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October 16

Youtube

Are there any Youtube users who have died? February 15, 2009 (talk) 02:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a silly question, so let me clarify. Do you mean "have any of the regular users (whether just viewers or also those who have uploaded) of youtube died of causes not related to using youtube?" because naturally the answer is yes. Can you be more specific if that's not what you meant? DaRkAgE7 _[Talk] 02:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube has hundreds of thousands if not millions of users on it at the moment. Statistically speaking it is rather impossible that some YouTube users have not died. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In a somewhat related point there was an article (I can't find right now but worth searching for) that covered the rather interesting point around death on the internet. When someone dies in the real world there internet accounts/etc. don't instantly disappear, they continue and will sit there pretty much indefinitely. Infact it's pretty difficult to get rid of the accounts of dead people, as the process isn't really embedded into the organisation of user accounts. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably the article you are referring to. - Akamad (talk) 02:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wireless Network w/o Modem

How do I setup a home network for my PC without a modem? I have a cat5 outlet in the wall of my apartment, and I'm not sure if it's DSL or Cable. I just got a router that came with this computer I bought, but the only instructions are for a modem-fed connection. The router is a WBR 1310, and though it seems cheap, it ought to work [but doesn't]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Osuryan (talk • contribs) 04:52, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need a modem to setup a home-network, but if you want that home-network to be able to connect to the internet you will need a modem. The Modem serves the function of connecting you to the net, whilst the router allows you to share files/resources/services (such as printers/internet) across mulitple PCs within the network. Do you want a home-network in the share-files across multiple PCs sense, or do you want a home-network in the 1 internet connection shared by all the pcs in the house sense? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If your computer can get to the Internet when you plug its Ethernet port directly into the wall - then you should be able to plug the router into the wall and your computer into the router - and it should all "just work" regardless of whether the hole in the wall is DSL or cable. If it doesn't - then there are a few possibilities:

One of the cables you are using is faulty. Try plugging the computer directly into the wall with each cable in turn - can you still reach the Internet? If one of the cables doesn't work - then it's faulty. Toss it out and get a replacement.
What you think is just a dumb router is actually something intelligent like a WiFi router. If so, then it ought to come with a manual that describes how to set it up. Typically, you plug the computer into the router, then fire up IE or Firefox and visit a website that is hosted on the router itself(!) - mine is at "http:192.168.1.1". However, even in these cases, the default setup is typically exactly what you need.
Perhaps you have a faulty router.

When you arrive at a situation where your computer is plugged into the router and the router into the wall - and the computer can still get out to the Internet - then you can plug more computers into the router and they should "just work" too. It's remotely possible that the company that is providing you with Internet service may not allow you to connect multiple computers - in which case you have a problem...but that too can be fixed - albeit with some issues. Another matter is that communication BETWEEN your computers isn't protected when you go this route. They can't tell when a message is coming from a computer in your apartment - or from the big-wide-world - which makes good security a little tricky.

The fix for both of those problems is to set up a 'firewall' computer. I use a really ancient machine that's no good for anything modern - it runs Linux and has two Ethernet cards. One of the ethernet cards talks to the Internet - the other talks to the router and all of my other computers, printers, cameras, game consoles and other ethernet 'stuff'. Since only one computer is connected to the outside world, my ISP can't tell how many machines I'm really hooking up to the net - and since all of the machines in my house can talk to each other without the firewall passing data out to the outside world, I can use insecure (but very convenient) protocols inside the house (stuff like sharing all the files on every computer with every other computer without passwords being needed) - in the sure and certain knowledge that my firewall won't let people outside the house do anything nasty to me. Setting that up is beyond the scope of what we can explain here. But I'm sure there are online resources that could help you out. If that's the level of sophistication you need. SteveBaker (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually both of those things should be already solved by a router. A router acts as one device to the Internet. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 18:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Executable Jar File

What is it and how can I open it? --Omidinist (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To run it, use java -jar foo.jar. To see what is inside, unzip it (most popular archivers will recognise it as what it really is, a ZIP file). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 08:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --Omidinist (talk) 16:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I should add to that: although JAR was originated by Sun as a Java programming language archive, it has come into use by various Mozilla projects (chiefly the Mozilla Firefox web browser) to store executable Javascript code and related files. These are now used to implement Mozilla project stuff like user interfaces, dictionaries, browser plugins, and other stuff. I'm not clear, from your question, whether you're sure about the origin of the particular JAR file. In both its Java and Javascript guises, a JAR file can contain code as powerful and potentially harmful as any other executable, so it's wise to exercise care in deciding what to open. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

using vista

my operating system is vista basic. i can't type C program in full screen mode. After pressing alt+enter there is message given by OS is " full screen mode not supported in your system" this is was the message. could you give a solution and a reason for this problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NaveenSRM (talk • contribs) 10:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried installing the drivers for your graphics card? If you don't know what card it is go to your search bar (on the start menu) and type dxdiag, and hit enter. Then click the Display tab at the top of the new window (it may be called Display 1), and the details are there. If you need help finding drivers for your card please reply with the manufacturer, name, and chip type. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 11:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It might be this issue. -- BenRG (talk) 14:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

website

can you tell me if there is away to host a website without paying money?tell me the entire procedure if u please. thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.199.213.67 (talk) 11:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

free web host —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 11:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's also possible (notice I didn't say "recommended") to run a server from your own computer at home. For example, run Apache HTTP Server and forward port 80 if you're behind a router. You'll need a fixed IP address and your ISP's terms and conditions should be checked to see if this is permitted. I would recommend studying the security implications before trying this. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 14:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Though it depends on what you mean by "without paying money". Running a server from your computer still assumes that you have an internet connection that allows incoming connections (which costs money), have your own computer (which also costs money), and have the power to keep it running constantly (which costs money). If these are things you already have with your regular computer usage, then it may not cost any additional money. But I wouldn't say that it doesn't cost money. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can also look into free web hosting services. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canon scanner functionality with Windows XP embedded

Hi, I'm trying to install Canon PIXMA MX850 drivers on my machine which is running Windows XP embedded, and it's not recognizing the scanner. The strange part is, Canon MX850 is All-In-One device, a Printer, Scanner, Copier and Fax, and it has recognized them all but the scanner files. Does anyone have a clue why i am not getting that? Many Thanks--80.88.251.210 (talk) 11:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

device driver —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 11:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

USB

wot is the mximun amounts of data you cans put through the usb cable before it fails? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 11:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at our article on USB? You may have up to 127 devices running from one controller, and depending on what version of USB it is you have either 1.5 megabytes or 60 megabytes. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 12:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

no. how many magabites can pass throught the cable before it fails? Wot is life expectancy of cable at higest biterates? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 12:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect it is dependant on the quality of the cable, but I'm almost certain it is way more than the lifetime of the computer the cable would be attatched to. Since all that is traveling through the cable is electricity, and not much of it. Just look at house wiring, which carries much more electricity, at higher voltage and current. I live in a house with copper wires about 70 years old, and they work just as well as they did when we bought them. Are you confused with flash storage? This does have a finite life expectancy, something like one hundred thousand writes 88.211.96.3 (talk) 12:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ok thank you. for your reply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 12:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The amount of data you send down the wire will have no effect whatever on it's life expectancy. The reasons USB (and most other) cables fail is because they have been twisted too tightly - or repeatedly bent and unbent. The connectors on either end of the cable are undoubtedly weak spots - especially with USB where people plug and unplug the cables very frequently. The number of times you plug and unplug the cable are the thing most likely to affect it's lifespan. But for 100% sure - the amount of data you transmit through it doesn't make even the slightest bit of difference. SteveBaker (talk) 14:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EXCEL MACROS

How do I create Excel macros and use them to link worksheets on each of my Excel files? I have been struggling with this problem and it is beginning to affect jobWilly osakwe (talk) 14:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Best place to start is with Excel Help or MS Office Online - this MS Office Online page is an introduction to macros in Excel 2003; there will be a similar page for Excel 2007. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you had a more specific description of what you were trying to do, it would be easier to give more specific advice. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Build my own laptop/desktop

Why is it much common to build a desktop than to build a laptop? Is it a must to buy your laptop from the shelf or is possible at all? Mr.K. (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a lot harder to put the parts into a laptop case (due to its size) than it is to put parts into a desktop case. You can build your own laptop, but it is going to be much harder. Useight (talk) 18:25, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Buying/building the casing can be quite a hassle in itself. Kushal (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True PC gamers (and there are lots of them) would always build a desktop due to the miniaturized components of laptops not being fast enough for modern games especially power hungry graphics cards, and the fact you can't put your monster cooling fans into a laptop, and "desktop art" has become a bit of a fad nowadays too with all the fancy cases, neon tubing and the like... Sandman30s (talk) 19:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Laptop casings are quite small and restrictive. A great deal of planning goes into the location of components and how they will fit. You have a lot less flexibility unless you are the one actually manufacturing the laptop (and its motherboard, etc.) and know exactly how it is all going to fit together. If you've ever taken apart laptops made by different companies (or even the same company but different models) you'll know exactly how convoluted the space engineering is. --140.247.40.216 (talk) 20:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

alternatives to COLSPAN

I really dislike COLSPAN for HTML tables. Let's say I have some mechanically generated data like this:

Row 1:	Value
Row 2:	Value
Row 3:	Value

There are occasionally times when it would be nice to, on the fly, add another cell to, say, only row 2. Currently the only way I know how to do this is like so:

Row 1:	Value
Row 2:	Value	SPECIAL NOTE!
Row 3:	Value

Now my issue is that in this case, if I'm going to do that, I have to go through all the OTHER cells and figure out whether they need the extra cell or not. It'd be much easier if there was some way to tell the table "subdivide this one cell into two columns" rather than explaining which cells are NOT two columns.

Is there any way to do this? I'm assuming the answer is "no" but I thought I'd ask. --65.112.13.194 (talk) 19:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. The answer is "no" for HTML. You can do it in one of those WYSIWYG editors, but not in HTML. -- kainaw ™ 20:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you can put a table with two columns inside the box, alternatively a vertical bar or graphic may be equivalent in appearance. What you need is colspan=0.5! But this is imaginary. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it absolutely necessary to specifically use <table>? If it's just a layout-issue, you could solve this with some clever <div>s and some CSS 90.235.19.68 (talk) 00:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that you could use the trick employed for line numbers in programming languages like BASIC, and "leave room" for more divisions later. So you start off by setting all your cells to have colspan="10", and can then use colspan="5" for "half width" as well as colspan="20" for "double width".

Of course, if you want to think in "divisions" like this, using colspan="12" as your base might be better, because it has more factors (2 equal parts with colspan="6", 3 equal parts with colspan="4", etc). - IMSoP (talk) 16:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scatterplots in Excel

I have a data set with the following structure:

X_axis_var  Y_axis_var  Dot_color
30.6	     20.2	 Red
82.5	     65.3	 Red
63.2	     79.4	 Blue
39.1	     97.3	 Blue
12.9	     23.0	 Red
41.4	     79.6	 Green
53.7	     13.5	 Green
68.8	     59.8	 Blue

where I would like to create a scatterplot, in which the third variable (here Dot_color) selects the symbol or symbol color used to display the data points in the first two columns. Normally, I would have used R (programming language) to make such a graph, but for a particular task, it needs to be done in Excel 2000. Is there an easy way to do this? I suppose it would be possible to achieve what I want by sorting the data set on Dot_color, and then adding the data corresponding to each Dot_color one set at a time. Is there an easier way, using Excel 2000? --NorwegianBlue^talk 19:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True Transperency - Linux

Resolved

I have two questions:

What is Composite extension in Xorg?
Do I have to install proprietary ATI driver to get true transparency eyecandy in Fluxbox?

