Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

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April 9

MAC vs. Mac

This may be better suited to the language desk though it's computer related so I'm trying here... Why do people, who in my experience are generally not Apple Mac buyers/users, call Macs "MACS"? It's not an abbreviation acronym and never has been. So why do people capitalize it? Dismas|^(talk) 02:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's three letters (like file extensions) and doesn't seem to mean anything at first glance, so it sounds to them like it should be an abbreviation acronym. And I've seen a few Mac users call them MACs :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about them, but MAC capitalized means MAC address to me, so the computers are Macs. Maybe they think it's like IBM and HP etc. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not supposed to be capitalized, whenever I se it I think MAC Address, too.--Ryan 16:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am both a MAC and a Win user, and I capitalize MAC, probably for the reason that Wirbelwind says. I don't capitalize Win, though. ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Hooking up N64 to PC

I have question. You see, I have a site for a Nintendo 64 game. The only problem is that it has no game pictures, and it wold be unethical to steal images of Google Image search. So I thought I may hook my system up to my computer to take screenshots. But how do I do this? Ftw I have both a MacBook Pro with Vista and Leopard beta. I also have an HP Pavilion a814x desktop computer (which I would prefer to use). How do I hook it up, or if that not possible, how do I take screenshots on it in general? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You need a TV / video capture card that can accept composite or coaxial or whatever type of video output you have from the N64. That, or an emulator along with the appropriate ROM. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My desktop has NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000. Laptop has ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256 MiB GDDR3. Or if neither work, where may I find a free emulator? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The best N64 emulator currently is Project64. Concerning ROMs, you are on your own, but in theory it's not illegal to own ROM copies of the games you phisically own, in case you are wondering. --Sn0wflake 05:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You would probably know if either of those were the TV tuner versions; it would say somewhere, and they might have come with an input cable or have extra ports for input. As for ROMS: there are (somewhat expensive) devices to copy them off of the carts, and there are websites/P2P networks/"etc." that distribute them. The legality of the latter method is, indeed, not happy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Does ROM mean the game cartridge? If that is so, I own the game in question, San Francisco Rush 2049. :D --TV-VCR watch 05:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It refers to the data on the cartridge, which you need off of the cartridge and on your computer to use with an emulator. It's possibly legal to download the ROM file off of some site if you own the actual game, but I can't provide legal advice here :P. It's not ethically wrong. (And as an aside, I used to own that. Fun game :D) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I will download the P64 program, and contact if I have any questions. Thanks. --TV-VCR watch 05:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well now I have a question! How do I get the ROM onto my computer to use in in Project 64 v1.6? --TV-VCR watch 05:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, you need either to use a somewhat expensive device to do so, or simply search for and download a ROM that someone else has ripped. The latter is of questionable legality, though it may or may not be okay if you own the actual cart. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am confused! Where may I find a ROM to download of SFR49? Or what is this device you speak of? --TV-VCR watch 05:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I lol'd! I searched for one and found one instantly! It is downloading as I type this, but my, it is 16.2 megabytes, and I am still using dialup while waiting for my DSL to activate! This may take a while. T_T --TV-VCR watch 05:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's common misconception that you can dl a ROM if you own the cartridge. In reality, the only ROMs you can legally own are those you ripped yourself from cartridges you legally owned and still legally own. Although we are not supposed to give legal advice here, I figured making you more worried as opposed to less could never hurt. ;) Chris M. 14:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is likely to depend on the jurisdiction, and in many if not most of them, on the specific interpretation a judge might arrive at when and if such a case ever came up. The specific circumstances, where a person in possession of a legal copy of a work would find it more convenient to download a second copy off the net than to simply copy his own are sufficiently recent, and even today sufficiently uncommon, that there are likely to be few precedents or statutes explicitly addressing the issue. In any case, in practice the legality might end up depending on secondary issues, such as what purpose the copy was downloaded for, whether the downloaded copy was identical to the original, whether the original was deliberately copy-protected rather than merely incidentally difficult to copy, whether the user had accepted any EULAs, whether said EULAs actually are legal and enforceable or not, and, perhaps most importantly, on whether the download was made through a file-sharing application that would simultaneously upload the content to third parties. In short, "it depends." —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It would nice if people just accepted that the final user is allowed to have a backup copy of a legitimately owned game. There will certainly be no legal case made against somebody due to the person merely owning a ROM version of a N64 game that ceased being produced over a decade ago, and if by some disturbingly impossible event that actually happens, I highly doubt soke kind of header check of the cart versus ROM or whatever will be made. So to the person who started the question, legalese aside, just go ahead and download the game. We cannot point you where, though. That would be ilegal. --Sn0wflake 06:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Why must all technical questions about file ripping/sharing be turned into arguments about the legalities? Why can't we just stay on topic, and assume that anyone who's going to commit (what might be ruled as) a copyright violation has weighed the risks? NeonMerlin 18:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Movies in ppt

Hey, I'm trying to put a movie in powerpoint and it won't work! I hit the Insert>Movies and Sounds>Movie from File... and the thing won't work. I mean, it doesn't even show up on the "Undo" drop list. Is there anything I can do? --JDitto 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Laptop keyboard - stuck key

I replaced my enter key. It previously worked OK without the little metal bar but I found it today and wanted to make the edges work well when I hit them (the bar makes it so that when you hit the edges it registers with equal weight as in the center). Well I tried with and without it and the key is stuck - it pops up a fraction of an inch, works, but won't pop up all the way. Laptop is a DV1000 series. Got suggestions? -Wooty Woot? contribs 06:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like the tiny spring isn't able to push the key up any more, possibly due to the added weight of the metal bar. Can you find a stronger spring with the same dimensions and substitute it in ? StuRat 06:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, it doesn't work even without the metal bar! I haven't messed with the button ("nipple" is the best way to describe it) but as a last resort that's an option. I just had a thought: perhaps the force of pushing it in rather misaligned the spring inside, so it no longer is pushing back on the key. Of course, this is just a hypothesis at this point. -Wooty Woot? contribs 06:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's possible, but this misalignment might have bent the spring beyond it's elastic limit, in which case it will permanently be weakened. In any case, I believe you need to pry that key off and see what's going on underneath. You could "borrow" a good spring from some key you never use (like "scroll lock", in my case). StuRat 18:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

There are too interlocking rectangles above the key "nipple" that I can't remove. I think either I'll glue the back of the key to the "nipple" (it works fine if I don't press and click it in) or replace the keyboard, since I can't get inside. -Wooty Woot? contribs 23:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, sounds like a plan. In the meantime, you can probably use the enter key on numeric keypad. StuRat 05:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Beginner's use of a database

I have an XML file that is a database formatted for MySQL. Each record has, among other fields, a name and three fields called HD, CR and LA. HD will contain a number (usually an integer, but occasionally a fraction with a '/' separating the sides) followed by a 'd' and some other text; the number before the 'd' is the part I'm interested in. CR will always be an integer, and LA will be either an integer or a dash (a dash is distinct from zero). What I'd like to do is create a table whose four columns are name, HD, CR and LA and copy it into OpenOffice.org Calc. Can I do this in OpenOffice.org Base, or straight in Calc? If so, how? (Base doesn't even recognize XML files as databases when I use the Open command, and there's no Import or Insert File command that I can see.) NeonMerlin 06:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You could of course load it into MySQL and do an appropriate select statement to get it into a format that Calc will recognize, but a quick Perl hack might do. If the record you describe looks like:

<record name="some name" hd="42/19dSomeOtherText" cr="99" la="-">

Then a one-liner as below should give you a comma-separated values file that Calc can grok. --TotoBaggins 14:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

perl -wnle '@fields=qw(name hd cr la); for $field (@fields) { ($h{$field}) = / $field="([^"]+)"/ or next LINE } $h{hd} =~ s/d.*//; print join ",", @h{@fields}'  <  db.xml  > db.csv

Unfortunately, the fields aren't parameters, but child tags of the record tags, like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<ms>
 <m>
  <name>Example</name>
   :
   : other fields
   :
  <hd>38d10 (xyz)</hd>
  <cr>22</cr>
  <la>-</la>
 </m>
</ms>

NeonMerlin 22:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

How about importing XML into MySQL and then exporting in csv format? Im sure PhpMyAdmin can export in csv, and Calc would have to accept csv. Shinhan 11:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In keeping with the perl one-liner theme, this rather dirty one should work for the example you just posted. It assumes that each record is within <m></m> tags:

perl -wle '$_=join("",<>); print "$1,$2,$3,$4" while (m#<m>.+?<name>(.+?)</name>.+?<hd>(.+?)d.+?<cr>(.+?)</cr>.+?<la>(.+?)</la>.+?</m>#smg)' <db.xml >db.csv

Johnnykimble 12:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Limewire not working

Lately when I try to open limewire, nothing comes up. I keep clicking and clicking and nothing's happening! What should I do? --124.181.241.101 06:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure it's not loading behind your windows? (it doesn't automatically go on top). Also check ctrl-alt-del and make sure only one copy is running. -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Limewire plugs your computer up with lots of malware/adware. Try something else? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Not true, Limewire is malware-free. -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Try Phex if you want to keep using the Gnutella network. NeonMerlin 18:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey it's working for me. I have 4.9.33. Btw, you should also try Ares Galaxy. It's free (opensource), and it's good. --Hirak 99 07:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I miss the days of Audiogalaxy. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Uninstall Limewire and install Shareaza, Shareaza is free software, can access the limewire network (Gnutella) plus the Gnutella2 network plus the eDonkey network, all simultaneously Glover 07:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

~$ on Microsoft Word documents

Hi, When I save certain documents (in Word it seems to be randomly), it creates a hidden file, the name of which is the saved document's filename but with the first two letters of that filename replaced with ~$. Does anyone know what this is or why it happens? Thanks very much, Bioarchie1234 08:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is a backup. Try opening it to see. -Wooty Woot? contribs 09:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

When I try to open it it says the program needs a converter to open this. When I say yes it takes ages doing nothing and when I say no another conversion thing comes up but it wants to use Japanese (Shift-JIS). If it is a backup is it safe to delete? Thanks. Bioarchie1234 09:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a temp file, not a backup. It's created when you work on a file without saving it, or when the file is so large that it needs to save itself more often than your regular saves. I get lots of them when I am working with my really big (200 pages) tables. I mean lots, like a dozen during a sitting, despite saving regularly and often. It's nothing to worry about. Anchoress 09:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. You can delete them after closing your Word document if they don't delete themselves. JoshHolloway 09:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

There's an MSKB article for this: Description of how Word creates temporary files. The '~' sign is the standard sign for the temporary file. The '$' sign indicates the file is an owner file. See the owner file section in the article. Johnnykimble 11:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Bioarchie1234 10:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

LINUX open source sponsoring

Any idea how the linux community churns out latest versions and updates for their software?Are there any sponsors?Any if they are volunteers, they are really really helpful people i guess...210.212.194.209

I don't know of any distros that have sponsers. Slackware from what I've read, pays for their CDs, web site bandwidth, and other expenses with the money they get from selling hard copies of their distro, Slackware books, and t-shirts. The software, AFAIK, is written by volunteers though. Dismas|^(talk) 10:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Some major developers of key projects are actually employed by companies that have significant interest in open source software. This allows these developers to work full time on the projects that said companies make revenue off of. -- mattb @ 2007-04-09T16:01Z

The people behind Ubuntu offer bounties for some development tasks, but most of the software in Linux distributions is from unpaid volunteers. Johnnykimble 08:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Fedora's Core developers are RedHat employies and then I think there just a group of volunteers who help code translate and document. A lot of FSF software is used in Linux (or should I say GNU/Linux) and the FSF has lots of sponsors (I think google is one). --Lwarf 09:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

DVD BURN

I burnt two sessions on a DVD-R. The two sessions can be read on the same computer, but not on my home computer running XP, and only one session on Win98.Any idea why??~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.212.194.209 (talk) 10:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm not sure why, but the same type of thing happens to me. StuRat 18:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Tons o things come into play here, one thing could be the book type you used when burning the DVD in question. It is preferable to use DVD-ROM book type for higher compatibility, also if burning with Nero (sorry if you don't like its the first that comes to mind) then you can also check a check box for higher compatibility. Then you have to check the speed, despite how many times people may argue this, older DVD-ROM's are sometimes bad at reading new technology read: Dual Layer (DVD9), and it's higher technologies, and higher speeds come into play as well. Next some DVD-ROM's if they're not burners themselves, will have problems reading more than 1 session. If the DVD is not finalized will also cause non-burners to not pick up the info. One last tip is disabling Windows Burn feature for some odd reason cures this sometimes. To disable it Right click on the burner, select properties,and select the recording tab and disable it. Hope this helps. 200.12.231.42 22:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Samba asymmetrical speeds

I have a 'nix computer and a Windows XP SP2 box, with a share on the XP box. Downloads are nice and quick, yet uploading only takes place at about 15k/s. Is this an inherent Samba thing or what's going on? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 10:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

All I can say is that it should be the same both ways, whether copying from the 'nix box to XP share or the other way round. It certainly shouldn't be as slow as 15kB/s (kilobytes). You are talking about transfers over your LAN and not the Internet? Obviously if you were talking about internet transfers, 15kB/s is a pretty normal upload speed. With many cable\DSL services, the upload is often ~15kB/s (128kb/s), ~30kB/s (256kb/s) or ~60kB/s (512kb/s), while the download speed can be as high as 2mB/s (16mb/s). Johnnykimble 11:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No, this is indeed over the LAN. I've noticed from a little Google search that I'm not the only one with this problem and that there aren't any real solutions posed, so the question is still an open (and interesting) one.

