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November 20

ANT build process.

I'm messing around with a system that's compiled using ANT (under Linux) - and I need to see what commands it's actually executing as it builds my project. I can't find a command-line option for Ant to have it display the commands as it executes them - something like 'make -n' ('make --dry-run'). Neither the '-d' (debug) or '-v' (verbose) options to Ant seem to do that.

Help!

SteveBaker (talk) 01:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

In this situation I would do:

strace -f -s1024 -o /tmp/log ant_command
grep exec /tmp/log

--Sean 13:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks - I think that's what I need. SteveBaker (talk) 20:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Darn - it traces three 'exec' calls - then the program locks up and never terminates - so that's a bust. SteveBaker (talk) 02:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

That's weird; I've never had strace cause the target to misbehave. Another choice would be to run the program under gdb and break on exec() and examine the arguments there. --Sean 15:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You might wanna try asking at stackoverflow. — Shinhan < talk > 13:11, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Steve, you didn't include a wikilink, and I had never heard of ANT, but you're asking about Apache Ant, right? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes - sorry, I kinda assumed people would know what i meant...and they did! (Yeaaahhhh! RefDesk roolz!) SteveBaker (talk) 20:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Amazingly Realistic Graphics

I recall seeing a video a few months ago of a woman speaking about a new computer graphics technology that allows amazingly realistic graphics and later in the interview admits that the entire time she has just been a realistically rendered image. Does anyone know what I am talking about and can anyone maybe give me a link to the Youtube video? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Strifeblade (talk • contribs) 01:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know exactly what you are talking about - but these days, you really can render absolutely anything with complete realism IF you are prepared to spend enough computer time and you aren't in any kind of a hurry. So this kind of thing doesn't amaze me as much as it once did. The difficult problem (and what I do for a living) is getting the computer to draw things realistically at interactive rates - so instead of spending hours to draw a single picture - you've got maybe 16 milliseconds. Anyway - you might want to read our article on the Uncanny valley. SteveBaker (talk) 02:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe you're referring to this. She's still firmly in the uncanny valley, in my opinion. --Sean 13:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes that's it. Thank you. Strifeblade (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Strict NAT on DSL modem?

I posted an earlier question about the trouble I'm having with my PS3 and Xbox360. They were both giving me "strict" NAT type 3 warnings when I had them connect to my router. I removed the router and plugged each console in turn into my DSL modem directly (a Moto 2210). And I'm STILL getting the strict type 3 warnings -- even without a router! The configuration settings on the modem doesn't seem to have any settings for opening up specific ports. A call to AT&T (my DSL ISP) assured me that they do not port block except for spam email (which was some low port number like 30). So what to do? Do I need to buy a different DSL modem? Do I need to configure my consoles in a specific way? --71.158.221.237 (talk) 02:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Your modem appears to have some limited NAT ability. Here's some information about it from Broadband Reports: Motorola 2210. If you connect the modem to a computer, you can log into its settings page by going to 192.168.1.254 in your web browser. Try selecting the option to "use public IP address" and see if that helps it work with your game consoles. --Bavi H (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

HP Compaq Presario

Hey guys, I was wondering if you had any ideas about a HP compaq that has a misbehaving display that looks like this. It just started doing that right now and it seems to be a hardware issue (the video out or the lcd itself) as it just shows the screen immediately after a hard boot. I don't think it had anything to do with Windows Vista which it was running.

Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That looks a lot like bugs I've seen on LCD panels many times before - so I can only say that I agree with your diagnosis and commiserate over the impending damage to your bank account. There is (I suppose) a remote chance that it's the graphics chip or it's memory that's failing. But sadly, the vertical streaks speak of failures in the column addressing circuit...which is a part of the LCD panel. You can figure that out for sure if you can hook up an external monitor to the video-out from the laptop. If the external monitor is OK (as I expect it will be), then it's definitely the LCD panel that's died - if the external monitor looks the same as the LCD then it's the graphics chip or it's RAM that's at fault. Assuming it is the LCD panel then if you don't actually use the laptop for 'mobile computing' - then an external monitor will likely be a cheaper fix than repairing or replacing the laptop. SteveBaker (talk)

My new-ish laptop did that a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even get to see the BIOS screen during booting. I got an engineer from Dell to come round and replace the motherboard (and it's builtin graphics chip) under warranty. He said there was a problem with some NVIDIA(?) graphics chips that were used in my particular model for a while... maybe your machine has the same chips? The LCD panel itself was OK, and everything has been back to normal since the repair. Astronaut (talk) 11:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I found a link that might help explain what to do next - seems only HP and Dell are affected so far. Astronaut (talk) 12:08, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much guys. I guess the next step for me is to connect the computer to an external monitor. I will probably try to dock it in my friend's laptop dock, if the dock supports it. :( Do you think docking would work? I am not sure if I have the proper cables/adapters to connect it to an external monitor. I will be back to you soon with more information. From the above CNet link:

“ Owners of 24 HP laptop computer models need to be concerned. See HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario v3000/v6000 Series Notebook PCs - HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement and HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement. ”

Thank you once again and I hope I will continue to get help from you ...

Kushal (talk) 12:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The laptop is a V3019US series with product number EZ680UA#ABA. According to HP^here it is eligible for free repair. We will call HP to find out what they think of this issue. I will be back with details soon. Kushal (talk) 13:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem in starting Microsoft Age of Mythology Gold Edition.

I've recently bought the Age of Mythology Gold Edition Pack, including the original game and the Titans Expansion. The setup was done correctly and the game was successfully installed. But when I tried to start the game, I found that It is asking for the CD, and saying that 'Please insert the correct CD-ROM and restart the game'.I have inserted both the CDs and tried a lot, but the game can't get started. Then I replaced the AOM.exe file with the AOMTrial.exe file and found that It is running and even I can play the full campaign. But I can not play the Random map fully, nor can I start the editor. So,can anyone please give me an Internet address from which I can download the AOM.exe and AOMX.exe files to start the game without checking for the CD? Any help is heartily welcome.117.201.98.83 (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Does anything on this page help? Laenir (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

underline in spanish

I know bold is negrita and italics is bastardilla but what is underlined/underline in spanish?63.165.5.103 (talk) 16:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Subrayado means "underlined," assuming the noun you're talking about is masculine.--Rjnt (talk) 17:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

so would it be "subrayo" then?63.165.5.103 (talk) 18:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I said subrayado. As you can see here, subrayar means "to underline" in Spanish. So, if you were talking about an underlined word, it would be palabra subrayada. If the word it describes ends in an o (i.e., it's masculine) it's subrayado. If it's feminine -- ending in an a -- then it'd be subrayada.--Rjnt (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

History of MATLAB's "why" function

This is completely trivial, but I was wondering about the history behind MATLAB's "why" function. "Why" is it included with MATLAB? Is it merely for demonstration purposes? And who is the eponymous "Pete," and why did he want "it" that way? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.100.36.93 (talk) 19:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I asked matlab:

>> why
Some very rich and tall and smart and rich and terrified and rich and very young and good and rich and very tall and tall and smart and terrified and not excessively bald and rich and smart and not very young and bald and tall and smart and terrified and rich and tall and young and bald and good and terrified system manager knew it was a good idea.

Doesn't seem like a very good reason, but I trust that the very rich and tall and smart and rich and terrified and rich and very young and good and rich and very tall and tall and smart and terrified and not excessively bald and rich and smart and not very young and bald and tall and smart and terrified and rich and tall and young and bald and good and terrified system manager. -- JSBillings 23:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

html/css future.

Hi, I know of "zen garden" but are there any other links you could show me that point to other modern top flight web design?

do you think that html/css is the way to go for the next 10 years as per webpages?

thx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.203.30 (talk) 22:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

First, I don't really think that zen garden is "modern top flight web design". Some of the designs are prettier than others but most of that is accomplished through knowing how to use Photoshop. It's really just a demonstration that by putting some sense into your markup you can have a lot of flexibility. Especially if you know how to use Photoshop. Of course, zen garden actually is pretty easy to design for — having one large block of text and one size menu is a pretty simple layout. In my experience, the difficulty comes when you have much more information to deal with and you aren't just running a little "presentation" demo site. Any designer who knows the tools can make pretty pages when the information complexity is low. Compare the type and variety of information on the zen garden with, say, the information that the front page of Wikipedia has, or websites like CNN and Comcast have.

Second, projecting into the next decade is not really a winning game. If you code with compliant CSS/HTML then your web page should be readable by a web browser a decade from now. But given how much has changed with the web in the last decade (1998-2008), I would suspect that the technologies we use today will probably be superceded by then. As an example, in 1998 Javascript was pretty much a toy. The speed of execution was too low to do complicated things and it had not yet been really integrated with server-side languages to allow for AJAX-like behavior on a large scale. And more importantly people hadn't really even conceptualized the rich possibilities of merging the two.