Thank You --The Firewall 20:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Found out, it works but makes the system slow. I still don't know anything about composite extension though.--The Firewall 18:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tunneling usb traffic on Linux

How is it possible to control an usb device from windows with a Linux computer (capturing data) transparently in between? --194.197.235.221 (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With regular hardware, it isn't. USB has two broad categories of thingies on the USB network - hosts and devices. A PC only has a host controller, so it can only be a host. In order to be a man-in-the-middle it would have to be able to set one port to pretend to be a device rather than a host, and it would then record and then relay that data out to a second port, to the real device. I'm not aware of any xHCI chip that supports pretending to be a device in this manner. The old ethernet sniffing trick of using a promiscuous hub doesn't work for USB either. To be truly in the middle you either need a logic analyzer (with the appropriate USB decode software) or a hardware USB bus analyzer like this one. Now if you're asking just for the purposes of reverse-engineering a Windows USB device driver, you can do it entirely a different way. You run windows inside a virtual machine (VM ware or whatever) on Linux, and use usbmon to sniff the usb communications. But you don't really need linux at all for that - there are several USB software sniffers for Windows, which sniff its USB traffic well enough for this purpose. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 17

Error

Sometimes, when I log into my computer, I get a message saying something like "This application failed to initialise properly (0c00000142). Click OK to terminate the application.". I do so, then the computer stops loading. How can I fix this problem? 58.165.17.100 (talk) 02:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent question. I have seen the same problem.

Best answer is that the application failing to start is Explorer.

I used to fix it by hitting control-alt-delete then using the FileRun command and typeing explorer.

Then I found out in a routine virus scan, a trojan horse. I had to back up all the data, and reinstall everything from scratch. I backed up the entire system, just after I installed the OS with the 134 updates. Then after I installed all the applications, I backed up the system again. Lo and behold, the trojan came back. Backed up the current data, reloaded the System backup with Applications, and The trojan is gone.

I would first check the integrity of the OS with a command. ( Ill post it here later)

Then make sure you have all the updates for your computer installed.

It may be time to reload your operating system. Like me, if you do you should

Backup the drive after you get all of the OS loaded and

Backup the drive after you get all of your applications loaded.

You now have a temporary fix, and the path for a more permanent fix. Best of luck. 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)--[reply]

OK. Big secret here: I use firefox almost excusesivly, and my IE homepage is set for

[1]

It turned up this article about re-installing Internet Explorer, which I think you might be able to save yourself some time.

[2]

Please follow up. 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)--[reply]

HTML question

The code <h1>ABC</h1><h4>ABC</h4> puts the first ABC on a different line than the second ABC.

Is there code that will create the font size difference without creating a line break? Thanks. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't use h# codes to create font differences. They are for headers. There are ways to make them stop making a line break but if all you want is font size changes there are better ways to do that, like this: <font size=+2>ABC</font><font size=-1>ABC</font>. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, H tags are Header tags - they're kind of like in books, where the text splits and some bold text provides like a mini-chapter title/break? So of course they'd be on their own lines. HTML tags *shouldn't* describe how things look - it should describe how things flow ("these are paragraphs, this is a headline, this is separate from that..."). Of course, since we tend to make all things of a category look the same (for example, chapter titles all tend to be larger then chapter *text*) the association works there. To get to the point, try using CSS (although previous responder's text also works). Something like <SPAN style="font-weight: bold;">ABC</SPAN> would be along the lines of what you're looking for. I highly recommend w3.org and browse to the HTML 4.0 and CSS 1.0 standards (as starting points). 98.169.163.20 (talk) 03:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<span style="font-size: 20pt">20pt text</span><span style="font-size: 14pt">14pt text</span> --wj32 ^t/c 22:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<h1 style="display: inline;">ABC</h1><h4 style="display: inline;">ABC</h4> --70.254.87.166 (talk) 03:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mediawiki template problem

I'm trying to make a template on some other wiki that provides a convenient way to add a link to Wikipedia. My current code is this:

<includeonly>
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{1}}} {{{2|{{{1}}} }}}]
</includeonly>
<noinclude>
Includes a link to Wikipedia.

Usage: <nowiki>{{wp|page title|optional:link-text}}</nowiki&rt;

Appearance: {{Wp|Hello}}
</noinclude>

But it returns an extra trailing space and newline that cause formatting problems such as this:

This is some random content. This is

more random content.

This is a new paragraph.

What am I doing wrong here? And what's this thing on Wikipedia like in Template:imdb title? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fairly certain that interwiki-links to wikipedia are installed by default in mediawiki. Try making a link like this: [[wikipedia:Some wikipedia article]]. You can set these up according to this guide Belisarius (talk) 05:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As for the trailing space, I don't know a lot about mediawiki templates, but have you tried putting the <noincludes> on the same line as the relevant portion of the template? That might be causing it to insert a space (I have no idea, really, but it's my best guess Belisarius (talk) 05:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm never knew Mediawiki has that by default, guess that renders my template a bit useless. But still I'm curious on why it does the trailing space thing. You mean having <noinclude>Includes a link to Wikipedia. instead of my current code? Nope, still gives me the trailing space. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the line breaks are being included as part of the content. A common technique in template definitions is to wrap the newlines into comments like:

<includeonly><!--
-->[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{1}}} {{{2|{{{1}}} }}}]<!--
--></includeonly><!--
--><noinclude>
...

This is equivalent to:

<includeonly>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{1}}} {{{2|{{{1}}} }}}]</includeonly><noinclude>
...

Hope this helps. -- Tcncv (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh ok adding the comments solved the problem. Thanks a lot. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:19, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

assigning variables in class declaration (outside methods)

I found out it's possible in JAVA and C# (I don't think in C++). But has the class to be static? If not, are the assignments performed by the constructor? T.I.A. --Ulisse0 (talk) 08:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In C#, you can assign values to class variables outside of the constructor. The end result is that it is assigned in the class constructor. If the class variable is static, then it is assigned when the class gets loaded into memory (at least that's my guess). If the whole class is static there is no class constructor. --wj32 ^t/c 08:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Initializers for instance fields in Java are executed and assigned to the fields before the body of the constructor is run. So it is kind of as if the assignments are performed at the beginning of every constructor. Initializers for static fields are executed and assigned when the class is loaded. I don't understand what you mean by a "class" being "static". C++ also has a mechanism for initializing members, but it is syntactically and semantically different; the initializers for bases and members in C++ are placed after the arguments and before the body; I will not go into the full details of that here. --Spoon! (talk) 09:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both! In C# a class can be declared static, indicating that it contains only static members. I don't think this syntax exists in Java. --Ulisse0 (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, in Java that syntax exists but instead denotes a non-inner member class which isn't associated with any instance of its containing class. --Tardis (talk) 16:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HTML form: unchecked value

How do I set a default unchecked value for a checkbox so if I left it unchecked, it returns something such as '0'?

value = "1" only sets the checked value.

If there's no way to do it in HTML, I can work out a clumsy PHP solution. -- Toytoy (talk) 09:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This link [3] has a solution to your exact problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.188.33.26 (talk) 16:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

moving websites

More and more websites have moving parts on them such as GIF animations. They irritate me and hinder my visual concentration. Is there some way to "freeze" a website when I just want to read the text? --Lova Falk (talk) 10:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you use firefox there is an extension you can get that disables many adverts which should significantly cut down on the gifs and flash files you see. It is called Adblock plus, and I'd link you to it but my college firewall blocks the google search, but googling it will give you a link. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 11:01, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For your convenience, here is a link. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 12:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In firefox hiting the Escape key will freeze all gif animations. I don't know about flash-based animations.APL (talk) 13:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could use a Firefox plug-in like Flashblock to kill any flash animations you don't explicitly click on. APL (talk) 13:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all so much!!! I downloaded adblockplus and it works like a dream. Calm sites for sore eyes. Thank you! Lova Falk (talk) 09:19, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Skype

How can one edit/delete interlocutor's message in Skype? 89.236.214.174 (talk) 11:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thunderbird Junk

How do I set Thunderbird to automatically send all my junk mail to my junk folder? I have set my junk filters, but I still get the mail, only with a green basket next to them. Do I always have to do it manually?--ChokinBako (talk) 14:04, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the "properties" sheet for the specific account, in the "junk settings" section, check "move new junk messages to" box and pick the destination. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I've done that. It is not automatic, though, i.e. when mail arrives it doesn't just go in there anyway. I have to 'run junk mail controls', each time I get some. I'm asking how to get it done automatically.--ChokinBako (talk) 14:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, OK, my bad. Thanks!--ChokinBako (talk) 14:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is the open source Java spelling API "Jazzy" dead? What about the alternatives?

Resolved

Is the open source Java spelling package Jazzy [4] project dead, it seems to have had no activity since 2005?

What are the alternatives like? Has anyone used JOrtho [5]?

Update: I have found a web page[6] detailing the statuses and options and giving another alternative. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sync phone with Google Calendar

How do I synchronize my Nokia 3220 with Google Calendar? I've tried Gcalsync and Icalsync, but both tell me my phone isn't supported. (I can't do it through a PC, because I don't have a Pop-Port cable and the phone doesn't have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.) Neon Merlin 14:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you have unlimited texting, a low-tech, stop gap solution would be to have Google send you text notifications. Not even close to perfect an answer, though. :( Kushal (talk) 17:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Youtube Insight demographic and gender identification

How does Youtube's Insight determine the age and gender of a viewer? I am amazed how the data in this [7] was collected ... Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 15:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I THINK you can choose a gender when you create an account. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 15:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How would that be representative of the vast number of viewers who Google can identify only by IP address? Kushal (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Same way that any polling service works. Polls aren't taken of an entire group; a small sample is taken that's large enough to represent a good cross-section of the group, but small enough to actually work with. Polls for determining public opinion about the government, for example, only take the opinions of a few hundred (or thousand) people, not all how many ever million there are in a country. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 17:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You specify your gender and age (or you don't, or you lie) when you create an account. The Insight program would be more accurate if it had a "unknown" possibility. --140.247.240.69 (talk) 18:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But if anyone lies, I'm sure they always get caught. Dar-Ape 05:06, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

scjp1.5 certification

i got certified two months bac but havnt received the certicate yet.where do they mail it from?.Is it from America or any other country? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.5.47 (talk) 17:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Java problem

I'm trying to draw a grid of images but for some odd reason I can't even draw two images properly...

Here's my code:

Grid.java

 package test;
 
 import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
 import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;
 
 import javax.swing.JFrame;
 
 public class Grid {
 	public static void main(String[] args) {
 		JFrame f = new JFrame("Grid");
 		
 		f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter(){
 			public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
 				System.exit(0);
 			}
 		});
 		
 		f.add(new Cell("/path/to/test.png", 0, 0));
 		f.add(new Cell("/path/to/test.png", 64, 0));
 		f.pack();
 		f.setVisible(true);
 		f.setSize(320, 240);
 	}
 }

Cell.java

 package test;
 
 import java.awt.*;
 import java.awt.event.*;
 import java.awt.image.*;
 import java.io.*;
 import javax.imageio.*;
 import javax.swing.*;
 
 public class Cell extends Component {
 	private BufferedImage img;
 	private int x;
 	private int y;
 	private Dimension size=new Dimension();
 	
 	public void paint(Graphics g) {
 		g.drawImage(this.img, this.x, this.y, this);
 	}
 	
 	public Cell(String url, int x, int y) {
 		try {
 			this.img = ImageIO.read(new File(url));
 		}
 		catch (IOException e) {
 			//?
 		}
 		
 		this.x=x;
 		this.y=y;
 		this.size.setSize(this.img.getWidth(), this.img.getHeight());
 	}
 	
 	public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
 		return this.size;
 	}
 }

However, when I run the program, it only displays the image at (64,0) - it doesn't display the image at (0,0): http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/5954/pandora004jx6.png

Does anyone know why?