You could take a look and see if there's any odd looking traffic in a trace when you're uploading. You will of course need to know what to look for (and what you're looking at), but if you're familiar enough with network protocols it might be useful. You can use Ethereal to get the trace (it's possibly already on your *nix box). Johnnykimble 11:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The XP box is running NAT for the 'nix box, but I doubt the overheads incurred by NAT would be so great as to swamp the Samba upload.

Do other protocols work correctly? For example, have you tried FTPing between the machines? Johnnykimble 08:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of time to set up a FTP server now, but I might try that later.

Have you tried:

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

Glover 05:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That didn't work. The comment options said "Linux" -- is that just an assumption or a Linux-specific optimization (just out of curiosity).

Full Screen

Hey guys, how would I exit fullscreen in a computer game (Starcraft-I know its old, but its still good) if that option is not available in the game option menu? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.93.133.10 (talk) 12:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Usually Alt-Tab will get you out. Or you could try Winkey or Ctrl-Esc. If not, on Windows XP, you could try Ctrl-Alt-Del or Ctrl-Shift-Esc. x42bn6 Talk 12:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Alt-Enter is a common combination to toggle full screen mode in Windows. Johnnykimble 13:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Just plain ESC (escape key) works for some games. StuRat 18:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Some games have a command line option -w for windowed mode. Alt-F4 will just stop the game. Glover 05:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about bibliographic management software

How do programs like EndNote extract bibliographic information from online databases & library catalogues? 68.40.198.80 12:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Susie

Ummm... have you tried EndNote#Operation? --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I'm afraid I don't see where the page you mention addresses my specific question. 68.40.198.80 03:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)Susie

DVD burner not allowing the burning of DVDs

I have a DVD burner and I never used it to burn DVDs until today. I have a case of 50 blank DVDs and I've tried several. What happens is I put the DVD in the drive, then when I go to move a folder into the drive (as I would when burning a CD), it says "windows encountered a problem when trying to move this folder, what do you want windows to do?" I'm not completly sure if the drivers are correct but I'm also not completely sure where to find the make and model of this drive without opening up the system and unplugging stuff (if that would even work). If that is the only course of action I'll do it but I imagine it's somewhere on the computer, if that is the problem. Not sure what to do, so if someone can give me a hand, I'd appreciate it, thanks! Chris M. 14:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally I use Nero Burning ROM for burning, works better for me. Splintercellguy 14:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Any tips on how I can get that? Chris M. 15:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah me too it works nicely. Here, But it's a Trial. I can give you some pirate copies even, but I think promoting such on Wikipeida is not a good idea. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that your DVD burner is compatible with the DVD blanks that you're trying to use? Aside from the question of DVD-R and DVD+R (different media!), there's also the question of burning speed.

Atlant 16:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup, I have a +/- R/RW 16x burner and have 16x discs. Chris M. 17:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The Nero suggestion above is good, but I also wanted to mention why the drag and drop copy doesn't work. I believe some of the older current operating systems (like Windows 98) were written back when computers either didn't have any DVD drives at all or had read-only DVD drives. Thus, the O/S didn't include drag-and-drop DVD burn drivers. This is why you may need to run a separate software product, like Nero, to do copies to the DVD (even though you can copy from the DVD using Windows). Incidentally, I would have expected the DVD burner to come with the required software, such as Nero. You might want to check the box. StuRat 18:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason for your error is what StuRat says, windows cannot address anything after the 80 mins on a normal disc. Even WinXP which is slightly newer cannot burn onto DVD's with it's built in burning engine. I do believe Nero now makes Nero Express Lite or something like that for free. You might want to look into that. 200.35.168.129 22:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

I have winXP and I was burning Data on the CD, not movies, so the time limit isn't an issue, but I'm looking into the Nero Express Lite you mentioned. Chris M. 05:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In order to do a drag 'n' drop to a DVD, you need to have some kind of packet writing driver software running for your DVD burner. For Nero, the specific product is called InCD, there are some others listed in the packet writing article. If you have any kind DVD burning software installed, it might just be a matter of setting the properties on your drive. --LarryMac 13:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

acceptance testing

why is acceptance testing important? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.167.149.144 (talk) 15:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

We have an article for the Acceptance testing. Read it yourself, it will better than asking from someone, isn't it :-) --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 16:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Do your own homework. The reference desk won't give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there's a specific part of your homework you don't understand. Make an effort to show that you've tried solving it first. JoshHolloway 16:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is homework, so I will assume good faith and answer.

[Oh, come on, it was clearly a homework question! —Steve Summit (talk) 01:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)]

Acceptance testing is important because it has the potential to find bugs not found in testing done by programmers. There are many reasons for this:

1) The most ominous is that programmers may intentionally hide a bug they know about.

2) Programmers inevitably see things from a programmer's POV, which often is different from what the customer wants. As a result they may not consider something to be a bug which the customers do. A programmer might say "You wanted the supplier list sorted in alphabetical order ? Why would you want that when it's already sorted by the hexadecimal supplier index number ?".

3) During acceptance testing, realistic use of the program is more likely. While the programmer might have tested the program alone, on a high-end computer, the acceptance tester might have other programs running which they normally would run along side the one being tested, and might use less powerful computers in different configurations, with a different operating system, etc. Some of this is also encountered in integration testing and cross-platform testing, but those tests still may not have the same combo that a real customer is likely to use. StuRat 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Content Based Image Retrieval

What is the current state of content based image retrieval?

Annevbast 18:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)annevbast

It is possible to reliably retrieve porn by telling the CBIR to search for images with skin tone color. All joking aside, I wouldn't use any content based image retrieval solution unless your images are a very specific and small image domain. CBIR may be useful for retrieving particular fonts with qualities that you want, for example. But my experience has been that most CBIR systems are pretty much useless if your trying to organize random images semantically.

Source: (I did a lot of reading on this kind of stuff for my CS master's thesis 2 years ago). Root⁴(one) 18:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is some very promising recent research. Even got picked up by slashdot. risk 18:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Free Video Edit / Subtitle

Hi,

I have a video taken from Sony handycam. I need to add subtitle to it. How can I do that?

Thanks Slmking 20:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey Slmking

this is normally a dvd site but feel free to look into it for it provides subtitling info and tutorials www.doom9.org http://www.doom9.org/subtitle_guides.htm i would recomend substation alpha,vobsub, and subrip

Also most editing software for videos has subtitle options in them, i use Sony Vegas for example or sometimes Premiere you can usually get trials for this software to see which best fits your needs. Hope this helps. 200.35.168.129 22:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Free tools for creating PDF file from HTML file with inline TIFF images?

Are there free tools available that can convert an HTML file with inline TIFF images into PDF? A requirement is that the tool must recognize some kind of size specification for the TIFF images. That is, the tool must recognize some form of specification, be it HTML or CSS, or something else, that specifies the scaled size of inline TIFF images (e.g. 4 cm x 5 cm).

(Converting the TIFF images into another format first would be an unattractive option, as the file size penalty would be substantial. The input to the process has a simple structure, so if a freely available tool does the job but takes a different source format, that would be OK, so long as it's relatively easy to convert the source document into that format.)

Thanks. --64.236.170.228 20:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well this may help - cutePDF appears as a printer on your PC, and anything you send to it to get printed it will convert to PDF and ask you where you want to save the file to. The nice thing about it is that it's freeware, opensource, and doesn't watermark itself on any of the documents. So in other words, if you're happy with a PDF of how the page would look like printed, then that's the solution to look out for. I'm not sure about TIFF image support - but if TIFFs can be printed from whatever program you're viewing them in then rest assured it can PDF it. Rfwoolf 03:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm aware of cutePDF and similar approaches for generating PDF files, but they are not the right solution in this case. To use cutePDF or something similar, you need an application that can handle HTML files with inline TIFF files. Popular browsers don't handle TIFF files, not natively anyway. The TIFF images are in that format because it yields the smallest file sizes by far for the desired quality. Any conversion process must preserve the file size advantage to be useful. I found a non-free solution that, fortunately, only uses tools I already have. Thanks nevertheless. --64.236.170.228 15:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Connecting my computer to my TV

My video-card has an S-Video out plug. Can I just connect that to my TV (using a SCART converter, for instance) to use my computer to show video on my TV? Obviously I would have to make a separate connection for the audio, but would it work other than that? Can I use any resolution (which is downscaled to PAL), or will I have to use some special resolution when doing this? --Oskar 20:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, I'm using Ubuntu --Oskar 21:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I've no experience of this on Ubuntu unfortunately, but this link looks pretty promising. You don't have to use a scart converter if your TV has a composite connection. In this case you can get an S-Video>Composite cable. On your TV, next to the composite-in, there should be two phono connections, for L and R audio. You can get a lead for this that connects to the 'line out' jack on your sound card. Composite is lower quality than S-Video though, so the converter might be a good idea (but get one that has audio connections on it if possible). Johnnykimble 21:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I actually have a SCART-converter, so that's not really a problem. It has audio-inputs on it (that is, it has a composite video input, a S-Video input and two audio inputs). But is that all it takes, it just works? --Oskar 21:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, yea. That's all you need as far as hardware is concerned. The hurdle is the software though. If you follow the instructions in that link I mentioned, and make the correct changes to your xorg.conf, it should just work. As far as resolution is concerned, you can just pick the one that looks best. On a 28" CRT TV, this is typically 800x600, anything bigger can look too small and blurry. Johnnykimble 21:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I just read that link you provided the second after I posted. I guess it's not that easy :) I looks doable anyway, so I'll experiment with it. Thanks! (I do have windows installed although I almost never used it, so that's a last resort, I guess) --Oskar 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, one more other thing I forgot to mention was Macrovision. You might have some issues with the desktop displaying correctly, but any video overlays not showing up on the TV. This is usually to do with the Macrovision protecion on the TV-Out so that you can't record to a VHS tape or other media. In most cases however, you can get software to disable this. Johnnykimble 21:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Recommender system

How does the recommender system in Amazon work to provide recommendation to users?

I don't know the exact mechanics but it records the products you buy and those you just look at and then it finds products which are similar. For example if you buy a copy of Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica then it will recommend Season 2 to you. Recommendations normally come with information on the exact reason it's been recommended to you.

The exact algorithm is no doubt a well guarded secret, but considering the amounts of data involved, it would have to be a very fast system. Something that only needs a couple of passes over the set of customer purchases. This is one way: http://www.sigmod.org/vldb/conf/1994/P487.PDF . A very basic method would be to estimate the probability that someone who bought product A, will enjoy product B, P(A|B) by the number of people that bought product A, B and both. The definition of Conditional probability tells us that P(A|B) = P(A and B) / P(B). The probabilities can then be setimated from the number of people who bought the items. So if you bought a Battlestar Galactica DVD, the system can check if you would like an Alias DVD, by calculating P(A and B) = the number of people who bought both DVD's / The total number of customers. And P(B) = the number of people who bought the BSG DVD / the total number of customers. Divide the first by the second, and you have an estimate of the probability that you want to buy Alias. Simply return those products for which that probability is the highest. This is all oversimplified of course, but I would guess that that's the basic principle they use. risk 22:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC) (NB: The first paragraph is an unsigned comment, not mine)

I agree completely with you risk, it's highly probably and likely. Also they do take into consideration key words such as directors,actors,and genre those are used as multipliers i would assume at the final product of risk's formula. it would increase the likelihood of you wanting to purchase it by lets say 1.25 if it had the same actors. that's my 2 cents 200.35.168.129 22:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

As noted, the specific algorithm used by Amazon is most likely proprietary. We do actually have a (rather stubby) article about recommender systems, and there is more detail, in the collaborative filtering article which the first article references. The latter article also lists quite a few sources that may provide additional information. --LarryMac 12:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Climate Change

I am making a research on the environment for my personal use and will like to know some of the basic things such us climent change and things that can be done to save the environment

Manay thaks Benjji

Try typing climate change in the "search" box and clicking on "go". You will quickly find a very good answer to your question. --Kainaw ^(talk) 22:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

April 10

14 inch widescreen or 14" ordinary resolution

I mostly use the laptop for reading only. should I go for a 14" widescreen laptop or should I go for ordinary resolution (1024 * 768) 14" laptop? which would be conienient for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.124.223 (talk) 04:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Normal. Trying to find applications that work well with widescreen displays is really hard, and 1024*768 is the standard for computing, although 1280*1024 will work too.

