran memtest86+ which showed no errors. Thepalm 03:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Interrupt request level. Numbers can be less than or equal to each other. IRQL_... usually means driver issues.

GDB

I just discovered about GDB today, and it looks pretty cool. How does is work if you don't have the source code to a program (my computer runs Mac OS X, latest version.) And when I pause the program, how do i continue it? Thanks in advance!--Ryan 02:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

All programs can be disassembled and debugged. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 02:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It still works, except you don't get line numbers and sourcecode references.

To continue the program, type "continue". There's more over here. You should definitely get comfortable using gdb on a program for which you do have the source before you start hacking on something for which you don't. --TotoBaggins 14:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

OS

Is there someway of getting the following OS onto one computer?

1. Windows XP 2. Windows Vista 3. Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"

Thanks! 68.193.147.179 02:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. You want to triple-boot the OSes which should be installed on 3 partitions. Look around at OSx86 websites for complete instructions. Splintercellguy 03:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Or get a Mac and Boot Camp --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

...or Parallels — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 03:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Or make up your mind. Har har har! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

TFTs on iMacs

Is there anything special about the TFT on an iMac? Is it any differnt to the actual screens in standalone TFTs by other manufactureres? Many thanks, --Fadders 10:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• The TFT screen on iMacs are pretty much the usual. To make a TFT screen much better than a regular screen, it would need to be a "Poly-Silicon" TFT screen, which it is not. Very few Poly-Silicon TFT screens are out there at all. They are also very rare in mobile cell phones. One notable exception was the Audiovox CDM-9900 cell phone with a striking Poly-Silicon TFT screen said by many to be the best screen ever used on a cell phone to date. Zeno333 11:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

ADSL modem Connection troubleshooting

I have an ADSL modem. The problem with it is that it connects only when required.When I switch on the modem, its supposed to connect to the server. But this happens rarely. I often have to disconnect the telephone line and connect it back when the modem is on for it to connect.Is there any remedy to this problem?Or is it just bad service or some reg settings? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.240.161 (talk) 11:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Knowing the specific ADSL modem in question would help. I am undecided without further information, though I am leaning on the modem. Splintercellguy 13:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

XILINIX from Mentor graphics

Is there any freeware or alternative to XILINIX from Mentor Graphics that enables us to do virtual hardware simulation?59.92.240.161

I've never used any of these, but google results show these and these and [7] these just to name a few. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

ADSL modem to comp DUAL Connection

My ADSL modem has two ports, one USB and the other ethernet. So is it possible to connect another laptop/comp through the ethernet while my present comp is connected through USB and share my connection between the two computers?59.92.240.161

Without knowing what specific ADSL modem, I would have to guess a weak no. Better to invest in a hub or switch. Splintercellguy 13:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Best to invest in a router --froth^T 18:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

BLUE ray reliability

I have heard that Blu-Ray discs are not so reliable with regards to scratches as they have such high density data packed that a single scratch could render a track useless, which is not so the case with DVD or Cd's.Is this somewhat true??59.92.240.161

On one hand, a smaller scratch could indeed cause data loss (for a movie, the player might skip a bit on playback or show errors in the picture, or in extreme cases refuse to play at all.) On the other hand, disk manufacturers are aware of the potential problem and have worked hard to make the disks scratch resistant. See the section Hard-coating technology in the article on Blu-ray Discs. DVDs and CDs aren't immune to scratches either. Weregerbil 13:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

internet phobia.

how come when i go onto mozilla firefox a giant phalus apears onscreen? please get back to me its begining to get to me. your friend xxx

I expect someone's changed your homepage. Click the 'Tools' menu at the top of the screen and click 'Options' at the bottom of the menu. Make sure you're on the 'Main' page (it'll show you at the top of the window that pops up) and change the 'Home Page' text box to http://www.google.com/ or whatever website you want. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest setting your homepage to http://en.wikipedia.org, but whatever =P --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Or http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official! --froth^T 18:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Which is in fact what clicking on "restore default" sets it to. --cesarb 19:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Would you prefer that a normal sized phallus appears whenever you go online ? That might be a bit less intimidating. :-) StuRat 23:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

C++ on Vista

Greetings,

I would like an IDE and compiler to learn how to program in C++ on Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit, on a 64-bit system). Please suggest free software, though my birthday is coming up soon, so do not hesitate to mention commercial software if it is worth it.

God bless you,

82.249.51.241 14:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Check out Visual C++ Express Edition. It should provide all you need as a beginner. And it's free. Johnnykimble 15:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, visual studio is the best "hobby" compiler out there for windows, and Microsoft tries darn hard to get it into peoples hands for free. --froth^T 18:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Check out Comparison of integrated development environments#C/C++ --Spoon! 23:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah yeah, I also recommend Dev_C++. And a lot of people like eclipse but personally I have no idea why --froth^t 19:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll put in a vote for doing POSIX development with Cygwin. The things you learn will be useful for many years, unlike with Microsoft-style development where they seem to keep their poor developers on a never-ending treadmill of shiny new things, same as the old things. --TotoBaggins 14:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

IE 7.0 Homepage

I have set my home page in IE 7.0 to a blank page. But everytime I close to browser and re-open it, it opens: http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx "Customize your settings". The page never finishes loading and it says "Error on page" and all i see is a blank blue page. Is there anyway I can fix this so that it open a blank page eevrytime I clsoe and open the browser again? Thanks. Jamesino 16:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. You might try setting your homepage to "about:", which should come up blank. --24.147.86.187 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Set your homepage (to anything) by the "internet explorer settings" (or something) in your control panel. I'm guessing it's there, I've not used IE7. You could also upgrade to a better browser. --h2g2bob 01:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Im using firefox right now, but how is it better than IE7 (which you've not even used). Apart from some useful extensions IE7 is probably significantly better. Also the subpixel rendering makes text appear better than evr.--155.144.251.120 04:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This happened to me when I had set Firefox as the default web browser on my system and it would NOT let IE7 get past the customize settings page. Go to set default program access/use in the start menu (i'm not sure what its called) and set IE7 as the default browser (assuming that you are running windows XP in the first place). Hope this helps. Ikrizalllid 12:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista Transformation

What Exactly is a transformation pack? Are transformation packs usually good? Can they be safely installed without reducing the comps speed? Where do I get the best windows vista transformation pack for now? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.95.191.49 (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

How do i upload a picture?

A vista transformation pack is a theme for windows XP to make it look like windows Vista. This is usually done with the skinning program WindowBlinds- which has a lot of memory overhead so I would never use it. The very best vista theme IMO is the original theme by KoL but Microsoft went crazy over it and sent all sorts of DMCA takedown notices so now it's awful tricky to find. The name is VistaXP v2 by KoL (v3 is only for windowblinds) if you want to find it yourself, or you can email me and I'll send you the msstyles version (v2). This will run natively and take up just as much memory as the normal XP skin, but you have to patch one of your windows DLLs to get the theme applet to accept unsigned themes- I have the patcher too but if you want to look for it it's "UXTheme Multi-Patcher (Neowin Edition) 4.0" although you could just find a pre-patched uxtheme.dll without actually patching yours. Good luck --froth^T 18:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried to find the software and its patch but couldnt. Please mail it over to me. My email id is (hidden).