Thanks in advance. x42bn6 Talk Mess 16:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not using the LayoutManager properly. You don't set one, so the JFrame defaults to having a java.awt.BorderLayout(). If you .add() something to a BorderLayout without an additional constraint, it gets put in the centre position. You're adding two things, so the second one gets put in the centre too, hiding the first one. So, before your two f.add() calls, call f.setLayout(new GridLayout(3,3)); -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, you may find java specific forums ([8], [9]) to be more helpful than this RD with program analysis questions. Dar-Ape 05:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know, but I knew it was something really stupid and I didn't want to bother registering. Thanks, anyway. x42bn6 Talk Mess 10:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Home Network - Extension from question above

A question above got me thinking. Is it possible to have a home network without access to internet? I have a router (and I do have internet), but let's just say I didn't have internet (or the phone line that came with it), but just the hole in the wall where the telephone goes, a router, and two PCs. Would this be possible, like a sort of intranet?--ChokinBako (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, the internet connection just allows systems connected to your router to talk to other machines. Pull out your phone cable and you have an isolated intranet. Note that if you only have two PCs you can connect them together directly (if they're reasonably modern) without the router altogether (although you need to manually take care of setting their IP addressing info, something that is often done automatically by the internet router). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

previewing pages in Internet Explorer

Is there any easy way to see how a page will render in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 without actually running IE6 or IE7? I'm on a Mac so it's really a pain to have to boot up a virtualizer or another computer to see how my pages will (poorly) render in IE. (Firefox is pretty consistent across platforms.) I'd love it if there was some sort of clever program or webpage that could duplicate IE's many flaws in a way that I could just say "show me how this looks in IE6/7" without all the hassle of actually having IE on a computer. (The other difficulty is that I have IE7 on my virtualizer so I have to actively seek out machines with IE6 on them to see what it looks like too, as it doesn't look like I can install IE6 and IE7 at the same time?). Any ideas? --140.247.240.69 (talk) 18:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upload it to a temporary online location (one hidden from normal view) and use http://browsershots.org/ -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re running IE6 and 7 on the same machine/virtual machine - I use IETester for this — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 22:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can also use the Firefox extension IEtab, but only if you're already on windows :/ Dar-Ape 04:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can install multiple versions of IE on the same computer using this installer, which isolates each version with its own DLLs, and seems to be a pretty good simulation. (Although I wouldn't trust it for testing complex JavaScript, for instance). - IMSoP (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Location of Mac system updates when downloading/Privilege problems in System Update

I'm trying to update to Mac OSX 10.5.5, listed in Software Update as "Mac OS X Update Combined." Before it has had any time to download (never mind install), I get the error:

"The update “Mac OS X Update Combined” can’t be saved. You do not have appropriate access privileges. The Installer package has been moved to the Trash. To try again, open the package from the Finder."

Thing is, it's not in the trash, and I am an admin. What can I do about this? It has downloaded part of the update earlier today, can I go and delete the remains?

My name is anetta (talk) 18:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to fix this problem, but try downloading it from Apple's website [10]. This is also useful if the install crashes half-way (as it did for me). --wj32 ^t/c 22:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice problem. You are admin, and you have admin priveldges, but the updater doesn't think so? Time to boot your computer from its install disk, and run a full check permissions.

Remember the GOAL is to have the updater run all the way through with out errors. ( i.e. download the file, and run the updater until it says 'Updater sucessfull' 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:19, 18 October 2008 (UTC)--[reply]

Onyx will check and fix permissions for you.--ChokinBako (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You cannot install Mac OS X Update on this volume. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update. ...is what I get after downloading it manually. Even though it's a brand new installation, and the "About this Mac" lists it is 10.5.5. It would be nice to know the requirements for the update, but this [11] doesn't say what it needs.My name is anetta (talk) 16:06, 18 October 2008 (UTC) And there's 28GB of free space.My name is anetta (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was interesting. It seems to work now. Why it has decided to work, I don't know - but it has, and I am quite happy with that. Thanks wj32, 99.185.0.29 and ChokinBako for your efforts. My name is anetta (talk) 14:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 18

protocol

Which protocol is used to connect the web server on the internet? tcp/ip or http? i have to choose only one option from the choice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dahalrk (talk • contribs) 03:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We do not do your homework, and either that question is malformed or you've interpreted it incorrectly. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both, honestly. If I had a question phrased exactly like that, I'd choose HTTP, although both are correct.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:16, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am humbled at the breadth and simplicity of this explaination. I could not have done better:

[12] 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)--[reply]

Computer language difficulty

Hi. This is, frankly, a very trivial question. But I was wondering how one might rank computer languages by difficulty? There are too many to learn, but I'd rank the languages I'm familiar with like so:

Assembly
C++
Java
Visual Basic.NET
ActionScript
JavaScript
HTML

So, I don't know much about PHP, COBOL, PostScript, SQL, or Perl. How would they fit in the list and also, do I have the list ordered correctly? I heard, by the way, that PostScript was harder than C, but only know a smattering of both languages, so I can't say.--75.71.127.230 (talk) 04:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My 2 cents: of the languages I'm familiar with, starting with the easiest to learn/use: 6, 3, 2, 1. (Of course, if you're looking for something easier than any of these, check out Python, and I would only use javascript if you're writing a webpage.) HTML is not a "language" in the sense of a programming language, rather it's just a markup language-- that is, a series of formatting tags, so it doesn't really fit in with the rest of your list. Also, SQL is for database management and isn't really a general purpose language. Finally, just don't use COBOL, or you'll be sorry. Dar-Ape 04:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you've really done here is rank them in order of how close they are to human language on the bottom side and machine language on the top side. PHP is basically the same as Actionscript for your purposes. SQL is sort of its own beast—a query language and not a programming language—but again closer to natural human languages than machine languages (e.g. Assembly, bytecode, etc.). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 08:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Difficulty is something I find hard to rate. I tried teaching three languages concurrently - VB.Net, C# and Java - and expected VB.Net to be the easiest to learn. But the students who tried learning all three tended to argue for Java. I think 98.217.8.46 makes a good point, but I would add a second requirement for ease of learning: consistency. If the language has a high degree of internal consistency in the syntax (for example, if you look at Java's history you see gradual improvement, in that many early methods were renamed to be more consistent across the language as a whole) it will be easier to learn and easier to program in. A third axis would be applicability: while I could write a text parser in both Perl and Java, I'd find Perl much easier. But if I wanted to create a graphical app, I could do it in Perl, but I'd choose Java. you can do either job in either language, but it is more difficult to do some jobs in some languages than in others. - Bilby (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heat sink

Under my laptop's heat sink, there is a square of metal foil sandwiched between copper heat pipe and the processor die. It was originally coated with a black, carbon-like substance (although not powdery), and was lightly adhered to the surface of the heat pipe. So, what is this piece of metal used for, if it is useful at all, and is it safe to not use it and just have the die touching the heat sink (with thermal paste, of course)? I can't really put it back on as it does not stick any more, and isn't it better to have one less barrier to heat anyways? Here's a picture for reference: CPU, foil, and heatsink - WikiY ^Talk 05:04, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that you get some thermal compound, and put a drop the size of a grain of rice on the copper part, and a drop about 1/2 that size on the CPU, and run the edge of a plastic card over the peice of foil over, and over until its as flat as you can get it. STICKING has little to do with it. You are attaching a peice of metal to a peice of glass. The glass is both extrodinarly expensive, and extrodinarly delicate. The foil was added during macfacturing to avoid breaking or chipping CPUs ( Glass ). The pressure of the screws on the heat pipe/heat sink would be engineered to have that peice of foil inside the gap. ( as much as 15 to 30 mills can radically change the pressure exerted on the glass, and if it makes the gap larger, it will lessen the extent to which the thermal compound can transfer heat ).

Note: I have done this HUNDREDS of times. Be very carefull. ( Or not, if you might like to try and upgraded CPU ). 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And great picture!

--~~~~

OK, so it's "Heat Sink → Thermal Paste → Foil → Thermal Paste → CPU", right? WikiY ^Talk 03:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC),[reply]

ya! and the Thermal paste is thin thin thin...03:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Power Supply, Part 2

Good evening. This is the sequel to my previous question, "Power Supply." I recently updated my graphics card, and to make the graphics card work, I also upgraded to a 450W power supply. And it worked great...for about 30 minutes. Then, out of nowhere, my computer simply turned off. I was in the middle of something and boom, it was off. And I couldn't turn it back on. I had to put the old power supply and the old graphics card BACK in, just so I could get my computer to turn on. And if you think that's easy or fun, it's not. So my question is, uh, what the hell happened? Why did my computer spontaneously turn off like that? If it helps, the power supply I'm using now (the good one) has a green light on the back of it. The other power supply (the bad one) has a light on it that, when I first installed it, was orange, and after my computer shut off, it was red. Digger3000 (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably just a bad power supply. Does it work fine if you just use it with the original video card? If not, then that's more than likely it. See if you can return it or RMA it. On an older computer purchase I had two of the things blow up (one with much smoke) before deciding to buy a slightly nicer brand; it does happen occasionally even with the good brands though.

The manual might tell you what the red light means, but it sounds like it's just there to indicate failure. Some sites also suggest shorting the ATX connector to start the power supply to see if it starts at all apart from the computer, if you're adventurous [13] -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RMA. Immediatly return the new powersupply for a Return Materials Authorization (RMA). We still need to know a few more things about the system, i.e. how much ram, how many drives, what kind of video card.

--~~~~

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 12:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, please do not open the Power Supply Unit without expert advice. Kushal (talk) 12:36, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't suggesting that with the shorting thing. You definitely never want to try and repair a PSU unless you actually know what you're doing. The capacitors store a dangerous amount of charge. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not blaming you for anything, Consumed Crustacean. I was just forewarning the OP because I thought that would be my first instinct if I did not know of the dangers of the PSU. Kushal (talk) 01:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mirror my Routers

Hey guys, i have two routers at home(both different makes) and i would like to set them up to be exact morror of each other so that as far as my computers are concerned they are they same thing, thus i wouldnt have any sort of drop out when i moved between them etc. Is this even possible? and if it is do you guys know of any resources that may help me get it set up?Vagery (talk) 07:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A feature called hot standby routing can work with Cisco routers. It lets the default route be available all the time by switching mac address to a working one. The chances are that your boxes do not support this. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If one of the routers can be used as a wireless repeater, that would basically do what you want. A repeater is simply a device which extends the range of some network. Belisarius (talk) 06:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Daisy chain them, set the second one up as the next IP from the router, and turn off its DHCP, and set the DNS settings to be identical, i.e. router, netmask, DNS are all the same. The only problem is if your in the second zone, and you boot up to get a IP address. It does not work sometimes on my network, so I refresh the network adapter, and it comes on about 50% of the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 03:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

security expert

how to become a network securtiy expert? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atulchamola (talk • contribs) 08:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can't make you an expert here, but you may want to read articles on network security, firewall computer virus malware Hacker (computer security) intrusion detection Intrusion detection system Intrusion-prevention system Cryptography and write us articles for network admission control and network hardening. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you mean to ask how you can demonstrate your expertise as a network security expert? Kushal (talk) 01:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A number of colleges offer Masters courses in computer security, network security, information security, or with similar titles. If you've already studied computing or similar at undergraduate level, a degree such as this would provide a good way of gaining knowledge and experience and showing a serious interest. I don't know where you are, how old you are, or what level experience you have, so it's hard to be too precise, but you should be able to find advice from school or college careers services, from a directory of graduate courses, or from the internet.--Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 17:22, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neo Office Help (Question Change)

How do I get rid of an unwanted page? A blank page has appeared in the middle of my document after I made a page break and I don't want it there. Regards!--ChokinBako (talk) 13:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In "Options" switch on "Show all formatting marks" to make the page break visible. Then just highlight it and delete it. As for the cause of the blank page, I would guess either the paragraph immedialtely after the page break is formatted with "Page break before" or you hit "Blank Page" instead of "Page Break" on the Insert menu - "Blank Page" actually inserts two page breaks ! Gandalf61 (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I don't want to get rid of the page break - it took me over an hour to write the page - just the blank page.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The page break is simply a marker that tells the word processor to start a new page at this point. You shouldn't lose any of your text if you delete it. To find out how page breaks work, open Help and look for a section called "Add or a delete a page" or similar. Save your document before trying anything, and that way you have a copy to go back to if you make a mistake. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Actually, all I did in the end was type a word on the blank page, then delete all the (empty) lines behind it. That worked.--ChokinBako (talk) 15:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Semantic web

Hi! I'm learning about the semantic web and have a few doubts:

Is XML used in conjunction with RDF or are they alternatives of the same thing??
And, is there any difference between XML and XHTML?
Also, are all the above, 'microformats'?
Lastly, does 'metadata' refer to any semantic component used to describe data in general, or is it something specific?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.68.77.73 (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2) Yes there's a difference. XML is a specification that describes a good way to store and communicate data whose structure can be represented by a tree. In itself it says nothing about what the data means. XHTML is an application of XML to represent web documents - i.e. it defines a language conforming to XML and assigns meaning to the bits of the language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.164.115 (talk) 13:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1) My understanding is that RDF is a "data model" for describing certain types of information such that you can make use of them in logical ways. One of the ways of writing it is using XML. Roughly, RDF describes what you are writing, XML how.