Other issues in how web design has changed since 1998 have nothing to do with the web. Visual hardware has changed a lot. In 1998 my computer ran at 800X600 on a big clunky CTR monitor. Now I do everything from a wide-screen LCD laptop. Webpages need to be much more accommodating for wide-screen resolutions these days, to speak nothing of all of the proliferating little mobile devices like the iPhone. This great variety in resolution and dimensions makes things like good CSS and HTML all the more important, because you need something that'll flow and can be adapted to the space it'll be viewed in (which static HTML, unless very simple, doesn't do very well, and things like HTML table layout does very poorly). What will we view the web on in a decade? Some things will surely be the same, and some things will surely change in unpredictable ways (if you could predict them, you'd be able to make a fortune). This is a pretty vague but conservative view. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree with most of that. But I bet you'll find html and css working pretty much as now in 10 years time. Things aren't changing all that fast. I though we'd have svg and mathml as standard ages ago. Silly me. Get the content right and don't fiddle too much and you'll find you easily have time enough to do things as they change and become standard. Dmcq (talk) 23:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, most of the pages on the Net don't validate. This includes well-known ones. I, for one, don't use CSS that much outside of inline styles, and my sites look great. I use tables often, too. Many new, well-known sites use tables for layout, too. The latest standard XHTML was released only in 2001, and it wasn't until very recently that HTML editing programs started getting in your face about it. I'm not sure why the W3C keeps saying tag x is "outdated," since they work great for me. There are sites dating back to the advent of the Net that are still on line, so I doubt any of the browsers will drop support for any of the old styles. If they do, it'll be a while.--Rjnt (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I use styles so I can use the same html on the web as on mobiles. It lets me change the navigation menu, suppress some images and have a single column display instead of double columns for some tables. And I do check everything validates - and even spellcheck occasionally :) I avoid anything more complicated unless I have to, I use very little javascript for instance, just some essential things like cutting down on spam merchants but still making contact easy and then I have to have clunky alternatives for people without it. Dmcq (talk) 10:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

p.s. the other nice thing you can do with styles that I think is really worthwhile is to suppress the menu when a user prints a page. Dmcq (talk) 10:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Spyware won't let me access YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google Images

At first the spyware was redirecting my YouTube links, and Google wouldn't work at all. Then I ran Spybot, and now Google works again, but YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google images won't load at all (posting this with a different comp). What can I do to fix this? 98.221.85.188 (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a host file was tampered with by the spyware. I would suggest reading about the HOSTS file and what it does first. if it's not that then offhand I don't know 66.216.163.92 (talk) 22:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You can access the HOSTS file and other similar things with the Spybot advanced tools. Play around in there. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

November 21

System->Administration->Network does not appear in Ubuntu 8.10

I can't find System->Administration->Network. I can only find System->Administration->Network Tools. In Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04, I can find System->Administration->Network but in Ubuntu 8.10, I can't. I want to access Network Settings. Is this default in Ubuntu 8.10 or a bug? What should I do to have System->Administration->Network in the menu? Jet (talk) 00:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be the default for 8.10. I don't know what the "Network" was in previous versions, gnome-network-preferences or (not installed by default) gnome-network-admin maybe? --194.197.235.221 (talk) 01:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you able to run "network-admin" from the command line? --128.97.245.81 (talk) 03:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

sudo apt-get install gnome-network-admin --wj32 ^t/c 06:08, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's installed by default in Ubuntu 8.10 - most of its functionality can now be achieved using the Network Manager applet (next to the clock). Running the code wj32 posted in a terminal should install it, though. --saxsux (talk) 10:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Free Antivirus

Looking for a good free antivirus program. Suggestions include AVG Free, which I'm a little hesitant towards since the false positive fiasco, Avast!, NOD32, and two which I don't want: ClamWin and Antivir. Anyone have suggestions for which I should lean towards? I have McAfee, but it won't do anything unless I exit Norton, which I can't for some reason. Avnas Ishtaroth _{drop me a line} 05:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I use BitDefender Free Edition. It's basically BitDefender (a prestigious product) without all of the bloat, free of charge. It actually has a better detection record than McAfee and Norton. By the way, you should only have one anti-virus suite installed on your machine at a time. As you have seen, they tend to get in each other's way and often interfere with the normal operation of your computer.--Rjnt (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Antivirus software is extremely unreliable; any clever programmer can construct malicious code that is utterly undetectable as such until some security researcher sees it in the wild and constructs rules to detect it. Also if you're running it in the background to intercept disk writes it can destroy any semblance of performance on your computer. Just don't run untrusted code; it's not that hard to avoid closed-source freeware with the success of open source, and presumably anything you're paying for is from someone reputable.. .froth. (talk) 06:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be condescending but it makes little sense to have two elephants in one little room. That's basically what Norton + McAfee is. I believe it is much easier to uninstall Norton now than ever before. Uninstalling McAfee should not be that hard, either. Just make sure that you don't have more than one real-time scanner. ClamWin should fit right in with other players unless you enable real-time protection. Kushal (talk) 11:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm still a part of the 'Use the Norton Removal Tool!' camp. If the actual Norton/Symantec folks make it themselves and make it fairly readily available, I'd much rather use it (very easy to find on Google, just make sure to get it directly from Symantec...it 'expires') Washii (talk) 05:33, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I use Avast! and have had no complaints; it runs quietly in the background and no malware has gotten through. It downloads updates at inconvenient times, but there's probably a setting in there I've been too lazy to hunt down. I used AVG for years, but dropped it like a hot potato when it became a resource hog (a la NAV or McAfee)Matt Deres (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey Rjnt, Bitdefender supposedly offers no protection against spyware, is that true? --Thanks for answering (talk) 04:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

CSS for the blind

I resisted learning anything beyond elementary HTML, on grounds of laziness and accessibility, until I installed WordPress and had to learn basic CSS to make my blog look halfway decent. I see that CSS can specify how voices should express heading-style and so on. Supposing I don't care whether my writing sounds like Ingrid Bergman or Danny DeVito, is it worthwhile to add voice code to my stylesheet; or do vocal browsers have decent defaults? If I did want to make my website sound pretty, what client might I use to try it? (I'm on MacOS.) — This is prompted by a recent question on Humanities that touched on website design for the blind. —Tamfang (talk) 06:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My best vocal experience has been with Opera. It is rather simple to set voice parameters in CSS and, since you should be using a single stylesheet for your whole site (to make it all look similar), you only set it one place, not in each HTML file. -- kainaw™ 12:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it likely that blind users will use an overall screen reader, like JAWS or MAGic, which will replace all voices with their own. StuRat (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

That is very true. I have worked with blind programmers and database analysts. The voice they use is very fast such that is sounds like quick chirping, not speaking. -- kainaw™ 14:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ may have some information (or may at least be interesting) --h2g2bob (talk) 16:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Printing a file into a bitmap or something

i want to print a picture from another program into a bitmap format. Is there a way to do that? PS sorry about my sig, it's not working right yet.  Buffered Input Output 14:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

There are many bitmap formats. What do you want? The Windows .bmp format? Just open the picture in Paint and save it as .bmp. I don't use Windows, so I'd open the original pic in GIMP and save it as "Windows .bmp" format. -- kainaw™ 14:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I will assume you are on a Windows computer:

1) If you display the pic, then hit the Print Screen button on the keyboard (usually up and to the right of the Backspace key), it will be copied into the picture buffer.

2) Then go to Start + (All) Programs + Accessories + Paint to start Microsoft Paint.

3) Do an Edit + Paste and hit Yes to expand.

4) Do a File + Save As to save it as a BMP file.

The following steps would trim the image:

3.1) Pick the "Select" icon at the top of the left side icon list. It will be a dashed rectangle.

3.2) Move the mouse to one corner of the area to keep.

3.3) Hold down the left mouse button and move to the opposite corner of the region to keep. A dashed rectangle should surround the area you want to keep.

3.4) Use Edit + Cut to cut the part you want to keep.

3.5) Use File + New, followed by No, to discard the rest.

3.6) Do an Edit + Paste and hit Yes to expand.

I don't know if this works under Windows Vista, as they have changed many things for no apparent reason. StuRat (talk) 14:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Makes me want to set the fox on fire myself...