Do not rather leave your e-mail here, as the pages are widely indexed and likely to be noticed by things you wouldn't come to like. Anyway, the patcher Froth spoke about is here. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I emailed you back with the msstyles files and instructions --froth^t 19:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

(while trying to find it again, I came across my own comment in google, which is worrying. don't email me- http://www.juleswlf.karoo.net/vistaxp/VistaXP_VS_v2_0.zip)

Win Vista, Win XP

How can get just Windows XP and Windows Vista on to one computer? 68.193.147.179 16:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Just install xp and then install vista and tell vista during the installation to keep your XP partition. This isn't supposed to be possible with an Upgrade version (although it is) so it'll be easier if you have the full version of vista. --froth^T 18:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Can I get a pre-installed Vista Computer then, install, Windows XP? 68.193.147.179 02:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You can certainly try it. They use the same bootloader, NTLDR, so it shouldn't be an issue. But in previous versions of windows, you had to install the newer OS second because the older one couldn't recognize the newer one as Windows kin --froth^t 07:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm, I'm trying to triple boot Ubuntu Server, XP, and Vista, and apparently vista doesn't use NTLDR.. you have to work some magic to get GRUB to chainload vista. --froth^t 18:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can dual-boot Vista and XP. Splintercellguy 03:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Turns out you might need to create a different partition for vista with GParted or something if you want to keep both versions working --froth^t 18:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Belkin Wireless router problem

I have a Belkin Wireless router hooked up to the Road Runner (my ISP) through one of their modems. The router is a wireless G 2.4Ghz 802.11g model F5D7230-4. For the past week, maybe once a day or maybe once ever other day, the router would completely blank out, the modem light would blink green, and the wired connection to one computer would be orange (and that computer would say a network cable has been unplugged). The Power light would turn off, wireless would stop blinking and internet would turn off. Then, if I unplugged the router for 10 seconds or less, then plugged it back in, it would start working in a few seconds. I wouldn't bother with the minor inconvenience of this except in the last 10 minutes it happened 5 times, and losing a connection randomly, frequently, is a little to much to simply shrug off. The lights on the modem stay constant as they are when the lights on the router go out, so I have very little reason to believe it's the modem. Does anyone know what may be causing it, and a good solution to fix it? Thanks for your help. Chris M. 19:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a connector problem with the power. Does the connector feel secure? Is the wall-wart making a good connection in the outlet? —EncMstr 22:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Try pulling bending on the power leads and see if that causes the problem instantly. If it does you may have to tape up the lead to stop it moving. Some connectors degrade very quickly. I used to a this problem in a modem and it drove me nuts. Basically footsteps was enough vibration to make the power connector loose its connection and bounce back on.

I had the same problem with a Belkin router sometime last year. I tried everything I could think of to get it to keep a connection, including updating the router's firmware. Didn't even begin to make a difference. I finally just broke down and purchased a different brand and haven't had a problem since.BrianWJ 20:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing monitor resolution in the Windows XP taskbar

I used to have a program, ages ago, that would quickly let you change the monitor resolution in Windows XP by means of a little icon on the taskbar. I thought it was on of the Microsoft PowerTools but I don't see it in the current set of PowerTools. Any idea what this was? I remember it being fairly official, something by Microsoft, maybe a setting on the Display control panel, but I don't see anything related to that now. --24.147.86.187 19:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's how you do it in Windows 98 (I never understood why it isn't on by default):

Start + Settings + Control Panel + Display + Settings Tab + Advanced button

Check "Show settings icon on task bar" then pick "OK".

Of course, they've probably changed it, for no apparent reason, in Windows XP. StuRat 23:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe that is what I was remembering. It doesn't exist in Win XP so far as I can see, which is very irritating!! But thanks for the response; googling that phrase I found that the old one was called "QuickRes" and searching around there is a free program called "Quickres Light" which apparently duplicates the original functionality. --24.147.86.187 14:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Partitioning

I currently run Windows XP Home, and I am trying to install Gentoo Linux. However, the current partition, used by Windows XP, only leaves 7 megabytes of unused space on my hard drive. I have tried GParted and Partition Logic, but GParted encountered an error during resizing of the partition and Partition Logic encountered an error during booting. Can anyone give me the name of a good partition utility that could help me here? Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 21:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

ntfsprogs (utilized by Parted) seems to have issues making very large changes to NTFS partitions. Try resizing it in smaller increments. It might work, might not. You might also try running CHKDSK before doing the resize. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, it says that it's not necessary but you might try defragmenting first. And if you value your computer at all, don't run partition magic ever again! *shudder* --froth^t 07:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Before performing touchy partitioning shuffling perhaps consider backing up your data? --Ouro (blah blah) 08:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the suggestions and everything, but I used Acronis Disk Director Suite and it worked fine. By the way, the install didn't work anyway, something about the Stage 3 mirror I chose, and I don't feel like setting those USE flags all over again. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 03:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You might also be interested in using a LiveDistro setup. It doesn't require any partitioning of the hard drive, and let's you get a flavor of Linux with very little effort. Another partition-less way of doing it is to just get another drive. Here's a 40 GB one for 38 bucks. --TotoBaggins 14:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I was installing from the Live CD. I couldn't use a LiveDistro because they're too slow. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 19:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Eek! Spyware!

Can someone help me get rid of the crap that's suddenly on my computer? There's some horrible rogue anti-spyware program called SpyDawn on my computer, and every time I remove it, it just reinstalls itself. It seems to be connected to another evil program called MediaCodec. I downloaded, registered and ran Spyware Doctor, and after removing a bunch of crap, it told me my computer is clean, but I still get popups every ten seconds from two items in my system tray telling me that my computer's infected, and clicking on the balloons just takes me to a SpyDawn webpage.