2) As stated above, XML is a general-purpose notation for machine-readable data. XHTML, on the other hand, is a format for web-pages; specifically, it's a version of HTML that conforms to XML syntax, and is therefore easier to parse and define than older HTML. It can also be more easily combined with other formats which also use XML syntax.

3) No, microformats are a specific way of using existing markup (from HTML / XHTML) to encode additional information - generally, to add semantic information to existing content. So whereas <b>IMSoP</b> just means 'display the text "IMSoP" in bold', and a special XML format might use <user name="IMSoP" />, a microformat might combine the 2 as <span class="user"><b class="name">IMSoP</b></span>. This can be read both by a tool for displaying HTML, and one for spotting usernames in the document.

4) Yes, metadata is a very broad term, which basically means "data about data"; so it's very much dependent on context, but your definition seems as good as any.

Hope that helps! - IMSoP (talk) 16:00, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to point out that XML is specifically a markup language, i.e. a way of describing "text with attributes". It does get used a lot for other types of data, but it wasn't designed for that and doesn't do a very good job of it. -- BenRG (talk) 20:29, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone! That helped a lot......... So, does XML, sort of, replace HTML??—Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.68.77.73 (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, XHTML sort of replaces HTML, and is itself a kind of XML. XML has largely become the standard format for any kind of machine-readable text markup or data serialization, replacing older standards such as SGML (of which HTML is an "application", and XML a much stricter subset) and EDIFACT. HTML never did this job.

To balance BenRG's comments a bit though, I would clarify that its use for serialization is controversial, rather than accepted as a bad idea. While XML's certainly not perfect, I personally much prefer working with XML formats than, for instance, EDIFACT ones (my job in the travel industry involves both). - IMSoP (talk) 17:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks..Well, I have doubts again. The semantic web article and semantic web stack picture on wikipedia and another site I visited, gave me the impression that XML is one layer and you use an RDF-based language on top of it, ie., both are always used together. But some other articles I read, said that, you may use RDF/XML which is RDF-based and also incorporates XML , but it's not necessary that XML and RDF be used together. I might have misunderstood things here, but I'm still confused about what EXACTLY XML and RDF do. From my understanding, XML is used to give metadata 'tags', separately(while HTML takes care of formatting, etc.) and RDF is a specification, which is used INSTEAD of XML to convey metadata & RDF/XML is an RDF-based language that also uses elements of XML, ie. , RDF maybe used using XML, but not necessarily. Can you tell me if, and where I am wrong?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.68.77.73 (talk) 08:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Font is different on wikipedia only

I posted this question in the help desk, but received no replies - I assume this means I'm having a computer issue and not a wikipedia issue.

So I must have hit some key combination on my machine while viewing wikipedia (I am using windows xp, and browsing using firefox 3.0.1), and now the font on wikipedia is screwy. I don't know if it is just bigger (ctrl- doesn't make it look right), or if it is a different font altogether, but I find it really distracting. I took a screenshot, and posted it here: http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wikifontkn1.jpg

I find this font on wikipedia to be really ugly and distracting. I didn't realize how much the font mattered before now. Any help would be appreciated. Man It's So Loud In Here (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at that screenshot, I think you have just "zoomed in" - Firefox now does full page zooming, not just text, and remembers it per website, so this would make sense. Try hitting Ctrl-0, which should reset the zoom (or View -> Zoom -> Reset in the menu bar). - IMSoP (talk) 15:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If Loud is accustomed to reading in a more graceful font like Lucida (plug!), it's natural to be distressed to find it replaced by Arial. —Tamfang (talk) 16:30, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot, Ctrl-0 worked great!! Tamfang are you saying I could somehow adjust my settings to replace the font I see when I view Wikipedia or is this something that the website selects on its own? Man It's So Loud In Here (talk) 05:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Firefox you can set a default font. (In the Mac version this is in the Content panel of Preferences.) Wikipedia's "MonoBook" skin apparently does not specify a font, so I see my default. —Tamfang (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is "full page zooming"? —Tamfang (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both Firefox 3 and IE 7 "zoom" everything on the page, including images, text set to a specific size, etc, rather than just changing the definition of relative text sizes on the page, as older browsers would. You can see in the screenshot that the logo still looks in proportion to the text, but a bit "stretched" where Firefox has scaled it up. - IMSoP (talk) 21:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Why are we whispering?

Wireless Connection Troubleshooting

Hi...I have two laptops(both compaq model) and both are wireless enabled...one supports a,b,g networks and the other supports only b and g networks. When I connect them both in the ad-hoc mode I get a very weak signal(it shows low signal even when they both are in the same room 5m apart) and when I shift one of the laptops to another room it disconnects. Also I get a very slow transfer speed(even though it shows 54Mbps).Both the computers have the latest drivers.One's OS is XP and the other has Vista. They both used to work fine with other computers. What can be the problem?? Please help... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Domain problem

I've just got some new webspace and I've run across an odd problem. I've just installed MediaWiki and due to something to do with PHP5, I put this into .htaccess:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

However, when I view the wiki at http://www.foodomain.com/wiki, it asks me if I want to download the file, but when I view it at http://foodomain.com/wiki, it works normally. Why is this, and how can I fix it? x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:47, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've run into this problem many times when setting up Apache with PHP, and clearing the browser cache has always worked. Try it. --wj32 ^t/c 07:54, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Performance Comparison between single core and dual core processors

I am thinking of purchasing a new computer but would like some clarification regarding the performance attributes of dual core and single core processor machines. Specifically, I would like to know which between the 2 of the following options gives me a better computing machine: a single processor intel machine running at 3.0Ghz and a dual core machine running at 1.8Ghz. I understand that a dual core machine would perform better with specific reference to multitasking tasks, but apart from that is there any further advantage to be gained from multicore processor machines? Thanks. ' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC) [reply]

We can't exactly tell you which is better because you haven't told us which processors you're referring to. Clockrate isn't the only important thing when it comes to CPU performance, and energy use / heat is also a factor.

That aside, the benefit to be had from multicore processors is indeed in running more than one thing at once. Even if an application can't do multi-threading at all (and many these days have some degree of it), a multicore CPU may provide some benefit; it will have more of a core to itself as other applications, drivers, and whatnot will be running on the other one(s). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It's in relation to Intel based processors. Also, some types of applications such as PC games tend to have some hefty speed requirements for PCs such as requiring a minimum speed of say 2.4Ghz and the like. Now would such an application be able to run on say a dual core Intel based 1.8Ghz dual core processor? Or would that not meet it's specific speed requirements? Thanks in advance. Another follow up question to the above is nowadays there's a lot of talk about core 2 duo processors and quadcore processors. What's the difference between the 2 types? I thought quadcore means 4 processors built into the core, but in some texts and ads I've seen so far it appears that core 2 duo may also imply the same? If so, why the different terminology? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 02:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that the processors you're talking about are a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 (P4) and a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo (C2D) or Pentium Dual Core (PDC). The P4 is an old design (about 3-4 years old, most likely), while the C2D and PDC are based on the Intel Core 2 design, which is much newer and higher performing. I won't get into specifics, but Core 2 based processors are better than much higher clocked P4s. Since you're talking about a single core P4 and a dual core C2D/PDC, the C2D/PDC (even though it has a lower clock speed) will probably be the better choice. Also, the P4 would use a lot more power, so you'll save some money on electricity if you choose the Core 2 based processor.

For the game requirements, does it say that it needs a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4? If that's what it says, the program can probably run okay on a 1.8 GHz Core 2 (you might have to turn the quality down a bit).

As far as the difference between dual and quad cores, the Core 2 Duo has 2 cores (hence the "Duo") while the Core 2 Quad has 4 cores. If you're running a lot of programs at once, the more cores you have the better, since each program can run on a different core. At this point in time, however, there aren't many programs that can take advantage of multiple cores, so unless you regularly run many programs at once (as in at least 8), I'd go with the dual core. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 03:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the Pentium 4 design isn't that it's old. Core 2 has more in common architecturally with the Pentium Pro than with the Pentium 4. The problem with Pentium 4 is that it was designed for high clock rates and not high performance as such, because Intel was at the time still marketing based on clock rate. With Core and Core 2 they've given up on that. A Core 2 at 1.8 GHz will probably outperform a Pentium 4 at 3 GHz even with one core tied behind its back, because it does more with each cycle. I'm not sure people appreciate how much the practical meaning of "one cycle" has changed over the years. The original 8086 needed 70–120 cycles to do a single 16-bit multiply; current x86 processors can do several 32- or 64-bit multiplies per cycle.

That said, are you sure a faster CPU is what you really care about? Intel has spent an enormous amount of money convincing people that the CPU is the most important part of a computer, but that doesn't make it true. A faster CPU will only make your computer faster if your CPU usage is often at 100%, and not necessarily even then (since time spent waiting for main memory is counted as CPU time). Even the slowest CPUs are fast enough for most things these days. I'd advise most people to buy a cheap CPU and spend the money on something more useful, like more RAM or a larger screen or a better keyboard and mouse. -- BenRG (talk) 12:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much guys for your quick and informative responses. I really appreciate it. One other thing on the same discussion. I read somewhere that Dual core (pentium processors) are or act as virtual 64 bit machines whereas Core 2 duo function as true 64 bit processing machines, and that one of the major differences between the dual core/core 2 duo and older Pentium 4 processors is their support for 64 bit processing as opposed to 32 bit processing (supported by single core Pentium 4 processors). How true is this? And , what is the difference really between virtual 64 bit and true 64 bit processing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 00:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

pow() in c

i was wondering, and not been able to find anywhere, how does c actually compute pow()? i heard the trig functions are done in look up tables, does it somehow use a look up table, or some sort of expansion or just a giant for loop multiplying the base by itself n times? I've been trying to find out why its a "bad" function--82.16.140.152 (talk) 23:23, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Implementations details can vary, but one approach would be to define pow() in terms of natural logarithm and exponential functions - pow(a,b) = exp(b*log(a)). Special cases might be included to handle negative base with integer exponent or zero base with positive exponent. Pow() is not a bad function, but it performs a non-trivial calculation to get its result. It has its uses, but it can be used inefficiently such as in the following hypotenuse calculation: pow(pow(a,2.0)+pow(b,2.0),0.5). Using pow() to obtain the square of a number is likely much less efficient that simply calculating a*a. Similarly, using pow() to calculate the square root might be less efficient that using the sqrt() function directly, since sqrt() might be better optimized for this purpose. Of course, a good implementation might detect these special cases and provide an efficient calculation, but this not guaranteed. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know nothing about c's implementation of pow(), but in general, if you want to apply a large integer exponent to a number, there is a much faster way of doing it than just blindly multiplying the base n times. It's based on the observation that squaring a number can significantly reduce the number of multiplications necessary. For instance, say you wanted to calculate 2²⁵⁶. The naive method would make 255 multiplications, but you can get the answer much quicker using squaring: just square 2 eight times (that is, square 2 to get 4, square 4 to get 16, etc.). That's significantly faster, using only 8 multiplications instead of 255. This is called exponentiation by squaring, and is highly useful in cryptography (in RSA, the exponent part of the public key is often chosen to be 65537, meaning you have to routinely take something to the 65537th power, modded with some other number). The article on the technique gives another example: to calculate x^{1,000,000,000} you need to make 999,999,999 multiplications using the naive method, but only 44 using exponentiation by squaring. That's what I call an improvement!

