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May 25

Windows Vista Bit Editons

What are the different types of Windows Vista Bit Editions and which one is better? —68.193.151.240 (talk) 01:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming your question is referring to the 32 and 64bit versions of the Operating System. Up until recently the majority of computer processors made ran with a 32bit instruction set, that is, the computer would be able to accept commands up to 32bits (4bytes) in length. Recently there has been a push to 64bit processors which can handle longer instructions. The 32bit version will work on both 32 and 64bit machines and the 64bit only 64 bit machines. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics of vista 64 bit but i don't think it'll run 32bit programs without emulation and likewise the 32bit version will not run 64bit programs (even though the processor can accept them). For now i'd probably stick to 32bit as this is what the majority of windows programs are written for (if you're using linux however the majority of programs are compatible with about 15 architectures!). I also i think the 64bit version has little performance gain over 32bit but in the future it's likely all programs will move over to 64bit, but for now stick to 32bit. -Benbread (talk) 11:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has nothing to do with instruction length; the main point is to increase the size of pointers so that they can refer to more than 2³² bytes (4 GiB) of data at a time. The easiest way to do that (and the way they did it) is to double the pointer size and the CPU register size from 32 to 64 bits. Various other things also get doubled, but only if there's some reason to double them. It doesn't make sense to double the length of everything across the board, because all of these increases hurt performance; you have to move twice as much data around and hard drives and RAM don't magically double in speed. 32-bit x86 instructions can be anywhere from 1 byte (8 bits) to 15 bytes (120 bits) long, and I don't think that changed in x86-64. The DEC Alpha architecture has 64-bit CPU registers and pointers, but all instructions are 32 bits long. The "16 bit" SNES had 16-bit CPU registers, 16/24-bit pointers, and an 8-bit data bus, while the "16 bit" Sega Genesis/Mega Drive had 32-bit CPU registers, 32-bit pointers, and a 16-bit data bus. I don't think that "128 bit" gaming consoles had 128 bits of anything. It's better to just think of "N bit" as a marketing term.

Practically speaking the only advantage of 64-bit Vista is that it supports more total memory (physical RAM plus virtual memory). But you pay for that with a lot of compatibility problems. So it really depends on whether you expect to need more than 3-4 GiB of memory in the near future. -- BenRG (talk) 14:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually a number of programs have been released in 64 bit editions and these sometimes perform better then their equivalent 32 bit versions. For example, Rybka is about 60% faster in 64-bit mode. Some software encoders also gain a bit, although generally not so much. SHA512 and some other hashing algorythms also gain quite a bit from being run in 64-bit. Of course, with all things it obviously depends on how good the implementention is and a well tuned 32-bit implementation may be better then a poorly optimised 64-bit one. And some programs are slower when run in 64bit mode. However with anything more then 2gb, you do gain an advantage to using a 64-bit edition of Windows. The compabitility problems are IMHO overrated with any decent modern computer without funky/crappy hardware. They do exist, but they are not as bad as people make out. The biggest issue is perhaps the requirement for signed drivers which is on by default in 64-bit Vista, but not 32-bit, however it can be turned off. Nil Einne (talk) 16:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changing computer

I recently sold my old laptop (powered by Windows XP) to my father, who understandably is changing the settings to how he wants it. When I bought the computer new, I registered it in my name. When he goes into Control Panel and opens System, the General tab lists it as "Registered to" [my name]. Anyone have an idea how to change it to his name? 24.95.74.161 (talk) 01:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Click ‘Start’ , Click ‘Run’ , type regedit.
Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion node.
Look for the values RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization. Edit their values to you username and company name of choice.
Exit the Registry Editor

WARNING you could mess up your computer. Be very cautious in the registry editor. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 03:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to disable file locking in Windows XP?

Is there some way to completely prevent Windows XP from locking files anymore? Just to disable it so it won't happen? William Ortiz (talk) 09:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you trying to do this? File locking is a very important security measure in software, preventing 2 processes from writing to the same file and corrupting the whole thing. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

File locking in Windows seems to be kind of broken. Opening a file which someone else is writing will sometimes succeed and cause the other process to lose its write access on the already open handle. This has happened to me many times, most recently a few days ago when I was converting a long audio file from wav to ogg and opened the partially-written ogg file in WinAmp. WinAmp started playing the file; a few seconds later the encoding process failed with a write error. I don't know what combination of access flags causes this behavior, but I'd love to know a way to disable it. -- BenRG (talk) 14:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, file locking in Windows is buggered. Get yourself a linux 79.76.173.176 (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes files just get stuck locked for no reason after months of reboots, 0-byte files that nothing is using. I use a program called "unlocker", though sometimes that fails and it just says "explorer" is locking them and shutting down explorer doesn't help. But anyway, I've come to the conclusion that file locking is just bad and my computer would run better without it. I tried hex editing FileLockEx out of kernel32.dll but that just gave programs complaining when they were looking for it so it'd be nice to make the programs think the locking succeeded when it didn't. William Ortiz (talk) 19:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OR, but Microsoft Word documents are terrible for this. So bad in fact I only use RTF now. Think outside the box 19:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a program that I use called Unlocker. It adds itself to the context menu and works like a charm. I use it mostly when I need to delete something. It only works on one file at a time, though.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What archive type is "webpages.ez" ?

Hello all,

the above named file is included in the firmware file of my router. What packer format produces these files and what are its magic bytes?

Thanks,93.104.119.43 (talk) 15:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS: The router in question is an Eumex 800V aka BinTec T800v, hope that helps...

You sure it's not "webpages.gz", which is a gzipped archive? If you have Linux you can easily find out what type of file it is by using file (Unix). --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the firmware file is a 4MB big custom stuff, file says "data" for it. And yeah, it is webpages.ez; the name of the file is in the firmware (I ran it through "strings"). 88.217.52.232 (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

flow chart and flow diagram

what is the difference between flow chart and flow diagram? explain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.225.30 (talk) 15:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should do your own homework, but have a look at process flow diagram and flowchart. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

totally confused about wireless service

I have tried to make sense of information regarding wireless service..specifically, I want to let go of my landline and still have an ISP...what exactly are my options?Rubymae (talk)

You can log into somebody else's unsecured network (illegal in UK). You can buy a dongle at a cost of about GBP 50 and pay a monthly rental to an ISP (in UK). Or you can retain (or rent a fresh) landline and broadband package. Milk Float 20:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone in the US tell me what do I need to do to get a wireless ISP connection. Could I get ISP thru Direct TV satellite? What is a 'dongle'?

See dongle. Dismas|^(talk) 05:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's Mobile Broadband, Satellite Internet access, Wifi, and radio-based internet access where you aim a fixed antenna at the provider (an article for which I can't find). Why do you want to do this though? A cable, DSL, or fibre internet connection is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. 24.76.169.85 (talk) 07:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Passwords and such

Hello, Computing. I am rather clueless, so I need one thing explained in detail: How come for, say, a Winrar that has been password protected, one needs to rely on crackers that utilize bruteforcing/dictionary attempts? Can one not boot one's beloved PC into some rather primitive state, and access the information from there? Shouldn't it be rather straight forward, looking at a lengthy table of things that compile into 0s and 1s, to eventually find the strings that detail the winrar and its belonging passwords, and from there shut that off, or change it? Surely, somewhere, something says... access: if is "pw123" = 1...? I would love to know just what it is that keeps us from looking at what one might refer to as 'source code', and simply alter material through there.

Thank you in advance! Scaller (talk) 21:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Winrar doesn't work as you imagine. It encrypts the information in the file. William Avery (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that sneaky-...! But still, the password function and my question related to -that- remains unanswered, still, right? Scaller (talk) 21:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well including the password in the source code would be a very stupid thing to do, see this dailyWTF article. --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:33, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

winRAR encrypts the data with the password. So without the password you have no meaningful data at all, just useless 1s and 0s. Then the password itself acts as a parameter to the decryption function. The only reason you even know if you have the correct password is that it checks the checksum of the decrypted data against an unencrypted hash stored with the RAR file.. if they don't match then the data wasn't decrypted correctly and you must have gotten the password wrong .froth. (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that was what I imagined to be the problem! Password is the key, then. Roger doo, thank you very much. :) And, in reply to the dailyWTF, that was amazing! Thank you for your help. Scaller (talk) 12:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Call Centre setup

Thanks for giving me chance to ask question. I am very much interested to setup a call centre. But before that i want to know about details about that. So could you tell me the details procedures of a 20 seated call centre setup including technical and financial details and instruments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khalid21 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, have you tried Google? [1] --70.167.58.6 (talk) 23:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a small task-- you really should hire someone to do this for you. Get input from different individuals with experience in this area.