Frustrated, I downloaded another anti-spyware program that I thought was free, but after scanning my computer and finding a bunch of malware that Spyware Doctor had missed, it wants me to pay $40 to register. Is there not a free, safe anti-spyware program that will get rid of this shit? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ad-aware Personal Edition, Spybot S&D, and HijackThis are what I use. Make sure not to get lookalike malware. Splintercellguy 22:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

However, a limitation is that those programs generally only remove the program on disk. If the program is currently running, it will just save a copy of itself after you finish using your anti-spyware product. Next time, do a reboot first, then use the task manager (CONTROL-ALT-DELETE) to kill everything but Explorer. Now you can run your anti-spyware programs and have more hope of them working. There likely are also registry entries that need to be removed, but a good anti-spyware program should do that for you, too. StuRat 22:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Or just get into safe mode and do it there. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

My favorite method is booting into safe mode, then running Spyware Doctor, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and Webroot, then rebooting. A cocktail of antimalware is usually necessary for the really nasty or obscure stuff --froth^t 07:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Spybot S&D has an option to run at system boot so it can identify and kill anything before it has a chance to activate. Also running Spybot and the free version of Ad-aware with all their latest updates installed rarely leaves anything behind. And if you are using a P2P program, check that it cant bypass firewalls as that can be causing your problem. Ikrizalllid 12:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I think I've killed it with a combination of Spyware Doctor, McAfee, and something called "SmitfraudFix". -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

www.amaena.com

I keep getting boxes pop up advising me that I need to download software to protect my computer from viruses etc or requesting that I install a disc-cleaner because I have files of an adult nature. If I follow the instructions then my Norton Security advises me to block the action. Are these links bogus and if so how do I stop them from coming up?82.16.101.160 22:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)rob

Yes, don't ever download something because a pop-up tells you to do so. You now likely have malware on your computer. Try using either AdAware or Spybot to remove the baddies. You may also want to get a pop-up blocker. StuRat 22:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is while you're using Internet Explorer, switch to Firefox, which has pop-up blocking built in. If this is at other times, use Spybot S&D and scan your PC with your Antivirus software. --h2g2bob 01:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

March 11

Windows 98 SE with NTFS disk partition

I just put a drive with an NTFS partition into an old computer running Win 98 SE. Its started behaving badly and will not now run as a server. any suggestions? It says there is no network. Am I doing something wrong?--SlipperyHippo 01:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

98 doesn't read NTFS drives, is not for servers and basically you shouldn't be doing what you're trying to do. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows isn't a very good server platform, and Windows 98 is a terrible server platform. Also NTFS is only readable by the NT family (not 95, 98, or ME) --froth^t 07:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Quite. MS no longer even issue security patches for 98. Update to a newer OS, like XP ($$$$) or some type of Linux (free!). Also, as Froth says, 98 does not have support for NTFS by default, only FAT. --h2g2bob 01:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes but I did have my other computer working as a server running Win 98 SE. Im just wondering why it has given up--SlipperyHippo 23:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

When you put the new disk in, the drive letters assigned to each partition of the original hard disk may have changed. --Carnildo 22:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I know that, but I just cant get my network to work now. I remember having to fiddle endlessly when I originally set it up, but Im wondering whether swapping drives has now confused Windows 98 SE somewhat?--SlipperyHippo 05:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes. I forgot to say that Itried installing Xp on the slow computer to acces s the NTFS partition. But it didnt load properly, so i reverted to 98 SE nad I reinstalled 98 SE to boot. This seems to have messed up the autoexec.bat file 9maybe other things also)--SlipperyHippo 05:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

moved to curren page

Voice Software

Is there any software that I can say a sentence and it will type it onto the computer? 68.193.147.179 04:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Vista has this built in. After a lot of voice training it does get pretty good --froth^t 07:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Be warned --Ouro (blah blah) 08:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hah, yeah you really do need to train it extensively. But it's pretty intelligent- you can just jump in without any training at all and it'll train itself after awhile. Looks like that guy didn't run the training utility at all though. --froth^t 19:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Also that news reporter is ridiculous --froth^t 19:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't he? Guess they maybe weren't sure at all how to deal with it. Reminds me kinda of the Windows 98 presentation when they were suddenly surprised by the blue screen. Anyway, I wonder if it'd be difficult to train it to listen to a different language than English. --Ouro (blah blah) 19:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm interesting idea. I remember the BSoD demo by the way :D And take a look at this clip, the rest of his voice demo went fine --froth^t 19:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that wasn't so bad. However, I'm wondering if it'd work this well in real life with day-to-day stuff, or at the office where you sometimes don't have as much time to wait until it comprehends you. I guess we'll have to wait and see how this develops. As for the other languages, I was just wondering about the differences in phonetics and the way a language is spoken (take French or German, two languages where the spoken word tends to sometimes not at all resemble the written word, because some of the vowels are silent or pronounced in a way that they seem not to be there). Heck, I'd be even interested to see how this software'd handle a person speaking proper British English. --Ouro (blah blah) 20:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually it's not Vista exclusive either, as long as you have Office XP or 2003 (or only 2003, forgot which), you can get speech recognition in XP and probably Win2000. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's not at all exclusive to these products, as there are surely apps out there that deal with voice recognition (a company called Lernout & Hauspie springs to mind). Thing is, I am just wondering if the rechnology is ripe enough for languages other than the fairly easily comprehensible English. --Ouro (blah blah) 09:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Query regarding Sun Certification(SCJA)

Type:-Computer Prgoramming

Respected,

I want to give SCJP exam.I have never given SCJA exam.Is it neccessary to give SCJA exam before SCJP.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jyotishejawal (talk • contribs) 06:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Proxy

how can we enter to a filterd site217.219.78.129 12:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)uniqoehidden

See http://www.boingboing.net/censorroute.html --h2g2bob 00:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

copyright question witha bit of html

i am a member of a band , we actually wrote and made a few songs on our own we decided to write the songs on to DVD's and sell them but the problem was that those who bought the dvds shared the music with thier friends and we ended up making a huge lose about indian Rupees 3000 . i want to know if there is any software that can allow a cd to be played only in one computer and the contents of the cd shouldnt be allowed to be modified or copied by another computer ,does a software like that exist is it free because unless it is free we cant afford it since taking loans is out of the question because our liabilities are more than our assets .

i would like to design a website for the band but i have no clue of html ,can someone help me learn html and where i can get acess to free books on html in the web.

thank youAuldlangesyne 15:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello. To answer your first question: there is actually no way to allow playing a specific CD only on one machine (as this could sometimes prove detrimental to the end user, as when he would have two machines in two rooms he could only play the CD on one of them; among other things that is). There is also no unbreakable copy protection scheme for CDs. As for HTML, there's a basic course over at Wikiversity, with links, try that one, it looks okay. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 16:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Music piracy cannot really be stopped — major companies spending millions of dollars on finding an answer to it have yet to come up with a truly workable answer, and you can bet that if there was an easy workable technical fix they would have done it already. That being said it is not the end of the world — you can't assume that those people who pirated the songs would have otherwise have bought it, so you are losing potential revenue rather than actual revenue, and the fact that people want to pirate it says good things about the music (many musicians would love to have people want their music, free or not). In my mind the best way to capitalize on the situation is to think of it as free publicity -- set up a good website, give away some of the music, try to make up the revenue by alternative means (selling t-shirts, posters, etc., for example), put some "value-added" things together with the CDs you sell (nice booklets, things that would be harder to pirate) so that actually buying the real ones are worthwhile. But I am not a businessman or an economist, but it seems to me that if it is an impossible problem for big companies it will likely be an impossible problem for small groups as well; better to adapt than to fight. --24.147.86.187 17:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a problem - the more people know of your band, the more sales you'll get. The real problem would be if nobody hears your music. Technological methods just piss off your paying customers, as shown by digital restrictions management technology over recent years. The most effective solution is including a note with the CD or DVD saying "please buy our CDs, we need the money to continue!" perhaps even as a track on the CD so ripped copies get it too. These techniques are sometimes used by some indie record labels.