As I said, I have no idea whether pow() does this, I just wanted to supply some general context on exponentiation algorithms :) Belisarius (talk) 04:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can always grab the source of GNU libc and see how they do it. It probably varies by platform though. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 05:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably something like "fpow fp0, fp1" -- ie. issue a machine-code instruction and let the CPU worry about the details. --Carnildo (talk) 23:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 19

Research Project

I need to know about: Monolithic Systems, Layered Systems, Microkernels, Client-Server Systems, Virtual Machines and Exokernels,this work is due for October 22, 2008. Teacher told me last Wednesday, but I started looking for these, and I can't find anything in this or another address, thank for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.82.91 (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try searching for lower-case singular in Wikipedia. For example: monolithic system. I'd also suggest searching the index of your textbook. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Err... It's not that hard to find stuff on Wikipedia; most things don't have plurals and have uppercase only on the first letter... Monolithic system, Layered system, Microkernel, Client-server system, Virtual machine and Exokernel. Now do your own homework. Astronaut (talk) 04:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to make a glossy computer screen matte?

Greetings,

Do you know of any film that one may apply to a glossy LCD screen in order to make it matte?

Thank you,

--Anon 00:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.189.248.66 (talk)

I thought glossy screens attract a premium price (they look better in my opinion and the image is often brighter). See if you can sell it and get a cheaper matt one. Astronaut (talk) 04:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Its called greaseproof paper or tracing paper--GreenSpigot (talk) 19:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New phone, crap battery life

I bought the Samsung E-530 off Ebay recently and it's supposed to have 8 days standby but in my experience it wont even last a full day at school in my pocket. It only seems to last about 3 hours fully charged and thats without bluetooth activated. What am I supposed to do with this phone? --124.254.77.148 (talk) 01:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(POV alert) My first reaction is caveat emptor, or "that's E-bay for you". As a general rule, if a bargin is too good to be true, then it probably isn't. Seriously though, you could try contacting the seller or if that doesn't get you anywhere try leaving them some crap feedback on E-bay, but I honestly doubt you would get very far. Instead, try to get a new battery - your local mobile phones shop might have a battery (not a major service provider's shop but one of those street corner places). Astronaut (talk) 04:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, my guess is a dodgy battery - in my experience there's a big variation in quality control for the batteries in phones and music players, with some unfortunate examples rapidly losing their maximum charge. You can probably find a new one reasonably cheaply. ~ mazca ^t|c 09:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Modem Problems

Something is wrong with my modem. All the connections are right, and under Network Connections it says its fully connected and working. but when i start the browser, it says there is no connection. I never had this problem before. Do i need to reset it or anything? i just moved the computer to a different room, but it started doing this the day before i moved it. the juggresurection ^{(>-.-(Vಠ_ಠ)} 04:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reboot the modem and your computer. Check your browser settings. Check your modem's settings. If it's wireless, make sure the signal is strong enough. Finally, maybe it's something like the problem I think I have - the modem chipset being vunerable to line noise - causing me to have to reset it every few days. Astronaut (talk) 04:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how exactly would i go about resetting the modem? i dont mean turning it off and then on again, i mean resetting the configuration or whatever. sorry, im not very knowledgeable with this kind of thing. the juggresurection ^{(>-.-(Vಠ_ಠ)} 05:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just turn mine off and on then the saved settings come back. However, you might need to reenter the username and password and all the other settings given to you by your ISP. The usual way to do this with your broadband modem is to use the web interface at http://192.168.1.1/ (though I did read somewhere that some modems use http://10.?.?.?/ instead - maybe someone else know this one). More complete instructions should be in your modem's manual. Astronaut (talk) 06:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should probably find that. :P the juggresurection ^{(>-.-(Vಠ_ಠ)} 06:42, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering, do you only have a modem, or do you have a modem AND a router? If you only have a modem, that means that you only have one computer connected directly to the internet with a cable. If you have a router, then you can have many computers connected to the internet, using either cables or wireless. It would be easier to help you if you could give us those details :) Belisarius (talk) 07:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two notes:

If it's a dial-up modem, things are different, but if it's cable/DSL, there is possibly a "reset" button on the outside. I have a 2Wire DSL modem that occasionally stops working (but only websites, HTTP port 80) and I use a paperclip to hold down the reset button for 30 seconds, then everything works peachy. But definitely know how your account works before you try this! Might be worth a call to customer service, despite the wait time, because you really should have that stuff written down somewhere. (Account ID if needed, password if needed, email account name and POP3 password, DNS server addresses).
And it is possible that your DNS server information has gone bad. In Windows, open a "command shell" (same thing in Linux) and try "ping en.wikipedia.org" and "ping 208.80.152.2" - if the first one doesn't reply and the second one does, it's a DNS server problem. End result though will be "call your ISP" I guess :( Franamax (talk) 22:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Ask your network administrator"?

Quite often when installing an operating system, I get to the networking setup and the installations notes will say something like "if you are unsure what to provide here, please contact your network administrator". Well I am the only one here so I suppose I'm my own network administrator, and I still don't know what info to provide. Any suggestions on how I could learn how to administer my own home network? Astronaut (talk) 04:51, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That message often comes up when you have to enter specific information for your network setup (like IP-address, subnet-mask, standard gateway, etc.), but when you are just setting up a home-network, you shouldn't have to enter that stuff. It should be configured automatically. Just hook up your router, configure your wireless settings if you are using wi-fi (for help with this, look at the manual for the router) and then just connect the computer (either with an ethernet cable, or by using the connect to wireless network function of windows). If you have any more specific problems, we'd love to help :) Belisarius (talk) 05:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble is, my network has grown from a modem/router and one old PC, to the modem/router, a print server, four PCs of various ages, and now a server. In the early days it was easy - just plug in and away I go. Now I want to share stuff in a mixed Windows XP, Vista and Linux environment. I want the server to have the same name and IP address all the time so I can try out running a small web server and maybe have it carrying out a proper backup policy for the shared docs and photos, and maybe doing all the user authentication (like at work). The only thing I've got working satisfactorily is the print server. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make most of it work properly and the only help provided by the OS's is: "ask your network admin". I suppose what I'm really asking is for some guidance on network admin training - books, online, classroom even. What kind of titles/descriptions/keywords should I be looking for? Astronaut (talk) 06:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As for how to set up the server so that it has a static IP, that's pretty easy. Go into your router-configuration, where you should be able to configure static IPs from the device's MAC-address. On my router, it's under the "DHCP" settings (where I can also see all the MAC-addresses of the devices on the networks), not sure where it is on yours. It should be pretty easy to do though, just look around for "Static IP" somewhere. Then you can also set up port-forwarding so port 80 always gives you the server. It's not a terrible idea to do that with all devices that are permanently connected to the network, that way you can access each and every one of them using their IP and not worry about it changing.

Not sure how to set up backup policies, but if you want to enable file-sharing between the Linux-machines and Windows, you can fairly easily set that up using Samba. Here's a guide for Ubuntu, and more can easily be found by googling. Vista and XP should work just fine together, I think, and Samba should extend that cooperation to linux. As for network admin training, I can't really help you, Google is my teacher :) (and a bad one at that!) Belisarius (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I understand the question - you want to understand what all this stuff means so that it's not just a black art and trial-and-error. That's a good aim. I don't know off-hand of a single good treatment of the subject at an appropriate level - the nearest O'Reilly might perhaps be this one? I was going to also suggest that the basic Linux networking-HOWTO might be suitable, but after a quick glance I think it's almost certainly not. Have you had a good read of Wikipedia's own stuff on TCP/IP, and all that's linked from it? 81.187.153.189 (talk) 11:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Using an AirPort Express as a wireless bridge for a NAS-device

My dad has a NAS-device he bought from D-Link that I set up, which he uses for storing all his music and photos and things (it's a RAID 1 device, and he likes the idea that his data is automatically backed-up), and he likes it very much. The problem is that it is quite noisy, and his router is in his living-room. The NAS-device doesn't have wireless built-in, you have to connect it using an ethernet-cable, so he can't just put it in a closet.

He does, however, have three different AirPort Expresses from Apple which he uses to stream music throughout his house. I'm thinking that I could configure one of the AirPorts as an ethernet-to-wireless bridge (that connects to the router), and then put it and the NAS in a closet somewhere, where no one will hear it. Is this possible? Or is it just utter foolishness? The only reservation I have is that if he wanted to play a song using another one of the AirPorts, he'd be sending the data from the song over the wireless network six times! First from the NAS to the router, then from the router to the computer and iTunes, then from iTunes two streams to the router which the router forwards to the two AirPorts. Is this just to much strain on a lowly home-router? On the other hand, if I can get this working fine, it would be worth it just for the story to tell (seriously, that's one bitchin' home network). Does anyone have any other ideas for how to solve this, or do my poor papa just have to live with a noisy living-room? Belisarius (talk) 06:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized that the way he has it set up right now, it's transferring the song even more, seven times wirelessly across the network (once wired from the NAS to the router, then from the router to iTunes, then three streams from iTunes to the router, and three streams from the router to the AirPorts). So I guess it wouldn't be a problem with capacity. So, back to my earlier question: would this be possible to do with an AirPort Express? Belisarius (talk) 06:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think putting noisy (therefore hot) hardware in a constrained place such as a closet is a good idea... Rilak (talk) 08:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends how tight the closet is. In this case, "in a closet" seems to just be shorthand for "somewhere in the house that isn't right in the middle of the living room". I have a cupboard containing router, phone base station, power-use-monitor, NAS/automation/etc box and so on, and I don't give heat a second thought because they're laid out on a board on the wall with plenty of space.

As for the proposed wireless solution, I don't see why this shouldn't work. Especially since it doesn't involve buying any new hardware, why don't you just go ahead and try it?

If it doesn't work, my preference would be to stick with a wired connection, but rearrange things so that the NAS can be tucked away. Obviously the details will depend on the layout of your house, but you can either run a cable from the existing router location, or (perhaps better) move the router to the "closet" as well. Having the router in an odd, on-display location like the living room just because that's where the phone socket is as always seemed sub-optimal to me - phone wiring is not hard, and, at least here in the UK, is perfectly legal once you're downstream of the BT entry point ("master socket"). 81.187.153.189 (talk) 11:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I stored a download computer in my bedroom closet. It's survived for over a year with mostly 100% uptime. It is however an old computer and I don't store anything on it I can't afford to lose. Nil Einne (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know this doesn't answer your question but the first thing I would do is teach your dad that RAID is not a backup [14], [15], [16], [17] & [18]. You and your dad wouldn't be the first to confuse the two but it is vitally important you understand the difference. RAID 1 only protects your data against the failure of a single hard disk. It doesn't backup your data. There are many circumstances where you could lose data with a RAID array. For example accidental or malicious (viruses, malware etc) deletion, partition corruption (caused by the OS, NAS, RAID controller etc), loss of the array (due to theft, flooding, tornado, fire etc), the failure of two hard disks simulatenously or before you rebuild the array (this is not as unusual as it seems, it could be caused by a catrastrophic power supply failure for example or if both hard drives have sustained failure or have a similar defect which isn't as uncommon as as it seems when you've purchased the drives at or around the same time even worse in the event you continue to use the array while waiting potentially several weeks for the broken drive to be replaced). In other words, while RAID provides redudancy, it's not as backup. If your father has stopped good backuping practice because he has a RAID array, he should seriously reconsider. Nil Einne (talk)

Blown-Up Screen Display

I had a game that asked me to change something about the settings, and when I hit okay, and later when I turned the game off, everything on the screen seems blown up, or stretched. How do I get it back to the way it was? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 06:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you changed the screen resolution! The new resolution probably don't match the aspect ratio of the screen, and that's why everything got stretched. Go into the game's settings (I assume you can still navigate the menus of the game, even if they look a little strange?) and change the screen resolution. It's often under the "Video" portion in the options-screen. Try a few out and see which ones look ok. If you look at the screen settings in windows, you can find out what resolution windows is using and try that. Remember though, the larger the screen resolution, the more resources the game will demand. If you have a slightly older machine, use lower resolution settings. It will make your screen look less sharp, but it will improve performance. Belisarius (talk) 06:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not the game, it's the computer desktop. And any windows that open. The game was the only thing that looked normal, and now I can't get back in because my 60 minutes is up (it was a trial version of Escape the Museum). I guess I need a way to change resolutions without the game options available. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 06:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, sorry, I misread your question! Terribly sorry. Well, that's easy to fix too :)

For Windows XP: Right-click on your desktop and select "Properties" from the menu. Select the "Settings" tab. There should be a dial-thingy that you can drag back and forth to change resolution. Try different values (i.e. select a value, and press "Apply") until you find the one that you had before.
For Windows Vista, again, right-click the desktop and select ~~"Properties"~~"Personalize". It will open a window where you can configure a whole bunch of things. At the bottom there will be one called "Display Settings". Click it, and proceed in the same way described above.