What are the resolutions? If the widescreen one is 1280×800 then get that since it got more pixels, but don't decide on laptops only by their screens though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends, you really should try to see the screen with something you would normally read on it. A widescreen typically is better for viewing movies BUT on a good widescreen you can actually view a text document two pages side by side at the same time, which I personally LOVE but a few people I know think the text is too small when you do that. So it really is a personal preference thing. No one can tell you which is better. Vespine 22:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

My widescreen monitor is good. It's 15.4 inches though. It's great for movies as said above. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 00:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Processor comparisons

When I try to compare processors (CPUs and GPUs), their properties are listed as 'clock speed', 'L2 Cache' and 'FSB', none of which allow direct comparison of calculation power. Is there anywhere I can read the average Floating Point Operations Per Second or equivelant measure for current CPUs and/or GPUs? 81.157.191.238 10:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Toms Hardware Guide is usually my first port of call for comparing CPUs or GPUs. That link is for CPU comparisons and if you change the benchmark to 'SiSoft Sandra Arithmetic MFLOPS' you should get what you're looking for. I haven't seen this metric used for GPUs though. If you want to test on your own machine you can download SiSoft Sandra here. Johnnykimble 11:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I find that comparison has a strong bias towards Intel CPUS, as it says that a 2.8Ghz Prescott is faster than a 2.8Ghz Athlon64. I would refrain from using theoretical benchmarks and use real-world benchmarks instead (eg. games, apps etc.) that relates the closest to what you do (or gonna do) with the processors. --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but does that 'bias' not just mean the Intel CPUs have a better instruction set architecture/physical architecture to carry out the floating point operations? Johnnykimble 13:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

SiSoft Sandra is pretty biased to Intel. In its test, the measly Penitum 4 520 Pescott 2.8Ghz is slightly better than the Athlon FX-57, also 2.8Ghz. And yet, in the 3DStudio Max test, where floating point is also critical, the FX 62 wastes the 520, being one of the best single cored CPU. Time 3:09, it's almost 2 minutes faster than 20 at 4:53; The SiSoft Sandra heavily uses SSE extensions, which of course Intel processors are going to win. Also, you will find that floating point artihmics are not very useful in real world applications unless you're trying to run a rendering farm or something, so you shouldn't use it to compare CPUs, and is in fact more influenced by the optimisation of the software than anything else. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

CPUs and GPUs are fairly different machines. The former is usually intended for general-purpose computing (though they are often optimized for a special application), while the latter usually excells at certain types of vectorizable problems. You can try to compare them on a per-application basis, but be careful about attributing more significance to such comparisons than is appropriate. A friend of mine did some research in solving partial differential equations (Poisson's) numerically with GPUs, and in his demonstrations the GPU could solve the equation sets an order of magnitude or two faster than a C program on a late CPU. However, he also pointed out that the GPU is impractical for code that branches (conditionals, complex loops) since it isn't designed for general purpose program execution. -- mattb @ 2007-04-10T15:48Z

That's a lot like asking "which automobile has the highest RPM or horsepower?" You can get an answer, but it's unlikely to be useful: How many passengers and how much cargo should it carry? What kind of suspension (off road or maglev)? Is the engine installed in a go cart, or NASA's shuttle ground transporter? The advice to try whatever it is you want to run on the candidate processors is the best and most reliable indicator of what performance you can expect. —EncMstr 16:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a good site you recommend kimble sadly to me it's very PRO Intel, if you haven't been able to tell by the Ad's or the store. The problem here is not what is better, but what kind of use am I going to be using it for. For example I'm not going to build a computer with AMD, ATI, and then play one of those games that has a nVidia sticker on it, it's not optimized for that. unfortunately many things in the computer world are biased when it comes to this. I don't like Mac's but I do know they're usually better for graphics and art use. Work with what gives you results, not what works for another person or a program that might have been optimized for better use with different technology, that's my 2 cents. 200.12.231.42 18:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

I don't know what the all this talk of bias and pro-Intel is about. Are you suggesting they have fabricated the SiSoft Sandra figures for their processor benchmarks? I was simply responding to what was asked for in the original question, namely something that showed the FLOPs metric for CPUs, and I consider SiSoft Sandra a reliable program for doing that (and the Toms Hardware site has those benchmarks). I didn't read any more into the question than that. I'm in full agreement with everything else that has been said here, which means I agree that relying on the opinions from a single site is a bad idea. But then that's one of the advantages of benchmarks, you don't have to take someones word for it. Johnnykimble 19:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not criticizing the software but the website, tom's hardware is usually PRO Intel, and you're correct benchmarks do show the read deal of a system, but if you're not going to buy the exact same setup as the test system...then i would just recommend you always do a personal setup to best fit your needs. not really trying to argue kimble like i stated before..just my 2 cents and answering the question the program CPU-Z is also a good info tool, concise and small but good also take into consideration that calculation power is not based on FLOPS you have a lot of latency between memory and MoBo and diff technologies that the processors have for example SSE,MMX,3D NOW depends on what you're calculating... 200.35.168.129 22:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Just to throw something else about benchmarks into the mix... A while back there was some controversy when the maker of 3D Mark claimed that nVidia were cheating in the benchmark by modifying their drivers so that they'd perform well. I don't think anything came of it in the end, but it goes to show that, moreso with graphics cards, benchmarks can be cheated above the hardware level, althought it would obviously be seriously bad form for a company to do so. Johnnykimble 08:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah i heard something similar, i do believe ATI at an opening event demonstrated with a nVidia how it would process faster than ATI in 3d Mark but not in the actual game reading FPS jaja xD 200.12.231.42 21:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Installing GCC

Hi, VP's! My name's felix. Well, I downloaded the GCC compiler 'cause I'm interested in programming though I'm no computer GURU. I opened the "installation" files... Now, that's all I could. I mean I GOT A HELL OF A PAIN IN THE @&!%*$!!! UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE WHOLE THING WAS ABOUT!! I just cannot get the GCC stuff installed... Can someone Be an angel and HELP me.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.207.126.37 (talk • contribs) 2007-04-10T00:53:54 (UTC)

It would help a lot if you mentioned the operating system and GCC distribution you're using. Are you trying to build GCC, or is it a binary distribution ready for your OS + CPU? Are you trying to establish a cross compiler environment? What have you tried and specifically what does it say in response? —EncMstr 15:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would guess you are using GCC in windows, as most other OS'es that use GCC will have GCC pre-installed. This is probably what you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygwin I suggest reading the documentation. Glover

Or read DJGPP. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

MinGW is also worth a look. DJGPP (mentioned above) is for MS-DOS but works very well for text and some graphics but won't use the Windows API. A good place for advice (other than here, of course ;-) is the help files for the Allegro library and allegro.cc. --h2g2bob 18:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Print Screen

My print screen button is not working on my keyboard. It is a fairly new keyboard that is wireless. Is there another way to print screen shot and paste to a word document? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.120.225.24 (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

You can download a freeware utility designed for taking screenshots. I use Gadwin PrintScreen. Johnnykimble 17:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I use Capture by George, can capture the screen, individual windows, or a delimited part of the screen. Not free but very cheap. --Dumarest 00:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Some keyboards have a function lock key or a special shift key, you may want to check this Glover 04:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

LINUX O/S

SIR. I AM NEW TO PCS, CAN YOU ADVISE CAN LINUX O/S BE USED INSTEAD OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS WHOM I DESPISE !!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.141.23.34 (talk) 17:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

It can, depending on your needs. However if you are, as you say, "new to PCs", you may want to stick with Windows for simplicity. -- mattb @ 2007-04-10T17:34Z

And for group support. You're more likely to have friends who know Windows than who know Linux—Unless your friends are artists, in which case they probably know Macs better. —EncMstr 17:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

As has been said, it depends on what you will be using the computer for. If it's just for email, web browsing or writing documents then there'd be no problem in going for Ubuntu. It has a huge community, and is really, really quick and easy to install. Johnnykimble 18:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu is a good call especially as the most recent versions allow you to run what's called a Live CD on you PC giving you the chance to play with the OS to see if you like it before you have to install anything. Elaverick 21:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

restoring Firefox bookmarks

My XP computer died and I had to buy a new one with Vista (Home Premium). I reinstalled Firefox, and would now like to restore the previous bookmarks I have. I have a complete backup of my old drive C: and have found an html file which contains all the Firefox bookmarks. Is there a way I can use it to restore my Firefox bookmarks? --Halcatalyst 20:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully this tip can help. --LarryMac 20:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Et voilà! What could be simpler and easier? Unlike some of the travail I have been through the past few days. It worked! Thank you very much! --Halcatalyst 21:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Benefits of SL Island for a University

What are some of the benfits a university can get from purchasing an island in Second Life? Gohaf 20:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

For a university? lol is this a school essay? um well all i could imagine is the advertising aspect of SL. Hmmm and maybe in the future when SL is more advanced giving remote lectures? Damn that would be cool.

April 11

Inkscape

I need to know how to make good pictures in Inkscape. I'm doing a Stan Marsh picture, but it's coming out horrible. FictionH 00:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Go to art class and learn about highlights and shadows and things like that? Use the new blur filter so that your highlights and shadows are sufficiently blurred? But the best of all is to be a little more specific, how is it horrible?? --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

South Park characters are, as the creators admit, "poorly drawn", so you wouldn't want them to look very good, or they wouldn't look like South Park characters any more. StuRat 03:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at the tutorials (under the Help menu). Other than that, I guess it's just practice. --h2g2bob 18:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Ad free services from Google

A number of Google services, such as Google Page Creator and Blogger do not carry adverts but are free to use. What is the commercial motivation behind the provision of services such as these? ^Tom_Phil 00:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know in this case, but companies will sometimes offer free products in an attempt to build market share. Then, once they are dominant in the market, they can start charging (or advertising) on future releases. StuRat 03:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly for testing purposes, or to gauge interest or as loss leader. Glover 05:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're interested in it, take a look at this Slashdot article. The first comment sums it up - "This goes right along with the saying that "Any news is good news". As long has the Google name keeps getting spread around and people keep talking about the new things they are doing, this will drive viewers it its different pages and products.". Note that these are only opinions and not hard fact. JoshHolloway 10:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

What links to this

Pretty certainly a completely useless question, but I am puzzled. For no reason, I clicked the link in New England boiled dinner that gave pages that linked to it. Now, for no reasonable reason, I went to some of those pages and tried to find the link to New Wngland boiled dinner. Specifically, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality log, and Eggs Benedict. I guess the only one I was interested in, other than 'what is this' was the eggs Benedict. But on all of those pages I could find no link to New England boiled dinner. Is it there, hidden is some way, or what does all this mean? --Dumarest 00:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

On the "What links here" page for New England boiled dinner (Special:Whatlinkshere/New England boiled dinner), the pages Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality and so on are redirected from Corned beef and cabbage. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown

But that leaves Eggs Benedict a mystery. --Dumarest 11:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Under Eggs Benedict#Notes, there is a link to corned beef and cabbage. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 19:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Windows task scheduler versus Unix Anacron

Hi, I would like to know how I can schedule tasks to run on MS Windows XP/Vista (preferably using the windows task scheduler or windows configuration, but if not possible then a 3rd party application, preferably freeware/opensource) , so that if the scheduled time passes and the PC is powered down, it will run at the next available opportunity, in a similar way to Anacron. I need to assume the PC cannot wake itself up using ACPI or APM.

Thank you in advance.

Glover 03:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

So why not run Anacron on XP or Vista? Install Cygwin and run Anacron. Actually it might be slightly more difficult. You'll have to set both(?) to run when you login. Maybe even when the system boots. —EncMstr 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have Vista, but are your sure you don't have Schedule Tasks icon in your control panel? Mine has a Virus Scanner running a (my) specified time. Root⁴(one) 10:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

However, I will admit I'm not sure how to get it to work after the specified time passes. Root⁴(one) 10:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Root4, "get it to work after the specified time passes" is the whole point Glover 05:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Get Firefox to accept Opera so I can import bookmarks

My new download of Firefox 2.0 knows how to import bookmarks from MSIE, but not Opera. Is there any way to make Firefox recognize Opera, so I can import things in? 71.226.60.137 05:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can just export your bookmarks from Opera (File -> Export -> Bookmarks as HTML) and import them in Firefox. — Kieff | Talk 10:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Disconnections

I usually run Azureus overnight on my computer. Unfortunately, my DSL service has a habit of kicking out every so often when it's under a higher load like that. I'm pretty sure that's the cause of this, but... well, I guess I should just state my problem.

In the morning, I'll wake up and nine times out of ten my connection doesn't work. It'll work for the other computers in the house (usually) but not mine. It'll work again if I disable the connection in the "network connections" panel and then re-enable it, but I want it to be able to run at night, without me getting up every time it screws up. Looking around a bit, I THINK it might be because of that bit of windows that cuts out the connection if you have to many incompleted connections or whatever. I know it's supposed to slow down worms that just randomly poll IP addresses and such. So is there a way to test if that's my problem? and if it is, is there a way to shut that off? or even just knowing the limit so I can try screwing around with Azureus' settings would help immensely.

Also one other theory that I've heard from asking some friends of mine is that the modem itself is kicking out just because the NAT service is overloading (it's a netopia modem/router combo) and a fix would be to disable the NAT on the router and just buy a router to put between the modem and the rest of my network. Is there any credibility to that?