If you want a proper website, you'll probably need to pay for it. Ask some of your geeky friends to help design it. However, there are some other ways to promote yourself to the online community. One is to allow remixes of some of your work - for example get in touch with ccmixter - as this raises your profile. To tell your fans where your gigs are, find an online blogging service (free), like blogger.com (there are many others). Finally, MySpace: you may love or hate it, but many bands use it, so it may be worth a go.

Finally, visit magnatune to see how online record labels should work. --h2g2bob 00:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts: you should just enjoy playing music and encourage others to pay if they like the music. By encourage I mean don't go "if you don't buy our music we'll kill you". I mean "if you like it, please consider paying". Like geeks who write free software and encourage you to donate! --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

CGI mailers

My mother's husband is designing a website for their friend, who owns a B&B hostel in Estonia. He is trying to add an HTML form that uses a CGI mailer to send the reservation as an e-mail. He wrote the form but couldn't get the actual mailing to work, so I took a look at it. I found a freely available CGI mailer script and installed it to his homepage, but it looks like the server doesn't support user CGI scripts, so it just dumps the source code at me. Is there a freely usable CGI mailer installation somewhere, so I just have to point an HTML form at it, with the recipient field properly set, and it would e-mail the reservation to the B&B hostel? JIP | Talk 18:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm, good question. I don't know of any free solutions but here's a for-pay service that will do what you want. I would suggest signing up with a good free web host that provides the cgi support you need (what is it? python, php, perl?) and just hosting your script there. Have the form submit to the free web host and then have the script send the email and redirect back to the official homepage. It's going to be tricky (and awful unsecure) if you have to pass reservation data to the free web host but for a generic email it's easy --froth^t 19:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this is all obvious stuff, but have you set the "x" permission for the script (assuming it's a Linux/Unix server) - see Unix permissions. Also check the scripting language it uses is available on the server. --h2g2bob 00:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Sound on the internet

How do I disable random internet noises? I'm talking about those random talking advertisements, pages that automtically play music, etc. I would still like to be able to listen to imbedded viedeos in quicktime or whatver, and to listen to songs on sites like myspace and on other sites with imbedded sound that I actually choose to play. But all these irritating sounds that interrupt my music as I'm surfing the internet are really annoying. Any ideas? I've got XP and firefox. Thanks, Sashafklein 19:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Install Adblock Plus, from the FireFox extensions page. I like it a lot! —EncMstr 19:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks good Sashafklein 19:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. Wow. That really works well. Sashafklein 19:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Another option is NoScript or Flashblock, which will only allow Flash to run on pages where you explicitly allowed it. --cesarb 19:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't visit myspace pages terribly often. But I too have been annoyed by these occurrences. I have installed Stop Autoplay (ext. link) which seems to work pretty well. I also just recently discovered a Firefox Plugins manager (ext. link), which I've found works better than Flashblock (due to possibility of javascript loading flash in the background through a event handler), although I think it disables flash for the whole Firefox program instance, instead of attempting to disable flash for any particular page.

Root⁴(one) 04:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like this (www.gozer.org) is a better place to get the Plugins manager.

Root⁴(one) 04:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Viruses

If I download a program but don't run it, can a virus in it infect me? The question really is--if I download something and scan it with a AVG and some spyware things before I run it, am I safe? Or can it infect me before I even run the program? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sashafklein (talk • contribs) 19:12, 11 March 2007

Viruses have to be executed somehow before they can do anything, so if you downloaded a suspicious .exe file, and didn't execute it, chances are you are fine. Cyraan 19:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Virus and spyware scanners are mostly reactive, so you will not be safe if the program has a virus or is some other sort of malware your antivirus/antispyware doesn't know about. --cesarb 19:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well scanners don't actually execute the code if you just scan the file. I think you mean that if you actually run the program the realtime protection might not kick in- that's true. --froth^t 19:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

From what he said, he has the intention of running the program after scanning it, if it comes clean. I'm pointing that a negative from the scanners is not enough. The realtime protection is irrelevant, since it uses the same database as the standalone scanner. --cesarb 20:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Generally no, even if you open up the virus executable file in a text editor. But that text editor might have a hook that executes a different virus, so that virus will be executed. x42bn6 Talk 15:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Antiviruses

Why can an antivirus kill execution of a virus and not the other way around? They both run in usermode do they not? So nothing in hardware enforces the antivirus's power.. Also I would think that it wouldn't be a very good idea to let user mode programs terminate each other- how to antiviruses assert their authority? --froth^t 19:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Most antivirus stop execution of a virus/malware by preventing it from running. Since the virus/malware is never executed, it's not able to kill the antivirus. About terminating other processes, user mode processes can always terminate other user mode processes if they have the correct permissions (usually, one process can only terminate other process if both are owned by the same user); however, most antivirus are not normal user mode processes (they usually run as the System account, and often use things like kernel hooks to have more control than a normal user mode process could have). --cesarb 20:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for a virus to target and attempt to disable any antivirus software if it does manage to run. Vespine 23:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Bogus spyware

I wanted to buy some anti-spyware software and had heard that spybot was a good package. However the link that came up was to spywarebot. Being new to the internet I didn't expect this sort of trick. After installing and registering, for $19.95 + vat, I thought it strange that after scanning and quarantineing parasites the quarantined parasites didn't register on the list. The page said zero for any thing that was supposed to have been removed. I thought this odd so I looked on web for possible bogus spyware and yes there it was Spywarebot. What possible damage have I done and what should I do? I have given them my e-mail address and used my credit card, am I at risk? Please can someone advise me please?82.16.101.160 20:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)rob

Download the real spybot search and destroy at [8] and scan and do the normal stuff. Uninstall Spywarebot, and request a refund from the company if you can. -Wooty Woot? contribs 21:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Never click on links claiming your system (may) be infected by spyware, you should almost never buy anti-spyware programs especially ones that blow up ads all over the place on their site, and Google up any software you intend to download or buy but append the word "fake" or "spyware" to your search string to get a gist of whether it is a threat or not. x42bn6 Talk 15:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

iTunes play count

I've been turning all of my music files on iTunes into MP3s. However, each time this is done the play count in the MP3 copy starts over at zero. Is there a way to change the play count? I tried editing the XML file with all of the variables, but it doesn't appear to save the changes. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll need QTFairUse6 to rip your itunes music --froth^t 00:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

daylight saving time

Dear Wikipedians:

Isn't today supposed to be going on daylight saving time according to the new energy law passed by the States?

Why is it that all the Internet time servers are still reporting the old time?

70.50.141.29 22:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

If by internet time servers you mean NTP servers, which are the source for time on the Internet, they use UTC, so whether or not it's daylight saving time/summer time in some remote country doesn't matter at all for them. --cesarb 22:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It is your computer that is not adding the correct number of hours for daylight saving time. --Spoon! 22:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How to host my own website using a domain name I registered?