I'm using the FireFox web browser and have an annoying problem. I'm editing a Wikipedia paragraph then click on another existing paragraph and start typing text there. Unfortunately, there is a lag. This didn't used to be a problem, as it would eventually catch up to my typing and everything would be fine. Now, however, the change in location doesn't register until after the text is typed. So, the text I typed AFTER picking on a new location doesn't go where I clicked, but rather where I was before I clicked. The flashing cursor then moves to the new location. I'm considering scrapping this version of FireFox if I can't fix this annoying prob. My version info:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.1.18) Gecko/20081029 Firefox/2.0.0.18

StuRat (talk) 14:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My wife has this problem with McAfee is doing a file scan. McAfee uses 99.999999999999% of system resources, so there is nothing left for her to use. The lag creates a race condition - which registers first in the CPU, her mouse click or the keyboard presses? Since the keyboard is PS2 and the mouse is USB, the keyboard usually wins and gets in first. She is just starting to learn to kill the McAfee virus scan before asking me about some new problem. -- kainaw™ 15:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not running any anti-virus programs, and both my mouse and keyboard are PS/2. So, can you think of any other reason why the keyboard might jump ahead of the mouse ? The delay can be as much as 5 seconds. StuRat (talk) 15:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Could be a problem with one of your add-ons. Try starting Firefox in safe mode so only default settings are loaded to see if that makes a difference. Go start, run and type with quotes

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode

If the problem is gone then start Firefox normally, one by one disable your add-ons and then restart to see which one is the culprit. SN0WKITT3N 17:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, where do I go to disable them ? StuRat (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Click on Tools and you'll see Addons. Click on an addon you don't want and select "disable". -- kainaw™ 17:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that shows something called DOM Inspector 1.8.1.18 and their own TalkBack 2.0.0.11. I can only uninstall the first, but I'll see if that makes a diff. StuRat (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

So far it seems to be working. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 07:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

BeautifulSoup

Hello - is there any way to get BeautifulSoup to spot xml tags which close themselves - like this: <tslash /> ? It makes the nesting go all wrong.

Here's an example:

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulStoneSoup
print BeautifulStoneSoup('''<xml1><tnested>ok</tnested><tslash /><tnested>wrong</tnested></xml1>''').prettify()

prints

<xml1>
 <tnested>
  ok
 </tnested>
 <tslash>
  <tnested> <!-- this shouldn't be nested! -->
   wrong
  </tnested>
 </tslash>
</xml1>

I know I could set selfClosingTags=['tslash'], but I'd much rather detect it all automatically. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I've written a hack that works using regular expressions.

def make_soup(page):
	# Those fools don't recognise <foo..../> as a self-closing tag in xml.
	# Lets fix that for them
	re_self_closing_xml_tags = re.compile( r'<([^>\s]+)(\s[^>]*)?/\s*>' )
	page = re_self_closing_xml_tags.sub(
		lambda m : '<%s %s></%s>' % (m.group(1), m.group(2) or '', m.group(1),),
		page)
	return BeautifulStoneSoup(page)

If there's other/better solutions then I'd be interested. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Localhost offline in firefox

Currently I have no network at home, no LAN or WLAN. This causes my Firefox to start in offline mode.

Which is a good thing, I think it makes sense. The problem is that I have a local webserver running (on this machine) and I can't connect to it via http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1. Firefox then complains about the 'offline mode'.

Under Edit>Preferences, I have market "No proxy"

I think local addresses like the ones above should always be allowed as they are not dependent on the actual LAN/WLAN connection.

What is wrong? Mr.K. (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

This extension will allow you to alternate between online and offline mode. SN0WKITT3N 17:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I researched the problem further and it is actually a bug specific for Firefox 3.0 + Ubuntu Hardy. Your suggestion would work, but I find easier to just go to File > Offline mode and uncheck it. Mr.K. (talk) 17:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Password Problems Windows XP Pro

A friend of mine has a problem with Windows XP Pro. A few days ago they turn it on and it comes to the login screen with his four accounts. However, no matter what account he tries to login with, it asks for a password. None of the accounts had passwords, as it is a family computer. Even trying safe mode, where you have access to the additional "Administrator" account presents the same problems for all user accounts.

My friend suspects they have a virus, but from researching this in Google I get a bunch of mixed responses, from spyware to a remote user hacking and screwing things up. I am aware of things that would cause this, but I do not know how to treat it, since I have never (nor want to) experience this problem.

I am away at school right now and am unable to help my friend, whom I talked to over the phone for about an hour last night. He cannot find his Windows XP disc, and thus I am not able to have him repair his installation. He can get to another computer and check e-mail, but needs to get into his computer to access his documents. What can I suggest to him to do in order to solve his problem? --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 18:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I just used a tool called Ophcrack to recover the passwords to an XP system. It took about 10 minutes, but revealed the passwords to all the accounts. Your friend would need to be able to download the ISO and burn it to a CD. --LarryMac | Talk 18:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Another approach is to boot from CD. Of course, this would require bootable Windows CDs (or, it might also be possible to use a Linux boot disk; I've used Skinny Puppy 4.0 for this before). Once booted, you could then recover the files. StuRat (talk) 18:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I use ERD Commander, a bootable CD that has a locksmith feature to reset your password. I also hear that Hiren's Boot CD will do the trick. Hiren's is also free.--Rjnt (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Just use Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to change the passwords. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 20:21, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The tool works great, but it's recommended to blank the passwords, not to set them to something else. Ophcrack uses a rainbow table approach, and relies on the password being ascii, and shorter than 15 characters. If it indeed is a virus that has generated random hashes, ophcrack is unlikely to work, while the tool reccomended by 71.106 will. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:03, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless he has an irrational fear of losing his exact harddrive, I suggest getting a new harddrive that comes with Windows on it. Then just hook up his old drive to a non-booting slot, and copy all the files he needs from there. Then obliterate all the files on his old one, and now he's got double the disk space. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I had the same problem with the same O/S. My solution was to log on as Administrator, and leave the password blank. Hope it helps.DOR (HK) (talk) 02:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Set top box

Not sure if this should be here or on Science, but is is "Electronics, sofwtre and hardware", so... My mother has a UK Freeview Set top box. It is a Thomson (DTI 550) whose website states there is no support file for the particular box and Thomson appear to have left the consumer electronics market. I was trying to get a missing channel for her using "Menu | Auto tune", the reult of which was that about a dozen channels including BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, ITV3 (but not BBC4) have been found but with the wrong channel numbers - they are coming up at the end of the list with numbers 801 through 816. Is there any way of changing the channel numbers back to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10 etc (As the dentist says, 8's missing)? -- SGBailey (talk) 19:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Being from the US, I don't have any knowledge of the Freeview service (thanks for the link), but I was able to find a post by someone here that had a similar problem with channels appearing in the 800 range. It seems they disconnected the aerial and rescanned to clear all channels, then reconnected and scanned again. Obviously this isn't a proven fix, but it's the best I could find. Laenir (talk) 19:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Worth a try. Thanks. -- SGBailey (talk) 23:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My DVD recorder has a built in DVB tuner. When I first got it, I ran the auto-tuning and it allocated the digital channels to channels 1 - 100, radio to 700+, regional channels to 800+ and analogue channels to 900+ (I believe this is the normal scheme of things). I've recently had the recorder repaired and now I can get hardly any DVB channels - BBC1 and BBC2 have disappeared from channels 1 and 2 due to "bad signal", and many other channels keep breaking up to be unwatchable, though the regional channels are still there if a bit fuzzy. Either the repair has broken something or the signal strength is much worse than it was. Luckily, I only ever use the recorder to record Sky through the scart leads.

How does all this help you? I suggest you check your mother's signal strength and all the connections and aerial leads. It might improve things. Check out the old TV channels on her TV. Failing that get the set top box repaired or get a new box.

Astronaut (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

sudden shut-down of HP Pavillion laptop

I just got my computer back after the motherboard was changed. I can now turn on the computer, which is a major improvement, but instead a new problem has arised: with no prior warning, the computer suddenly shuts down. it dies completely as if someone cut the power supply. Has anyone got any idea as to what is the problem? I have wondered if it might be som problem with temperature, since it seems like the fan is working more now than it did before the motherboard was changed. could that be it? how do i check the internal temperature, and if it is too high, how do i lower it? very greatful for any ideas! /Marxmax (talk) 19:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Sudden shutdowns are usually either the power supply or temperature. Laptops do have temperature problems just by their design, such as trying to vent out heat on the bottom of the case which tends to be blocked by the surface the laptop is sitting on. If it is overheating, you can't just fix it by adjusting some setting. You need to fix the hardware - which means you need to send it to a repair shop. If it is the power supply, you can't fix it by adjusting some setting. You need to fix the hardware - which means you need to sent it to a repair shop. -- kainaw™ 20:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Does it seem hot right before it shuts down ? Does it take about the same amount of time running before a shut down each time ? These would tend to indicate a temperature problem. If the fan is louder, the blades may be rubbing against something, which could be bad, especially if it cuts through wires. I'd suggest you take it back to the people who installed the motherboard and demand that they fix it for free. StuRat (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

One way to diagnose heat problems is to get a can of 'freezer spray' (a good computer store will have it) - you can squirt that on the electronics as they heat up and see if the system still crashes...if it does - then it's probably not an overheating problem. Another thing freezer spray may do is cause the system to crash immediately - that generally indicates that there is a bad solder joint or a hairline crack in the circuit board. SteveBaker (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

November 22

Zigbee or CAN

Which is more efficient and the promise for the future?CAN or Zigbee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.164.217 (talk) 15:32, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Comparing apples and oranges; CAN is a popular wired bus standard originally used in cars, Zigbee is a wireless standard used in control and automation. Both are widely used and both don't have problems with their future. CAN is more efficient because it doesn't involve radio communication, Zigbee is more efficient because it doesn't require laying down wires between devices.