VisionLab Studio crash

I was using FXhome VisionLab Studio, and it crashed while rendering a large (about 1 GB, estimated) file, and it crashed, and now when I try to open up the document to re-render it, it only opens up the application, and not the document. What should I do? Should I just redo everything or is there some kind of solution? Thank you very very much. Ilikefood (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, i fixed it. Ilikefood (talk) 23:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 26

SODIMMs in DIMM slots

Can one or two SODIMMs be installed in a slot designed for a DIMM? Neon Merlin 00:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, the physical connections are different sized. Whether they are compatible on an electrical level and thus only requires a mechanical adapter though, I do now know. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seems unlikely to me given that they have a significantly different number of pins. Even if they are simply for power, I suspect you'd still need something more complicated then a simple mechanical adapter Nil Einne (talk) 16:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meme

There's an Internet meme called "it's over 9000" that's apparently popular, but why can't I find any mention of it here on Wikipedia? 208.76.245.162 (talk) 01:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon Ball Z. It's not that popular, I haven't heard anyone use it as of late. 24.76.169.85 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a 4chan thing .froth. (talk) 19:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Web Design Question

I am trying to create a web site which requires user generated web pages similar to wikipedia, but each page rateable on a list of aspects. There must also be a main page which can list top pages in each catagory and search the individual pages. Is there a free or low cost wiki web template that can do this? Thank you, Ryan27630 (talk) 04:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you like Wikipedia's own MediaWiki, an extension like Review or FlaggedRevs can do some of the rest. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a start, but I need the capability to rate the pages in 5 specific custom attributes, and then sort and filter them on the main page. Please let me know if you know of a way to do this. Thank you, Ryan27630 (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean having top page at one section and bottom rated pages at the bottom or something like that. If you do the dynamicpagelist extension could help you. Anonymous101 (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The uses of computer in daily life

dear brilliant volunteer,

may i know what are the uses of computer?especially in: 1)education 2)finance 3)industrial 4)house whole

thats all from me218.208.92.185 (talk) 06:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)atok[reply]

Computing things. There's no chance that we could possibly mention every single application of computers. Read the Computer article maybe for some vague idea? 24.76.169.85 (talk) 07:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And, if this is homework, it sounds like a long-term project to me. Sandman30s (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Programming

<Moved From Miscellaneous Desk> Fribbler (talk) 09:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I know java from school only, but how do you actually make a program. With input and graphics and all. Like Runescape for example, what did those guys need to make it and how did they make it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.120.121 (talk) 23:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may get a better response if you posted this at the Computing Desk. Would you like it moved there? Fribbler (talk) 23:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.120.121 (talk) 04:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are graphics packages you can include in that allow you to handle all sorts of different things. For example, Sun provides a Java3D API that provides functions and methods for rendering 3D graphics in Java. Games are complex mixtures of graphics, input, logic, etc. Try something small (on the level of Tic Tac Toe, for example) before trying to make something like RuneScape (which is really beyond the reasonable capabilities of one programmer working alone). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might find the computer programming article a useful place to start. Astronaut (talk) 14:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Database querying

Hi all, First of all, stange that Wikipedia has an 'all-around' 'helpdesk' for all kinds of computer programs. But I like it, now I can ask my question whitout being flamed at.:-) I don't know much about databases and related software. I want to query Wikipedia's database 'directly'. If I'm correct, the Wikipedia website is also functioning as Wikipedia's database client. I don't like this, because now the Wikipedia webmasters are making my database client's GUI! Is there any software around which can be used as a all-around database client. So for all kinds of databases I find while surfing on the web. Do I have to enter a URL to the database in such an dedicated (non-webbased)database client? (I don't want to use PHP in any way, I just want to query the My/PostgresSQL daemon running on the server directly, like PHP does. (I'm not sure, but I think Perl's WWW::Wikipedia module is such a client, but it is a API, no GUI client. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.126.42.203 (talk) 12:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Virtually no websites will let you query their database directly; certainly none that I know of. If you want your own copy of the Wikipedia database, dumps are available. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 12:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Grmz... Sometimes I just -can't- see why things are the way they are. What is the problem of being able to query directly? Wouldn't that be just a very nice functionality? What is a correct place to discuss these kind of thing? BTW, then what does the Perl WWW::Wikipedia module do exactly?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.126.42.203 (talk) 13:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If everybody could query the database directly it would be trivial to put in queries that would slow things to a halt. The Perl module just uses the pre-existing WWW querying methods, which are cached, optimized, etc. and does nothing more than you couldn't do as an individual querying the database through your web browser. Again, if you want to run your own queries, download a database dump. But you can't query directly the same database which is constantly being updated, cached, called, etc. by hundreds of thousands of people a day. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find more information about the 'pre-existing WWW querying' methods? What do you mean can't query the same database which is contantly being updated etc. by hundreds of thousands people a day? What is the problem? When I visit an article, that gives just another database query, isn't it? No articles are saved in HTML, right? What about some dedicated protocol to do queries (no HTTP)?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.126.42.203 (talk) 14:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, pages are mostly cached so the database querying is minimized. If you think about it, it makes sense: what's a better approach for generating the HTML output for each page? Generate it each time it is visited, on the fly, or generate it once every time it changes? Obviously the latter is the only scalable approach (and exhibits the common CS practice of calculate-once, use-often, which is a standard optimization approach). See, for example, the Cache strategy description, which is probably out of date but describes how things were done just as Wikipedia started to get mega-popular and was suffering from all sorts of maladies in the beginning due to inefficiencies in the system.

By "pre-existing WWW querying" I just mean the same sorts of queries that are made when the database gets an HTTP request (the Perl module is just a specialized web crawler). And again, a poorly thought out database query can cripple a large system, one that has millions and millions of entries. Imagine what would happen if you did a simple SQL query that told the Wikipedia article database to go through every entry and compare it against a wildcard string (with a LIKE operator) and also, while it was at it, get all of the authors from a different table who had written said articles, and then checked to make sure that all of those authors had more than 5,000 posts or so. It would be a short, trivial query, but it would take god knows how long to run against the whole database, and would have significant performance implications. By contrast, if you did all of those same operations through the WWW client, you would be sending lots of tiny queries sequentially—and they'd end up being limited in part by the amount of connections you'd be able to make and the speed of making them. The result is that it would be indistinguishable (on the most part) from regular web traffic, and all of those "tiny" queries would be heavily optimized, cached, etc. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes an article is another query, but what if you decided to search all articles for an arbitrary piece of text without using the correct methods or indexes? That would comprise at least a "full table scan" if not joins to many other tables - imagine scores of people with direct access trying that kind of nonsense all the time. It would kill any database. Ask me, I'm a database administrator by profession. Ad hoc reporting can NOT happen on an OLTP database. It has to controlled, in this case by the wikipedia interface. Sandman30s (talk) 14:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for you expaination. Does anyone know about a mailinglist about this subject? (Something like "databases in general" or "Human -database interaction) Maybe I've to try Usenet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.126.42.203 (talk) 15:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot written about database optimization. That's all this is about. You don't let people have arbitrary query access to databases that matter to you. There are books and books and books about databases in general and about database security. It sounds to me like you just need to have more experience with how databases work; this is rather elementary stuff. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not exacly about optimazation. Actually I was trying to discuss ways to make data available over the internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.126.42.203 (talk) 07:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use the API. But rate limit to a sane value to avoid melting the servers. If possible, use the database dumps instead. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be more clear, having a web page which simply fetches the wikipedia page from the api and displays it differently would be too harsh on the server - you should use the db dumps. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

linking to an especific page in pdf file

I am trying to link to a pdf file from Excel with:

file:///C:/mypdf.pdf#33

But it doesn't open the file on the page :(. What am I doing wrong? file:///C:/mypdf.pdf works fine. 217.168.1.95 (talk) 14:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps

file:///C:/mypdf.pdf#page=33

See http://www.rdpslides.com/psfaq/FAQ00050.htm William Avery (talk) 17:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The says: "The following only works when the HTML document is served by a web server. It will not work from a local drive." Should I give up trying to link locally to an especific pdf page? 217.168.1.95 (talk) 19:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It worked for me using Firefox and the Adobe plugin with a local file on the C drive. William Avery (talk) 20:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never been able to get it to go to specific pages unless you were hosting it on a server (even a locally hosted one). Never tried it in firefox, though, maybe William Avery is right that it behaves differently? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What programming language to use for websites?

Hi, I want to learn how to program a website. However I'm confused about the many languages out there. There's PHP, HTML, javascript, java, python, etc. I've googled around to see what each language does, but I couldn't understand much of the jargon. They all sound similar. Why so many languages, and which one is good to learn and why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.76.179.217 (talk) 18:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HTML is the most important one. Almost all of the pages you see on a web site are HTML files. HTML is a page-description language. It just formats text and places images on a page. PHP and Java are used to "activate" things like buttons. They perform actions that HTML cannot, like sending e-mail and uploading files. PHP and Java are contained inside HTML or linked to from a separate file. Besides HTML, PHP would be good language to know since it seems to be the most-popular for activating pages. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors like Microsoft Expression and Adobe/Macromedia Dreamweaver let you create a web page like you would a document in Word. But knowing the code behind the page helps a lot for doing things like removing annoying spaces that won't go away or troubleshooting a button that won't work. The code editors produce is also really bulky, so you've got the right idea.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 18:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call HTML a page description language. Page description languages describe everything about the page—paper size, paragraph flow around images, headers and footers—which HTML doesn't. HTML is just rich text. -- BenRG (talk) 23:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is...