Good luck! Belisarius (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Vista the option when you right-click on the desktop is called "Personalize". Astronaut (talk) 07:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, correction appriciated Belisarius (talk) 07:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That did it. Thanks both of you! --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 07:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good thing it was just a trial. My suggestion is that you do not buy that game now ... Kushal (talk) 21:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Happens to me all the time, but restarting normally fixes it (althought I sometimes have to rearrange my desktop icons afterwards). DendodgeTalk^Contribs 19:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Defination of diffrent words

Computer,E-commerce,calculator,modem,mobile phones,E-mail —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.98.93.26 (talk) 09:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Although computer related, this should really be on the language desk.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google has a dictionary function. Use it like this. There are many other electronic dictionaries as well, and I've even heard rumors that they exist in paperback form. Don't bother us with things like "define this list of (homework) words for me" unless you've tried other options. It's a waste of our time and it's something you could clearly figure out on your own. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh comeon. Take a stab at it.

A computer is the milestone for the decline of western civilisation. E-Commerce is an opportunity for on line shopping, ordering, and SPAM. Calculator is a device that can do simple calcuations. Modem is a modulator-demoduator for sending and recieving data over Telephone lines. a mobile phone is one you can throw out a window. ( or is that a flying phone ). and Email is message that is sent from a computer to a mail server, that moves to the destination mail server, and then gets transferred to your computer by a mail program, or a broswer. It can contain simple text, or include pictures, viruses and social networking viruses. Which one is not true? $--~~~~$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 03:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jebus the homework questioners are really getting lazy if they can't even be bothered to type out the question and instead only type out the keywords and want us to guess what they want Nil Einne (talk) 11:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adblock Plus

Resolved

I went to the Adblock Plus website yesterday. It did not say anything about what software (Firefox or IE) or OS are needed, but I decided to risk it for a biscuit and download anyway. I'm on a Mac, using Firefox, and Adblock Plus downloaded and installed automatically. It works like a dream! Now, I am wondering, would it work on IE on Windows? I still know a few people who stick to IE and won't touch Firefox despite, well, everything, really. So, anyone know?--ChokinBako (talk) 13:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment moved to correct section by IMSoP (talk):

(EC - and this has been transformed into a new question!) I must be getting old - one look at the website of Adblock Plus tells me it's for Mozilla products only! I should have known! The Steve Jobs article is here.--ChokinBako (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

End moved comment

I would sacrafice a large animal if it worked on IE, but there is so very many security problems with IE< and ActiveX in pitecular, ( I run only ONE active X Control ), I actually use HostXpert for blocking ads. I can start with Spybot Search and Destory's black list, and then ad to it. But thats for a lightly used IE. I dont use Adblock Plus, because of its interface, but use Adblock and Adblock Filterset G updater, and it works GREAT. ( Oh, and just for fun, I have banned *.ru, *.cn and *.nl, because some punk rooted my linux box from *.nl ). Any other suggestions on countries to ban? --99.185.0.29 (talk) 03:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Jobs

I want to know more about Steve Jobs,but i can`t find article about him in Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.233.240.207 (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you had typed "Steve Jobs" into the search box below the Wikipedia logo at the left hand side of the screen, it would have taken you to the article you are looking for. --NorwegianBlue^talk 14:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad I read 'The journey is the reward' and found it really good. I would recommend it far and above the article on Steven Jobs here. ( The article on John Skully, and John Lois Gasse are also not very comprehensive. ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 03:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you could write more for those articles if you like, but here isn't the best place to recommend books. My name is anetta (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A reference to a relevant book is a good answer to a factual question, IMHO. --NorwegianBlue^talk 19:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy: do emails reveal my IP address?

Could someone take a close look at my email and discover the IP address, and thus be able to see what text I had provided here and at other places? 78.149.192.49 (talk) 17:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the headers of any e-mail message contain a set of lines beginning "Received:", which show the path the message has taken through the Internet, usually starting with the sender's connection to their ISP. You can see this for yourself: if using Thunderbird, just click View -> Message source; GMail I think has a "view original" option somewhere; Outlook hides it away somewhere I can never find, but it is there somewhere.

Using a webmail interface or service such as GMail or Hotmail would generally avoid this, I think.

And of course a lot of places, including Wikipedia, will only reveal your IP address publicly if you don't create an account. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? - IMSoP (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gmail hides the IP address of the original sender, at least when you send from its webmail interface - the originating address is the gmail server. Outlook and OE show your originating IP when you send out a mail - they are designed as host-based clients, so the originating IP has to belong to your ISP network, otherwise it gets rejected as a spam transfer. Hotmail used to show full email headers traced back right to your own PC, but I'm not sure now since I refuse to upgrade to the "full" version of Windows Live. Generally, when you use an email client on your own computer, your own IP address is visible at the other end. If you use web-based email, the visible address is the server you connected to in order to send your email. You can always send an email to yourself and find the "full headers" option to see how far back you can trace it. Franamax (talk) 23:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And of course if you use a DHCP service from your ISP (as most people do these days) - then your IP address will probably change each time you power your computer down or disconnect from the Internet...so it may not matter that your IP address is leaked. SteveBaker (talk) 02:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

transient in Java

Hi,

What's the motivation behind the existence of this modifier? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3sJJ0Itf (talk • contribs) 19:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you even know what transient does? --71.106.183.17 (talk) 20:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Transient marks data that isn't to be emitted when an object is serialised. Why, you might ask, would you want to serialise some data in an object and not other data? Some data, in certain objects, isn't meaningful if you reconstruct the object at some future time; so you wouldn't want to store that in the serialised object. Say for example you were writing a video game, and you had a PlayerState object, which kept things like the player's position and how much health they had. And so save the game you'd chosen to serialise that PlayerState object, save the resulting bytes on the disk, and you'd do the reverse when you wanted to load a game. But, for convenience, say you also store some stuff in that object like which keys the player is pressing on his keyboard. You wouldn't want to save that info, so you'd mark that data transient. Another example: say you were implementing a web browser, and you wanted to have a BrowserState object that you'd save when the user exists the browser, which you then reload if they restart it - allowing them to get back the tabs and tab histories they had when they closed the object. But say in that same object you also kept the cached contents of web pages; saving that would make the serialised BrowserState object very large, and slower to load, and would contain a bunch of stuff that the user wouldn't want to see anyway (if, say, they restarted the browser a week later). So you'd mark that cache object transient too. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so if it wasn't a keyword, you'd have to do a lot of messing around to achieve the same thing? I guess what I didn't understand is that actual serialization doesn't seem built in, it seems more like any other API but that this transient, which only makes sense in context of serialization is a keyword of the language, on the same level as old favourites like if, abstract etc etc. -3sJJ0Itf (talk) 20:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like modifiers such as "volatile" and "public", "transient" is per-item meta-information. Because classes can implement any number of interfaces, one can add such meta information to a class simply by making the class implement a special interface (e.g. Serializable, Runnable) and then test an instance with the instanceof keyword. There isn't a comparable way to designate a method or a field, so the Java designers chose to use keywords. These mostly tell the compiler to set a bit in a bitfield describing the member, which can later be inspected by native code or by inspecting the Modifier obtained via java.lang.reflect.Member (see the java.lang.reflect.Modifier docs). This is probably a bit clunky, as it would be nice to be able to tag members the same way we can tag classes and object, but this is the limited path the Java designers have chosen. If it wasn't a keyword you'd have to figure out some other way of tagging a field in this way, or remove automated serialisation and make every serialised class explicitly generate its own serialised form (with its own method, which knew which fields to store and which not to). Serialisation itself is part of the java.io package, which makes it "built in" (the implementation of the native bits of java.io is pretty tied up with the internals of the JVM, although less so than java.lang). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 20

Xbox 360-Ubuntu tethering

after watching this video [19], i was able to 'tether' my 360 to my Mac so they can share internet connections and I won't have to resort to buying a 100$ adapter for the 360. The problem is that my mac and 360 are on opposite sides of the room and i'm not going to move any of my desks anytime soon. I do, however, have a computer with Ubuntu on it on the same desk as my 360. Sure it's a really old piece of junk, but it'll do the job without lag right? So, how can I tether my ubuntu pc to my 360 the same way i tether my 360 to my mac? --Randoman412 (talk) 02:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since both the Mac and the XBox have a limited expansion potential, I would look at running your internet into the ubunto, and then running the mac from that, and then the XBox from there...--99.185.0.29 (talk) 02:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I can't do that. Remember, my mac and 360 are on other sides of the room, and i'm not moving stuff. besides, i don't have the ubuntu on all the time (that whirring would keep me up all night). --Randoman412 (talk) 11:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

data compression

how they shrink data or compress a large volume data to a small volume

what is the algorithm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.92.15 (talk) 10:00, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Data compression is achieved by physcially crshing the data for hours to produce denser data. They estimate between 10 and 15 miniture people inhabit every Personal Computer purely for the purpose of working your data down to the tightest archive they can. In large IBM mainframes, you can find habitats of thousands who work between the numerous disks and processors. It's the real reason for the distaste of Microsoft, they force this slave labour upon manufacturers, who then have no choice but to distribute the colonies to you. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 10:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of different algorithms to do it. One of the simplest ones is to replace long strings of the same character with a count, so instead of writing "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" you would write "20a", which compresses the 20 characters down to just three. See data compression. --Sean 13:39, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what you're compressing. For English text, you could (for example) use a dictionary - give every word in the book a number and compress text by replacing every word with it's number. There could be one special "magic" number that is used to precede words that aren't in the dictionary (eg because they are spelled wrong). There are far less than 60,000 words in most people's vocabulary - and you can store a number up to 65,536 in two bytes. Hence any word with three or more characters would be squashed into two bytes instead of three or more bytes. That's a rather crude scheme - but this kind of "dictionary" compression is a very common approach. You can even go one step further and eliminate the need to keep the dictionary by taking the original document - and give each UNIQUE word in that document a number. The first time you encounter a new word, you store it normally - and give it a number. Each time you find another instance of that word, you replace it with the number. Since most documents will have a lot fewer than 60,000 unique words - the numbers can be stored in less than two bytes.

This approach is pretty much how we compress photographs in file formats like JPEG...except that we cheat! We break the picture up into small tiles (perhaps 4x4 pixel squares) - and make a list of all of the unique ones...but the odds of the exact same 4x4 pixel square showing up several times in the same photo is rather small - much less than the number of times the word "THE" appears in a large text document. So we go further and instead of requiring the tiles to literally match - we let them more-or-less match. Nobody much cares if the color is 'off' by a little bit in a photo - so we find a set of 4x4 pixel tiles that most accurately represent the actual pixels in the image. The more tiles we use - the more accurately we reproduce the image - but the bigger the 'dictionary' of tiles is - and the bigger the number you need to use to represent one tile. That's how the JPEG image compression system allows you to dial in the quality setting you want - the higher the quality you demand - the more tiles in the dictionary and the bigger the file becomes.