I've registered a domain name, say example.com, with a registrar (DomainZoo.com). And I've set up my PC as a host, and told DomainZoo to forward example.com to my IP address (well, actually to my DynDNS.com subdomain). Now how do I make it so that a user types in example.com and it feels to the user that they're on example.com, rather than seeing "example.dyndns.org" in the address bar? I know there's domain cloaking using a frame, but that's not at all what I'm looking for. This seems like it must be a basic question that comes up all the time, but I just can't find the info. Thanks for any help. --Allen 23:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Try using a CNAME instead of their HTTP redirection. --cesarb 23:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

More specific link: Domain_name_system#Types_of_DNS_records --froth^t 00:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! So far it acts the same way it did with the HTTP redirection (that is, it goes to example.dyndns.org and shows "example.dyndns.org" in the address bar) but maybe that will change once everything gets, uh, propagated or whatever over the next few days. Either way, I've learned a lot from googling "cname dyndns", so thanks for pointing me in that direction. --Allen 02:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, now it works. Just needed to propagate. Thanks again. --Allen 03:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a regular ISP account? It's usually in the fine print so you may not be aware but as far as I know most 'home provider' ISPs do not allow hosting and you may have your account suspended, or worse, if you are breaching your terms of use agreement. Vespine

Hard Drive Bits

I've just replaced one of my hard drives, and decided to take the old one apart. I didn't get very far due to proprietry screw heads, but I did find something interesting.

Just above the edge of the platter and the actuator arm is a capsule that slots into the main housing. It's abount 2cm long and 0.5cm wide. It's full of tiny ball bearings. It's clear plastic all around, except one side, which is made of some white plastic or paper. It seems to be quite thin and easily penetrated. This side was facing inwards. What is this capsule for? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 23:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's probably the internal air filter, which traps any stray particle flying around within the drive. --cesarb 23:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure it's ball bearings? It almost sounds like silica gel. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't know exactly what they are. Lots of small (~0.5mm radius) black spherical things. I wondered if it was silica gel, but in my experience that is clear and much larger. An air filter seems a plausible explanation though. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 23:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The screw heads probably aren't proprietary but are, in fact, Torx screws.

Atlant 11:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

wouldnt that be proprietry to the manufacturers of Torx screws though :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.111.194.25 (talk) 20:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

March 12

CNC 3

Will the soon-to-be released Command and Conquer 3 ever be released for the mac? Thanks in advance!--Ryan 01:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, like 99% of the games on the market, probably not. Splintercellguy 02:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

BYTEWORKS/COMMUNITY INFORMATION NETWORK

I,am needing assistance in setting up my E-mail. I partcipated in the ByteWorks earn a computer program, 9/5/06, and have problems with the computer I received after completing the 6 week course. After several technical difficulties, which were resolved after I brought the computer back to ByteWorks three or four times, and usually, two to three weeks would elapse before the problem would be resolved, the last occurence happened in January, as the modem in my computer was not recognized with ByteWorks. After three weeks elapsed, I stopped by on a Saturday, as that seems to be the only time they are available, and the tech stated he did not know who the internet provider was. I was upset, since I just read the article in the Shaw Neighborhood Newsletter, to find out, it is through Community Information Network, that no one knew the answer, and I still have no access to my E-Mail, because of technical information not programmed into the computer at the time they finally gave me a replacement computer. I was embarrassed to try to contact them again to resolve the continuing problem, as I have had actual Internet Usage for about 6 weeks since September. I am disabled, and am in great need of their service, as it allows me to communicate and access information more efficiently. Please help me in setting up the E-mail account with the proper data. Originally, my E-mail address was username removed@stlouis.missouri.org. Or I have information that the web page to change your information is www.missouri.org/user/index.cgi, I could not access that address. I decided I could not wait any longer, so I brought the computer to Word Pro, on Kingshighway, and paid to have the dial up connected, and all of the previous files deleted, but they could not set up the E-mail without having certain information. I gave Kent, at Word Pro, Greg's, and ByteWorks phone #, the Dr. was on vacation, they never received a return call. I would appreciate your help. ByteWorks, is a great community service, I understand they are very busy, and appreciate their continued service.

If you have any questions, my name is Patricia Di Gilio, *ADDRESS REMOVED*. Thank you in advance for any assistance you may provide. Sorry, Iam not a computer wiz, or I would remdy the problem my self.

Patty207.160.50.219 01:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• copied from help desk* You need to figure out who your ISP or email provider is, and contact them. http://www.missouri.org/ says their service is discontinued, so perhaps that is the problem. I suggest simply signing up for a ISP such as PeoplePC to get dial-up access rather than going through a ISP that keeps giving you problems. EDIT: try this link -Wooty Woot? contribs 01:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Web hosting service recommendation?

This is sort of subjective, but whatever. :) Does anyone know of a hosting service that is:

1. Under $5.00 a month
2. Will let me use two domains (i.e. host another site as a separate folder or something and have the domain redirect to there)
3. Pay monthly rather than in a lump sum for a year?

Thanks in advance, -Wooty Woot? contribs 01:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Though they are a UK company, it might be worth looking at Meirhosting. About 25 of your United States dollars for a year. It's all paid up front, but it might be worth it considering the cheap overall cost. You can use two domains on the personal plan (using an Addon domain). Obviously you need to look at your space/traffic/etc requirements, but I have found them very good for personal use. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 02:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

fixed link Another mutant 03:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the MySQL and PHP support, but the 50mb storage isn't so hot. I'm planning to possibly run imageboard software on it as well. I may be able to dump the two domain requirement, anyone got further suggestions on monthly, but cheap hosting plans? If not, is there any with a relatively low per-year cost? -Wooty Woot? contribs 03:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally use IX Webhosting for my site. It is 3.95 USD a month for a 24-month plan, but you must pay it "in a lump sump" for 2 years. They do, however, offer shorter term plans, but are more expensive. I have never had any problems with them, but again I haven't been hosting with them for too long. One of my sites is This site, which is a global warming site. You can check their server speeds. BTW: they offer 2TB of bandwidth per month and 200GB of storage space and allow 2 domain names to be registered on 1 account, plus 1 free domain name registration. Jamesino 04:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I looked at them. Nice plans, but the whole "pay us lots of money for a year or we bust out the setup fees" thing sort of turned me off. It's a necessity to be paying a low price per month. I'm looking at godaddy's hosting, because they'll let me do $3.99 a month. Also: nice site :) -Wooty Woot? contribs 04:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Off-topic, but that stock image on the IX site of the friendly customer-service woman with the headset is like the Wilhelm scream of the "operators are standing by" world. I'm sure she's retired by now, since I've been seeing her "standing by" for the last 25 years. :) --TotoBaggins 13:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I find it pretty bizarre that you can't afford to pay for more than a month at a time. In any case you're probably not going to beat GoDaddy's $3.99 a month with a 2 month minimum. But inevitable if you cannot muster up at least $50 or so at once you are going to be paying more in the long run, and you're unlikely to get very good services. These things take a lot of capital, of course. --24.147.86.187 23:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That's definitely true. I know the options are quite limited here, so I decided to see if anyone could suggest an alternative. Guess I'll stick with them then (if they ever reply to my e-mail..) Thanks, -Wooty Woot? contribs 03:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki infoboxes