Sorry if that ran a bit long... anyways, I'm grateful for any help that anyone can give me in this. Koriar 06:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have DHT enabled? If so, that can cause low-end routers to "crap out". --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If you use Linux or have a good firewall, try enabling DMZ onto your IP address so the router doesn't have to care about NAT for your IP address. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is that you are getting static or interference in the network wire going to your computer. I'd check out the wire thoroughly for places it might be broken or have poor connections, and where you might have routed it near other wires or devices which put out an EMF field. StuRat 15:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Try limiting the number of simultaneous connections in azureus. Go to the Tools menu, click Options, select Transfer and then lower "Max connections per torrent" to like half of what you have now. Setting your computer to be the DMZ host (like Antilived suggested) might work if it is NAT that's kicking up a fuss, but if I'm not mistaken you can only do that on D-Link and Linksys home routers. --Oskar 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can indeed do a DMZ on my router, though it calls it something else. Any recommendations for a firewall? I was just going to go with ZoneAlarm, as I've heard some good things about that one. As for static or interference, I don't think there should be any... the only real device that it runs by is a furnace... though to get it upstairs I did have to run it right by the cable tv line, would that do it? The line looks pretty heavily shielded... but I really really don't want to look for shorts, because most of it runs through the crawlspace... and with the rain we've been getting lately... well it'd be cold, wet, cramped, and spidery. Sooooo, no. As for the number of simultaneous connections I have put it pretty low in the past, though it does this with less than 100 peers connected (I only download one thing at a time) ... and actually now that I look at it my max is only 100... I'll lower it to 50 though, but that seems like it should be able to handle 100. Koriar 01:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You might want to check the SNR margin in your router/modem. Generally you'd want a value over at least 10db downstream for a stable connection. I do believe bad weather can affect this value. However, a low SNR would mean a bad connection at all times, as opposed to just under high load as you seem to be experiencing. Johnnykimble 08:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I found lots of info in the "all status" page, I'd like to post the lot of it, in case someone sees something that could be my problem, but I don't know if I should post it here... (it's about 12-13 pages) are there length restrictions for this stuff? I'll just post one or two sections right now (the section with the SNR in it, and the last few lines of the error log)

                                Downstream  Upstream
                                ----------  ----------
    SNR Margin:                  25.50       20.00 dB
    Line Attenuation:            33.00       16.50 dB
    Output Power:                18.09       11.32 dB
    Errored Seconds:                 0           0
    Loss of Signal:                  0           0
    Loss of Frame:                   0           0
    CRC Errors:                      0           1
    Data Rate:                    1472         256
    
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Handshake Success
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Connect Success: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Certificate Verify Success: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 TR-069: Post Inform - reason 4 VALUE CHANGE 
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 TR-069: Closing connection
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 SSL: Closing Connection: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 HTTPC: No context found for closed socket 0
    4/12/07 10:15:30 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:25:27 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:35:34 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:45:21 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:55:29 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:00:18 AM L3 LHD: IP  192.168.1.4, MAC 00-03-93-c1-ed-90
    4/12/07 11:00:18 AM L3 LHD: Interface  N/A, State online
    4/12/07 11:05:36 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:15:33 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:25:40 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 01:50:32 PM L4 HTTP: "admin" completed login from 192.168.1.1

Those lines seem to be at the beginning of every time I'm disconnected. (192.168.1.1 is me) EDIT: So uhh... I guess it's not liking my line breaks for some reason... sorry about the formatting there, I don't know how to make stuff look good in wikipedia.Koriar 13:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately, in my opinion those stats look good. Your SNR is good and your attenuation is good. Those stats are the most important, so there's no need to post any more router info. It does seem that the problems you are having are not related to your link to your ISP\local exchange. Johnnykimble 14:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... well, I seem to have entirely missed the suggestion about DHT. I'd really like that to stay on because I'm getting some things now where the tracker is down, but I'll try turning that off tonight to see if that's the problem. Also thanks to whoever formatted that for me! Koriar 15:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I left it off last night and wasn't disconnected in the morning, so it looks like that might have done it! Thank you everyone for your help! Koriar 19:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

And things were looking up too... It disconnected again, so I guess I'm on to trying the DMZ stuff with ZoneAlarm. Koriar 07:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

winpe

What is this technology i keep hearing about

Try typing winpe into the search box and clicking on "go". --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Or see Windows PE --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Truth is i don't really know if this is a correct answer but if you look up Windows UE online you can find information i do think it is something of this sort where a windows comes with built in patches,hotfixes,programs,etc i hope this is right xD 200.35.168.129 22:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

This is a good one for starters Ultimate Boot CD for Windows Glover 08:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

video game composer?

Who composed the soundtrack to the NES game Megaman 2?--Sonjaaa 09:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

According to http://www.ocremix.org/game/megaman2/ they are

• Yuukichan's Papa
• Ogeretsu Kun
• Manami Ietel

But, that website is not authorative. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Programming in excel

Could someone give me the step by step procedure for using VB in excel to add up two columns and put the sum in another column? Zain Ebrahim 12:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I will assume that we are going to add the numbers in column A and column B to make column C.

First set your start point (C1).

Range("C1").Select 'you could also use a variable here in place of the literal "C1"

Next set the value of the curent cell.

ActiveCell.Value = ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1).Value + ActiveCell.Offset(0, -2).Value

Next go to the next row.

ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select

The offset values are the number of rows and columns relative to the current cell, so if we take cell C1 a offset by (0,-1) we would see the value of cell B1 If we took the offset of (1,0) we move to the next row (C2). You could also use a variable here for the row and column offset. Also notice the difference between the .Value and .Select methods. .Value allows you to read or write to the value of a cell changing its contents. .Select moves the focus to the cell you are selecting. I will assume that you know about looping and conditional statements which would control how many rows you calculate, and what you do if there is missing data. -Czmtzc 15:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

To simply get the sum of a column use Application.WorksheetFunction.Sum(Range(A:A)) To get the sum of column A and B and put it into cell C1 use this.

Range("C1").Select

ActiveCell.Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Sum(Range(A:B))

-Czmtzc 16:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

printing a copy of the information

Hi, My question is, why is it when I attempt to copy the information at " censorship " is it that on the screen shows printing processing. All the times I have accessed wikipedia.org and copyed information without any problem. Now, and only now problem, that, I cannot print the information under censorship. Would you please, identify the difference in the information at censorhip, veses other information on or at wikipedia.org.

Thank You,

for you time and attention

Allen Walker [Email redacted]

Maybe the printer has a problem? I'm not sure what Wikipedia has to do with this unless you clarify. Splintercellguy 21:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any trouble printing the censorship page. StuRat 02:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Homebuilt computer

Are there kits to build gaming computers at home (as I understand, this would be cheaper), or do I have to look for parts separatly? Would it be possible to purchase an unbuilt model of a normally build computer and put it together? If so, do all brands do this, or just some? I looked in amazon, but they don't appear to have them... Thanks in advance, whether you know the answers to my questions or not. · AO ^Talk 17:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Kits? Not really. The closest thing to a kit would probably be a motherboard + case + PSU combo, which are more common with small form-factor PCs (i.e. Shuttle). Buying an unassembled version of a normal model would get rid of the most important part of building your own PC: the choice. Yes, you generally buy the individual components (from an online store, like Newegg in the U.S., or from a nice local store; not Best Buy or any of those electronics chains) and assemble it yourself. The assembly is actually pretty simple; the most difficult part will be installing the CPU, what with the thermal paste and all that. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. However, you say building an unassembled version gets rid of the most important part, but is it possible? Also, are you sure Shuttle was the right link, I couldn't find any build-at-home computers. · AO ^Talk 17:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You meant the Barebones. Thanks Consumed Crustacean, I'll look into them. · AO ^Talk 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I don't think that other thing is possible, and I doubt you'd save money if it was, considering that much of it is done on an assembly line. And on those barebones: like I said, they're most common in small form-factor PCs. If you're just looking to build a normal gaming PC it's not typical; it's just that small PCs need specially sized motherboards and such. If you don't know what components to buy, there are several review sites around, you could inquire at a gaming forum, or you could ask at a local computer shop (again, not Best Buy or any electronics chains: those guys will just feed you nonsense). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the info. I don't mind if barebones aren't typical; as long as it gets the job done and is cheap, I'm happy. :-) I'll look around for the componets, as you say. Thanks again! · AO ^Talk 17:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Just incase I was confusing, as I usually am: what I meant exactly is that the other gaming PCs that people build typically don't come with case/motherboard/PSU. Usually you'd buy all three separately, although some cases come with (usually poor) PSUs. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be good that it includes the case/motherboard/PSU? All I have to add is the CPU, hardrive, and RAM (according to the article), and I have a "normal" computer right? · AO ^Talk 18:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, Shuttle says it already has RAM, so are the CPU and hardrive all I need? · AO ^Talk 20:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends on exactly what you're looking at. The descriptions I'm seeing for the barebone ones just describe the RAM slots, not actual RAM. Unless you're not looking at the barebones... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I was just saying that you don't need such a 'kit' if you're building a normal sized tower. You just buy the motherboard and such separately. The only reason I mentioned Shuttle's barebones initially is because they're about as close to a non-assembled kit (as you inquired about) as really exists. Not to discourage you from Shuttle if you want a small form-factor PC, they are quite nice :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

No, those Shuttles seem nice, but I'm not quite sure I know how they work. :-P I'll ask at a small computer store for help, as you advised. However, I have one question: if Shuttles are just like a larger and bulkier PC in performance and use, but are actually cheaper, what does the company gain? (Are normal PCs that in-expensive to start with?) · AO ^Talk 23:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a Shuttle, and think it's the best upgrade I've ever made. What you get with a barebones Shuttle is a nice small case with a motherboard installed. You'll find that the cost of this is usually a fair bit higher than if you bought a full tower case (which in the UK can be got for around £15) and a decent quality motherboard (say, about £60). So, my Shuttle, which was £190, was actually a good deal more expensive. As far as I'm concerned, the premium is worth paying if you want a compact, quiet and good looking PC. The high-end Shuttles will be even more expensive because they will be geared towards gaming, and thus require more complex cooling solutions (small case means less air flow inside the case). So, if you decide you want a Shuttle (barebones), all that remains is to get a CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card. One thing you must keep in mind however, is that a lot of high-end graphics cards these days take up more than one slot because they'll have a large heatsink and fan attached. So make sure the Shuttle can physically accommodate any graphics card you might decide to purchase. Johnnykimble 08:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks for all your help guys! I'll make sure to bookmark this when it's archived. · AO ^Talk 09:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Interchangability of Antennae

Can an indoor television antenna using a coaxial cable be plugged into and used with a wireless networking card? --Seans Potato Business 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

See Antenna (radio) to understand why an antenna length (size) determines how useful it will be for specific wavelengths. Television wavelengths are not the same as wireless network wavelengths. --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't quite answer the question. If your wireless card has a coax connector and it's compatible with (the right size as) the TV antenna, then you can certainly use the antenna with the card, but it's doubtful that the antenna will actually work well or improve reception. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.102.72 (talk) 10:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

Autoclicking with mid button

I had a small program from the Internet that made continuous clicks (left or right clicks) by holding the middle button, but I lost it. Does anyone know where to find it or how to program it (in Visual C++ if possible)? Thanks. --Taraborn 17:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

AutoHotkey. Website here. It uses the AutoIt language. --Russoc4 18:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Can't thank you enough, mate :P --Taraborn 21:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

RS232

I want to the know what the number(232)indicates in RS232 and what it means anandkumar 18:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's just the document number of the technical standard that defines that particular interface. "RS" stands for "Recommended Standard", so it's "Recommended Standard No. 232". In short, it means nothing. --TotoBaggins 19:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you look at RS-232? —EncMstr 00:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Simultaneous Connection To Multiple Wifi Networks

Is it possible to connect to more than one wireless network at the same time using a) one wireless networking card or b) two wireless networking cards? Ethics and legality aside, should it theoretically be possible to connect to one's own wireless network and that or those of neighbours to gain an increase in internet connection speed? --Seans Potato Business 19:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, it's possible with multiple network cards and would be possible with one with software that some researchers are working on. I'm going to plug in my second Wifi card tonight and report back on how Windows reacts... --Seans Potato Business 20:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm completely guessing here, but I doubt that windows would do this automatically. It is technically possible, of course. You could write a custom network driver that would assign every other packet (or, in the case of TCP, every other connection) to different network cards, but as I said, I doubt that windows does this automatically. What you could do is to configure the two cards to work on different subnets, so that one handles all IPs that matches 0.0.0.0 with subnet mask 128.0.0.0 and the other handles 128.0.0.0 with subnet mask 128.0.0.0. That is, one card handles all IPs starting with 0 (in binary) while the other handles all IPs starting with 1. That would split the internet evenly in two. This would be effective only if the connections are of the same speed (if one is faster, you would have to configure that one to a bigger subnet if you wanted maximum efficiency). I haven't used windows in a while, so I'm not exactly sure how to do this, but I know it's possible. I don't think you can connect to two different networks with one card at the same time, but I might be wrong about that. --Oskar 21:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Does this exist?

Or could it exist? Is it possible/feasible to port QEMU to a Java applet?

You go to a certain website from any Internet connection, and log in. You then have access to a virtual machine using AJAX or just a Java applet. You can then run any program inside the virtual computer, accessing files which are stored on the server. Duomillia 20:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I know VMware makes server virtualization software which lets you do something like what you describe. Splintercellguy 21:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Will a Pentium M 478 pin processor work with a standard socket 478 motherboard?

I.E not a motherboard that explicitly states it'll work with a Pentium M processor.

If not, why not?

Thanks in advance... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fred.frederick (talk • contribs).

I think not. But, I do believe that specialist 'desktop' motherboards for these CPUs exist. The M processors are designed for notebooks, which don't have as good cooling as tower PCs. As a result they have much lower power consumption, thus giving off less heat, thus requiring a smaller fan. All this was great for those wanting a cool and quiet desktop machine. As for the reasons why, I'm not entirely sure, but I'd take a guess and say FSB speed differences or voltage differences. It's more likely to be physical architecture differences than logical, but hopefully there's someone here who can give a more qualified answer than that. Johnnykimble 21:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Johnny. After a bit of research, it seems it'll be much easier to make a cool, quiet and energy efficient desktop machine using either a mobile Sempron or Turion processor, as these are well supported by a good number of motherboards.

I know it's a ghz world, but I do despair for the state of processing today(speed at any cost). Once you've sat at a desk with a noisy PC for any length of time it becomes a mental drain.

Surely there's a market for quiet, unintrusive PC's that don't cost the earth, isn't this what a lot, even most users really want addressed?. I'm suprised Intel etc can't see it. Fred.frederick 11:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I went down the Shuttle barebones route a few years ago and have to admit it's the best PC I've bought. When I originally bought it, I added a GeForce 6600GT graphics card, picked mainly because of it's reasonably quiet cooling. But just recently, I decided to use an 6 year old GeForce 2 that I had lying around. It doesn't even have a fan, and, but for the fairly noisy hard drive (Hitatchi Deskstar - planning to upgrade to a very quiet Samsung Spinpoint soon), the PC is practically silent. It sure makes using the computer a much more pleasurable experience. Johnnykimble 12:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

PowerPoint

In PowerPoint, how do I make six different pictures fly in at the same timebut from different directions? 68.193.147.179 21:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

In 2003 and 2007, give each a different effect, then right click each effect in the pane on the right. Click "start with previous". --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 21:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Audio

Is there a way I could just take the audio from a streaming video? 68.193.147.179 21:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use VideoLAN player to transcode the audio to file. Splintercellguy 21:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you can open the stream in VLC media player (which you often can if it uses windows media or something similar), then yes you can. For instance, if you click a link that leads to an ASF file it usually pops Windows Media Player and streams it from there. Save the file to your hard-drive, then open VLC and click File -> Wizard. That will help you to re-encode just the audio into a sound-file. If you select the MP3 codec and encapsulate it in MPEG 1 format and name the file something.mp3, I pretty sure you will be able to play it in most audio-programs.