HTML (and XML) - the actual web page. Contains the text with marks saying "this is a heading", "this is some text", etc
<html><body><h1>A heading</h1><p>Some <em id="f1">bold</em> text</p></body></html>
CSS - the colors and layout of the page. Includes rules like "headings should be Sans-serif font of size 20pt and underlined"
h1 { color: red; border: 1px green solid}
JavaScript - code which you ask the end user to run. You can change the contents of the page and fetch new pages from your web site.
<script> document.getElementById("f1").innerHTML = "emphasised" </script>
PHP, JSP, ASPX, Python, and many others - used to automatically make the HTML. For example, you can have a single HTML page which contains some special code which prints "You are logged in as h2g2bob" at the appropriate place.
<html><body><p>Your name is <?php $username="h2g2bob"; print $username; ?>.</body></html>

W3Schools is the place to start. HTML and CSS are defined by W3C, here. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the standard approach, going from most simple and basic (the "bricks", to use an architectural metaphor) to the most ornate and complicated (the "woodworking") First learn how HTML works (should take less than a week). Then learn the basics of CSS styling (you don't need to try and memorize things, just see how it works, how you can apply it, you can look up details as you need them). Then learn Javascript (the basics of its syntax, what it does, what sorts of things it is good for). Then, if you want, learn a server-side language (like PHP) (a much more complicated endeavor than the previous ones, as it is a full programming language). (Note that Javascript and Java are not the same language). --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you are interested in learning from a book, I have been pleased with the "Head First" series from O'Reilly Media, in particular Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML and Head First Javascript. --LarryMac | Talk 13:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

angle between two cities on Earth

Is there a formula to calculate the angle (how many degrees skewered from true north, for example) a certain city is from another city? (I have long and lat for both cities, in degrees and decimals of degrees (no minutes)). I know the Earth is not perfectly spherical; but if it makes it easier to specify the formula, then we can assume it is spherical; that's close enough.

--206.248.172.247 (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently it's called azimuth and this can calculate it! http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/distance.html

--206.248.172.247 (talk) 23:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The rhumb line article seems to be trying to answer this question, but isn't doing a good job. I don't see a single formula in there that actually takes coordinates as input and gives direction or distance as output. The second external link in bearing (navigation) looks better. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 23:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A rhumb line is a line of constant bearing - a line that makes a constant angle with each meridian. If the difference in longitude between the cities is significant, then the rhumb line is not the shortest course between them. The shortest course is the great-circle course, which is not a rhumb line because its bearing is not constant. So it depends what sort of "angle" you are looking for. If the difference in longitude is not large (say it is less than 5 degrees) then the planar approximation

\tan(bearing)\approx {\frac {\Delta longitude}{\Delta latitude}}

may be close enough. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I may be mistaken, but would you be trying to find the angle between two vectors given in spherical coordinates? Looking at Spherical coordinate system, it seems that your $\phi$ is your longitude, and your $\theta$ is $90-latitude$ . In that case, you can find the angle between them by using the dot product.

$\theta =\arccos \left({\frac {\mathbf {a} \cdot \mathbf {b} }{|\mathbf {a} ||\mathbf {b} |}}\right).$

By canceling the radius terms, the angle between them should be $\arccos \left(\left(\cos(lat_{1})\cdot \cos(long_{1})\cdot \cos(lat_{2})\cdot \cos(long_{2})\right)+\left(\cos(lat_{1})\cdot \sin(long_{1})\cdot \cos(lat_{2})\cdot \sin(long_{2})\right)+\left(\sin(lat_{1})\cdot \sin(lat_{2})\right)\right)$

It's long and ugly, but it should work. If anyone can edit my code to make it a little more pretty, that'd be cool too. Daniel Olsen (talk) 09:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure that formula isn't giving the angle between them from the center of the Earth, as opposed to the angle it makes on the surface with true north? (As others have said above, though, the angle with true north is not necessarily well defined, because the shortest path does not necessarily have a constant azimuth.) rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. I guess I misunderstood the question. Daniel Olsen (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on great-circle distance. --Spoon! (talk) 10:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you represent points on the earth's surface by unit vectors then the great circle containing points $\mathbf {v}$ and $\mathbf {w}$ is the intersection of the surface with the plane $\{\mathbf {x} :(\mathbf {v} \times \mathbf {w} )\cdot \mathbf {x} =0\}$ . So the angle from true north at $\mathbf {p}$ of the great circle containing $\mathbf {p}$ and $\mathbf {q}$ should be the angle between the plane of the great circle containing $\mathbf {p}$ and $\mathbf {q}$ and that of the great circle containing $\mathbf {p}$ and north, i.e.

\cos ^{-1}{\frac {(\mathbf {p} \times \mathbf {q} )\cdot (\mathbf {p} \times \mathbf {n} )}{|\mathbf {p} \times \mathbf {q} ||\mathbf {p} \times \mathbf {n} |}}

,

where $\mathbf {n}$ is the north pole. This can also be written

\cos ^{-1}{\frac {(\mathbf {q} \cdot \mathbf {n} )-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {q} )(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {n} )}{{\sqrt {1-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {q} )^{2}}}{\sqrt {1-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {n} )^{2}}}}}

or

\tan ^{-1}{\frac {\sqrt {1+2(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {n} )(\mathbf {q} \cdot \mathbf {n} )(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {q} )-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {n} )^{2}-(\mathbf {q} \cdot \mathbf {n} )^{2}-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {q} )^{2}}}{(\mathbf {q} \cdot \mathbf {n} )-(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {q} )(\mathbf {p} \cdot \mathbf {n} )}}

if I calculated right. The last one is probably the best from a numerical stability standpoint, since you can use atan2. -- BenRG (talk) 19:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how you can interpret the original question as anything but a request for constant bearing (rhumb line angle). And yet most of the answers are about great circles. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:21, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The question didn't ask for a rhumb line, it asked for the bearing of one city from another. I would certainly interpret that as asking for the bearing of a great-circle path, as measured at the starting city. This distance calculator page computes that information as well, for each end of the path, so you can use it to check against the formula given by BenRG. --Anonymous, 06:35 UTC, May 28, 2008.

It looks like a great-circle question to me too, but for completeness you should be able to get the rhumb line angle from the Mercator projection:

\tan ^{-1}{\frac {\lambda _{1}-\lambda _{2}+2\pi k}{\ln(\tan({\tfrac {1}{4}}\pi +{\tfrac {1}{2}}\phi _{1})/\tan({\tfrac {1}{4}}\pi +{\tfrac {1}{2}}\phi _{2}))}}

,

where

\phi _{1},\phi _{2}

are the latitudes,

\lambda _{1},\lambda _{2}

are the longitudes, and k is any integer. You probably want to choose the

k\in \{-1,0,1\}

that gives the smallest numerator in absolute value. -- BenRG (talk) 12:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 27

Firefox AutoComplete

I searched on Google to no avail regarding my question related to Firefox's AutoComplete feature, so now I come here. First, as an analogy, I know that it is possible to have Firefox store only a certain number of days of history. Is it possible to have Firefox store only a certain number of days of AutoComplete history? (If it helps, I am on Firefox 2.0.0.14, but would be willing to upgrade to a version of Firefox 3.) I would prefer not to delete all of my autocomplete history, but I don't really like a month's worth of history either. :\ Any comments would be appreciated. --Iamunknown 01:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe so, a quick look in firefox's "about:config" screen with the filter set on either "autocomplete" or "history" doesn't show a setting for what you're looking for. Lordhatrus (talk) 03:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The autocomplete feature apparently uses the same number of days as whatever the History feature is set to. I don't think you can change it as a separate setting. See here: [2] Indeterminate (talk) 14:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it's just particular entries that are bothering you, you can get rid of them by selecting them with the arrow keys and pressing Delete. I don't know whether this also removes the page from the history. -- BenRG (talk) 18:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all! I didn't know it depends upon the history feature - that's good news. If I get around to it, I might try to experiment and see if something goes away at the same time as a history item. Also, you can apparently shift+del items as well (that is one of the things I learned while Googling earlier), but I don't know what the difference is between shift+del and just plain del. Anyways, thanks again! --Iamunknown 19:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hashing technique in DBMS

what is external and internal hashing.Give an eg--116.68.117.7 (talk) 05:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please check Hash function then attempt your homework yourself. Sandman30s (talk) 11:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

.SRF File

I've got an old video game that stores sound in .SRF Files (the first You Don't Know Jack) and I'm wondering if there's any way to convert those to WAVs or MP3s or some other sort of more usable sound file. I know that I can always play the game and then capture the sound through the sound card, but I'd like a less lossy solution if possible. 71.131.180.33 (talk) 08:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a huge pain. Try here: [3] for some info that might be helpful. Indeterminate (talk) 15:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Schema drawing software

What free software is there to draw a database schema? --RMFan1 (talk) 20:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a fairly good list (with links to other lists) here. Not all are free though. If you are only interested in the pretty picture and not so much with forward or reverse engineering of the schema, OpenOffice.org has a "Visio" like drawing facility. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 09:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Entity-relationship model#Free software ER diagramming tools and also List of UML tools (UML class/object diagrams work well for depicting database schemas). --Prestidigitator (talk) 23:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Restart Windows to avoid driver-related crash?