Approaches like JPEG that don't PERFECTLY reproduce the original data are called "lossy" compression schemes - there are other compression schemes (such as PNG) that do perfectly reproduce the original (at the price of much bigger files) that are "lossless". However, it is a fact that lossless compression is a hit-and-miss process. Some files simply don't get any smaller when you try to compress them losslessly. That's what prevents you using ZIP to compress a file - then compressing the ZIP file to make it smaller - then compressing THAT ZIP file to make it smaller still. What happens is that the file that ZIP produces is typically impossible to compress any more - so if you ZIP a ZIP file, it probably gets a little bit bigger.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shareware

Is there a program which turns a photograph into a line drawing?? Kittybrewster ☎ 14:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That depends both on what kind of photo and on what kind of line drawing you want. Gimp and Photoshop both have a "find edges" filter which, with a bit of tweaking, can turn some continuous tone pictures into something similar-ish to a line drawing. Inkscape's trace functionality will turn a photo or scan of a diagram or similar line-ish drawing into an editable vector diagram (to a limited extent). Gimp's find edges followed by inkscape's trace can, in some cases (and when used with skill and care) turn a photo into a useful SVG drawing. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Gimp and Photoshop have filters to make it somewhat appear that the photo was sketched with a pencil or pen, if that is what the OP means my "line drawing". -- kainaw ™ 15:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vector Magic is a very funky online tool for "tracing" bitmaps to vectors, if that's what you were after. - IMSoP (talk) 17:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vector Magic is pretty dang good on the whole — better than similar functions in Inkscape, Photoshop, and Gimp by far. Adobe Illustrator CS3 also does a pretty good job these days as well (it has some pretty neat features for testing out all sorts of different types of vector tracing on the fly, and is very fast), but if you don't own it already, it's not worth getting just for this, though you used to be able to download a fully-functional demo that conked out after a month or so, which might be a way to what you want.

The key issue here is that "photograph to line drawing" is very ambiguous. What do you want it to look like? What type of photo is it? As usual, the more specific you can be in your question, the more specific we can be in our answers. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I have a jpg of four people and dogs. The hope is to produce a sketch from it. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by a "sketch"? Black and white line art? Vectorized art? Are you trying to make it look like it was done by hand? Painted? Drawn? Made by a computer? Can you give us an example of what you would like the final product to look like? Because the ambiguity here is what is really making this hard to answer. -98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am hoping to make the product look as if it had been hand drawn. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I got with a simple Sobel filter in GIMP in about 30 seconds of work:

File:Sarah and oliver.pngFile:Sarah and oliver line.png

With some fiddling around, you could do much better.

SteveBaker (talk) 01:44, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you subscribe by email to a RSS Wordpress blog?

Is it possible to get an email subscription to a Wordpress blog that has an RSS feed, but does not give you the option of subscribing by email? --Gary123 (talk) 17:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might be able to do that via Google Reader, I think. HardDisk (talk) 18:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hotmail account possibly hacked?

Yesterday I received a message from a Swedish friend, saying he had received spam originating from a Chinese IP address, which had been faked to use the Hotmail address of our mutual friend in Finland. This alone was not unusual, because the two have been members of the same Internet forum for a long time, and it is not unheard of for spammers to harvest e-mail addresses from there. But what is strange is that the advertising tagline that Hotmail automatically adds was in Finnish. There is no way for the spammers to tell from the Hotmail address, or from our friend's IP address, that she uses Hotmail in Finnish - for example, I use it myself in English, even though I speak Finnish natively. Is there a reasonable risk that her Hotmail address was hacked into? JIP | Talk 18:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but probably not. If the forum was in Finnish, or contained a bunch of other addresses in .fi, then they could infer that sending in Finnish might be a good idea. Similarly if they harvested an address using a virus or trojan that reads someone's Outlook address book, and they see a bunch of .fi addresses. But then I get a lot of spam in Russian (in Cyrillic) but I don't speak Russian, don't know any Russians, don't have anything to do with any Russian forums, and I don't believe anyone in my address book does either (what an insular lot). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:38, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The forums is Nordic. It has three sections, one in Scandinavian (meaning Swedish, Danish and Norwegian - they are mutually intelligible enough), one in Finnish, and one in English. Finns are the second biggest group of users, after Swedes. So yes, there are a bunch of .fi addresses. So it might very well be that the spammer just learned from statistical analysis that using a faked Hotmail advertisement in Finnish would be a good idea. Anyway, our friend has changed the password of her Hotmail account, just to be on the safe side. JIP | Talk 19:09, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can just look in the headers to see whether it actually came from Hotmail or not. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 21:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nero 8 Cover Designer

Hi all,

how do I produce Slimcase DVD stuff in Nero8? It only supports the standard-sized stuff :(

HardDisk (talk) 18:41, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Virus

I have a proxy-trojan which my KAV cannot delete/neutrlize. I tried my best but any solution has not been produced yet. Please tell me what I can do to delete it and how. Thanks, --87.68.158.69 (talk) 20:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, when i'm in windows and i get a virus, i usually do a reinstall(of windows). Though this depends on the severity of the virus and how much it spread. Mile92 (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm amazed to hear you say "usually". How many times has this happened to you? I've used Windows (and MS-DOS) for about 15 years, and I've never once had a computer infected with any kind of malware. I stopped using antivirus software years ago because it didn't seem to do anything except slow my system down. I can't even figure out what people do to get their machines infected. Are you sure you've been infected by viruses many times, or does you system just do mysterious things that you assume are due to a virus? -- BenRG (talk) 00:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give any more details? Does Kaspersky detect the trojan, and if so, what does it tell you about it? Does it interfere with your web browsing in a specific way? If you post a HijackThis log here (inside Template:Show or similar) I'll see if I can glean anything from it. -- BenRG (talk) 00:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes KAV does detect it. It is called "Trojan-Proxy.Win32.Saturn.a".... --87.68.158.69 (talk) 08:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Big O notation

Can someone provide a concise introduction of this for someone who finds the main Wiki article a touch too academic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.42.62.245 (talk) 22:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First, a warning... Big O in computer science is not Big O in mathematics. In computer science, Big O merely an approximate number of iterations an algorithm will require. For example, if you have a group of items and your algorithm requires you to check each item once and only once, it is a O(n) (where n is just the number if items you have - you are generalizing with 'n' because the next guy may have a different number of items and he'll use 'n' for his number). Now, assume you have to compare every item to every other item. For every one of the 'n' items, you need to do pretty much 'n' comparisons. That is n times n or O(n²). All in all, computer science Big O is much simpler in computer science than math because in computer science it is much further generalized. If your algorithm does a divide and conquer method, you know you'll see a 'log n' in your Big O. If you look at code and you see three embedded for loops, you will expect to see n³ in the Big O. Does that introduce it enough to read the article? -- kainaw ™ 22:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean when you say "Big O in computer science is not Big O in mathematics." It's the same notation, and it means the same thing in both fields. Big O notation is often used in computer science to express an approximation of the number of operations required by a particular algorithm, but it can also be used to express other things, such as space complexity. —Bkell (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The math in the Big O notation article was hard for me to follow, but in the section about The family of Bachmann-Landau notations, I found the following example which reminded me how Big O notation is used in computer science.

Example: The running time $T$ for a newly developed algorithm with input size $n$ is $T(n)=73n^{3}+22n^{2}+58$ .
$T(n)$ is $O(n^{3})$ , which means $T(n)$ grows asymptotically as fast or more slowly than $n^{3}$ .

Big O notation is usually used when analyzing running times of algorithms. Although the example

T(n)

was specified exactly, you usually analyze the code and determine just the fastest growing term. Big O notation is used to indicate the fastest growing term of a function. --Bavi H (talk) 01:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that's not entirely correct.

f(n)=O(g(n))

means that, for sufficiently large

n

, some multiple of

g(n)

is always greater than

f(n)

. So

n^{2}

,

100n^{2}

, and

n

are all

O(n^{2})

. Granted, no one would write

n=O(n^{2})

instead of

n=O(n)

, but it is still correct. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 07:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the simplest possible terms (for software) - if you imagine a piece of software that processes some units of data. It has to crunch through N units. If the time it takes to do that is proportional to N - then it's an O(n) process. If you double the number of units of data - the program takes more or less twice as long to process it. However, some algorithms need to do things like compare every item of data to every other item. For each of N things - it has to do N operations. The time it takes to run is now proportional to the SQUARE of the number of data items - if you double the amount of data, it take FOUR times as long to do the work. This is an O(n²) algorithm. Knowing what ORDER (that's what the 'O' stands for) of complexity you have lets you predict how well your software will scale when it has a lot of work to do. It's NOT true to say that an O(n²) will always be slower than an O(n) algorithm for any given amount of data. If you have one algorithm to do some job that works at O(n) but takes 8 seconds per operation - and another that is O(n²) that only takes 1 second per operation - then for less than 8 items of data, your O(n²) algorithm turns out to be faster. What the O-notation tells you is that if the amount of data gets large enough - then EVENTUALLY, the O(n) algorithm will be the most efficient. SteveBaker (talk) 01:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 21

Booting Windows XP off of ext

I've read about these drivers that enable Windows to read ext partitions, but I was wondering, woudl it be possible to boot Windows off of an ext partition? If so, how would I go about doing this? Thanks.

63.245.144.77 (talk) 04:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help finding Adobe software

I was asked to look at a software package and see if it would fit a given application. I know it's made by Adobe, it is basically for designing web sites and it possibly works in conjunction with Photoshop. I believe the cost is somewhere around US$100. I've been trying to trawl around Adobe's site but the combination of heavy graphics and the ancient computers here at work is making the task rather daunting. So, does anyone know what I'm thinking of? I'd prefer a direct link to the Adobe page that explains the software. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 05:12, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably Dreamweaver, although it costs $399: http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/. There are other Adobe web-design tools, but they are devoted to specialized technologies like Flash and web slices, and none of them cost $100: http://www.adobe.com/products/. --Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 08:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Contribute? It is often used to maintain sites built with Dreamweaver. http://www.adobe.com/products/contribute/ MaxVT (talk) 15:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. It is not made by Adobe. It's SiteGrinder. Dismas|^(talk) 09:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

.rar file

how can I open a .rar file type?Shraktu (talk) 05:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What OS are you using? Have you read over the .rar article? It goes over the software needed. Dismas|^(talk) 05:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IE Keeps crashing/ Hanging when loading into Wikipedia

Hi i have a group of users who frequently access to wikipedia site. However lately they have been encountering this problem:

IE hangs when trying to load www.wikipedia.org. No responses from IE. I would need to terminate the session and restart again. Sometimes after shutting down and restart it works, but some other times it will just not response.

Is there any solution for this? or advise you could give relating to this problem? thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.67.5 (talk) 11:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried loading the page in Firefox or another browser? Are there any other pages that cause it to hang? Does it crash when loading http://en.wikipedia.org or just the language portal http://www.wikipedia.org? Can you kill it with Control-Alt-Delete or does it freeze the whole system (entirely possible on Windows)? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 15:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

8800 GS not working in Bootcamp (iMac).

A friend of mine just bought an iMac, but upon installing Vista 32 bit, his 8800 GS is identified as a Standard VGA Adapter in dxdiag. Nvidia drivers fail to install (don't recognize the card), and I've looked through various websites claiming to have solved this, but their solutions haven't worked. Could this have been an installation error, or maybe hardware? · AndonicO ^Engage. 11:14, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I take it he installed the Boot Camp drivers? What if you try installing an official nVidia driver instead with a modded .inf file from [20]? Past those idea, not a clue. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excel 2007

Hi, my problem is in Excel 2007 using Windows XP SP3.

I have a column full of cells with dates in them. I want the word "DUE" or similar to appear in another cell when today's date is in the week leading up to the due date, inclusive. If today's date is before the aforementioned range I want a blank cell, and I want "OVERDUE" if today's date is over that range. That is:

Cell A = Due Date

Cell B = Notification message

TODAY() is less than A-7, then B = ""

TODAY() is in [A-7, A], then B = "DUE"

TODAY() is > A, then B = "OVERDUE"

I would like to see that as a valid cell formula. Any suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.252.174 (talk) 13:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use the IF function - look it up in on-line help to see how it works. IF on its own produces one of two possible outputs, but if you nest IF functions you can extend the number of possible outputs. As your problem has three possible outputs, you will need two nested IF functions, one inside the other; see here for a tutorial. Gandalf61 (talk)

That's fine, I can nest the IF - but I need to know how to see if TODAY() is within [A-7, A]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.252.174 (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Make that your final "else". If we label your conditions in the order you presented as X, Y, and Z, then you'd have something like...

IF(X,"",IF(Z,"OVERDUE","DUE")). --LarryMac | Talk 14:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Easiest solution...Have the rseult of =today() in a cell of its own. Then test against that cell... (assuming today is in A1, due date is B1)

=IF(B1>A1,"Overdue",IF(B1<=(A1-7),"","Due"))

Make A1 a fixed reference ($A$1) and you can copy down provided you have setup the table correctly. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions on keyboard w/o separate number pads?