If it's a youtube video (or any other flash video) it's a little trickier. There are several extensions to firefox which allows you to download such videos as FLV files. Since VLC can read FLV files, you can convert them in a similar way.

The easiest way though is to use something like Audacity and set it to record whatever comes out of your speakers. This would slightly decrease quality, but it is very simple to do. I prefer the VLC way because taking advantage of the analog hole is way un-cooler :) --Oskar 21:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that most soundblaster drivers allow you to set "What you hear" as the recording input. This way, you can use any recording program to record what you're playing, without the sound ever leaving your soundcard. There's still the digital noise to worry about (from recompresison), but it should work pretty well. risk 01:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

mplayer -dumpaudio

April 12

VPN and gaming

If I have a fast server computer A and a slower client computer B connected by VPN, can I play a game using A's processor (or, better yet, both processors in parallel) off a CD that's in B's drive? NeonMerlin 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Pretty sure the answer is no, at the very leasr VPN would not keep up with the framerate of any game, but there would probably be a multitude of other issues too. Vespine 04:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the other way round if the disc is not frequently used, but I don't think that is what you want. Splintercellguy 06:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You can set up B to share the CD over the network, and then play the game on A (with keyboard, monitor etc connected directly to A). Using a remote desktop client or something off of B is not possible. Redquark 21:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Virus Isamini.exe

Dear sirs,

There appears to be adware on my computer, and there is a isamini.exe in my task bar which I cannot terminate. How do I get rid of this. Thank you very much. 70.48.255.209 04:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Try doing a search for a file with that name, then rename it to something like Isamini.exe.disabled. This will keep it from running again, but won't stop the current copy from running. Hopefully a reboot will do that. (The rename instead of delete is in case it turns out that it's something you need.) StuRat 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Reboot in Safe Mode and run eradication apps. Splintercellguy 04:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Which you should get from a reliable anti-virus website like symantec.com or mcafee.com . - Mgm|^(talk) 12:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

According to this series of posts on the Lavasoft AdAware forums, AdAware with the most current definitions file will remove this particular piece of malware. The last post on that page also details some additional steps that can be taken if necessary. --LarryMac 12:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

HTML to wiki for use in MediaWiki-template

Hi all. I'm trying (on a wiki outside WMF) to make a template based on a template from Wikibooks. The problem is, however, that the HTML stuff (<table>, <td> etc.) doesn't seem to work, and as so I have to convert it to wiki-coding.

I used a HTMLtoWiki converter from the internets and the result became pretty weird. Now, the whole template seems screwed up and I don't know how to get it to work.

• The template
  • The HTMLtoWiki conversion edit
• An example page where the template is used

Can anyone help (btw, feel free to edit the template directly, I can learn from the history)? --Lhademmor 06:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Install the full-featured MediaWiki-integrated editor wikEd on Wikibooks, convert html to wikicode, and copy to your other wiki. Cacycle 02:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

mp3 player file transfer

When I hook up my mp3 player to my XP PC, it recognizes it as an MP3 player and tries to use Windows Media Player to transfer files to it.

However, on a friend's XP PC, it recognizes the mp3 player as just a flash USB drive, making files transfers infinitely easier. How can I get my PC to recognize my mp3 player as just another USB flash drive? (without some overly complex solution e.g. installing new firmware or something) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.199.8.98 (talk) 07:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

The problem is probably that it is auto-opening with Windows Media Player on your computer, not that it isn't being recognised as a USB drive. Go to "My Computer" and look for a drive which could be it - then open it and copy the music in where you see the current music. A bit vague, I know, but you haven't told us the make or model of your mp3 player :)! JoshHolloway 10:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

actually that's part of the problem, it doesn't show up at all in My Computer...It's a SanDisk Sansa.

My mp3 player (Archos GMini xs100) has an option in its setup to appear as a hard disk or Windows Media device

will look into that thanks.

Disk change detection

How do floppy disk drives (specifically, the 5.25 and 3.5-inch disk drives) detect disk changes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.94.148.218 (talk) 10:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

In simple terms, they don't. The system have no idea if a floppy is in or not when it's not accessing it (ie. when the green light is off), and it's when something like an I/O error occurs that the system realises that it's not there any more. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

So it's continuously checking when it's empty? That doesn't seem very efficient? I know that when you put a floppy in it detects it and reads the name of it or whatever. Capuchin 12:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that's correct. Pressing the eject button or putting a disk in should cause the drive to send a Disk Change signal to the floppy controller, which the OS can then read. Here's an example from Linux (drivers/block/floppy.c):

           DPRINT("checking disk change line for drive %d\n", drive);
           DPRINT("jiffies=%lu\n", jiffies);
           DPRINT("disk change line=%x\n", fd_inb(FD_DIR) & 0x80);
           DPRINT("flags=%lx\n", UDRS->flags);

That "fd_inb(FD_DIR)" reads a byte from the controller's registers, and the "& 0x80" chooses the "Disk Change" bit. I think the green light is just for reads/writes. I don't know how the drives do it mechanically, but it's easy to imagine there being a little switch in there somewhere. --TotoBaggins 12:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

In DOS/Windows, I believe this is still handled using the old DOS disk services ($13 if I can remember correctly). The OS implements interrupt handlers for floppies, like when the drive door is closed or when a floppy is ejected. An interrupt is when some hardware event occurs and it is interrupted by software. I've even seen programs that created their own handlers to keep the drive spinning, as under certain conditions you could get a system hang or blue screen when the disk stopped spinning completely. CD's and DVD's are handled using similar methods. Sandman30s 13:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

On PCs, I'm pretty sure no interrupt is generated. On Macs, I'm pretty sure there is one based on its behavior. PCs do have a bit in the disk controller register indicating a disk change, but it's only checked whenever the operating system next accesses the drive. If the "disk changed" bit is set, the OS detects disk changes by a comparing the volume serial number of the expected volume (previously known to be in the drive) with what is actually in the drive. That was as far as vanilla MSDOS went, but I believe more sophisticated techniques are used in some OSs (NT 4 and above) which seem to compare root directory and/or FAT contents with the OS cache. They need be suspicious only when the disk changed bit is set, so it's pretty efficient without any need for ongoing polling. —EncMstr 14:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

See also the first piece of trivia in the Amiga 1200 article. Davidprior 16:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

A vivid definition of philosophy

What is philosophy? Identify the basic concept of idealism and state its contribution to educative process —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.204.224.10 (talk) 13:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

This looks a lot like homework, based on the way it is phrased. In addition, it is not a question for the Computing reference desk. Nonetheless, you might want to check the existing articles on philosophy and idealism. --LarryMac 13:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Linux and USB volumes

How does Linux figure out which USB volume is mounted through which device descriptor? If I have a USB hard drive and an SD memory card connected through a USB card reader, and have both plugged in at the same time, how does Linux figure out which is /dev/sda and which is /dev/sdb? Does it have to do with the types of the devices, which physical USB ports they are plugged in, or the order in which they are plugged in? Is there a way to always give the same mount point to the same volume, regardless of which device descriptor it is mounted through? JIP | Talk 17:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It varies across kernel versions and Linux distributions, but it generally happens through some combination of udev and HAL. Yes, some USB devices have unique identifiers which would allow you to always mount them in the same place. --TotoBaggins 17:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Order it is plugged in, or there are device-specific features that order the drives.

rtorrent and screen

I happily run rtorrent with Screen by typing "screen rtorrent". I can then happily detach and reattach and everything in rtorrent works fine. I'd like to be able to start it by typing "screen -d -m rtorrent" so it immediately detaches without interaction. Currently when I do this, rtorrent will not respond to my "Ctrl-q" which I would normally use to quit, which is a pain. Any ideas? --87.194.21.177 18:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about Shared network

ok well where i am at we have a shared network of course. me and some friends want to know if the websites we go to can be monitored by the techs. (of course we know they can do it by checking the main network) but we are asking if they can still find out if they use our computers to do so After we have deleted all cookies and files and everything. i know once it goes by the ISP it can be tracked but since its shared they only see 1 IP. now if they were to go computer by computer will they ever find out? thanks in advanceMaverick423 20:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Any data that goes through the network can be monitored and logged. Imagine a straight road from A to B, and somewhere along the line someone looks what's travelling down it and writes down notes about it. That's essentially what they could do. Whether they do or not is another matter. I doubt it; however never be certain. Also, Wikipedia does not condone you looking at websites you shouldn't! JoshHolloway 20:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

no no no definatly not inappropiate sites just basicly sites like cnn and stuff like that. now on a second note though will they be able to tell which computer is sending that data and reciveing it? Maverick423 20:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

They'll be able to identify it by MAC address, Computer Name or description. The MAC address would only be identified as yours if they took your laptop and compared it, so if they don't do that you're alright. As for computer name/description, it can give you away. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Computer Name and change the description, and click "To rename this computer or join a workgroup, click Change". When I wanted to trick the techs I would find a computer name (such as LIBRARY-49") and add myself as a new one - LIBRARY-50. So much harder to find :). JoshHolloway 20:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Where my wife works, every new young male employee starts surfing the porn sites. They are always 'shocked - shocked' when the report instantly comes back. If you can randomly plug into any jack, or you use wireless, you have a better chance, but any company with half a brain can deal with this. --Zeizmic 01:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Converting torrent files

When I download torrent files it doesnt recognize file type. So i need to convert the same to Mp3 format type.... How do i do the same? Is it possible?

 Second question is regarding MS Excel How to remove automatic page breaks? 20:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

For your first question, what are the files in your torrent? Dunno about Excel. Splintercellguy 21:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Torrent files contain metadata and cryptographic hashes that describe files as well as point to a BitTorrent tracker which can provide further information on where to find the actual files. I'd suggest reading the article on BitTorrent and peer-to-peer in general. Your second question was already answered both times you asked it previously. Page breaks are defined by print ranges; look at the Excel help files. -- mattb @-13T05:37Z

The .torrent file is just a pointer - you open that with BitTorrent tracker software like Azureus. The tracker then downloads the file from other users like yourself. See BitTorrent. --h2g2bob 13:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

For second question, first go to View -> Page Break Preview, then drag all blue lines to the top right corner (except the right-most and bottom lines, you cant drag those).

If that doesnt accomplish what you were trying to do, go View -> Normal, and then File -> Page Setup; On the Page tab you will have Scaling section, where you can make it print it to one page wide and one page tall. Shinhan 21:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Problems with DualView with nVidia 8800 GTS

I've recently installed a BFG 8800 GTS 640MB and have been having problems setting up DualView.

My previous card was an ATI x550 and I ran a dualscreen set up with a 19" BENQ FP91G+ LCD monitor as my Primary Display and a 23" Phillips 23PF4321 LCD TV as my secondary. The monitor supported 1280x1024 while the TV only supports 1024x768.

After installing the new card I've been unable to get DualView to work on the TV. I've set it up using the same resolution and refresh rate as I used with my previous card and the TV displays a message about not supporting the video mode, the same message it would bring up if the resolution was increased beyond the level it could support with my previous card. I've tried to lower the resolution on the second screen down as low as 800x600 but it still is unable to display anything. As the TV is working fine otherwise and was able to function as a second screen with my previous card I can only assume that the problem is with the 8800 GTS.

I've connected each display individually and with the right resolution and refresh rate they were able to function as single displays and I've made sure that both ports are functioning properly but I've noticed that in addition to Dualview not working properly, if I have both displays connected and try to use the TV as a single display it doesn't work.

I've contacted BFG about this by E-Mail and after a couple of weeks of routine suggestions of upgrading drivers (now on 4th version and the problem remains) and asking me to check the ports are working properly they went silent and now four weeks later don't even respond to my E-Mails, which I'm taking as a sign that they've run out of ideas.

I've E-Mailed the shop who sold me the card and they focused on compatibility. I've contacted ASRock, who manufacture my motherboard and they've tested an ASUS 8800 GTS and that worked fine so it seems unlikely that's the problem.

After calling the shop's technical support line the guy on the phone seemed hesitant about taking the card in for testing and suggested I try and find a solution on the internet. Does anybody have any suggestions of how I may fix the problem? --Kiltman67 20:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a third monitor you can try in place of the TV? If it works, that would point at the TV as the problem; if it doesn't that would seem to be a problem with the video card. —EncMstr 21:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't because the card only has DVI outputs. But, I was attempting to do something similar by setting it up in DualView mode and then swapping the port it was connected to and following some fiddling with the settings I've managed to fix it. It would appear that even though the ports are identical and there is no suggestion that one should be primary and one secondary DualView will only work with the displays plugged in a particular configuration, which of course happens to be the most inconvenient and as a result the one I didn't use when I originally set it all up. Thanks for the push in the right direction. --Kiltman67 21:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Correction... The problem seems to have returned. Does anybody have any suggestions of how to fix it or even where the problem may lie. I'm wondering now if it could be a problem with the drivers, but I don't know what to do about that since I've never encountered anyone else with the same problem and as I said, I've gone through 4 versions of the driver and they all had the same problem. --Kiltman67 23:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone remember these Apple ][ games?

These were all green screen games for the Apple ][ or somethign from the Choplifter era. One was this game where you were on a boat in a side scrolling river and you had avoid obstacles and also pick up people and bonuses from islands (but you could lose a life by landing on an island with a lion say). I think the game was called "Congo" or something like that but am not sure. it was fun/ Another one was this maze game, sort of like pacman but with money symbols and these snapping monsters. this was also fun and i remember i liked it a lot better than pacman. If you someone knows where to look up these games like this (the green screen games, Im not that interested in teh colour games) and maybe play them online or download a emulated version or remake that would be great =)

1. All games for the Apple II were in color, unless they were text-mode games like Zork. You just remember seeing them on a green-colored monochrome monitor.