As a consumer, you're unlikely to interact directly with CAN devices, but you might encounter Zigbee in home automation, for example. MaxVT (talk) 21:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

One program, one/two file formats

Some programs use one file format (i.e. Word). You open, work and save your work in the same file. Other programs have a file format for working and export the results in another format (i.e. Adobe Flash uses .fla format for working but exports .swf files for presenting the result). What are the advantages of both approaches? Mr.K. (talk) 19:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Programs use one file format for editing/drafts (i.e., the .fla for Flash, or .MSWMM for Windows Movie Maker), and another for final projects (.swf for Flash or .mpg for Movie Maker). Usually, the editing/drafts files are smaller, but cannot open in any programs except what it was made it. The final files are bigger and able to be read by just about anything. An example: Windows Movie Maker. You can make your vid, blah, but you want to be able to edit it later. So you save it as a .MSWMM file. This keeps all the seperate "scenes," lets you change inter-scene animation, etc. But when you save it to a .mpg file, it puts it all into one file that only has one scene, etc. With MS Word, it only has one file format - it's a final file, yet still editable. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 21:49, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the statement that the final files are bigger is likely to be true - in fact, I would imagine it would often be the reverse. Take, for instance, an Adobe Photoshop PSD file: it could contain hundreds of layers of high-resolution raster images, various filters, text effects, vector objects, etc; export it as a single JPEG and all that information is lost. The PSD file could be 10s of megabytes, but export to a JPEG of a few 100 kilobytes.

And that, to answer the original question, is the advantage of using separate formats: a file used when editing needs lots of additional information about the current state of the editing environment. If you just want to view the content, this is unnecessary complexity: it will probably take up space, and certainly require a more complex program to view.

It's also worth pointing out that this isn't about different programs going down different routes: many programs, including MS Word, have the ability to "export" a file in a variety of formats, it just depends what you want to do with the file. In a sense, the .swf file is the "final result" of working with a Flash project only in the same way as the printed copy is the "final result" of writing a letter in MS Word. - IMSoP (talk) 23:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Again on the issue of final file size - I guess it varies from program to program. Take .svg files against a .png file, for example - .svg's are smaller, but store more information, but are not renderable by most browsers. But if you save as a PNG file, the file is much larger, but easier to display. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 23:50, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I guess exported formats generally contain less information (e.g. objects that are independent to the editor, such as "layers" of an image, will be merged in the output), but may have more redundancy (e.g. objects that can be described with elegant abstractions by the editor, such as bézier curves, have to be described in detail in the output). - IMSoP (talk) 00:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

And to get back to the example of the SWF and .fla files, SWFs are not designed to be edited. They can even be protected from import when you compile them in Flash. That's one reason Flash movies are so popular for delivering content. PDFs, too, are technically a finished format, and the format you use to create them is something editable like a Word document or an InDesign file. There are companies that want to prevent people from copying their content. Otherwise, they might swap the logo and use it for their own site or brochure.--Rjnt (talk) 03:34, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not just about copyright issues. Exporting to a PDF, for example, allows me to guarantee that it will look exactly the same on your computer as it does on mine, even if you don't have the right fonts installed. It's a lot easier to distribute a PDF file than it is a Word file and get the same results; it's very difficult to distribute InDesign files and all of the necessary additional files you need to view and edit them. The copy protection functions of PDF are very weak and easily circumvented, in any case. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's another reason for the popularity of PDFs. As for circumvention, SWFs can also be decompiled relatively easily into .fla files using special programs. If you browse a torrent search engine or a warez bulletin-board, you will see many PSDs of hacked company logos, .indd brochures, and decompiled Flash sites. So, copy protection is an important ingredient in any company's publishing strategy. PDFs can have up to four layers of protection: a password, a signature, custom fonts, and compression. The last converts plain-text PDF markup to binary, and custom fonts prevent certain versions of Acrobat and Illustrator from editing the document. In the end, all forms of copy protection can be broken if the cracker is determined enough, but you can definitely make it a huge pain if you want to.--Rjnt (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Converting standalone program into web-application

If I have a program like NLTK, that runs as a stand-alone application on my desktop, and want to use it as a web-service, what should I do? --Mr.K. (talk) 19:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Easiest way: write a program in an easy-to-install/already-installed scripting language that just calls it through shell commands (like PHP's exec). Harder way: install a web framework for your language of choice (here's a list of python ones), and then figure out how to get it to work with the particular libraries you require. Which one, if either, is feasible will depend on how much control you have over the server. I'm assuming this is a console program. If you're talking about GUIs that requires all sorts of extra conversion (as you have to recreate the GUI in HTML). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Wiring an RCA-to-VGA adapter

hey, can anyone help me? I want to connect my xbox to my computer monitor. I don't want to spend a gazillion dollars on a special device, so i want to make my own. My plan is this:

1) Wire an RCA male connector to a VGA male adapter. 2) Wire the RCA Left and Right Audio male connectors to a 3.5mm stereo jack.

I know how to wire the audio cable, but i have no clue about how to wire the video component. Just to be clear, the Xbox will output to a male-to-female RCA adapter, then goes into my custom cable with the VGA connector connected to the monitor. Using TV-in on my computer is not an option, nor is using Component Video Out (the YCbCr thingie). Can someone help me?  Buffered Input Output 19:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I am assuming you have three RCA cables: Video (Yellow), Right Audio (Red), and Left Audio (Right). The audio is easy. The video is not. The video signal on the RCA cable is completely incompatible with VGA. You need a converter. They are not expensive, but you can build one yourself. It will cost more to build it than buy it. You will want a circuit board to put this on. You will want an RCA and VGA connector for the board. You then need a chip that converts video to VGA (ATMega makes them - you can buy them at Radio Shack - well, you'll probably have to order one out of the catalog). The manual for the chip will tell you what to solder where. You will likely need a separate clock (I haven't seen a video-to-VGA converter with one built it). Then, you will need power for the chip - 5VDC is common. It is impossible to give exact instructions until you pick a VGA converter chip. -- kainaw™ 20:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Rather than going from Xbox -> Composite video -> VGA converter (which will be lossy and more expensive), you can just roll your own Xbox VGA connector. A quick Googling reveals plenty of guides. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Converting Composite to VGA is far from just wiring one conductor to another. It require demodulating the analogue QAM signal to recover the Chroma information of the signal, converting the Luma Chroma red Chroma Blue information into Red Green Blue Components, then clock those components precisely and transmit that timing with the Red Green and Blue electrical signal. Now that part is not really complicated, for the simple reason every tv got at least a component to rgb analogue converter to be able to display the picture on the Red Green and Blue photophores. Now come the part where you'll probably have to say good bye to your courageous project. TV receive a signal in interlaced form where only half (odds line or even lines) of the screen is transmitted each 1/60th of a second, VGA instead will receive the rgb components line by line. Resulting into 1 full picture every 1/30 second for Composite, and 1 full picture every 1/60th 1/75th or any valid mode for VGA. If you just duplicate each tv frame to get 60 frame per second, here will be the result you will get on the screen, I don't think that is exactly what you would expect. If you want better, you need to deinterlace the signal and for that I honestly think you will need to do the whole conversion within a digital signal processor, which you'll need to program one way to bob the picture for example. Now if the whole cost in time and money is inferior to the current offering of Composite to VGA adapters and you feel nothing can stop you. Then I wish you the best of luck and would love to hear the result you'll have. Esurnir (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course, that's why I suggested he just put together a plain VGA cable. The Xbox 360 is capable of a VGA connection, no need to convert between composite and VGA. See [1]; you just ground a certain pin and the console outputs VGA, which is how it works with the Microsoft branded VGA cable (which, just to note, could probably be found pretty cheap on eBay, or a third party brand). Thus all that's needed is the wiring, which again there are guides for (including that one). Now, if it's an old Xbox he's talking about, then that is less good. [2] has talk about that. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

If however by RCA, you mean component video (which the Xbox and Xbox 360 both output, according to the articles), it is easier (and therefore cheaper) - a quick google finds them for under GBP 10 [3]. Hope this helps, cheers, davidprior (talk) 20:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