I tend to leave my computer, running WinXP, switched on for weeks. I have been getting, for quite some time, BSODs claiming to result from a driver issue. By not restarting for extended periods, am I increasing the risk or not? (I wont consider Linux until the laborious set-up procedure for my keyboard keys, sound card, wireless card etc etc are eliminated so I must make Windows last a couple more years). ----Seans Potato Business 22:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Laborious? My MICROSOFT keyboard and mouse refuse to work in Windows unless in specific USB ports and with drivers pre-integrated onto the CD using nLite, but it works out of the box with Ubuntu. Give Hardy a try...

Back to Windows: since there's always a random chance of getting a BSOD with your buggy drivers, I don't see what you mean by risk since the risk will always be there. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ubuntu -- and particularly Hardy -- is horrible. Hardy wouldn't even boot on my machine. 7.10 worked, but my graphics card wouldn't work. I installed drivers for it, but no luck. I suppose the exception makes the rule in your case, but Linux has far more driver problems than Windows. If you have to use Linux, try openSUSE or Debian. Ubuntu uses the unstable version of Debian, which is the root of a lot of its difficulties. Avoid it and Fedora like the plague.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just dist-upgrade the whole way through so haven't tried the Hardy liveCD yet, but it seems pretty nice, not much really revolutionary features though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, YMMV. On my old computer I could barely boot any Linux distro, while on this one things worked better (not good enough, which is why I am currently using Windows). If I had to guess, I would say your graphics card is bleeding edge or exotic, but correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know how much experience you have with Linux and Ubuntu, but if it sums up to these few unpleasant experiences, I think it's unfair to deduce "Hardy is horrible" from a simple variance in your mileage.

I don't fully understand why Ubuntu uses unstable Debian either, but my understanding is that the problem can be mitigated if one uses a version that has been around for a few months. With the LTS 8.04, this should be practical. As for Debian - are you sure you would recommend it to a Linux beginner? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 10:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have an NVIDIA GE Force 7300. I don't think it's exotic. I've used Ubuntu 6.06, 7.10, and 8.04. Hardy seems to have multiple issues. I managed to get it working after choosing an older kernel from the boot menu, but the screensavers wouldn't work and then some inodes somehow became corrupted. The forums are full of stuff like that. You're right about Debian, but openSUSE and Freespire are both beginner friendly. I've used openSUSE and it worked well. Seans is right about wireless drivers, too. You often have to use ndiswrapper to get them working.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 18:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is often said that it is best to boot Windows regularly. So your problems might be related to not doing so. The only way to find out is to reboot and see if the problem diminishes.

In my personal experience, BSODs are often related to graphic cards, in particular integrated ones. If you use one try buying a cheap separate card (for 50$ you can get something several times more powerful than integrated). If you use a separate card, try reinstalling the drivers or switching to a different one (if you have one available).

As for Linux, the most accurate description is YMMV. If you haven't tried any distribution recently, try running an updated version from a LiveCD and see if things work. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what hardware or distro you were using, but for me, configuring my sound card consisted of running "alsaconf" and tapping "enter" a few times. Configuring the keyboard consisted of plugging it in. --Carnildo (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My USB wireless adapter absolutely refused to work with Ubuntu until version 7.10. Then it magically started working, but it would ask for a network password on every boot. I upgraded in place to 8.04 and now it works beautifully. That's the nice thing about the open source development model: the longer a given project continues for, the more likely it is to add the features you want. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 03:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 28

Error Printing on MacOS 10.4.11

When I try to print on any program, rather than a print dialog box coming up, I get the error below (yes, 'failed' is misspelled) error. Clicking OK on the error dialog box causes the program which tried to print to give the standard "close unexpectedly" error, with options to report the error to Apple and whatnot. Suggestions?

filed to get device URI from printer

Unknown Error Code: 1030

71.184.223.246 (talk) 00:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like it is having trouble connecting to a printer or the printer's preferences file is corrupted. Try System Preferences > Print & Fax. Delete the printer that is likely causing the trouble. Then add it again. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't actually have any printers installed at the moment, so that menu is empty. 71.184.223.246 (talk) 03:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but could the problem perhaps be related to the fact that you don't have any printers installed at the moment, but are still trying to print something? I mean, what are you expecting to happen? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's perfectly possible (normally) to try to print when no printers are available. I could print to pdf file or add a new printer within the menu that pops up, among other things. 71.184.223.246 (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, right, I get you. If that happens with all programs, it strikes me as an operating system problem (though I should stress that I'm only guessing). If I were you, I'd try reinstalling OS X -- in my experience, that's a pretty painless procedure that tends to fix problems without affecting any of your settings . -- Captain Disdain (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try using Print Setup Repair [4]. Also, try reinstalling your printer drivers. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is bandwidth speed shaping legal?

My Internet connection has been shaped. I assume that is the correct term. I can see that my Internet speed is slow during some parts of the day and gradually goes up and down. It is very consistant, everyday the same results. I can see it clear as day using this Speed Test which has a graph that shows my results over time. Is it legal for my ISP to do this? How can I fix this? My ISP says they are not doing any shaping, but maybe the tech did not know what he was talking about, or I am using the wrong terminology. Please help!

Kirknoble (talk) 08:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or it may be just congestion, shaping is more slowing down specific protocols such as bittorrent or other P2P transfers which tend to saturate a network very quickly. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the afternoons, when the kids get home from school, oour Comcast cable-based broadband goes to hell and remains that way into the night. Week-ends and holidays are the same way. Like antilived, my frst thought would be congestion.

Atlant (talk) 12:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's going to depend on your jurisdiction, obviously, but I see no reason to expect it to be illegal. Most if not all ISPs have more expensive plans which provide guaranteed bandwidth at all times and for all protocols. If you don't like the throttling on the cheaper plans you can always upgrade, and that's what they'll tell you if you try to complain. -- BenRG (talk) 14:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ctrl Alt Del Box/Window

Hi, the box that opens when I hit ctrl alt del has changed!

http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=weirdwindowpm6.png

The tabs are gone, and I can't see the other stuff like the processes going on. How do I fix this to show them again? --Jeevies (talk) 09:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Double-click the frame around the window (the grey/sandy-coloured bit). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 09:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, thank you very much! --Jeevies (talk) 13:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

bestselling macbook

which of the following is bestselling totally online and offline

1)Macbook(13") 2)Macbook pro(15" & 17")

apple website says macbook oversells macbook pro. is it true

are more people buying 13" books more than 15" and 17" combined?

anyone in USA seem to think like that because people in USA know what people around you and friends are using

is macbook too small or I am thinking so?

I can't help you with the sales figures, but to answer your final question: no, it's not too small. I'm writing this very sentence on a MacBook. Of course, there are probably people reading this -- some of who may be on MacBooks themselves -- who think "no, it is too small". Is it too small for you and for the purpose you want to use it for? There's no universal size standard out there. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The MacBooks have pretty big screens, even at the smallest size. They are wide-screens so they much wider than the smallest iBook screens, for example. As for too small, too large, it depends what you are planning to do with it. Mine is large enough for everything I need to do though there are time when I wish I had a little more screen real estate when I need to do things like put MS Word in one half the screen and Adobe Reader in the other.

The advantage to a smaller laptop is that one is presumably going to be taking it places. The smallest MacBook weighs about as much as a standard college textbook and is really quite easy to tote around. That's why I got it—I don't actually want a large laptop for what I use it for, which is taking notes, doing work in coffee shops, etc. In my experience, the students who gets larger laptops later regret it, because it becomes a pain to take them anywhere and they don't end up using them as much, and the activities for which one needs a large desktop are rarer than the ones in which one wants a small computer. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You also want to consider that the laptops can be pretty-conveniently attached to a larger external screen if necessary. The 17" MacBook/Pro and the higher-end 15" MB/Pro can both drive the 30" Apple Cinema Display at full 2560x1600 resolution while still driving the built-in LCD as a separate screen so that's plenty of real-estate if you need it. Or you can attach (wirelessly, if you wish) a keyboard and mouse and close the lid and pretend the MacBook is a desktop system.