The infoboxes in my personal local MediaWiki wiki don't seem to be displaying properly... For one thing, the thin borders of the infobox don't show up, and the infobox itself doesn't want to sit to the side of the article text. I tested the very same markup in Wikipedia, and it showed up as it should have. Could it be that I need to update the software to a version closer to that used by Wikipedia? I've already brought this question up at the IRC Mediawiki support channel, but I was ignored. I've also posted this up at the MediaWiki support desk, but I doubt it'll ever get answered there. Any sort help with this would be appreciated. Thanks,

Knyght27 03:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If it doesn't want to float right, it might be because you didn't copy one of the stylesheets where the infobox style is defined. Did you copy the relevant entries from MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.css to your wiki? --cesarb 12:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

PDF Organiser

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of (freeware) programs that will organise libraries of scientific papers for PCs. There seem to be a lot of mac programs. Any pointers of where to look would be much appreciated.

Cheers, Aaadddaaammm 06:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you click on the "file size" tab in the folder, it will organize them by size. But that's probably not what you meant, so perhaps you could mention how you want them organized, or the names of those Mac programs? --TotoBaggins 13:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

FIrefox downloading

Hi!
Does anyone know of a way I can limit the amount of files FF is downloading at any one point to one and have a queue (like Net Transport)? I have a dialup connection and use webshots - I'd love it if I could just queue up 50 photos to download and just leave it do it in the background. Thanks --144.139.163.223 07:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Use DownThemAll? There's an option to limit them in that plugin. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

No that won't work - [9] [10] [11] each have a seperate page with a download link. I want it so that I can click download, choose the filename and location I want, and then for firefox to queue it up. --144.139.163.223 07:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Still not sure why it won't work. The newer versions of DownThemAll come with a download manager. You just click each of those links, and when the Save dialog pops up, tell it to use the plugin. It should then add the files to its queue. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok that's getting there, but I don't like the "hard coding" saving options with the "name"."ext" saving feature. When downloading from webshots I usually copy the caption for teh file name instead of the encrypted name they give. Is their a way for DTA to come up with a save dialog box like what you usually get and still queue them up? --144.139.163.200 08:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Right click the link and "Save link with dTa on..." --h2g2bob 18:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You can just change the mask from "*name*.*ext*" to whatever name you desire for the file. The name mask was probably originally intended to make it easier when downloading multiple files from one page (dTa's original purpose). It also adds itself to Firefox's normal save dialog, as "DownThemAll!" (opens the dTa save dialog) and "dTaOneClick" (saves to the last save location, using the last mask setting). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

".com" vs ".co"

Why do Australian commercial domain names end in ".com.au" but other countries' domain names end in ".co.uk", ".co.nz", ".co.jp" etc... Why does Australia have ".com" and not the shortened ".co"? --Candy-Panda 08:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Australia's Internet naming authority gets to choose everything to the left of the ".au", so they could have picked either one. Presumably they went with .com because their government thinks the USA is just the bee's knees. --TotoBaggins 13:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I always thought .com was for 'commercial' business and so .com.au was commercial business in Australia. From a quick read of .com that isn't the case. Look at .au for more info about australia based web-address setups. ny156uk 21:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Help with mastering DVD's and VideoStudio

I've recently transferred a tape from my Samsung digital videocam onto my hard drive and it appeared as a 12 gig AVI file - don't know why it chose to do it this way as previous transfers contained split files. I have Ulead VideoStudio v7 installed. I am eventually going to do some VS editing and save the result. Now the problem is - when I write it to DVD, is it going to ask me for 3 DVD's, and break the file up at odd intervals? If so, is it advisable to compress the video into one DVD? Can VS do this or does someone have a better method to compress AVI into DVD VOB format? Sandman30s 09:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That's too big to work with, with a Windows machine. Probably, it's too big for my Linux computer. If you captured from an analogue tape, you should chop it up into 2 gig hunks, at natural breaks. --Zeizmic 13:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have any other ideas, please? Sandman30s 19:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If Ulead can work with the file, go ahead and edit it. Once you've decided on the resulting video, render it and look at how big it is. Maybe it's less than 2 hours anyway. If it's much larger and your goal is to produce a single-volume standard DVD, then you'll have to reduce the content (run time), number of audio channels, or resolution, or increase the mpeg compression.

If Ulead chokes on the 12 G file, look for a transfer setting like "maximum filesize" or something along those lines to break the file up. Then retransfer the video. —EncMstr 07:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Setting computer to computer wireless ????

how can I set up a computer to computer wireless network ...??? I know its something called ad hoc but how does one set it up ????

Buy a wireless pc card, put it in your computer (or usb port) and install it. If there are other computers nearby which also have wireless they should connect. If all else fails, read the instructions. Think outside the box 12:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

On my wireless card settings (a Belkin), there is an option you have to change to adhoc. Sorry to be so vague, I don't have access at the moment. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 12:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a quick tutorial on Microsoft's site: Making the Wireless Home Network Connection in Windows XP Without a Router Ayecee 08:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Slyberoam

Hi! I have a small doubt, if anybody could please solve it! What exactly is slyberoam and how does it work? Could anybody tell me how to use it in detail? What does it actually do? Can u use it to bypass cyberoam and if so, how? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bk2001050 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

Slyberoam is a software that it is designed as an alternative to Cyberoam. It runs as a Windows service. Something pretty unique about it is that it lets you use various MAC addresses, not just the one that your ethernet card has. People with gateway/proxy computers with NAT can choose to log in to any computer inside their LAN. The long log file it keeps is helpful because it records any malformed or unrecognizable packets it receives there for later manual evaluation. It comes with Slyberoam Configurater. This makes it easy to configure Slyberoam to different 24Online networks. It's licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL.) The latest version is Slyberoam 0.4.0.0. This is just sort of a basic overall summary of the product. I personally don't know anything about how to use it or if it can bypass Cyberoam. If it is an alternative to Cyberoam, I kind of doubt it bypasses it. --Theunicyclegirl 19:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Serial key

Suppose I get a software with my laptop which is already installed. and I want to check its CD-key. Where do I go t check what my produts CD-Key is? Do I have to edit the registry for this?