2. Neither of your game descriptions rings a bell with me, but there's a list of Apple II games at List of Apple II games. There were numerous Pac-Man clones, certainly. Tempshill 05:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe I'm thinking of an earlier Apple model?. I've never seen another game with the same gameplay as the congo game. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.111.43.11 (talk) 07:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

You probably didn't have an apple I. There were only about 200 produced, and they required assembly. The Apple II was the first production model. I agree with Tempshill. The Apple II was color capable, but I remember that I originally had a green screen, when my dad bought it, but we upgraded to a color monitor. I definately remember the Pac-man clone that used dollar signs though. You might find a version that is not in color, but it will probably be black and white rather than black and green.--Czmtzc 12:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the pac man clone: Money_Munchers =) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.101.4 (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

Ok so I found both games playable on an online emulator (worked ok in Internet Explorer - I had problems in Firefox though) at virtualapple.org... Congo worked perfectly (hurray! you have to turn caps lock on though); and Money Munchers worked ok except I can't figure the up key (Alt is down, left and right are cursor keys; the normal up cursor key does nothing). It was all in colour which was weird for me. i think they looked a lot better in all-green (i think the emulator should have an option for that)... =) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.101.4 (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

btw Congo is just listed as Congo. Money Munchers is hidden under Pieman in the index.

Updater 5

I have Windows XP, and I keep getting this empty folder in "My Documents" called "Updater 5." Whenever I delete it, it always comes back in a week or so. Does anyone know what the purpose for this empty folder is? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.107.163.64 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

I have a list of possible solutions jeje xD: 1) do you have any device that synchronizes to your computer read(PDA,Phone,MP3 player,etc) this could be the cause. 2) IIS if you don't what this is or have it installed then ignore this option 3) are you on a network? could be something to do with network shares. 4) some software on your computer depends on this, you can probably search the registry for the name of the folder and find something on it 5) possible spyware? if there is no logical cause for this folder to exist it could be some spy/adware. Anyways...the reason i made the list is for other people to draw from this...im pointing more towards the sync with devices folder...i remember windows mobile 5 made a folder with the same name but in a different location. 200.35.168.129 23:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

From what I could find, it seems to be coming Adobe Reader 8.0 (previously "Adobe Acrobat Reader"). This page has some information on relocating the folder; this one (post #6) indicates you can turn off the automatic updating completely. --LarryMac 00:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

April 13

Deleting spyware shit

• Yes, I cussed! I am very irritated. I do not know where this came from, but recently, whenever I would start my computer up and get my desktop, a window would pop up asking me to buy something called "windowblinds". I looked in Add/Remove programs and it is not in there. I looked in program files, and noticed a folder called "stardock" that was not previously present. I tried deleting it, but I get "Cannot delete tray.dll: Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use." There are also 3 other files in there, named consecutively, "wbhelp.dll", "wblind.dll", "WbSrv.dll".

• Also another spyware issue. There is a nuisance called "clock guard". (I have alt+tab vista power-toy installed)

[1]

Not to mention upon startup, adding to the windowblind thing, it has a pop-up of it's own stating "Your free 30-day trial of Clock Guard has expired. The protection offered by the program will no longer be active until you register" (or something like that). I have looked in control panel, program files, and etc. and I cannot find it anyware. Not even a system search for "Clock Guard" or "Clockguard" finds anything. It only appears in the alt+tab function. Help appreciated! --TV-VCR watch 05:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tell us what anti-spyware/anti-malware programs you are running now, like AdAware and Spybot - Search & Destroy. StuRat 07:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, what anti-virus? Is it up to date? - Akamad 11:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I use a combination of these freeware programs: Ad-Aware SE Personal, SUPERAntiSpyware Free Home Edition, AVG Anti-Spyware, and Spybot - Search & Destroy. I have provided links to highly convenient locations to download these programs, without directly linking to the .EXE files themselves. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that either of these items is actually malware. Both seem to be shareware, from what I can tell. WindowBlinds is produced by a company called Stardock. It can be purchased separately or as part of a package called Object Desktop, so you might want to look for entries in the Add/Remove list under either Stardock or Object Desktop. There is also a forum link available on the Stardock website, you might be able to find help on uninstalling it there.

Clock Guard also seems to be legitimate shareware from an outfit called Leithauser Research. The information on that page says "Remember that complete instructions are provided for uninstalling Clock Guard if you decide that you do not like it" but if you don't know where or how it was installed, I guess those instructions can't be found either. The installation program appears to be called cgarc.exe, so you might want to search for file or folder names similar to that. There is also a link on that web page to email the author. --LarryMac 12:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Buy a Mac! :) Not to be flip, but no viruses, no malware, no spyware! It's wonderful. Think of the programs you use the most, there's a 97% chance there's a Mac equivalent. --24.249.108.133 17:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I have run WinXP for 5 years without an anti virus program and have had only one instance of spyware and no worms/Trojans/viruses. I run a check occasionally (online scans and AV based off PE disk)to see if I am infected, nothing. My system runs beautifully. Boots real quick, less than a minute. You don't need a Mac or anti virus to run a good system, just don't install every piece of junk you encounter on the net, don't open every crap attachment people send you (even if it is from your friends, they are infected to) and stay away from unethical websites, eg porn & 'free' music, greeting cards, warez, serials, etc. Oh and keep your operating system up to date Glover 01:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The trouble with just deleting the directory of an installed program is that this doesn't always uninstsll the program - the program may have put its paws into your windows registry, put addons for internet explorer, and changed or added files in your system folder. That is what the whole Windows Installer thing is all about - when programs are installed, all the changes that it makes for the install are recorded so that during uninstall the process can be reversed. Nonetheless there are occasions where trying to delete the problem program from its folder is an option - but only really as a last resort.
I would really recommend in your case that you get a spyware removal tool - much like the ones Twas Now recommended.
Regardless, here is something you can try: Go into Internet Explorer, and click Tools -> Manage Addons -> Enable or Disable Addons (Note: This varies from version to version of internet explorer, the aforementioned instructions are for 7.0, but for previous versions you'd just have to look around for the equivalent section in your Options. Anyways, look at the addons that are listed, and look at their publishers. For all the suspicious ones, disable them. Obviously if the publishers are ones you trust you don't have to disable them - ones like Microsoft, Adobe, etc. By disabling certain addons, you would impede this spyware's ability to use internet explorer - but this may be only targetted at things that happen when inernet explorer is actually open. Rfwoolf 18:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Different permissions for subdirectory in Samba-share

Ahoy!

We have a Samba server managing all the shares in our network. Now there is a share called DATA where the users throw in transfer-stuff, and data that should be usually read- and writable by everyone who has access to the DATA share. In that particular share there is a subfolder. And that subfolder should now be made read- and writable only by a select few from all the users able to see DATA. I have already made another share PRIVATE, and it shows up as another share similar to DATA in the windows network explorer, BUT the problem is, when going into the DATA share, the folder PRIVATE is still showing up there and everyone is able to access it, although only the select few specified are able to access the real PRIVATE share. Is there any option available for the smb.conf file so that I do not have to transfer the PRIVATE folder away from the DATA folder but still the two will have different permissions?

The relevant entries in my smb.conf file look like this:

       [DATA]
       comment = Data
       path = (...)
       read only = No
       create mask = 0640
       force create mode = 0640
       directory mask = 0750
       force directory mode = 0750
       inherit acls = Yes

       [PRIVATE]
       comment = Private folder
       path = (...)/private
       create mask = 0770
       force create mode = 0770
       directory mask = 0770
       force directory mode = 0770
       read only = No
       writable = Yes
       public = No
       valid users = aaa bbb ccc ddd
       inherit acls = No

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated because moving the PRIVATE folder out of the DATA folder is not really an option, sadly. Aetherfukz 11:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahoy there! I don't think you need to make any changes to your Samba configuration for this. Why not create a new Linux group containing just the users that you want to have access to the private folder? Then just do chgrp private_group private/; chmod o-rwx private/; chmod g+rwx. Johnnykimble 17:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks a lot! Aetherfukz 08:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I just tried out your solution, but unfortunately the private directory is still accessable by anyone in the windows network neighborhood. Maybe the problem is that samba does all the sharing-business in our system and therefore ignores the linux permissions? Aetherfukz 10:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

MS Windows Multi-Monitor API

How can I programmatically find the dimensions and coordinates of all monitors connected to a Microsoft Windows computer? I've done a bunch of searching on the web without success, including at multi monitor. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the right search terms to give me technical, rather than user, information. Matchups 13:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't had experience of this myself, but you might want to check out the documentation on the multiple monitors in the Windows GDI documentation on MSDN. Positioning Objects on a Multiple Display Setup might also be useful for you to have a look at. multimon.h in the Platform SDK also looks like a file you'll need to include. Johnnykimble 16:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Matchups 00:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

System forced shutdown

I have recently downloaded a driver for my USB mouse, but as soon as the installation process is completed, the screen suddenly turns blue with a lot of words. I only have time to read the first few lines abou the error message which is "Windows has to shut down due to a hardware change......." My laptop is operating on Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and is bought around 2001 to 2002. Must I perform a system recovery? Has my laptop been infected with a virus? Note that my mouse is manufactured by LapMate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Invisiblebug590 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

That just sounds like a normal part of the install process to me, although they typically ask if you want to shut down to finish the install, rather than forcing it immediately. That is a bit rude. StuRat 13:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the blue screen of death. You shouldn't really need to install a driver for your USB mouse, so trying uninstalling the driver, and just plugging the mouse in without it and see if it's detected. Johnnykimble 14:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you have time, try and note down the hex number (starting 0x...) next to the word STOP near the bottom. This should identify exactly what the problem is. Johnnykimble 14:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It does sound like the blue screen of death (see link above), and you have not said if you're able to get back into Windows or not, and by "System Recovery" do you mean "System restore"? Anyways, one thing that may help you is this: to stop windows from shutting down, click start -> run, and type "shutdown /a" (/a = abort). The trouble is that because it's an "Abort" you usually have to type that when Windows is in the process of trying to shut down - which means you have to be quick. What I do when I need to use it, is run it once or twice by itself, and then a moment before the forced shutdown I do it again, and once again during the shutdown. Now all that will do is temporarily stop windows from shutting down everything and shutting down. I've used this in one case where a virus was forcing Windows to shut down all the time - which prevented you from uninstalling the virus or finding a solution - but yours seems to just be a hardware issue.
A system restore would help if you're having trouble getting into windows again since the bad install you did - but you can also try going into control panel and saying "remove hardware" and seeing if you can uninstall it. Otherwise if Windows isn't working so good do a system restore. Then I want you to check if there's any updates for Windows - and download and install any necessary ones. Finally you should check on the net for the manufacturer to see if they've released a new driver for the mouse.
Note that if it's a USB mouse there's a strong chance that all you need to do is just plug it in and wait a moment, and then start using it. Good luck Rfwoolf 18:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

tl;dr! JoshHolloway 22:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Monitor problem

A couple times yesterday my monitor went blank, then came back up immediately. Later that day, the computer (Windows 98) locked up hard (not even the Task Manager would come up) and needed a reboot. I'm thinking this sounds like a rather serious problem, possibly with the display driver or hardware. Any ideas what the problem might be or how to fix it ? (I've checked the display cable connections at both ends, they both look good. I also don't think it was a power outage, as the TV was on and unaffected, although I suppose it might have a capacitor that allows it to survive extremely short power outages.) StuRat 14:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd also be inclined to point to the display hardware in this case. I suspect that it is an overheating problem (now damaged beyond repair). You could try checking the graphics card fan to make sure it's spinning steadily and fast enough (i.e. it's not varying in speed). If you happen to have an old graphics card, you could try it instead. I've been unfortunate enough to have bought 2 faulty graphics cards, each exhibiting an overheating problem (although they were within warranty so I did get replacements). It can manifest itself in different ways but the problems you mention occurred on both occasions. If you happen to be gaming with a graphics card that has been damaged by overheating, you might also see texture colours mess up (no idea why this is). Sorry I couldn't be more specific but my inclination is a damaged graphics card... Johnnykimble 16:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I'll watch for that. The computer had been running for a good long time each time this happened, so heat might indeed be an issue. The problem hasn't recurred today, however. Was your problem intermittent like that ? Also, what are "texture colours" ? StuRat 18:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

My problems occurred when playing 3D games mainly. So, if I played a game I could be sure of a crash after a while, so not really intermittent as such. I did experience the desktop crashes you mentioned, as well as the monitor losing signal. That seemed intermittent, but I suspect was as a result of a high ambient temperature inside the case, which was enough to cause the graphics card to fail. As for the texture colours, it's difficult to describe. When the problem was occurring during a game, I would see reds, greens and blues in place of proper colours. For example, when faced with a brown brick wall, the wall would appear with patches of red, green and blue on it. It sounds quite odd, but it's a sure sign of a graphics card that has been damaged due to overheating. This effect will probably vary between cards, but have a look at this screenshot and you might get a better idea of what I mean.