HP PSC 1350xi All-in-One

I have recently bought a HP laptop Pavilion dv9000 with Vista. My old desktop was running my PSC 1350xi just fine after I loaded the driver software. The laptop apparently will not. It prints only. It does not accept the driver software. Is there an update for this All-in-One from HP that will allow it to operate correctly on Vista. Scanner and OCR functions won't work with Vista with the software CD I have. --Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Here[4] is a list of drivers for your printer for various OSes. I don't know if you have Vista x86 or Vista x64, but if you know just pick it from there and download it. Gunrun (talk) 09:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

November 23

php large num calculation woes

After viewing e (number), I had an irrational urge to calculate e using the formula $\left(1+{\frac {1}{x}}\right)^{x}\,$. So I got to work. I simply made a php file that contained:

<?php
echo pow((1+(1/(<38,613 nines>)), <exact same string of 9's>);
?>

which returns the number 1 . I also tried putting the nines into a variable, for which I used:

<?php
$1=<38,613 nines>;
echo pow((1+(1/($1))), $1);
?>

Which returns something weird and completely unexpected. 1) Why is it doing that? I'm guessing PHP has built-in truncation, and that's what's doing it, but I'm not sure... and 2) How can I make my unnecessary and irrational fantasy become real (using PHP if at all possible)? flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:45, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem is the variable-name. It can't start with a number, write "$v1" or something instead of "$1". On a related matter, 38,613 nines is an absurdly large number, and I'm not surprised PHP choked on it. Try a much smaller number, like 1,000,000 or something, that should give you a pretty good estimate (I think). If it doesn't, step it up one order of magnitude at a time (or something) 83.250.202.208 (talk) 00:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I just tested 1,000,000 with google calculator, and it gives e correct to five decimal digits which is, lets face it, pretty much enough. 83.250.202.208 (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The reason you ended up with "1" is because you've used an extremely large number (Why 38,613 digits particularly?) and run out of precision in the floating point representation used by PHP. See the PHP manual on floating point numbers, and if you really want to play with big numbers, try the BCMath and GMP modules it mentions. - IMSoP (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Just to clear up the fact that I'm not completely crazy, I got 38613 because I held the 9 button down for a few secs, then copied it, then held down Ctrl+V for a few secs. I didn't have an OCD attack and press the 9 button 38,613 times. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 01:32, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've run into another problem - even though using a smaller number is correct enough (fixed), the number is still truncated to 12 decimal places. Is there some way to fix that? And (I'm a php/sql n00b), how would I go about installing GMP or BCMath on a free hosting site like I have? flaminglawyer^cneverforget 01:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Personally i wouldn't start abusing a free hosing site like that. They probably have a timeout on your calculations and an alternative is they throw you off for wasting time on their server. You can do the job just as well on your own pc. Dmcq (talk) 11:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Even for-pay hosting has a timeout on calculations (and a timeout on processor usage). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Self-hosting sucks :( . But if it's neccessary, I guess I could :( . flaminglawyer^cneverforget 18:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Self-hosting is about a million times easier than remote hosting once you have it set up. If you're only doing it for yourself, why remote host? You have a lot more control when you self-host and you don't have to upload anything ever. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't like self-hosting because 1) it's not just for me, I'm trying to get my name on this list, and 2) I have a tiny hard drive, and 3) I don't want my processor to be maxxed out 100% with this one problem, because I actually do other things on my computer. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 21:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Hosting has nothing to do with a calculation like that. What you are asking is can you dent such a problem with your hardware or using a free hosting and ihe straightforward answer is no you can't and you shouldn't even be trying to as far as his hosting is concerned. Plus you should learn a lot more about the problem before attacking it even if you had good hardware. Anyway why do you mess up your sig with loads of user names?, sounds to me like you value the people answering questions just as much as your hosting provider. Dmcq (talk) 22:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to go to eight indents. I mess up my sig with loads of usernames because I miss them. They were good editors and the got banned/indef-blocked :( . And for your information, I hold my hosting provider in the highest respects. Hey, without them, I wouldn't have any hosting. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 00:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The PHP code posted here consumes negligible resources, Dmcq. The OP did express an interest in calculating a large number of digits of e; however, this was after your post about time-wasting. To the OP: that formula is not at all how you would actually produce new digits of e — in fact, the pow() function is probably using an extant value of e in its calculations! You would need specialized software (not PHP) and much bigger hardware to get a place on any modern list. --Tardis (talk) 18:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

If you would read the replies a bit more carefully please you would see that I said that after a poster suggested the use of BCMath or GMP and only commented negatively on the OP after he showed he had realized the problem was too big for his computer and that he wanted to run it on the free hosting. Dmcq (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't clear to me that your "that" referred to the numerical packages and not to the original approach; you didn't make your statement a reply to the OP's question about installing the packages. My apologies. --Tardis (talk) 15:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

NX/XD/DEP

How does the NX bit actually work? For example, on Windows, you can set the page protection of each page to something like PAGE_READWRITE instead of PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE. Is that the NX bit, or is there another special bit stored somewhere? Also, what is the point of the NX bit if programs (or exploit code) can just change page protection using something like VirtualProtect? --wj32 ^t/c 04:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about Windows internals, but the idea behind NX bit is to not allow "exploit code" getting inserted to a safe running program, ie if you can't write code segment or execute data segment, things will be more difficult. --194.197.235.221 (talk) 09:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Comparative tests of 256Kb AAC vs. MP3 vs CD?

I remember there was a listening test years ago comparing 128Kbit AAC vs. MP3 vs WMA. But it seems that 256Kbit is the new high quality standard (both offered by iTunes Plus and Amazon Music). At such a high bit bit rate, is there any discernable different between AAC and MP3 compared to original uncompressed CD audio? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.214.249 (talk) 05:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

In fact, the iTunes music store DOESN'T use conversions from CD format, but instead from higher-fidelity masters. For this reason, 256KBit AAC is actually much better than a CD in terms of fidelity compared with the master. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.99.209 (talk) 11:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not asking about listening tests of iTunes Plus, but rather 256Kbit AACs that are from home-ripped CDs. --71.158.214.249 (talk) 13:27, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

CD audio has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second) and 16-bit resolution for each channel (stereo). So that's 706kbits/second...quite a bit more than the 256kbit/second you're talking about. However, the compression scheme used is pretty clever and the data it's throwing away is attuned to the kinds of things human ears don't care much about - and not much playback equipment can actually resolve all 16 bits per sample. So in theory, you shouldn't be missing much. However, it's not perfection. Audiophiles claim to be able to hear all sorts of things they can't possibly be hearing (such as the difference between gold connectors and the regular kind for a purely digital signal!) - so you'll get bogus answers if you ask any of them. If I were you - I'd do the experiment...listen to each - see if you can tell the difference. But you've got to do the test 'blind' - you need a friend to switch between the two signal sources a dozen or so times while you have your eyes closed and are listening on the best headphones you can find. You tell him/her whether you think the quality got better or worse each time it switches - and get them to record the results without telling you what happened until the test is over. Then you'll know for sure. SteveBaker (talk) 15:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Times 2 for 1,411kbps Remember we are talking about stereo sound with two channel. As for the quality, I would referm myself to this article [5] with four persons selected in a diverse population, audiophile being unable after carefull examination to make the difference in some cases. And we are talking about "making a difference" not about the "opinion" or the perceived quality of the sample. As such I would say that 256kbps aac is very probably too close to call, music lover should appreciate.

As for mp3 vs aac, at high bitrate the quality difference between the different codecs are nearly innexistant, aac quality are more in the domain of the low bitrate like 64kbps where it -is- still sounding like music even though artifacts are clearly noticable unlike the "rock in a tumble drier" sound mp3 is offering. It also got the advantage that it is a standard used in some digital television system, sattelite radios, among other things, while mp3 is mostly barred from those "standard based hardware players" even though software wise and portable audio device wise, mp3 is clearly the most used codec out there. - Esurnir (talk) 19:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you know in WW2 there was a 100 bit per second voice comms between USA and England. Even today most people can't figure out how it was done audibly. :)Dacium (talk) 04:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

on screen keyboard

i had changed my PC settings to show the on screen keyboard.now i'm not able to change this setting. what shall i do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.160.197 (talk) 07:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you have XP - right-click the bar at the bottom. It should come up with a menu with Toolbars, Cascade Windows, etc. Go to Toolbars > Language bar, and turn it off from there. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 18:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Different 'Drives'

hi, basically, how do i change my external hard drive back to drive 'E' from 'F' which it went to cus i was using flash drive...thanks, --90.240.198.176 (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Start the tool "diskmgmt.msc". You can do this by opening a command line prompt, and typing "start diskmgmt.msc", or by selecting "Run..." in the start menu, and type "diskmgmt.msc". A window will open, which shows a graphical representation of your physical hard disks. Each disk is a rectangle, which is subdivided into smaller rectangles if the disk has more than one partition. Right click the representation of the external hard disk. A pop-up menu will appear. One of the choices will be to change the drive letter of the disk. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

You may not even have to do that. Unplug both devices, then plug the external HD back in. I have a similar situation with my external HD and mp3 player, though the letters involved there are L: and M:. Matt Deres (talk) 19:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Sony Vegas text editing

I want to make the text on a video appear gradually, with a fade. So far, it just appears all of a sudden. How do I ensure the former happens? 75.169.206.88 (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Running python scripts with Plain Old Webserver

I'm trying to use Plain Old Webserver to learn to develop simple web pages with dynamic content. Right now I'm trying to set it up to run python scripts. I've followed the instructions at the POW wiki for getting python up and running with POW: (http://davidkellogg.com/wiki/Pow_programming_languages) but am having no luck. The script in the htdocs directory called 'test.py' containing the line 'print "Hello World"' displays as plain text; accessing [...]/test.py in Firefox displays 'print "Hello World"' rather than the output from running the script.