It depends on the software. Some of them show them in plain sight in the registry. Some of them show only hash values in the registry, or hide them. Some of them provide another means of seeing keys without poking around in the registry. And there are utilities for some software that lets you see the keys easily when the software doesn't provide a means to do so. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Magic jellybean keyfinder will do the job for XP and Office. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.83.72 (talk) 06:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Just save your .nfo files :D --frothT 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried to install the software on vista. It got installed and it started working but suddenly it showed some error and only the vista serial key was shown and not the office 2007 serial key that I actually wanted. What do I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bk2001050 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Using javascript to change content of divs

Hi all,

I want to be able to replace the contents of a div in my webpage with other content when a link is clicked on. I want both sets of content to be defined in the html page, not the javascript, so that it's easy for a non-programmer to edit the html page and understand what they are doing. Here's some pseudo-code/bad code for what I want to do:

<a href="#" onclick="changedivs(div1, div2)"> Click here to change! </a>

<div1> Some text, graphics, etc </div1>
<div2 start-hidden> Some other text, maybe an applet, etc </div2>

Is there a simple way to do this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Mary

I think I know what you're after:

 <html>
 <head>
 <style>
 #div1 {
   display: block;
 }
 #div2 {
   display: none;
 }
 </style>
 <script>
 function swapDisplayed(elementOneId, elementTwoId) {
   e1 = document.getElementById(elementOneId);
   e2 = document.getElementById(elementTwoId);
 
   if (!e1 || !e2) return null;
 
   if (e1.style.display == 'none') {
     e1.style.display = 'block';
     e2.style.display = 'none';
   } else {
     e1.style.display = 'none';
     e2.style.display = 'block';
   }
   return;
 }
 </script>
 </head>
 <body>
 
 <a href="#" onclick="javascript:swapDisplayed('div1', 'div2');"> Click here to change! </a>
 
 <div1 id="div1"> Some text, graphics, etc </div1>
 <div2 id="div2"> Some other text, maybe an applet, etc </div2>
 
 </body>
 </html>

That should do the trick. Johnnykimble 16:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! --Mary

adding vector images in MS Word

I've been able to convert a GIF image to EPS or SVG, but I'm unable to paste this image in a Word file for printing, etc. I don't want to paste the GIF cuz then you see pixels and it's less smooth and scalable. Word doesn't seem to support SVG import, and when I import the EPS version, it just pops up as a totally blank box, even after printing... no doubt a bug.

Any suggestions? Should I just make a really gigantic version of the image so when I size it down to word, it will be smoother?

--Sonjaaa 16:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just print it from a program that does support SVG? There's a list at Svg#Support_in_applications. --TotoBaggins 20:31, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Word doesn't support vector images to my knowledge. When I want to put SVGs into Word first I export them as PNGs from Inkscape at 300dpi. --24.147.86.187 22:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Panomorph optic for panoramic photo/video.

70.55.145.227 20:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC) Alain Marchildon

(email address removed)

Please do not leave your email address - Wikipedia's pages are widely copied and distributed throughout the web and it's very likely it could end up in the hands of someone you wouldn't want to have it. Also, please ask a specific question and someone will be happy to answer it. Thanks — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Who made this?

Hello wikipedia. what i would like to ask is: who made this website and how long did it take to make? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.144.48.66 (talk) 20:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia was created by Jimmy Wales in 2001 and its articles are created and edited by several thousand volunteer contributors. The software Wikipedia runs on is called Mediawiki. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If you mean the infrastructure, see History of Wikipedia. If you mean the content, it's people just like you; see Wikipedia:About. Neither is complete—it's a never-ending project. It's 4-7 years to this point, depending on how you count. —EncMstr 20:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Internet activities privacy

My home PC is connected to some cybercafé's router, which enables me connect to the internet.. to what extent can the cybercafé administrator view my internet activities??
PS: I use ZoneAlarm. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.196.224.191 (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

Pretty much entirely if they are intelligent administrators. Their router software should tell them the IP address assigned to any computer going through their router. Unless zoneAlarm is some program that tries to hide your tracks it is likely they can see. Whether they care or not is another matter - if you don't steal too much bandwidth/speed then I guess there would be A) No need to check for free loaders and B) Little reason to both following it up even if they did. I think in extreme cases people have been sentenced for bandwidth-theft and I understand it isn't legal without permission. ny156uk 21:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Zonealarm won't help you here, but if you used a VPN it would hide your activities from them. But otherwise your communications are pretty much totally in the clear and if they were unscrupulous they could monitor everything you sent out. You should be quite wary in using public routers for anything sensitive; even if you think you know who they are you are quite vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. --24.147.86.187 22:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Volume control

When i start a voice conversation with other people they always seem to be able to hear my music so i was wondering if there is a program that will fix this problem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.212.42.55 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

Headphones is a good idea. Oskar 22:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Or just turn down your music... -- mattb @ 2007-03-12T22:22Z

I use headphones....69.212.42.55 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

And how do they hear your music? As though it's being sent to them rather than your voice? It's possible that the Microphone isn't selected in the recording part of the sound mixer. Assuming Windows: Try double clicking the volume icon, then Options -> Properties -> Recording -> OK, and then select the checkbox under Microphone. If that's not it, then you're either playing your music at a level that is gradually deafening you, or your headphones really leak noise. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Streaming video -> saved

Hi. I thought I saw this question here before, but I can't find it so I assume I found it elsewhere. Basically, is there a handy way to save streaming video from a site like youtube? As in, a way of saving to my computer for later viewing a video that is only available streaming, not for download. Not that I'm thinking of using this for anything copyright, just free stuff that I'd quite like to view offline. I seem to remember the replies talking about going to some folder without ending your windows session, copying some particular file and saving it somewhere else, then converting it to another form using some free program. I also seem to remember some firefox add-on doing it quickly and conveniently, although I'd have to install Firefox to use that, so it would have to be really quite convenient :-) Thanks for any help. Quite apart from instructions, I like to get specific downloads from specific sites recommended by knowledgable people, since I really don't want spyware/viruses; I hate having to wipe the harddrive and reinstall everything.

Thanks. Skittle 22:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I found the firefox thing; it was on the Misc desk! However, if I want to download video provided as streaming, particularly form a site that isn't in the list for that addon, what folder do I have to look in? I gather I have to look for .flv files, and then either download an .flv player or get some converter? What would be safe downloads for these? Skittle 23:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Try vixy.net for saving YouTube videos; it is the easiest. As for converters, it depends on the type of OS you have — Mac or Windows? -24.147.86.187 23:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's Windows XP, with IE6 ('cause I don't like 7), and I was hoping for non-youtube directions, although youtube directions are useful too :-) Skittle 23:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, vixy.net can hypothetically work with non-YouTube sites though I've had some trouble with it in that respect. So OK, you have the FLV downloader; I use a Mac so I use iSquint like crazy, but this article contains some more discussion on Windows-based conversion tools. But thus ends my ability to give specific programs and instructions. ;-) --24.147.86.187 23:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an .flv downloader. Is there a particular folder .flv tend to be stored in? I've tried a couple of video saving sites, but they tend to work for youtube or google video. I need to save the file before working out how to watch it! :-) Skittle 23:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

KeepVid.com--droptone 01:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Try javimoya. Play the FLVs with VLC or convert to xvid or h.264 or wmv with [[mencoder] if you want to play it in a conventional media player- but transcoding will result in a loss of quality --froth^t 06:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

array_multisort in PHP

I'm trying to sort some columns of data in a dynamic and flexible way in PHP. At the moment I have four columns of data stored in arrays, whose data is in $f[0], $f[1], $f[2], and $f[3]. ($f[0][0] would be the first value for column 0, item 0; $f[0][1] would be column 0, item 1, etc.)