Atlant (talk) 17:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Audio streams

Does anyone know a good program that can add or remove audio streams in .avi files? Thanks. Think outside the box 09:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly do you want to do? VirtualDub can extract or add a single audio track; I haven't found how to use it with multiple soundtracks though. For removing unwanted languages in .avis that have several different soundtracks I've used VirtualDubMod. 88.112.37.214 (talk) 10:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks 88.112.37.214. Yeah, I tried VirtualDub but it didn't work, I'll check out VirtualDubMod. It's a movie with Japanese and English dub. Think outside the box 11:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A roundabout way is to use ConvertXtoDVD to convert to DVD, then DVD Shrink to remove the audio, then convert the resultant VOB's back to AVI. It's more work but a lot easier than fiddling with arcane VirtualDub settings. Sandman30s (talk) 11:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But it's easy in VirtualDubMod, and it's nowhere near roundabout. You just choose the stream you want and you can more or less extract it from the file. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

computer buggage

what is it? computer student —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.178.102.86 (talk) 11:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't do your homework. --grawity 12:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By inventing the word "buggage", it is difficult to tell if you are trying to learn more about software bug or baggage for carrying computers, such as those made by Crumpler. A cool advantage to using real words is that others have the chance to know what you are asking. -- kainaw ™ 13:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently you can get a buggage allowance from China Airlines. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what it's supposed to mean, but it sounds vaguely obscene. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try Software bug. 71.184.223.246 (talk) 15:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the question at the Help Desk, he's asking about the Y2K Bug -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

deleting google history

How can i delete search history in google? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.70.64.15 (talk) 15:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the Google homepage, log in to your Google account. Click, "Web History." Select, "Remove Items" from the left menubar. Click "Clear entire Web History »" . Click, "Clear History" on the confirmation box. Note that these instructions assume you are talking about the history stored in Google's system. If you mean the history stored by your browser that is associated with Google's search box, you'll need to indicate what browser you are using for instructions. 71.184.223.246 (talk) 15:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What have you been searching for? :) ----Seans Potato Business 19:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to extract the content from a wiki page and transfer the information to a database.

Hi,

How to extract content from a wiki page through a script. This wiki contains tables, and the information should go to a database. I assume, we can extract content from a wiki page preferably in a html format, and convert the same to a xml file, and add to the database. I'm new to programming. If somebody thinks of a better idea, please let me know at arjm24@yahoo.com

Thanks, Arun —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.94.194 (talk) 16:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, you can jump right to the XML format. Take a look at the page Wikipedia:Export. This will give you all the information you need on extracting Wikipedia pages in XML format. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 17:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has database dumps which you can use to get the entire Wikipedia. These are available in wikitext or html. To get the wikitext of a single page, use action=raw in the url. For getting only a few pages, lists of pages in categories there is API. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

computer sound

the sound coming through the speakers on my computer has been deleted how do i get this back on? speakers are on and connected properly the software doesn't exist anymore when it did up to a few weeks ago please help it's driving me nuts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.101.105.82 (talk) 21:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello - can you tell us more? Which software are you talking about: the Windows volume control [5]; Windows Media Player; a special volume control that came with your sound card (eg Creative Labs); or something else? Does any sound ever play, or does sound work in some circumstances (eg: does it work in computer games, but not in youtube)? --h2g2bob (talk) 22:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Computers

(moved from Entertainment refdesk) — QuantumEleven 08:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does a computer really work. I mean like, the whole processing ordeal, and memory usage, oh and how does a computer know what you are plugging into the USB port like MP3 players? 71.126.17.239 (talk) 22:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)Andy[reply]

On our Computer page you'll find a link here Central processing unit. Please feel free to ask back if there's something you don't understand, you still have questions or if it's too difficult. Universal Serial Bus should have an answer to your last question. Hope this helps.--71.236.23.111 (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this in the entertainment section? But you should also have a look at ALU, cache, address bus, and maybe scheduling to start. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. There is also a computing ref desk that would probably get you more responses. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Plenty of people use computers primarily for entertainment! —Tamfang (talk) 08:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you want this in layman's terms, so I'll try to explain in the same way I explain to my ten-year old. Inside your rectangular box is a motherboard which binds all the other components together and lets them talk to each other. The CPU is responsible for logic and computations. Your operating system and application instructions are broken down to a basic level that the CPU can understand, such as MUL to multiply two numbers or JE which is a jump to go something else if some condition is equal. Then you have your memory chips which store information temporarily as opposed to your hard drive which stores information permanently. Memory is important as it is MUCH faster than hard drives and a lot of computation goes on between CPU and memory. Then you have add-on cards, such as a graphics card, that plugs into the motherboard and depending on how good the card is, will allow you to run graphics-intensive apps such as games at higher speeds. For example, if you type A on your keyboard, the keyboard controller chip accepts the character, sends it via a bus along the motherboard to the CPU, which converts it to its raw ASCII equivalent, then sends it along to the video controller which sends it to your screen. If you're running a modern game, there are millions of interactions and computations going on per second. In terms of your USB question, there is a chip in the USB device that talks to your USB controller on your motherboard, and the whole process continues from there. There is obviously much more, but I hope this is a good start for a basic understanding. With the complexity of modern computers, I'm surprised that they actually work! Sandman30s (talk) 09:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With the trillions ^{[citation needed]} of dollars involved in the computing industry, I'm surprised they work as poorly as they do. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, you must just have a crappy one, mine works fine :-D Atyndall93 | talk 11:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a former software developer (who wrote his first programs on punched cards) I approach every computer-related task with the assumption that it will go horribly wrong or take at least twice as long as I expect. When all goes smoothly I am pleasantly surprised. My wife, OTOH, assumes the technology will all work prefectly first time, and becomes sad and frustrated when it doesn't. No right or wrong here - just different outlooks. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever something doesn't work on for me on Windows, I say "#!%$@& Microsoft and their crappy OS". Whenever something does work for me on Linux, I say "how great FOSS is!". -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aah my brain is exploding over how overly simplistic that is :( --.froth. (talk) 14:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, froth, someday, somehow, you'll learn the difference between being useful and strictly accurate. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:49, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry froth I could have given a typical geek answer to "how computers work" but I don't think the OP would have understood much. Funny, though, what your ten-year old can understand and your mother-in-law can't. Sandman30s (talk) 20:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 29

bandwidth of skype

Hi, can anyone tell me what is the bandwidth of skype, both with and without video? I know that this can vary, but can anyone give an approximate maximum and minimum? thanks in advance, 130.95.106.128 (talk) 11:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC) Also please note, I have looked through the Skype article, but I couldn't find the answer, and the word "bandwidth" doesn't appear in the document (according to my Explorer search function). 130.95.106.128 (talk) 11:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The skype website quotes a minimum of 3kb/s and a maximum of 16kb/s but I am going to look into it further for you. It also says "it is not possible to give estimations about the used bandwidth during a video call." Atyndall93 | talk 11:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably because their video bandwidth scales with quality, allowing them to use all of the available bandwidth for maximum quality, and significantly less bandwidth if less is available (at reduced frame rate and picture integrity). Nimur (talk) 15:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those answers. I actually just checked the website, and on their q&a forum, it said that the bandwidth was 3 to 16 kiloBYTES per second. So if Atyndall could confirm if s/he has misquoted (kb/s means kilobits per sec, I think), I would appreciate that, but if not, thanks for finding that for me, because I didn't think to check outside of wikipedia (well, actually, I was at uni when I wrote, and they don't provide google access anyway, scumbags :) ). 203.221.127.63 (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox - link captions

Webpages have links to objects. Many objects have, as part of the link, a caption. Sometimes, the caption is longer than Firefox wants to display, so it breaks the caption, and appends several periods to show that part of the caption was not displayed. F'rexample, the page http://www.xkcd.com/427/ has a cartoon in the middle of the page. If I place my mouse over the cartoon, I get a little popup that says "Protip: Even without the red spiders, never have that conversation halfway through a ..." However, if I check the page source, the HTML coughs up the following snippet:

title="Protip: Even without the red spiders, never have that conversation halfway through a balloon ride."

How can we modify Firefox to show a longer caption than the the apparent display limit of 85 characters? Or, is there a command to show the rest? If I want to see the whole thing, is there any better solution than checking the source code? -SandyJax (talk) 14:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For your last question, I right-click the cartoon and select Properties. That still requires scrolling the ~~alt-text~~ title field, but it's probably a tad more convenient than doing a view source. This Add-On looks like it might be useful. --LarryMac | Talk 15:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After further research, and looking at an XKCD page source, I see that they are using the "title" attribute, not "alt" - which is the correct way to do it, according to this article. The add-on linked above is probably not going to help (at least on XKCD, I'm sure that some pages do use alt expecting it to show as a tool-tip). So now, why is title limited to 85 characters? Onward with my research . . . --LarryMac | Talk 15:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This extension works on title attributes. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)}

This issue is fixed in Firefox 3. You can download Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 here. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 15:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you have an hour to waste, this bugzilla thread spans nearly seven years, with all kinds of back and forth sniping. Finally at the very end of the thread it is revealed that, as Matt says, the fix is in FF3. --LarryMac | Talk 16:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, everyone! I'll wait for formal release before I put FF3 on an income-producing machine. LarryMac: In Bugzilla's defence, that bug report was for SeaMonkey. It's not surprising that it stayed open for so long, if people kept chiming in to complain that the same issue cropped up in other products, too. A lot of those comments look like they should have been separate bug reports. Of course, a lot of them WERE, but got added to this, so, yeah, 8 years. -SandyJax (talk) 16:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that FF3 is pretty stable and reliable. The only problems I have ever encountered on it were that some of the plugins I used had not yet been rewritten for FF3, so if you are plug-in dependent you might put off upgrading, but otherwise, I would just jump in. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not the first one to have been irritated by this. Fortunately, some of the others who were have come up with their own solutions:

Install Greasemonkey.
Go to http://www.userscripts.org/.
Search for "xkcd".

—Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Unavailable" Google video

[6], [7] Does the tag mean it's been removed or literally that it will one day be there again? I tried a couple of times over the months and other vids work fine! Or does anyone know an alternative place I could watch the episodes (a cache or mirror of Google Video?)? Thanks ╟─TreasuryTag (talk ╬ contribs)─╢ 18:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 30

coding

I know AP computer science material, but if I want to really program, like a professional would, where do I go from there? Books or web resources would be helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.185.132.242 (talk) 01:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of books on programming. Most of them are not very good. Here's a nice posting from fairly interesting programming blogger about what types of books there are and which ones he's found valuable. It's an interesting blog post, both in its recommendations as well as its general discussion of the question as to whether or not "real" programmers actually read books. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 01:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you really want to get good at programming, program. You learn alot by just goofing around with code, and instead of relying solely on textbooks you can also learn from coding communities and forums. Computer science texts certainly are useful, but without a guide (i.e. teacher) they can be pretty dense to work through on your own. Just poke around, programming communities are a dime a dozen. --Shaggorama (talk) 07:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help me find a good laptop?

So, I don't know if this is the kind of thing for this page. But if someone feels like jumping on board and helping out, that'd be great :).

Anyways, I'm looking for a laptop, meeting this requirements:

Brand: HP/Compaq, Sony, Toshiba, Acer
OS: Windows XP or Vista
Processor: Intel or AMD. If Vista, able to run it well. Though the Centrino Core™ 2 Duo Processor is nice. 32 or 64 bit.
RAM: 2GB
Video: Not an issue (not my game machine)
Screen: at least 15"
Optical: DVD read, cd read/write, DVD write is unnecessary
Wireless: 802.11b/g
Fullsize keyboard

Other than that, as inexpensive as possible.

Little of this is absolutely critical so if you find a good deal that doesn't meet something here, let me know (except no Dells please). If someone feels like taking on this challenge and finds a great deal I end up picking up I can't really offer you anything, but I'd do 10 "community-service" hours of RC patrolling in your honor :). Thank you.

Peace, Chris M. (talk) 03:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can it be refurbished? If so, here's this one. If not, what is your maximum price? Useight (talk) 06:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to keep it under 700 if possible, but if there's an amazing $800 one, then that'd be cool too :). Refurb isn't bad, and that one is pretty good. Chris M. (talk) 07:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one that's got a faster CPU and more hard drive space for $699 or there's this one for $599 if you don't mind a no-name brand. Useight (talk) 18:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is the 4th-largest computer manufacturer in the world a no-name brand? .froth. (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You've probably heard of Lenovo's laptop division under another name: IBM. --Carnildo (talk) 20:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so IBM owns 6.7% of Lenovo. I still consider it an inferior good. When I purchase expensive things, I want a well-known brand, not one that'll look like this. I guess I just have to keep up with the Joneses. Useight (talk) 21:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not about the 6% ownership, it's about the fact that Lenovo took over all of IBM's personal computer division. What used to be IBM (like ThinkPads) are now Lenovo. It's the same thing. As for what you don't like about that photo, I don't know. It looks like all IBM laptops do/did. They're not bad machines at all. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What I don't like about that picture of the laptop is that it says "lenovo" on it. If it said "IBM" then that'd be different. If I was carrying that around and someone was like, "Lenovo?" and then I have to explain, "Oh, it's just like an IBM ThinkPad, just repackaged in anther brand." I don't think so. Useight (talk) 16:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I was going to recommend a Dell just like the one I'm using right now, but it seems the OP isn't interested in Dells. I'm sure you can use a price comparison site like Nextag to find what you want at a price you're happy with - like this Toshiba perhaps? Astronaut (talk) 14:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

computer lore

Found this somewhere on wikipedia:

"Another example is a program's source listing that was formatted to resemble an empty tic-tac-toe board. Each pass through the program modified the sourcecode to show a turn in the game, to be executed for the next move."

This sounds absolutely fascinating to me.. does anyone have a copy of the code? Do you have any idea how jaw-dropping it would be to code a self-modifying ELIZA/figlet? .froth. (talk) 05:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh found it already. Even more fascinating is that it's self-modifying not only in the sense that it writes its moves onto itself, but also that it apparently uses a changing "strategy" bit mask to learn how best to defeat its opponent after successive games o_o .froth. (talk) 05:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be sure to check out the other IOCCC entries as well. There's a high proportion of amazing ones. -- BenRG (talk) 06:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Music Software Titles And Music Making Software

Does anyone know anywhere you can get music software titles or music making softare except these places?

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, so I'll post it at Entertainment as well. Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 07:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

you may find Category:Free audio editors interesting. Audacity is a popular freeware music editing program. If you don't want to download any software, the Beaterator is an award winning music maker that works in-browser. --Shaggorama (talk) 07:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS

What is Macromedia flash as a multimedia tool?41.209.23.34 (talk) 13:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this your homework? Try reading Adobe Flash. --grawity 14:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

telecoms

what is crosstalk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.36.213.57 (talk) 13:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Crosstalk (electronics) --LarryMac | Talk 13:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's this symbol called?

What is the circle and line symbol seen on many computers called? -- penubag (talk) 15:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a power symbol (or possibly specifically a standby symbol). Algebraist 15:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Algebraist! -- penubag (talk) 16:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Floppy disk of death! (no virus needed)

Hello, I recently found out of a way to supposedly damage your computer (physically) with a floppy disk, and I wanted to hear some considerations on its feasibility. The instructions are simple: open the floppy disk cover, and cover the exposed disk with a thin layer of pulverized match heads and nail polish remover. Reassemble the disk, and try to read it on a computer. The mixture will supposedly ignite and burst your computer to flames (or at least scorch your floppy drive). Is this possible? Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 16:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found a couple links that describe the method but nothing that seems more reliable than your typical Anarchist Cookbook sort of stuff, which if you've never read it, it's not all that accurate all the time either. Dismas|^(talk) 18:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supposing that it does ignite, it's not going to set the computer on fire, unless you somehow manage to put a lot of nail polish in that floppy, enough to make it leak out of the floppy drive and drip into the computer. I'm pretty sure it'll put the drive in question out of commission for good even if it doesn't ignite, though -- but then you could probably manage that just by lighting a couple of matches and sticking them into the drive through the slot, or by taking a pressurized can of shaving cream and shooting that stuff into the drive. Or just sticking a ruler in and rattling it around for a while. It's not like they're terribly robust pieces of equipment that are hard to break. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, who uses floppy disks anymore? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this were true, I would expect to find videos on YouTube, but I can't. APL (talk) 02:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

watching TV in a computer monitor?

I want a 15" thing for watching TV. Will a 15" LCD monitor do good? I think TV is 640 X 480 resolution and 15" LCD monitor is 1024 X 768. will watching non high definition TV in a 15" computer monitor be as good as watching TV in a 15 inch flat CRT TV?

what can I choose? a)15" CRT TV b)15" LCD monitor itself —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.104.149 (talk) 17:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is that a standard computer monitor does not have a television tuner in it. So, you need a separate tuner. Then, you have to ensure that there is some way to get the video signal from the tuner to the monitor. This is not always easy. Most 15" monitors have basic SVGA connectors. The newer ones are coming out with DVI connectors. Tuners, on the other hand, are commonly from cable/satellite companies or a DVD/Video recorder. Either way, you likely have an RCA and a SVGA source out of those (since you specifically didn't mention HDTV formats). So, assuming the most common equipment found in homes today... you need to figure out how to convert that RCA connector on the cable box to SVGA (yes, there are converters, but they are expensive). -- kainaw ™ 18:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I can resolve connecting issues because my DTH provider gives LCD TV option. But I am just asking whether watching TV in a 15" LCD monitor will be of good quality, a quality got when watched through LCD TV or CRT TV. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.104.149 (talk) 18:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Analog TV is not quite 640x480, depending on where you are check out PAL or NTSC. To answer your question, LCD monitors are interchangeable with LCD TV's which are essentially monitors with built-in tuners to accept a signal, so yes the resolution quality would be the same. Of course there are other factors such as colour depth and so on, but it all boils down to "you get what you pay for", and "size counts"... Sandman30s (talk) 20:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

phone security with voip and broadband

Some years back, when the internet was young(ish), and everyone was using dialup, there were various fraudulent tricks where someone would hijack your internet connection, and use the phone line to dial a premium service, charging by the minute. Our beloved phone company, Telstra, of course made the victim pay up. Is this still possible in the days of broadband, or is it bypassed because people aren't using the phone connection directly to access the internet? Does the presence of a voip line make any difference, and is naked dsl different to normal adsl? thanks, 203.221.127.63 (talk) 20:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(There's an article: Dialer#Fraudulent dialers)

Your existing Internet connection actually has nothing to do with that scam, except for being the medium through which the malicious program was given to you. The required ingredients are:

You have a modem with a phone line plugged in.
You are dumb enough to run a program you found on a porno web site, or (even worse) in an unsolicited email message.
Your phone company is unforgiving of your stupidity.