If it is an old PC, it may well be worthwhile opening the case and taking a vacuum to it. A bed of dust on a heatsink can often be the cause of overheating components. Also, if you have any software installed that detects CPU temperature and/or motherboard/ambient temperature take a note of those. Ambient\case temperature will hopefully be in the 30s (Celsius) and the CPU temperature no higher than 65. You may also have a sensor on the graphics card if it's fairly new. To read this, the drivers should provide a utility - usually somewhere in the 'Display properties'. Johnnykimble 19:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I see, all those purple streaks, right ? It is a fairly old computer, so I'll see if I can get rid of some dust. Thanks again ! StuRat 00:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

No, no! Don't use a vacuum cleaner unles s it is specifically designed for cmputer components. Normal vacuums are quite efficient static electricity generators that can kill compuuter components. Use a can of compressed air, available at any computer store or office supply store. ~Crazytales 12:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

AI and reference librarianship

As Artifical Intelligence programming becomes more sophisticated, can I expect to be out of a job as a reference librarian in the next 10 years? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.211.8.13 (talk) 17:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

As much as i love AI i don't think you'll be out of a job. The reason for this is because there is always room for error, and besides it's just more comfortable talking to a live person than a machine. I think in any case this will make your job easier, for you will only have to supervise the program and make sure it doesn't commit errors, or fix them. if a machine makes an error it will not call the customer back and be able to say where it messed up, but a human on the other hand can. You'll be more like a Commander or Sub-Commander in the game Supreme Commander xD 200.12.231.42 18:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Speaking of Supreme Commander, going by the AI in this (or any other RTS for that matter), I wouldn't worry about AI's being able to compete with you in 30 years let alone 10. The bigger issue is probably not AI per se, but the power of searching, database mining etc. While these use a basic level of AI, the bigger issue is that they will make it a lot easier for people to find out things themselves. Nil Einne 18:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think A.I. is as much as threat as telecommunications and regional/national disparities in compensation. Low cost workers in China/India/etc. can probably answer 90% of reference questions at like one percent of your price, so it stands to reason a few video conference computers in the library is the larger threat. In both 2001: A Space Odyssey, and BART, A.I. was thought to be a panacea and later a threat—and that was in the 1960s. Sadly, A.I. capability has grown disappointingly slowly, with little reason to suspect a sudden jump forward. —EncMstr 17:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget the flying cars. The flying cars are still just around the corner like they always have been Nil Einne 18:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Entry for Invicta Networks?

I saw the excellent movie, "Breach" last night. Chris Cooper's character spoke of using Invicta protocols for a new computer system. A Google search revealed this is an actual technology, but Wikipedia has no entry about this supposedly "unhackable" network. And the company's website seems to be down. Does anyone have any other info about it? --24.249.108.133 17:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I found a few articles on it and I'll write a stub at Invicta Networks. Recury 20:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Your entry seems to have disappeared! --Navstar 04:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's a (very) little information on their technology. It's basically just spread spectrum for IP networks. You might also be interested in quantum cryptography for a real unhackable network. --TotoBaggins 20:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OS Choice Question

I am somewhat confused, what with the variety of OSes at large today. Someone reading this would say I've never even bothered to read the Wikipedia Articles on Linux, FreeBSD and such, but I have. I've even installed Ubuntu Linux Dapper Drake (KDE patched, not Kubuntu) and played around with it for a while. One thing I can say about it is that it is certainly a whole lot better than XP / Vista and such (I could go on and on about *cough* Vista *cough*, but...). But in some (few) aspects, XP still leads. Make a long story short, I wonder if someone could give me an overview of a few popular OSes. I'm particularly looking for native .exe support and NTFS support (Read-only or even RW). It should essentially be exactly like Windows, just with the bad bits filtered out (i.e. no IE, no frequent crashing, less emphasis on looks and more on performance, etc.) Since this is what a lot of people would want, I figure something must exist to represent it. There may be legal issues, but I'm no expert. The reason I want it is simple. I would like to abandon Windows, yet I'd hate losing support for all Windows-only applications (some of them games) for which there is no open-source/freeware counterpart or alternative. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Danielsavoiu 17:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

ReactOS is most likely going to fulfill your needs, but it's not feature complete and is still considered an alpha release. --LarryMac 17:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want Windows without getting Windows, get Linspire. Unlike other forms of Linux that try to do Linux well, Linspire's goal is to Windows well in a Linux environment. Of course, they get sued for saying that (which is why they changed the name from Lindows to Linspire) - but that is what it is. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Dual booting or VMWare are both good options for mostly working in an alternative OS, but going back to Windows when necessary. Most of the things people want from a personal computer can be done fairly well in Linux now (video games being a big exception). A Macintosh might also be a good alternative. I personally have used only Linux at work and at home since 1998 or so, and the things I can't do on Linux I just do without. When I'm obliged to use other people's Windows machines I'm always shocked at how horrible it is, with the constant popups and things demanding your attention. --TotoBaggins 20:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If Windows can't be 100% compatible with itself why do you expect something like wine will? Just see the recent Vista release and how much hysteria on compatibility it had stirred up. RW NTFS support is already present as ntfs-3g and is available in most major distributions, and native .exe support, what does native mean? Native as in it can execute .exe files, or native as in it looks and feel and behaves like Windows and basically a Windows clone? I sure hope Linux will never be like Windows, with all its stupid things (eg. autorun on system harddrives, what's the point in that except to spread virus?). Also, would you list all the applications and games that you would like to run in Linux that you think there is no open-source counterpart? --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not advocating Windows or anything, but I run XP and I don't get all the things like constant popups and things demanding attention. It just depends on how knowledgeable the user is at setting all the little settings. Although, random driver crashing and random stop errors are annoying. But I guess it won't matter if XP ever gets phased out, because that's when I plan to run FreeBSD primarily. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a proverbial "have cake, eat cake" situation. You're basically saying that you want Windows but you want it to be better. I'm sorry to point out that Microsoft makes the best Win32 implementation, and any other projects attempting to duplicate their work are incomplete and years behind at best. Wine is great, but the app compatibility isn't nearly there, likewise with ReactOS. I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with Windows for now. In all honesty, I don't think Win2k/WinXP/Server2k3 are any worse than a typical *nix (horrible interface aside) on usability grounds as long as you avoid installing a lot of crapware. -- mattb @-14T00:10Z

Thanks a lot for your answers, they helped a lot. A few answers to your questions:

• By native .exe support I mean being able to double-click on an .exe and running the program, without going through the command-line wine thing... I have nothing against wine, but it isn't all that compatible and most .exes crash wih wine.
• By apps without Linux support I mean video games mostly.
• I agree with Wirbelwind, It's just a matter of tweaking Windows to do your bidding, which I have done and still do. But it works slower than it should, and Speed-up programs just make it even slower...

Thanks again, Danielsavoiu 11:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

? Wine is the only support of windows exes I know about (except of course the virtualization options like VMware which still require some copy of Windows). IIRC even wine runs better with windows dlls. You could probably configure your windows manager to execute windows executables under wine when double clicked. But then I'll admit to not running Linux much the past couple of years so I'm not so much in-the-know as I used to be. Root⁴(one) 03:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Double-clicking .exe files to run it is already possible with Linux, just set it to open it with wine and you're all set. You can sidestep the whole terminal thing if you just create a link on your desktop, like what I do with Warcraft III; Just copy and paste the command you need to play it (in my case, wine "C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\war3.exe" -opengl), slap on a nice pretty icon and voilà. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

digital preservation programs at US businesses and organizations

Which US organizations and businesses have digital preservation policies or digital preservation programs? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.41.59.243 (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act obliges *all* large public companies to follow certain digital preservation guidelines in some financial areas. --TotoBaggins 20:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

SDRAM question

I bought a Sony Vaio desktop computer with an AMD Athlon 1 Ghz processor back in 2001 and gave it an extra 256 SD RAM chip. My computer smart friend tells me that two can slow a computer down because the processes have to work through both of them. He also told me about the newer 1 gig chips they have now. Would my computer be able to handle it since it is so old? It has a (post purchase) 250 gig harddrive. Would that make a difference?(Ghostexorcist 00:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

Memory is not searched chip by chip. It is accessed immediately by memory address. If an address is on the first chip, the computer goes to the first chip. If the address is on the second chip, it goes to the second chip. It does not search through the first chip and then decide to meander over to the second chip for a sneak and peek. In fact, a good memory controller can have one chip saving some data while another one is preparing to read some data. That is rarely done to my knowledge because memory is so fast already. But, it is possible.

As for "can my computer handle it" - what is the model number on your Vaio? There are so many types of Vaios that it is not possible to answer this question with just the year of purchase. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You won't slow a computer down with multiple RAM chips. You can actually increase it with Intel based systems using dual-channel architecture, although that's not really common before 2003, so your harddrive probably doesn't have it. In short, no, it shouldn't slow it down, since your RAM is timed anyways at probably around 8ns or so, and even if adding a chip adds a tiny bit of propagation delay, it's still read at the same frequency, so no, it won't have any effect on your end. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Note: It's not an Intel based system anyway. (: 70.88.111.65 12:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The model number is PCV-RX450 (Ghostexorcist 10:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

That model appears not to be compatible with 1GB RAM modules. This site claims the memory is 'expandable to 512mb'. If you have a single 128mb module (that came with it), plus another 256mb module (that you added), then, if there are 3 slots, you will be limited to buying another 128mb module (thus fulfilling the quota of 512mb). If you only have 2 slots, then the best you could do is to get rid of your 128mb module, and replace it with a 256mb module. Just make sure it's PC133 or 133MHz. Johnnykimble 11:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

On further investigation, it seems there are only 2 slots on that machine. This means your only upgrade option is to buy a new 256mb module, and ditch the 128mb module you got with the machine. Johnnykimble 11:48, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

April 14

Business Network Layout

How is the network layed out in a school or business? Whats in the runways and what sort of switches or Hubs do they use. Where does their internet come from? That sort of thing. What type of servers are required? or are none required?Iownatv 00:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Which school and which business? Every one is different - depending on what they wanted to purchase and how they felt like putting it together. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Convert VCDs into iPod format

Hi I have a massive collection of VCDs, is there any free way to convert them into iPod format so I can put it into my iPod? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.78.48.211 (talk) 01:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

VCDs store video in MPEG1 format. It's easy to extract a VCD into an MPEG file with free utilities (Isobuster is one) and all you need then is something able to convert these into an iPod friendly format Nil Einne 18:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

intelligent batch process of mp3 files

There are some routinely-downloaded podcasts for our organization that are useful, but is there a way to "batch-process" them so that the "introductory theme music" and the "closing credits" can be deleted from all the podcasts in our archive? They are extremely annoying when listening to multiple episodes of a particular podcast in one sitting. Also nice would be the ability to cut out portions at arbitrary time points, where "bumper music" usually occurs.

What tools and scripts allow for "batch processing" so the mp3 files do not have to be opened one at a time, by hand. Please include anything you know of, python, java, audacity, whatever. Thanks. NoClutter 04:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

(http://www.vclcomponents.com/Delphi/Editors/1_00-info.html) may help...ny156uk 09:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The link ny156uk has given you points to a shareware program that does batch-mp3 edits, which has quite a few interesting functions, but, I *think* ultimately when batch-processing your mp3s you will have to enter in the times you want cut for each mp3 - is that what you were after? Unfortunately, as computer savvy as I am, I've never delved into podcasts and don't know what you're talking about. Even if you did want to batch-process mp3s, how would it determine when an 'introduction' ends and when the 'credits' begin - especially if it differs from mp3 to mp3 - by implication you'd have to specify this for each mp3 and say "Cut". Just in case you're interested, I know of one freeware program called "mp3directcut" (one word I think) - which will load in your mp3, and allow you to 'select' exactly what you want cut - do a search for that if you like. Good luckRfwoolf 02:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Want to find Hide Files

I used on software(Hide Files) to hide my personal files it is normaly open by pressing Ctrl+Alt+H. But I choose one option in that software i dont no exactly.... and it was not opened normaly by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. And also I cannot find that files.... Any one can Help me because all my files are in that folder which i collected for long time(3 years).... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.68.80.66 (talk) 04:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Are you using Windows? If so, open the folder where you put the hidden files, then click Tools → Folder Options then click the tab that says View and in the section called Advanced settings:, under Files and Folders → Hidden files and folders there is a radio button and you want to click the one that says "Show hidden files and folders". − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

video/computer game

Hi, I don't know if this is the right ref. desk, but hopefully it is. On the Gamecube version of "the sims 2 pets", i can't seem to have kids. is it possible on this specific game? if so, how- thanks much!

You should ask on the entertainment ref desk. Just kidding. I saw you referred here from the misc desk already. You mean human kids or kittens/puppies, btw? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

sorry i forgot to mention which kind- human kids.

Did a search for it, but unfortunately people say no, you can get abducted by aliens but not have alien babies, because the Sims in the Gamecube version of Sims 2 Pets cannot get pregnant. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 18:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, ok. thanks for searching for it!

RedDot Web Content Management System

RedDot's Official Website What is the purpose of RedDot? And what are the vulnerabilities of using RedDot? --Shines8 04:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

This code fragment confuses me.

open("/", 0); // 0 == O_RDONLY
dup(0); 		
dup(0);
execl(shell, shell, runc, (char *)0);

Can someone explain in a little more detail? (see http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V7/usr/src/cmd/init.c.html for context). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.240.43 (talk) 05:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Those are all system calls. See open(), dup(), and execl(). If you have more questions, feel free to ask. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I know they're system calls. I want to know what the fragment does. 06:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

It confused me too: V7 UNIX is a lot older than //-style comments. Turns out the comment was added by the person who posted it here.

I thought I'd mention that, by the way, in case people didn't know what O_RDONLY translated as. 06:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

First, runc[] is initialized to the filename "/etc/rc", which is the script that runs when the system starts up. This function's job is to run that script. execl() causes the current process to be replaced by a new one, with the same file descriptors open. (This is the normal way that any process gets started: the parent process first forks itself with fork(), then one copy sets up the file descriptors and uses execl() to mutate into the thing that needs to be run.) In this case that process is a shell whose argument is "/etc/rc", so it will run that script.

I know this. Why is it "/bin/sh /bin/sh /etc/rc" instead of "/bin/sh /etc/rc"? 06:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

That's how execl() works. The first argument is where the program to execute is, the second one is where you tell it it was (i.e. what goes in argv[0]). You're allowed to lie to it. --Anon, April 14, 07:44 (UTC).