Now I can get them to sort by column using array_multisort. For example, if I want to sort by column 1, I just do:

array_multisort($f[1],$f[0],$f[2],$f[3]);

Awesome, yes? Except I can't see how to make that scaleable -- i.e., what if I later have five columns of data? Or six? As it is I don't want to hardcode the number of columns (obviously I can do some trickery to make the order variables change).

There's clearly something obvious I'm overlooking, and maybe it will come to me in a minute, but in the meantime, how to go about doing this? --24.147.86.187 22:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm having a bit of a mind-blank for the actual code (late over here) but surely you do a foreach for $f and find what array values there are and then array_multisort(@array)? JoshHolloway 23:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not use eval, but it can be useful here. Try:

$cmd = "array_multisort(";
foreach($f as $i=>$a)  $cmd .= "$"."f[".$i."],";
$cmd = substr($cmd, 0, -1).");";
eval($cmd);

Basically, you create your function call as a string and then eval to run it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 02:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

A foreach loop is probably the most elegant way of going about business. Be warned, however, array operations in PHP are fairly slow and you'll want to avoid sorting very large arrays in PHP. -- mattb @ 2007-03-13T14:30Z

March 13

Error Flash.ocx

A message keeps comming up on my computer that says ERROR "Could not find file flash.ocx" it is driving me crazy because it comes up every ten minutes, I click "ok" or X to close it but it keeps comming back. Anybody know how to make it stop??--ChesterMarcol 00:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You may need to re-install Flash [12]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Splintercellguy (talk • contribs) 01:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

It could be that the OCX just isn't registered. If the file is on your machine (usually C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash) go to Start then Run and type cmd and press enter. Then type:

 regsvr32 C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash\Flash.ocx

That should be the ocx registered. If you still have problems, or the ocx isn't on your machine, then reinstalling Flash as Splintercellguy suggested should be enough to fix it. Johnnykimble 11:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

net.net

How come when you go to the domain name "net.net"[13], it just has a blank page with the text "This space intentionally left blank"? What is the purpose of this mysterious website? --Candy-Panda 05:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it's probably a reserved domain like the ones in rfc 2606 --froth^t 06:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

www.example.org is a good example of this. Johnnykimble 10:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Could just be a joke or something... Think outside the box 11:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

RealVNC

What's going on with the RealVNC website? --froth^t 07:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I dunno. Maybe they forgot to pay their bills? --Spoon! 07:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Disabled network adapters

After going through several VMware products, I'm flooded with a dozen different "tunneling adapters" when I do ipconfig /all. They're listed as "Disabled" and I don't see them in the windows network connections applet. How do I remove them altogether? --froth^t 08:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Are they listed in the device manager under 'Network Adapters'? Johnnykimble 11:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

System Requirements for Ubuntu

What are the minimum (and recommended) system requirements for running Ubuntu (the latest version 6.10). I have an old computer that my younger sister uses so I need an OS that is very simple to use and similar enough to the Windows environment that she is familiar with. If I remember correctly, its system specifications are Pentium III 486MHz Processor, 256MB RAM and 40GB Hard Drive. I'd guess that it also has Integrated Graphics and Sound. --AMorris (talk)●(contribs) 10:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That should be adequate, based on experience and also from this Ubuntu Installation Guide. Ayecee 10:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

advanatges and disadvantages of for loop in java programming

what are the advantages and disadvantages of for loop in java programming? 202.53.8.210 12:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Advantages: Can count intrinsically, very fast iteration, all-in-one loop structure.

Disadvantages: It doesn't do your homework for you.

Droud 12:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

While I agree this is probably a homework question, one of disadvantages may be that when you write the code, you may accidentaly make it an infinite loop. If you meant to write:

    for(int i = 1; i > -5; i--)
         {
              System.out.println(i);
         }

and you accidentaly wrote:

    for(int i = 1; i > -5; i++)
         {
              System.out.println(i);
         }

The latter would be an exampel of an infinate loop because the integer i is 1 and will always be greater than -5 if you count up for each iteration. And when you see that the CMD window is going crazy and you never get the prompt to press any key, you have to move your mouse to the x and exit out the window. I eally don't believe that this is a major disadvantage as the advantages far outwiegh it. If you wated to write the same code without a for loop, you be looking at something like this:

    int 1 = 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;                   // or i--
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);
    
    i = i - 1;
    
    System.out.println(i);

As you can see it is MUCH easier to write the for loop than have to write it over and ovr and over again. Just imagine if you had to make it in the 100's or something liek that. There. Even though I'm on Spring Break, I still do people's homework for them... 14:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You've simply described the utility of iteration in general, not the particular advantages of using the for construct. -- mattb @ 2007-03-13T14:27Z

Don't forget that the syntax of the for construct itself can be quite useful in certain cases:

 for (StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer("Some String"); st.hasMoreTokens(); System.out.println(st.nextToken()));

That's a rather extreme case where the body of the for loop is empty, but when enumerating through records or performing some similar operation, a for loop can be used in place of a while loop. This use though is normally more a matter of style than anything else. Johnnykimble 15:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

A nice trick is making an infinite loop with for (;;). --h2g2bob 16:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Best Note-Taking Program, take two

I got some answers when I asked this question a couple days ago, but after I responded with another question, attention seemed to wane. So I'm asking that second question again. Are there any suggestions for a (hopefully free) note-taking program that might include in-document links (so that I could click, say, on "Napoleon" in my notes and it would take me to the section I had designated), easy timelines, simple formatting, all for WINDOWS XP? Thanks, Sashafklein 15:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Whats the best home console?

Whats the best home console? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.7.9.211 (talk) 16:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Subjective though this question is...For me it would be the PS2. I suspect that once I upgrade to a next-gen it will be the PS3, however many will argue the great games/power of Xbox and Nintendo's Wii are better than a PS3. You could say a PC is the best as it is upgradeable/can play thousands of games and can be used for other things besides computing. I would choose a PS3 if I had the money (indeed if it was released in my country), but it is personal preference - nothing more. ny156uk 17:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Saving Video

How do i save streaming video from the net onto my comp if there is no option such as save. Like from sites like utube etc. Just that i want to have some trailers available offline. Do i have to go into temporary internet files and do something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.95.191.49 (talk) 17:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Statistics on Use of Traditional Browsers vs. Mobile Devices for Simple Web Transactions

Would appreciate statistics (by geographic regions if possible) on use of traditional browsers (laptop, desktop) vs. mobile devices for simple web transactions such as text messaging.