DSL modems generally don't qualify for the first part since they don't have the ability to make or receive phone calls. It needs to be a modem that knows how to dial.

The situation is really not very different from a child picking up the phone and dialing a toll number without parental permission. In one case, you lost control of your kid. In the other case, you lost control of your computer. If the phone company doesn't get the money from you, they're stuck arguing with the toll number operator about whether his business is fraudulent, based on your claim that you were tricked into dialing his number. They don't like doing that. It's much easier to make you pay for your mistake.

If your VOIP service allows you to dial toll numbers (and charges you for them) then it could potentially be used the same way. Having little VOIP experience and no experience attempting to dial 1-900 numbers over VOIP, I'll leave that question open for someone else. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thumbnail cache

I have been given an image, which is confidential, so it's been watermarked. HOWEVER - the thumbnail I'm seeing in Windows XP Explorer has no watermark, so I guess it's the original file showing through or something. Question is - how do I get at it? Thanks. ╟─TreasuryTag (talk ╬ contribs)─╢ 21:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I assume it's showing you the Exif thumbnail. Ask google for an exif thumbnail extractor. You won't find the full-size original in there though. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or Try deleting thumbs.db (hidden file) in the same directory as the image to make Windows regenerate the thumbnail. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A little bot job

Hi all,

I don't know whether this would be better here or at WP:BOTR; please move it there if that's where it should be. I was wondering if a bot genius would be able to make a bot complete the task listed at the very bottom of the documentation in Template:Languageicon/Notes.

That is, to add template documentation to all of the pages in Category:Language icons (except obviously the first two). Also, to remove [[Category:Language icons]] from the template. Then, to create /doc subpages for all of them with the same, uniform text, this:

{{Documentation subpage}}<!-- PLEASE ADD CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE -->
==Usage==
{{Languageicon/Notes}}


<includeonly><!-- CATEGORIES AND INTERWIKIS HERE, THANKS -->
[[Category:Language icons]]
</includeonly>

Well, if it could be done, that'd be great. An example's at {{es icon}}. It might be a bit tricky as some of the templates have empty template documentation at the moment. Thanks, Drum guy (talk) 23:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed the redirect from Cat:Language_icons so it's not in the category anymore. .froth. (talk) 02:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May 31

Multi-core motherboard

Are there any motherboards that include slots for 4 core 2 processors? And preferably with at least 3 pci slots. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.126.229.235 (talk) 00:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Core 2 processors are designed for uniprocessor operation. You'll need an Intel Xeon for multiprocessor systems. Rilak (talk) 07:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there are Core 2 Extremes in LGA771 format..See Intel Skulltrail. Of course, the Core 2 Extreme QX9775 is little different from a Xeon really, but then again, AFAIK so are the other Core 2s except for the fact that they are LGA775 with MP support disablled and not perhaps tested as extensively Nil Einne (talk) 14:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good Fonts to Use?

I'm writing a story intended for pseudo-publication online, and I because of the division of continuity it involves, I came to the decision that I should render different characters' perspectives in different fonts. Thus, Chapter 1, which is written from the perspective of Alpha, would be in Font A, and Chapter 2, in the spirit of Beta, would be in Font B. There are other more artistic reasons I came to this decision, but further elaboration isn't relevant to the question. Anyway, I was wondering: What fonts should I use? I could use standard fonts, like Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, and Comic Sans, but frankly, I'm not comfortable with those; I've never been comfortable using Comic Sans, and as for Courier New, I'd rather none of the fonts be fixed and save those for specific circumstances as is usually the case according to major manuals of style (to indicate a computer readout, for example). Furthermore, Times New Roman is the only one with the "attention" (serif, attention to kerning, heights of the base line and descenders, support for slightly obscure characters) that I feel comfortable using; although, I sometimes wish it had better Unicode support. Is anyone aware of any repository or guide to professional fonts that I can use that provide a distinct "flavor" to each, a wide(-ish) range of support in terms of characters, without each being too "different" or "unique" to the point of being distracting (which is all too easy to achieve when choosing a font)?

Deshi no Shi (talk) 04:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In books I've read with a "division of continuity", the different narratives have been indicated by a differing chapter title scheme (eg. "Chapter 3", "Chapter III", "Chapter 4", "Chapter IV", etc...), or they have used normal font for one narrative, and italic for the other.

If you pick distinctive but unusual font, you stand the chance that people will not be able to read your story because the required font is not installed on their computer. It is probably best to stick with the same fonts that appear everywhere else. When I've written reports, I've generally followed the advice I was given long ago - keep the font changes to a minimum (ie. preferably one font family plus a fixed-width font for code samples; bold, underlining or italic for emphasis; larger point sizes and bold for headings), try to avoid colour either in the text or as a background (it doesn't photocopy or print well), never use flashing text (it gives some people headaches). You also need to consider that the readers may have a variety of accessability issues (eg. colour blindness, dyslexia), or may use other operating system and browser combinations which don't have some fonts installed.

Astronaut (talk) 14:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about using different background and/or font colors instead of different fonts? Seems much simpler and much easier to make to work. --72.78.237.206 (talk) 17:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Making sure that you use a fot color that contrasts with the background well enough and so on, of course. Kushal (talk) 17:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Extra Tool Browser

How can I get rid of an extra toolbar from my web browser, you know the ones that attach on that are called Seekmo and give extra options like freescore.com and playphone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.166.184 (talk) 12:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the browser you are using, you might have the ability to right click on your menu bar. You can uncheck any toolbar you want to hide from there. However, in your case, it seems to be a sign of a larger problem (hint:spyware). Please make sure that your computer is safe and secure. I would recommend a full virus scan (with ClamWin or AVG Free) and a spyware search (with Spybot Search & Destroy or Lavasoft's antispyware software). These resources are available free of cost on the Internet. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Kushal (talk) 13:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seekmo is an adware product by Zango, a well-known adware vendor that promises you free content in exchange for displaying ads. The standard anti-spyware programs should work against this, and I even think Zango themselves offer an uninstaller (maybe, though given their track record, I wouldn't trust any software from them, even if it is an uninstaller). bCube _{(talk | contribs)} 23:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding videos to DeVeDe (software)

hello, I am using DeVeDe on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Wubi installation) on a Toshiba Satellite MM55-S135. I am using DeVeDe to create iso of a video dvd which will be full of very short (about 10 MB to 50 MB each) videos that we shot in family events. I have around 200 of such files to put on the iso. However, adding each of them manually is a pain. Ctrl-A, Shift-click, and control-click all do not work. What should I do? Is scripting the only way? If so, how can I do it? Please let me know. Kushal (talk) 13:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS: A few days after installing Ubuntu (Wubi), Windows XP miraculously recognized my DVD-RAM drive (which I was having issues with earlier).

Displaying the gradient when optimizing in R

I am learning Program R primarily to find maximum likelihood estimates of parameters in statistical models using optim(). I am not specifying derivatives or partial derivatives. Instead I am letting R approximate them. However, I would like to know the values of those approximations at the maximum value of the likelihood.

Is there some way to tell R to display the approximations of the derivatives or partial derivatives at the maximum value of the likelihood?

An example of an optim() statement in my code might be:

fit = optim(par=c(0.5,0,0,0), fn=negLL, method='BFGS', hessian=TRUE)

I tried following that statement with:

fit$gradient

but that only returned the word ‘NULL’ regardless of whether I remove ‘hessian=TRUE’ from the optim() statement.

Thank you for any help with this.