I'm running Windows XP and not Linux, and so my install directory for python is obviously not /usr/bin/python, but I've pointed the app handler at my local copy of python, and it still doesn't run. Accessing 'test.py' doesn't generate an error log file. access.txt reports a successful (200 OK) request/response.

So, my question is: has anyone gotten this to work successfully on windows? Does anyone have any suggestions about how I might get this working? Or, is there another very lightweight webserver that might work better on windows? Thanks! 35.8.221.45 (talk) 22:16, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I put the line in startup.sjs in the wrong location. I fixed that, and now it doesn't work for a different reason. Accessing test.py doesn't display anything, and error.log says:

 File "<stdin>", line 1
   ECHO is on.
             ^
 SyntaxError: invalid syntax

If anyone has any insight on this, I'd be grateful to hear it. 35.8.221.45 (talk) 22:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Three questions in one

1. Can you send folders in an email with hotmail or does it have to be only one file per email?
2. I only have hotmail because I must have a Windows Live ID in order to use Windows Live OneCare. Can I open an email account on another service (such as G-Mail?)
3. I can no longer sync songs on my iPod because I deleted some playlists. I didn't delete songs from my iTunes library, only certain playlists, so what's up with that? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 22:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

1.) You can attach multiple files, or compress a folder into a single zip file, but you can't send a folder. 2.) GMail is free, you can get an account. 3.) Do you only have certain playlists being synced? Look in iTunes when you've connected your iPod and click on the iPod, then on the Music tab. -- JSBillings 23:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Now I get an error message telling me the email can't be sent because the attachment is too large. I only put 17 pictures, how is that too large? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 23:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

17 pics could be huge, depending on the resolution, format/compression, and color depth of each. Check out the sizes for yourself and see. StuRat (talk) 00:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) The maximum size for attachments in Hotmail is 10MB (or 20MB if you pay for your account) and you can attach up to 50 attachments. Hotmail's help doesn't actually say you can't attach several 9.9MB attachments, but it implies that when it says "These size limits include the message, encoding, and the attachment, if you added one" - suggesting to me that the mail system can't handle more than the limit. If your pictures are less than ~500KB each, you should be OK; but that's pretty small by today's standards. It is worth noting most mail systems set an upper limit on attachment size, though your ISP could have higher limits than a free webmail service like Hotmail. Astronaut (talk) 00:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

You can use one of these services to send large emails. As for question 2, there is nothing stopping you from creating a GMail account. - Akamad (talk) 01:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

On 2, you can tie a Live ID to any email address, even a gmail one. If you have an existing account, you can change the address if you want at [6] -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Curly brackets in Java

What is the effect of having multiple sets of curly brackets where you only need one? I was helping a friend to debug a portion of code, and somehow the extra brackets forced him to make all the methods called within the segment static:

public void addWord(String word, int num)
     {
        { //this curly bracket here...
           //never mind the code in the middle
           for(int n = 0; n < this.size(); n++)
           {
              if(this.get(n).getWord().compareTo(word) == 0)
                 if(!this.get(n).getList().contains(num))
                 {this.get(n).getList().add(num);
                    return;}        
           }
           IndexEntry entry = 
              new IndexEntry(word);
           entry.add(num);
           this.insertInOrder(entry);
        } //...and this one here caused some strange errors
     }

Does anybody know the reason for this? Any help would be appreciated. FlamingSilmaril (talk) 23:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The only purpose that I know of for defining a block that is not immediately controlled by an if, for, while or other similar statement is to define a block scope for limiting the visibility and lifetime of variables defined within that scope. In the example above, the variable entry would be out-of-scope (inaccessible) following the closing curly brace for that block. If additional code were added to the function after that closing curly brace, it could declare an entirely new variable also named entry, possibly of a completely different type.

Nested blocks can also be used to intentionally hide variables declared in a containing scope. Suppose the function contained code before the blocks also contained a definition of a variable named entry. The nested block is free to define another variable named entry, which temporarily hides the outer entry variable within its scope. Following that nested block, the outer entry variable is again visible.

All that said, I don't see how the extra block in the specific example above would have any noticeable effect. What "strange errors" are you getting? -- Tcncv (talk) 02:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Looking back on it a few hours after the fact, I am unable to reproduce the error right now. I don't remember the exact name of the error, but I believe it was a compile error that said something along the lines of method calls within the block (entry.add(), this.insertInOrder(), etc.) needed to be static. It was worded in a way I had never seen before, though. FlamingSilmaril (talk) 02:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It helps make your code unmaintainable because maintance developers will to stop and try to figure out why there are extra curly braces for no apparent reason. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 19:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

November 24

bad sectors on hard disk

I have a 250 GB hard disk, purchased one year earlier .It has bad sector more than 70 % ,is any method to recover these bad sectors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 00:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The usual method is to mark the bad sectors as unusable and continue to use the rest. That's what Scan Disk does. I doubt if there's any cost effective way to actually fix the bad sectors. StuRat (talk) 00:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

been a while; i remember that you could rightclick on a disk in the my computer explorer window, and one of the options undr properties/tools was error checking; and one of the options for check now was attempt to recover bad sectors or attempt to recover data or some such. of course, that depends very heavily on what type of disk/controller it is. 70% bad sectors is so extreme that either something is so screwed up that it's unfixable, or else it's so screwed up that it's easily fixable. (like thehead has moved .000000001 micron sinc it was formatted and reormatting it will fix it but not get the data back). lots of free and for $ software out there that addresses the problem, can't say what's good or bad myself. Gzuckier (talk) 01:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean recovering the data on the bad sectors or being able to use those sectors again? In the second case I wouldn't bother. A 250 GB hd costs way too little to be bothered rescueing the hd. Unless you're really low on cash and don't value your time too highly, buy a new one. It could easily have had a head crash or something, in which case it might completely die on you pretty soon anyway. If you want to rescue data, you're likely in more trouble. If fsck or scandisk or the like has had it's way with your hd, then the data might be completely lost (they're not designed for rescueing data). Impossible to tell without more info (not that I would know if I had the info, mind you). As for rescue software, I've used one such program to rescue data on a memory card that I accidentally formatted, which worked brilliantly (although slowly). But this is a hd with bad sectors, and that's a different story. If the data are essential, you might consider taking the hd to a data recovery company, but that will probably cost you several hundred €. Although the diagnosis will be cheaper (tens of €), but if it's for free it's likely not a reliable company that might do more harm than good. If it's not worth that much, but still worth an effort, you might start by reading data recovery. If only so you can ask your question here in a more informed and informative way. DirkvdM (talk) 09:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Film scanner problems

Hi There My father has purchased 3 film/slide scanners over the last two years, all of which have failed in one way or another. The latest one, which I just installed for the second time, now simply refuses to start when I click on the desktop shortcut. the power light is on and I truly installed it correctly per the manual. My question is not about this specific scanner, VuPoint, but about this type of hardware in general. What are the common causes of this type of failure, that is, new hardware just not working? If I rule out that the equipment and/or software is just crap, possible, as he buys cheapo stuff on ebay, are there settings or other things that can be adjusted to increase the odds that these products will work correctly? He has a Windows XP system and lots of other devices plugged in via USB. i am thinking of getting him a good mid-range ($300-400), brand name slide scanner such as Minolta, Canon or Epson for Xmas but don't want to do this if its going to crap out because of som,ething in his system. I realize this is a little nebulous but perhaps someone has some ideas that will increase the odds of this working. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.234.6.82 (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about slide scanners, but general troubleshooting tips include power cycling the device (turn on/off, unplug/plug back in if necessary), trying a different USB port, trying a different USB cable, and trying it on a different computer if possible. You can also check in the Device Manager to see if the device shows up and/or has any information about problems it's having. If he really has a LOT of other USB devices connected, you might try disconnecting a few of them to see if they've been drawing too much power. Indeterminate (talk) 04:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

change in how wikipedia displays in my browser

I have access to wikipedia via two machines. on the one i am using to write this, nothing has changed lately, but on my other machine, all of a sudden the display has changed; the top line with links to my user page, talk, preferences, watchlist, contributions, etc. no longer appears and those links are now way down near the bottom of the page; similarly the links on the normal left hand bar are also just way down the page; also, the popup i get by hovering over a link (with a link to the link, talk page, etc. plus the first chunk of ext) doesn't work on the other machine thougjh it still works on tjhis one; i can't remember what makes that link work or where it lives, i looked in my monobook.js file but all i see there is lupin's antivandal tools... i didn't change anything on the other machine, but of course IT is always "improving" it without telling us. so anyway, what got busted that I can fix? tia.Gzuckier (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Does the other machine run a different browser version? If the style sheets are not loaded this strange behaviour is the default that will happen. You may just have to shift-reload the page to fix it up. WP:HD will be the place to find people who can answer this question. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Interrupts in the human brain

In the human brain, which interrupts are maskable and which are non-maskable? NeonMerlin 05:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Why would computer interrupts be equatable with anything to do with the human brain? I don't see people deciding they need to eat food and suddenly completely dropping everything they were doing before, eating the food, and then resuming from where they left off. Or anything of that nature. The brain is a complex neural network of sorts, it's not procedural, so there's no simple equivalent to an interrupt.