I use a notebook computer. I have a stand into which I can insert the notebook, raising the screen to a more ergonomic level, but that means I need a separate keyboard (the notebook's is covered by the stand). I've gotten used to the notebook's key layout -- specifically, no separate numeric keypad off on the right, as with most desktop machines. I'm thinking about buying a separate mini keyboard -- full-size keys, but no keypad, like this one (used as an example only). Trackball or touchpad is not important; I'm too accustomed to a mouse. (That's another reason for not wanting the standard keyboard: it's too far from the typing keys, across the numeric keypad, to the mouse.) I'd appreciate any suggestions, especially those based on experience. Thanks. --- OtherDave (talk) 14:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How much time do you spend inputting financial/numerical based information? If that answer is anything apart from "very little" you will feel the benefit from having a dedicated numerical keypad. There'll be a 'lock' key to put the 'numerical' pad on on the laptop and from experience I can say you can get used to it, but i've never been able to get anywhere near the speed and accuracy I can manage with a dedicated numerical pad. By the by don't be surprised if you're told off, the reference desk isn't a place for 'debate' (though plenty goes on) 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the opinion. I rarely enter numerical data beyond updating my own information in Quicken. The point is that when the laptop's in the holder, I can't use its keyboard at all (See [here] for an example.) I'm currently using a wireless keyboard I had, but if I could saw six and a half inches from the right site -- space for cursor-control key clusters and the numeric keypad, it would look a fair amount like the example in my original question. --- OtherDave (talk) 17:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A Google search on compact keyboards yields many sources. Many of those sources also have stand-alone numeric keypads that you can use with the main keyboard when needed and move out of the way when not needed. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:50, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been using a super-sexxy ergonomic keyboard (without number pad) for many years - and because I had the same worries as you, I bought a separate USB number pad. They are pretty cheap and easy to find on the Internet (eg on Amazon.com - for $10.99). However, I have to say that since the day I bought it, I've never once found the need to use it. Since so many people work on numberpad-less laptops these days, pretty much all modern software can cope well without the numpad. SteveBaker (talk) 00:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Different web addresses with same target

Hello all. Sorry for a potentially vague question. What I was wondering about is when two different web addresses point to the same webpage, differing only by the addition of a number in the URL. For example: "www.law.cornell.edu" and "www4.law.cornell.edu" both go to the same website. What is the reason for the presence of a "4" in the URL? Thanks! --67.159.86.84 (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "www4" probably means that they've got several different web servers providing their website, and are doing load-balancing so that no one server gets overloaded. The "4" in the URL simply means that the page you're viewing is being provided by web server #4. --Carnildo (talk) 20:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting as well that technically you shouldn't have to do it so crudely—there's ways of making it all look identical without much effort. Alas, academic IT is pretty poor. ;-) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Floppy drive necessary these days?

Do I really need a floppy drive in my Dell computer running windows XP in case anything goes wrong and I have to boot from floppy. I would like to replace it with another optical drive. Is this easy/possible?--GreenSpigot (talk) 17:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, you don't need one, but it makes things easier. Put the floppy disk into an existing floppy drive and copy the files onto a CD, then you can get rid of the floppy drive. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 17:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) If your PC's BIOS permits booting from a CD drive, then you can do without a floppy drive. Unfortunately, most floppy drives are only 3.5" wide while optical drives are 5.25" wide. Take a look inside your PC to see if the 3.5" floppy drive is fitted into a 5.25" bay using some removable brackets. You will also need to consider the exterior plastic case moulding - sometimes the floppy has a removable blanking panel next to it, sometimes not (in which case you could take a sharp knife to it). Of course, you might already have a free 5.25" bay, in which case just install your new optical drive in there and leave the floppy drive alone.

Note that you won't be able to use the floppy's data cable to connect to an optical drive, but there could be a spare connector on an existing optical or hard drive that you could use once you have set the drive jumpers correctly. Otherwise you can get a new cable from your local PC components store. Astronaut (talk) 17:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very useful info! But I remember with windows 98 the optical drive drivers were not loaded after a H/W change and you had to reload them from floppy before you could get the optical drive to work. Is it different with XP?--GreenSpigot (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it is newer BIOS-es that can read (and boot from) a CD without waiting for the OS to load drivers. --LarryMac | Talk 17:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Newer", in this case, meaning "almost anything built in the past ten years". --Carnildo (talk) 20:57, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neo Office Help

I am in the middle of a project and suddenly my document is read-only. How do I switch this off? I have tried Command-I and changed the permissions there, but to no avail. I think it must be something in Neo Office. Can anyone help?--ChokinBako (talk) 18:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As an emergency panic button, try saving the document in your local machine with another name and continue editing. Then, later, when you can give us more details, we will investigate the matter further. HTH, Kushal (talk) 18:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Collision detection

I'm writing a spacewar clone, and I'm currently doing the collision detection code. All my game objects are represented by a collection of lines, and if any one of those lines cross with another object's lines, a collision has happened. I know about using circles to find likely collisions first, etc, for efficiency, but I'm having some trouble with the exact, final test.

My lines have both velocity and angular velocity, and only the endpoints are known. So for some points P_1 and P_2 on the two lines, with vector velocities V_1 and V_2 and angular velocities θ_1 and θ_2 about centres C_1 and C_2, a collision at time t implies (oh, and let R(θ) = the rotation matrix through θ)

R(tθ_1)(P_1 - C_1) + C_1 + V_1t = R(tθ_2)(P_2 - C_2) + C_2 + V_2t

Now this is a hairy equation, because R(θ) involves trigonometric functions with an unknown (t) on the inside. P_1 and P_2 are also not known, though they are bounded (like t).

The time slices are small (1/30th of a second per frame is what I'm aiming for), so the small angle approximations could be used, linearising it (which would be easy to solve, comparatively at least). But first I want to try and do it exactly, and see if it's possible, before I fall back to that. 79.72.153.17 (talk) 19:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I should also add, because it's lines intersecting, it suffices to check if any of the endpoints can intersect with the other line, so the equation will need to be solved 4 times for different values (or not) of P_1 and P_2. 79.72.153.17 (talk) 20:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

design and logo,s

hi can you help i have a site which won t show design or logo,s i was told reinstall would correct this but hasn t. what would cause this in a new site and where can i check if reinstall was carried out. i,ve been banging my head of a wall for days trying to get answers. hope you can help thanks Scivver2008 (talk) 21:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC).[reply]

I'm sorry, but you haven't given us enough information to really make heads or tails of what you are asking about or what the technical problem is. Can you perhaps send us the URL, or describe in more detail what's not working? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dual pointers in windows

Hello. Is it possible to use multiple pointers in windows xp/vista? For example, using one usb tablet and one regular mouse. I want to use them in graphic, editing and 3d packages. I'm already using all the keyboard shortcuts but there are moments where it would be easier to have 2 pointers. I've looked quite a bit on the net but haven't found anything that works. Anyone uses two pointers efficiently and would recommend a method or software? Thank you. 190.220.104.35 (talk) 22:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, Multi-Pointer technology is not available for xp/vista that I am aware of. About two years ago I followed this technology being made but haven't seen it mass produced or even released for average users to mess with. it looks like there was an attempt at this being done for linux called MPX however I can't speak from experience in that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Forai (talk • contribs) 22:07, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

communicating between two windows with Javascript

Let's say I have two windows open both pointing to pages on the same server. Can I communicate between them using Javascript? Basically I'd like it if one window could query the other to find out what information it currently had displayed. Again, it's on the same server (it is not cross-site scripting). How would I do this, if it is possible? I'm looking for a Javascript-only solution primarily but if a little PHP was involved I could live with that. The only thing I've come up with is having the page I want information from set a cookie each time it is changed that has the information in it. Good idea? Workable? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

October 22

Semantic web again!

Hi! I know I had asked this earlier but I still have some doubts here. So, please bear with me.. The semantic web article and semantic web stack picture on wikipedia and another site I visited, gave me the impression that XML is one layer and you use an RDF-based language on top of it, ie., both are always used together. But some other articles I read, said that, you may use RDF/XML which is RDF-based and also incorporates XML , but it's not necessary that XML and RDF be used together. I might have misunderstood things here, but I'm still confused about what EXACTLY XML and RDF do. From my understanding, XML is used to give metadata 'tags', separately(while HTML takes care of formatting, etc.) and RDF is a specification, which is used INSTEAD of XML to convey metadata & RDF/XML is an RDF-based language that also uses elements of XML, ie. , RDF maybe used using XML, but not necessarily. Can you tell me if, and where I am wrong?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.68.77.73 (talk) 01:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think where you're getting muddled is in thinking of XML as a complete language that actually applies meaning to anything. A better way to think of it is as a generic syntax that you can write all sorts of languages in. RDF, on the other hand, is a very general language that can be written with various syntaxes.

To give a very rough analogy, human languages, say French and English, can use the same alphabet, but have very different words: XML is like the alphabet, RDF like the words.

If you wrote English in, say, the International Phonetic Alphabet, it would still be English. So in the same way, you can write RDF in a different syntax ("alphabet"), but it's still the same language, and still has the same advantages; but if you write it in XML, you also get the advantages of XML. - IMSoP (talk) 08:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stata plugins

Does anyone have any experience writing Stata plugins in C++? I have been trying to replicate what they do in there website, but the dll does not load properly in stata. http://www.stata.com/plugins/ I have permissions to write in all the data drives, but I have no permissions in the drives where stata is actually installed, is stata attempting to add the dll to a system folder and that is why its not working? Or does stata treat this as it would treat an ado, and by that I mean that as long as it knows where to find it it can use it. If anyone knows about this, any info would be appreciated. Thanks, Brusegadi (talk) 05:58, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Driver installation problem

Hi, I am using windows vista ultimate. Lately, I am encountering problems with driver installation. The devices whose driver have already been installed and are in the windows folder, need to be specified again. When I plug in the device (for example, a pen drive) a message pops up that the device driver needs to be installed. Then I have to direct it to look for the devices in the /windows/system32 folder and then after sometime it installs it. When I plug in some other pendrive, I have to do the routine again.218.248.70.235 (talk) 06:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Time Machine

Even after I leave Time Machine backing up overnight, it still hasn't finished. In fact System Preferences says it's still "preparing." It's also unusually loud, with fans at 2300 rpm (says iStat, a dashboard widget). I know it's a new backup of about 80GB, but I've completed bigger backups in half that time before. Anyone know when it might finish? It's connected by USB, OSX 10.5.5.My name is anetta (talk) 09:29, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Today's log doesn't say much either. I got it by using "sudo grep backupd /var/log/system.log" into the terminal:

Oct 22 01:11:30 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Backup requested due to disk attach

Oct 22 01:11:30 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Starting standard backup

Oct 22 01:11:30 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Oct 2008/Backups.backupdb

Oct 22 02:04:54 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Backup requested due to disk attach

Oct 22 13:12:18 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Error: (-36) Creating directory Backups.backupdb

Oct 22 13:12:19 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Stopping backupd because the backup volume was ejected!

Oct 22 13:12:19 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[390]: Backup failed with error: 27

Oct 22 13:12:42 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1656]: Backup requested by user

Oct 22 13:12:42 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1656]: Starting standard backup

Oct 22 13:12:42 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1656]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Oct 2008/Backups.backupdb

Even after I started it again at 13.12.42, the drive is still empty.My name is anetta (talk) 12:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Syncing my iPod

Earlier, when I used to connect my iPod to my PC, and opened iTunes, iTunes automatically started syncing stuff to my iPod. But now, no matter what I do, I can’t get iTunes to sync my iPod anymore. Even the “sync iPod” option under the File menu isn’t available. Is there a way out of this?? Please help!! La Alquim ista 09:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I got a blue flashing screen

The screen went just crazy and I had to restart my computer. Using Windows Vista. It scared the hell out of me. Also I regularly download porn and go to sites like 4chan, so I am worried that I have a virus. I already use Norton, Spybot Search and Destroy as well as NoScript in Firefox. What could be wrong? I don't want this to happen again.-ArticleDiscussion (talk) 12:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]