Mark W. Miller (talk) 13:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Explorer

Is there any way to save or back up my last few weeks of History in Internet Explorer? Black Carrot (talk)

I don't know if there is any particular way to do that or not, but perhaps you could visit all the sites in your history and one by one add them to your favourites? Adam (Manors) 16:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because of the proprietary formats Microsoft uses, if you want to be able to restore the history later, your best bet is probably to use some third party software. Try this one: [8] If you just want to save or browse your history, check out this page: [9] Indeterminate (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concatenated SMS

Does anyone know more about concatenated SMSes (1 long message sent as multiple SMSes). According to the article (and it's sourced) there is a 5 byte header in the user data leaving you 135 bytes, enough for 153 7 bit characters. The 153 seems right from my own experience, but if you have 135 bytes, that's enough for 154 7 bit characters (135*8=1080; 1080/7=154.29) so there must be something else. Is an extra byte needed to tell the phone to start 7 bit 'mode' or something? Note that a normal 140 byte SMS is 160 7 bit characters, as we would expect (there is an additional non user-data header) Nil Einne (talk) 14:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TV PC

Does watching TV through a tv computer card mean you don't need a license? I read somewhere that portable battery tvs don't need a license (it would very hard to enforce, wouldn't it?) so what if your tv card was in a laptop. I live in England. Eff wone (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This page is pretty informative about the requirements for a TV license on a computer. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you need a TV License even if you watch through a TV-card in your PC, but you might already be covered if your household already has a TV license for the other TVs there. The official site here has all the information. The penalty for not having a license is a £1000 fine - but they have to catch you first :-) Astronaut (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You always need a license or you will be fined - in a perfect world. The chances are you won't be found for a long time (if at all) and as you don't have a TV they still might have no case to get you. Not that I'm condoning anything. Adam (Manors) 16:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

shell script

(Running Linux) What would a shell script look like, that would prevent a user from being logged in between certain hours of the day? I want to make computer unavailable for use from between, say, 9pm and 9am. Any ideas how to do this? Thx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.110.174.74 (talk) 15:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the following to /etc/profile would do it:

 hour=$(date +%H)
 if [ $hour -lt 9 -o $hour -gt 21 ] && [ $USER = badusername ]; then
   echo "Sorry, you can't log in now"
   sleep 1
   exit
 fi

I think I got the logic for the hours right. It's not foolproof, since they could hit ^C to kill the script, but it's simple. --Sean 17:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really, what I wanted with this was to make it so that I can't turn on my computer (I'm the only user) between certain hours so that I get to bet on time. So I suppose I could replace exit with /sbin/shutdown -h now and get that sort of effect. Or is there something that can be done to make it difficult to turn on the machine in the first place? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.110.174.74 (talk) 18:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC) Now that I think about it, couldn't I just use crontab? That would be the easy choice, that I think should have been obvious to me! :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.110.174.74 (talk) 18:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than using a shell script, you ought to use the PAM module called pam_time. The functionality is built into every linux system I know of. -- JSBillings 19:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

error importing movie into iMovieHD 06

Hello, when I want to move a video from a handy cam on to iMovie HD in my Macbook with OS X Tiger, I get the error "The file could not be imported: The file “Macintosh HD/Volumes/NO NAME/Documents/Videos/DCIM/M2U00145.MPG” can’t be imported; QuickTime couldn’t parse it: -2048" How can the issue be resolved? Thank you. Kushal (talk) 18:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try to watch it via VLC, and watch out if VLC gives any errors. 88.217.56.36 (talk) 21:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wrong 'drive'

hi....major yet apparently 'small' problem

i have an external hard drive......which was the E' Drive' (as in computer HD is 'C' and CD Roms are 'D' etc) yet someone has someow managed to make it into the 'G' drive. The Ex hrd drive works fine but the problem is that any files on my computer linked with them (and there are a lot!) are looking for the link with the 'E' drive not the 'G' as it now is.....eg: its looking for: 'E:\[name of file]'......how do i change it back to the 'E' and not the 'G'

i am on windows Xp......

thanks, --81.77.2.11 (talk) 19:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After the fixed devices on your PC have been identified during boot, drive letters are allocated dynamically. Probably some other devices have "taken" drives E and F. Have you plugged in a card reader, USB drive, external CD/DVD, phone, or other such device? Use Windows Explorer to find out what drives E and F currently are. Alternatively, have you installed any new drives in the computer case, or repartitioned any existing drives? Astronaut (talk) 20:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

XP comes with a program "Computer management" (On my PC it is down "Start | Programs | Administrative Tools | Computer Management", but I probably moved it to that when I got the PC.) Select "Storage | Disk mamagement". Look at the list of volumes and change as required using "right click | Change drive letter and paths" -- SGBailey (talk) 21:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Super NES question

Today I bought a Super NES at a yard sale and installed it. I used the "multi output," and made sure red was plugged into red, white into white and yellow into yellow on the TV. I turned it on with a game called Xardion (I don't have any other cartridges to test at the moment). I made sure the cartridge was plugged in as firmly as possible, but I couldn't get it completely tight. The image I got was a mess of mostly magenta blocks and lines on a black background, and only a small part of it in the upper left corner responded to buttons on either controller. Should I blame the SNES or the cartridge? Neon Merlin 19:39, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the easiest thing to do first is to clean both the SNES and the cartridge. Use a q-tip and a little rubbing alcohol if you have it, and make sure the connectors are clean (let them dry before running it again). A bad connection can produce things like what you described. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I plugged in the Super UFO (a diskette-drive extension for the NES) and its menus show up just fine. Neon Merlin 20:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My bet is still that it's some kind of dirty component. It's a classic thing for those cartridge machines—if the connectors get dirty (which is easy) they give you all sorts of gobbledygook. A little rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip on the copper ends works wonderfully. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I second the suggestion to clean the connections. I think it may also be a problem in the power supply. If that fails - can you contact the person from whom you bought it? Perhaps he has some cartridges you can try the console on.

I'm sure ZSNES will give you less trouble. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 23:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Javascript question

I have a bit of Javascript for a little web app I am doing that intercepts keystrokes and, if they are of a certain type, sets the focus on a given INPUT control.

Here's the guts of it:?

function keypress(e) {
	var keynum;
	var keychar;
	if(window.event) // IE
	  {
	  keynum = e.keyCode;
	  }
	else if(e.which) // Netscape/Firefox/Opera
	  {
	  keynum = e.which;
	  }
	keychar = String.fromCharCode(keynum);
	if(!input_author_hasfocus&&!input_to_hasfocus&&!input_date_hasfocus) {
		if(keychar=="A"||keychar=="a") { document.getElementById("input_author").focus(); }
		if(keychar=="T"||keychar=="t") { document.getElementById("input_to").focus();  }
		if(keychar=="D"||keychar=="d") { document.getElementById("input_date").focus();  }
		if(keychar=="F"||keychar=="f") valselect(1);
		if(keychar=="P"||keychar=="p") valselect(2);
		if(keychar=="N"||keychar=="n") valselect(3);
		if(keychar=="S"||keychar=="s") submitdata();
	}	
}

In Firefox this works fine (called from the onkeypress even of the BODY element). When I hit "A", it goes to my INPUT with the ID of "input_author" and just gives it focus. However in Safari it does that and then types the character "A" in the input line. I don't want it to do that.

Which of the two is being standards compliant? And how should I work around the issue in Safari? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd guess Firefox is more standards compliant - I've noticed problems with JavaScript on Konqueror (which uses the same html processing code). The best way to do this is to use access keys instead. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Funny story... apparently the standards for key events are basically a mess [10] [11]. However, the specifications give two ways to stop events from continuing after you've handled them (preventDefault() and stopPropagation()) [12]. Unfortunately, Safari is (or at least used to be) buggy and would happily call those methods, do nothing, and return success [13]. So it looks like you might have a hard time working around the issue, unless Safari has fixed the issue. You can test it on that last page I linked to. Indeterminate (talk) 20:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Opera has problems with CSS at nearly every site

Somehow, my Opera install has now **** up CSS rendering, so that sites are unusable, for example the Wikipedia sidebar is at the bottom of the page, ect. Bringing up the Error Console will show a host of CSS related problems. --86.6.44.95 (talk) 20:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

C: Int to string

I want to do a string from different integers. I was going to use sprintf but I would like to make the string of the same size, for example int 1 becomes "001", 12 becomes "012" and 123 becomes "123". How is it done? Bastard Soap (talk) 20:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

sprintf(yourbuffer, "%03d", theint) will add enough leading zeros to make the number at least 3 digits long. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PHP & socket_accept & annoying problem

Hi all,

I run php5 on cygwin (yea, it's a shame^^); and I want to do some stuff with socket binding (I want to create some test server); but somewhere in the code there must be a problem, but I can't spot it:

<?PHP
$sock_l=socket_create(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,SOL_TCP) or die ("Socket creation failed!\n");
socket_bind($sock_l,null,31337) or die ("Socket bind failed!\n");
socket_set_nonblock($sock_l) or die("Unblock socket failed!\n");
while (1) {
	if($sock_t=socket_accept($sock_l)) { socket_getpeername($sock_l, $raddr, $rport); }
}
?>

It fails in socket_access: " Warning: socket_accept(): unable to accept incoming connection [22]: Invalid argument in /cygdrive/c/Dokumente und Einstellungen/Marco/Eigene Dateien/dev/spd/spd.php on line 9".

Any idea what causes this mess? Thanks, 88.217.56.36 (talk) 21:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC) PS: Using debug print's (which I removed here for the sake of length, WP is not pastebin), I know the socket is valid after socket_set_nonblock($sock_l) and there are no errors up to this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.217.56.36 (talk) 21:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know PHP, but in other languages when using the Berkeley socket API you have to do a "listen" before you can "accept". --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 22:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]