As for "masking", that also depends on what you exactly you want. A certain neurotransmitter/toxin could cut a mental process off; many can be controlled at least somewhat 'consciously' or 'unconsciously' as well, depending on one's psychological state. If one expects to be shouted at, for instance, they may not startle. It's still not exactly equatable with interrupts. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

good question. interestingly, pain, which is a serious interrupt, is quite maskable; mammals (at least, haven't observed others) can ignore injuries suffered in a fight or even serious play which would really stop them in their tracks if they were doing nothing; then it hits them later. and of course, hunger and thirst, but i don't know how interrupty they are, more on the line of a long term warning flag. Gzuckier (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

What is command use &mmo in foxpro?

What is command use &mmo in foxpro? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanejask du (talk • contribs) 08:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

How to enabled ENUM in existing DNS.

How to enabled ENUM feature in existing DNS.Please provide the step by step procedure. I need DNS should support NAPTR.I want to use it in windows,linux.And one more thing is

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashis xor (talk • contribs) 09:15, 24 November 2008 (UTC) 

• Telling us which kind of software your using on the dns server would be helpfull. - Esurnir (talk) 18:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

NAS+USB drive

I have a home theater system that I can attach a memory stick or hard drive via USB and play MP3s. I would like to be able to share a hard drive between my music system and my PC so that I can add or delete files without unplugging the drive. I'm looking for an external drive or enclosure that will support NAS and USB at the same time. Every one that I have found so far will disable the USB port when the network cable is attached. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 16:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• The problem you are facing is that USB is an interface that permit to have an entire control on the hard drive, it encapsulate SCSI/ATA commands for the hard drive which are of the form of "write this buffer to block 123" "read block 432" etc. A NAS on the other hand is created by an operating system where you send commands of the form "write this buffer to file blabla.doc at position 699" the operating system managing the orders at which the ATA command will be read, manage conflicts between two clients trying to access a single ressource, etc.

Now, an operating system connected to a usb expect to have entire and full control over a hard drive, it doesn't know "filenames" and even if the os of the machine detected that the os of the home theatre is trying to access a zone of data that is currentely being modified, denying access to that zone would be interpreted by the os of the home theatre as a hardware defect in all probability. Now I expect someone to tell me there is a workarround for such things, but to the extent of my knowledge it is simply too complicated to emulate a logical hard drive to an operating system while operating on said hard drive. As such the NAS partition and the USB one will be separate/can't be activated on the same partition at the same time. Esurnir (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Figured it would be something like that. For about the price of a NAS drive, I can buy a low end PC and hook it directly to my system and run jukebox software for audio and video. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

How would you secure OSPF on windows server 2003

I'm currentely following MCSE course and we are currentely learning how to setup the routing on a windows 2003 server.

While doing the lab and testing ospf, I discovered (because I ran wireshark during the whole lab) that the ospf packets sent by windows server 2003 -broadcasted- packets, with the password in the header. Save the case where all routers would be on the same switch and using the same password and that no one could sneak into either switch or router, this security level is for me a heinous crime against every computer security principle I've yet to learn. When I asked the teacher about it the answer was "don't use windows server as a router, move to cisco" which was for me slightly unsatisfactory. Imagining I got other clients joining the physical network uppon which ospf packets get exchanged, how could I do to make those exchange more secure ?

Would I need to setup vpns between each and every routers ? IPSec ? Esurnir (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Weird TV colors

My TV started displaying weird color tints a few days ago, and now it's settled on a permanently blue-green tint (I think). Once or twice it was a reddish tint. Will this be expensive to repair? Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 19:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Assuming it is a CRT television and not an LCD or Plasma flat-panel, it sounds like you lost the color part of the signal and you are just getting the black and white part. But, I'd have to see the television to see if what I think you are describing is what you are seeing. Regardless, the labor cost for repairing a television is often more than the cost of a new television. I just checked and I can get a brand new TV from Walmart for $130. I know that two of our electronics places charge a minimum of $150 in labor, regardless of the problem. If you need a $200 flyback transformer on top of the cost of labor, you'll be upset that you didn't just buy a new TV. -- kainaw™ 19:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

a relatively frequent (i.e. i've seen it happen) problem with crts is the death of one of the three color guns, which skews the picture color to the opposite direction, obviously. once in a while i've been able to fix it with a good smack, not always. if the picture tube is gone, of course the tv is a goner. Gzuckier (talk) 20:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The general rule of thumb is to replace if the cost of repairs would exceed 50% of the cost of a replacement. A brand new item will typically have a 12 month warranty minimum, a repair might only be guaranteed for 3 months. Exxolon (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

You've almost certainly already ruled this out, but... if your watching an external source (like a DVD player or set-top box), is it connected securely, and have you tried another cable. With the SCART connector in particular, if its not in quite right it can lead to some of the RGB pins not connecting properly. Cheers, davidprior (talk) 20:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

another rule of thumb is that the expected lifetime of a color TV is about 10 years. (on the other hand, my house is filled with Sony trinitrons which refuse to die, going all the way back to those rotary tuners). however the impending end of analog TV changes things, (in addition to the switch to flat panel tvs); depending on what your signal source is, you might not actually newed a TV at all, with tuner etc; if you're hooked up to cable/dvd/vcr, like me and everybody i know, all you really need is a video monitor and audio system, with no tuner. all i use those trinitrons for now is as video monitors, although the old ones have to get fed via the tuner on channel 3/4./ Gzuckier (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

This is definitely a TV problem, as both the cable and Wii look off in the same way. All the reds are not gone, but I'm pretty sure the red gun is somehow not working right. Imagine Reason (talk) 01:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you moved any loudspeakers nearer or further away lately? If so, it could be a faulty degaussing circuit in the TV.--GreenSpigot (talk) 03:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that it needs degaussing - most TV's do that automatically when you turn them on - but if you are one of those people who leaves the TV on 'standby' 100% of the time - then maybe it hasn't 'naturally' degaussed itself for years! So you might try turning the thing on and off at the power outlet a few times (wait at least 30 seconds after each time). A few older models have either a degauss switch - or (rarely) an option to degauss in the on-screen menu somewhere. Generally though the consequences of a 'gaussed' screen (I'm sure that's not the right term!) is that some areas of the screen are screwed up and the others are OK...but it's easy to try and if you've lived a good life and donated $20 to Wikipedia recently - you might get lucky. Sometimes you need to do it several times to get the full benefit. If the degaussing circuit in the TV is indeed busted you can actually get degaussing guns - you used to be able to rent them from stores that sold TV's - but since almost all TV's have their own built-in degaussing coils, that probably won't get you anywhere.