Oh! Okay. Thank you very much! :) 08:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The other lines are there to make sure that when this shell starts running, it has the usual three file descriptors open -- standard input (fd 0), standard output (fd 1), and standard error (fd 2). But /etc/rc isn't actually supposed to read anything from stdin, or produce any meaningful output that would go to stdout or stderr. Consequently it doesn't really matter what file the file descriptors point at. So the file that gets opened is "/", the root directory -- the one file that we can be absolutely certain must exist. A directory on traditional UNIX is just a file and can be opened as an ordinary file (you can read the bytes, although you can't write them), and that's what's happening here. Now, because this is the very first file opened after the system came up, it must be file descriptor 0. The two calls to dup(0) now copy file descriptor 0 onto the next two available file descriptors, 1 and 2. So now all three are open, and there we are.

Great, thanks! I was a bit confused as to why we'd need to open / for, that explains it. 06:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

At least, that's my interpretation of the purpose. I'm not 100% sure why it was felt more desirable to have stdout open to an unwritable file than to have it closed; perhaps it affects the way things would fail if there was an attempt to write to it.

--Anonymous, April 14, 2007, 06:16 (UTC).

Right. It's important to have 0, 1, and 2 open so that if/when a later (i.e. child) process opens its own files, they end up on fd's 3 and above. Really strange things can happen if they're not, though I can't quite remember the details. (With that said, it's also odd if fd's 1 and 2 aren't writable, though so few processes check the return values of e.g. printf and fprintf that this is rarely that much of a problem. The somewhat more usual thing to do is to arrange that fd's 0, 1, and 2 are open on /dev/null, though this does indeed assume that /dev and /dev/null both exist. But typically, by the time a real end-user process is open, the three canonical fd's have been opened on something else, either /dev/tty or /dev/null.) —141.154.50.248 07:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[P.S. Though in V7 Unix you could and had to open and read from directories, in some more modern Unices reading from a directory ist verboten and yields an error; you're compelled to use the more abstract getdents or readdir to read from directories.]

Gigabit Ethernet Networks

What are the disadvantages and advantages of a gigabit ethernet network? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.208.101.208 (talk) 11:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Now that sounds to me suspiciously like a homework question, and it does clearly say at the top of this page, Do your own homework. Look at the wikipedia entries for ethernet and gigabit ethernet and come back here if you have a specific question about any of the information there. Johnnykimble 12:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

One should probably assume good faith! Though you're probably right, so I'll just start him off. Advantage = fast. Disadvantage = very expensive. JoshHolloway 12:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes. See the question I asked recently on the guideline page. Johnnykimble 13:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Compared to what? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.1.61 (talk) 21:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

MIDI Wavetable Synth Question

I wonder if anyone could shed some light on this:

Whenever I open my favorite Midi program, I get a choice of MIDI Devices (Wavetable Synths) to use: The ever-present Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth and another one that probably came with the sound card which someone else installed, SoundMax Wavetable Synth. Using SoundMax I get better-sounding Instruments than using Microsoft. The question is: Can I install new Midi Devices so that in the end I can get a Midi Device with even-better-sounding instruments to appear in that Midi program (without installing any new Hardware, that is)?

I'd appreciate any feedback, since the Wikipedia articles on that particular subject are a bit vague...

Thanks, Danielsavoiu 12:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

There used to be commercial soft synths that would install as midi devices however these are now largely dead. You may still be able to purchase Yamaha's SYXG50 but you should not expect any more support as they've abandoned it. Most soft synths now AFAIK are either DX plugins, VST plugins or stand alone utilities. As far as I'm aware VST plugins and DX plugins can only be used in utilities like Cakewalk that support them. I don't know if there is any free utility that enables you to use DX or VST plugins to play midi files. However most of these plugins are not free in any case, they are designed for professionals in general. But two free standalone utilities you might want to try are Synthfont http://www.synthfont.com/ and Timidity [2].

You will need some sort of instrument samples for both of these as I'm prety sure they don't come with any. Soundfonts are the most common source for these. You would want a GM soundfont. There are many of these available. If you have 2gb or RAM or more, you might want to try the Crisis GM 3.0[3]. This is a 1.5gb soundfont. While size does not equal quality it's quite a decent SF IMHO (but I've never been an expert at music and am probably tone deaf). Technically you probably don't need 2gb of RAM as it's extremely unlikely a MIDI will use all instruments but I'm not sure if the programs I recommend can load on demand. There is also a smaller and older 300mb or so Crisis GM. And many other GM soundfonts are available, generally they are smaller. Creative/EMU has 2, 4 and 8mb GM SFs which are resonable quality which are probably fairly easily available albeit almost definitely illegally. Of course, personal preference comes into this a lot, and you may prefer some instruments in one soundfont and some in another which you can do. Cheers and enjoy your music

Nil Einne 18:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

How do I get a dark background in Firefox ?

When viewing and editing Wikipedia on Firefox, I would much prefer light colored text on a dark background. Inverting the current colors would be ideal. How do I do this ? StuRat 15:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You could take a look at User Style. You'll need experience of CSS if you go down that route though. I'm sure there must be an easier way than rewriting the standard CSS files though. Johnnykimble 15:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The following perl one-liner takes the default wikipedia main.css and prints it out to new.css but with all the hex colours inverted:

perl -wple 's/#([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{2})([0-9a-f]{2})/"rgb(".abs(hex($1)-255).",".abs(hex($2)-255).",".abs(hex($3)-255).")"/ie' <main.css > new.css

You could then run perl -wple 'if (/white/i) { s/white/black/i } else { s/black/white/i }' <new.css >final.css and copy the contents of final.css into your Special:Mypage/monobook.css page. However, as you can see, this doesn't really have the intended effect, as the main body of the articles are still in their original colours. I'll watch this with interest to see if anyone comes back with a full solution... Johnnykimble 17:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I had no idea it was so complicated. Perhaps instead of focusing on Wikipedia colors I should instead look at inverting colors on Firefox or on the entire (Windows 98) PC. Any thoughts there ? I tried using Settings + Control Page + Display + Settings + Advanced Button + ATI Color, and this will let me adjust the amount of red, green and blue using a histogram. Unfortunately, these adjustments don't appear to allow inverting the colors (the histogram just won't move that way). StuRat 21:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Get Opera (link). You can then View -> Style -> High Contrast (W/B)! JoshHolloway 21:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that works well for viewing Wikipedia, but the edit panels are still black on white. Any ideas on how to fix that ? StuRat 21:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You just use textarea {background-color: black; color: white;} in your own monobook.css file. --Kjoonlee 22:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I added that line, but nothing happened. Do I need to log out and back in or something ? StuRat 00:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bypass your cache :) --Kjoonlee 03:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to use the same colours on all pages in Firefox, then you can use the same code in your userContent.css --Kjoonlee 22:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, you could use div#bodyContent {background-color: black; color: white;} and so on in Firefox or monobook.css. If you want to extend this to other elements, you can use Firefox's Web Developer add-on to find out which elements to mention. Press control-shift-F and click on an element to get its details. --Kjoonlee 22:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Good font viewer for Windows

Hi, I'm looking for a good font viewer for Windows. Here are my requirements:

• Must not mess with my system when installing/uninstalling
• Must have ability to view identical text in multiple fonts
  • Must be possible to change the text
  • Must support automatic ligatures (ffi to ffi, for example, for fonts that support the feature)
• Must be free of cost

Your kind help would be much appreciated. :) Thank you. --Kjoonlee 15:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I never did have too much luck with looking for this - but you can try tucows.com - and then when you do a search, look at the top of your search results and click "Freeware" which will filter your results to only show freeware (after 3-4 sponsored results). As a graphic designer I wanted it to show a list of my fonts, with a changable 'sample text', but I wanted it to show the samples without my having to click on each font - with most apps you need to click on the font name to preview the font. Good luck Rfwoolf 02:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

X-fonter is one that I use. I use v4.5 which is a free version, v6.2, the latest, seems to be a trial version. I don't know about ligatures though. (http://www.blacksunsoftware.com/) =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

TV card & freeview coverage

Hi, I'm considering getting a digital tv card for my pc but on checking the freeview site I see that my area isn't covered by freeview, & probably won't be till 2011. I take it that I won't be able to get any reception using the tv card but can anyone confirm this &, hopefully, suggest a way around this. Thanks. AllanHainey 15:31, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you know anyone in close proximity to your location with Freeview? The online postcode checker isn't always accurate. For example, my street is apparently unable to receive Freeview according to the site, but in actual fact I can receive a fair number of channels. I think if I bought a better aerial I could receive them all. Your best bet is to borrow a Freeview box and try it out. Johnnykimble 17:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably best. Don't purchase without checking first, as you can't send it back as a "fault" when they've told you it might not work. JoshHolloway 21:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't really borrow a freeview box as I don't have a tv and noone I know here has freeview, only sky. I'll try asking about but if it is the case that I can't get freeview is there anyway to get around it, like getting tv through the internet or using a stronger aeriel? AllanHainey 09:19, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Artificial intelligence & Problem Solving Software

I Nead The Name Of Problem Solving Software . " Problem Solving is The Type of Artificial intelligence "

History of this software . Pricing . and advantige and Disadvantage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.42.21.83 (talk) 18:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

This _really_ sounds like homework, and you're supposed to do homework on your own.--71.195.124.101 19:49, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Verrryy good idea to give us details. Splintercellguy 20:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Please This is not homework . I search too much in the internet . but problem solving software is Unlimited , Wide ? please give me one name Of problem solving software ? and i continue the other Topic

Request for clarification:

Please explain what you mean by 'problem solving software'. For example do you mean mathematics problems? There exists software that solves mathematic formulas and calculus for you. Of course there are various software applications that solve various other 'problems' like converting "wav" files to "mp3" files, or encrypting information. Just what do you mean by "problem solving software"? Rfwoolf 09:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps your are talking about expert systems? Or maybe complexity classification, i.e. P, NP and NP-complete? Johnnykimble 10:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

re-opening

Is there a way (in bash) to have netcat reopen every time someone diconnects? Thanks!--71.195.124.101 19:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The below would work. --TotoBaggins 23:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

while true; do
     netcat -v -l -p 12345
     echo "Connection closed; listening again"
done

April 15

Connect two computers with an ethernet

Is it possible to connect two computers with just an ethernet wire between them? Both computers have a network card. If not that what about with just a hub? If not that then what about with just a switch? A router? (obvoiusly with a router you can do it) Whats the minimum needed to just get some files across. Would I need to specify ip address differently? A router handles the dhcp so this is probably something that would need to be implemented with one of the computers acting as a server.

ethernet frames are transmitted only knowing the mac address (right?) so this should be possible yet it doesnt seem to be discussed anywhere that ive looked. 24.136.121.150 01:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is possible to do this, I did it once. You have to use a special ethernet cable, called a crossover cable. And as for IP adresses if your using windows XP the network setup wizard will handle them for you. --Lwarf 01:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I would have had no idea about this crossover cable. 24.136.121.150 02:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Some newer network cards will automatically "cross-over" a normal ethernet cable when it is used between two PCs, so it would be worth giving that a try (if you have a vanilla cable available) before purchasing a crossover cable. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 03:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Really? Darn - I didn't know that - would have come in handy once. Rfwoolf 03:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, you can buy a small converter which turns a normal cable into a cross-over one. --Kjoonlee 03:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could make your own using existing cable... Johnnykimble 08:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Word Math Plugin

I really hate MS Word's math capabilities and was wondering if there was a way to put in math formulas by typing in code like latex or the way they have it in openoffice. I already found texpoint (http://texpoint.necula.org/) but I want to know about any other options before I drop $45 on that one. Iownatv 03:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Cheapo way would be to enter formulas while editing a page and pressing preview. Splintercellguy 05:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Into what program? What are you referring to? Where is there a preview button? (print preview?) I dont think You know what a properly typeset math equation looks like. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iownatv (talk • contribs) 08:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

No, the cheapo way would be to install TeX for windows, create images from the formulas, and drop them in.

Perl or PHP

What is the better language for web servers? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.54.94.33 (talk) 04:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

That's very hard to answer objectively. What do you mean by better? Ease? Being common? You can take a look at this page. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

GIMP batch operation

I'm wondering how to set up a simple batch operation in The GIMP. The operation is to open each of a series of bitmaps, set the input black-point to 80 and white-point to 230 in Levels, convert the image to greyscale and save as a GIF with the same name. How would I do this? NeonMerlin 04:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Blue Screen of Death

How do I fix the BOSD error? The error has caused windows to shut down abruptly and on the BSOD, I noticed that windows has to shut down due to a recent hardware change. When I restarts windows, should I start in in safe mode, start safe mode with networking, start with the most recent good configuration or start windows normally?Urgent.Invisiblebug590 06:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Starting it normally is fine, except in rarer instances where some driver gets corrupted, then you would restart again and choose most recent good configuration. You can get that menu again after the motherboard boot sequence finishes and you press F8, if you need to choose most recent good configuration after choosing boot normally the first time. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

index.dat

An entry was found in my index.dat file, using Encase software, which my employers believed this to be an attempted log onto the website however a pice of software called 'Websense' blocked it, I have contacted Websense who have stated that they would not have blocked this attempt log on and certainly would not have put an entry in the index.dat file. The entry looks similiar to the following

REDR----á—··€/~৳http://www.faceparty.com/·–·

I have looked into this and it appears that this is nothing but a redirect to the site. Can anyone give me any information on this at all?

My email is my_post_is_where (at sign thing) hotmail (round blob) com

Many thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.112.31.71 (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

yahoo messanger

i am not getting any idea about how can i deactivate sign in to mobile device in yahoo messanger . pls provide some info about it thanx in advancechakradhar 12:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)