But it sounds much more likely that you have a bad red gun...and sadly that's probably the most expensive thing to fix in the entire TV.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

November 25

Spybot is blocking me from connecting to my wireless router

I have a wireless router, but I can't connect to it. I know the problem isn't the router, because my other computers can connect to it without any problems. I can also connect to other wireless connections without any problems. The problem only occurred after installing Spybot. 98.221.84.235 (talk) 00:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Spybot does have the feature of blocking registry changes (it prompts you to deny or accept each change), so, if the wireless router for some reason requires a registry change, this could, indeed, be the prob. StuRat (talk) 01:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

So if you turn off all of Spybot's features, can you connect? --128.97.245.27 (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I uninstalled spybot, but I still can't connect. Can there still be protections active that prevent me from connecting? 98.221.84.235 (talk) 14:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You did reboot after uninstalling, right? Assuming the answer is yes: I have often found it helpful to first connect to the router's web-based administrative interface when there is trouble connecting to the web. If you type "ipconfig" from the command line on one of the computers that are connected, you'll get some lines of information, in which the IP address of the router is presented as the default gateway. If you type that address in the address bar of your browser, you will either see the login window of the router's administrative interface, or get a message that the connection is not working. I have several times experienced that first connecting to the router, gets the connection to the web working, for some reason. Typing "ipconfig /renew" from the command line might also help (if you are using DHCP, which is the default). If you are able connect to the router, but not to the web, there is probably a DNS problem. You can diagnose that by typing the IP address of a website directly into the address bar of your browser. You can find the IP address of a website (say, en.wikipedia.org) by using the command nslookup en.wikipedia.org on one of the computers that are connected. Comparing the network settings in the control panel of the computers that are working with the one that isn't, might also be helpful. As might checking whether a wired connection works. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Laptop Overheating

Lately my laptop has been overheating. After an hour or so it shuts down. The green battery lot [LED?] blacks out and doesn't reappear for several hours. I need to pull in and out the AC cord to get the battery light back. The battery was used up a month ago and I've been using electric power since. But I only had this problem recently. --Gary123 (talk) 02:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Some suggestions to prevent laptop overheating:

1) Don't use it on your lap, put it on a metal table (which conducts heat) or on "rails" so air can circulate underneath it.

2) Point a fan at it.

3) Keep the room temperature low. Wear a sweater. StuRat (talk) 03:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I've learned about #1 the hard way. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 03:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The fan may be locked with dust or may have failed. There may be a BIOS update that better. manages the power. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, StuRat, where do you live? :o) I'd almost think that late in November most Wikipedians either 1.) live where it's getting so cold outside that you do have to wear a sweater inside anyways (unless you're overheating your room, which is a waste of energy anyways), or 2.) live somewhere where it's so warm outside that you can't cool it down without using an AC (and I sure hope you don't suggest that for the sake of a computer--that'd be a bit too much of a carbon footprint for any thinking person in the 21st century)... but well, 3.) = who knows... :o) --Thanks for answering (talk) 04:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm a man for all seasons, and so is my advice. I can further customize it for winter (if the Aussies and Kiwis will forgive me) by saying they should use the laptop in a cooler room, such as one with lots of windows, as opposed to an interior room with a roaring fire (hopefully in the fireplace). Using the laptop near an exterior wall within such a room will also help keep it cool, especially if their home insulation is as pathetic as mine (I think my new windows are actually better insulated than the old walls). StuRat (talk) 01:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with StuRat - but I'd add that there are several companies that sell laptop coolers that sit under the laptop and get rid of the heat by one means or another. My laptop sits on a leather-topped writing desk for much of the time - and because leather is a pretty good insulator, it had terrible overheating problems until I made a little aluminium stand to put it on that allows air to flow underneath - and has a big black bit sticking up behind the screen that acts as a radiator.

Oh and incidentally: In Texas we are in the brief time each year between air conditioning on full and heating on full - when you can turn off the thermostat and even sit out in the back yard in shorts and a T-shirt and not die from some climate-related disaster. This season started about 10am this morning and is scheduled to end in the next hour or so. :-)

SteveBaker (talk) 18:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought such temps were viewed as an open invitation by tornadoes and/or hurricanes. :-) StuRat (talk) 01:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Google results being redirected

About 1/4 of the time I click on a Google result it redirects me to different ad or filler sites tangentially or not at all related to my search. If I hit the back button my browser then I am able to click the link again to get to the actual site. This only happens for Google results. I have tried deleting the cookies of the site I get redirected to, but that does not help at all. I ran my anti-virus (AVG free) and it found nothing. Is this just one cookie wrecking havoc or something more serious? Any help is appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.84.49.100 (talk) 03:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

One of the many problems by brother-in-law has had with his PC sounds almost exactly like this. Something had hijacked his network settings, replacing the DNS IP address with a different DNS based in Ukraine and began taking him to sites that had a keyword in common with the site he expected. IIRC, this one was particularly resistant to removal because it was protected by a rootkit which hid two programs working in tandem to ensure the DNS was always the ukrainian one.

Test the IP addresses of each DNS with a whois service - DNS's usually belong to your ISP or a bigger ISP company in your country. If you use Windows XP, I would then recommend you run one or more of these rootkit detectors which should show what is being hidden, then halt and destroy all trace of the malicious programs from your disk, the registry, the list of services, etc. Unfortuntely, I'm yet to find a detector that works with Vista. BIG, BIG WARNING: there is a high risk of seriously messing up your PC so, before you start, back up anything you can't replace.

Astronaut (talk) 05:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You probably have some sort of spyware or adware. I would get adaware or spyspot search and destroy software ASAP and run them (google them).

Windows 9x on logical partitions?

Dear Wikipedians:

Much to my delight I was able to successfully install Windows NT 5.0-based operating systems (2000 advanced server and XP to be specific) into logical partitions and have them boot off of a neat little DOS primary partition I created at the start of the hard drive (which actually contains an instance of genuine MS-DOS 6.22, yes, I'm still somewhat of a DOS afficionado). I think Microsoft really did a great job designing the booting mechanisms of NT 5.0 operating systems.

However, I'm not so sure if they have done as good a job with Windows 9x. So my question is: could I install Windows 9x into logical partitions and still have them boot properly, or do I have to install each instance of a Windows 9x operating system into its own primary partition (which is a scarce resource, since I'm allowed only 4, whereas logical partitions are unlimited). Or is there some tricks that I can employ to fool Windows 9x into installing and booting off of logical partitions?

Thanks,

70.52.151.100 (talk) 04:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

With some boot loaders like GRUB you can swap partitions around so the operating system thinks that what should be the F: drive (for example) is actually the C: drive. --wj32 ^t/c 06:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Irritating animated ad that won't go away

I hate being distracted by animations (usually ads) when I try to read something on a site. So I manage flash with Flashblock. and since other animated ads usually come from a different site, I can just block images from that site (a Firefox option that the msWindows version doesn't seem to have, by the way), without missing the images I want to see. Thus I have happily led an almost ad-free surf life for quite some time now. But now there is an ad that often appears at the top of the IMDB site, which Firefox doesn't seem to recognise as an image. Right-clicking on it doesn't give me a list of options. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of this? Note that I don't mind the ad itself quite so much as the animated bit. Here's the section of the source code that appears to be responsible (yes, it's from the old fiend doubleclick).

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
document.write('<iframe src="/images/a/ifb/doubleclick/expand.html#imdb.consumer.title/maindetails;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;coo=za;g=dr;m=R;tt=f;coo=uk;id=tt0388364;ord=' + ord + '?" id="top_ad" name="top_ad" width="0" height="80" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" onload="ad_utils.resize_iframe(this)">');
if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Gecko")==-1)
{document.write('<script language="JavaScript" src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/imdb.consumer.title/maindetails;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;abr=!ie;p=t;coo=za;g=dr;m=R;tt=f;coo=uk;id=tt0388364;ord=' + ord + '?" type="text/javascript"><\/script>');
}
document.write('</iframe>');
//]]>
</script>
<noscript><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/imdb.consumer.title/maindetails;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;coo=za;g=dr;m=R;tt=f;coo=uk;id=tt0388364;ord=914168639324?" target="_blank"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/imdb.consumer.title/maindetails;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;coo=za;g=dr;m=R;tt=f;coo=uk;id=tt0388364;ord=914168639324?"  border="0" alt="advertisement" /></a></noscript>

DirkvdM (talk) 08:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Add the following to your chrome/userContent.css:

*[src*="doubleclick"], *[href*="doubleclick"] { display: none !important; }

Leave a word on my talkpage if you need more. -- Fullstop (talk) 12:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I have an extremely low-tech solution to banner ads which I can't otherwise block, I turn the dial on my monitor to increase the vertical size of the display until it no longer fits on the screen, then I turn the other dial to push the display upward until the banner is off the screen. StuRat (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

StuRat, I find your unique solutions to computer problems endlessly amusing. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have an even lower-tech solution to an analog TV displaying digital TV (from a converter box that puts random blinking crap on the top 8 lines) ... a piece of black electrical tape over that part of the screen. Perhaps duct tape would have been even more apropo ? :-) StuRat (talk) 01:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

At work, where they force me to use msbloodyWindows and I can't install anything, I use something similar for ads at the sides: I 'minimise' the window, but make it screen-wide, move it sideways so the ad disappears off-screen and then when I want to see the whole page I maximise. Thus, I can toggle between full-page and ad-free. Alas, this doesn't work for ads at the top. Or can one grab a window without using the top bar with msbloodyWindows as well? Haven't bothered to find that out actually. What's that called anyway? DirkvdM (talk) 18:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

What, a title bar? You can move windows on Windows with the keyboard: select Move from the control menu, and then use the arrow keys. I think that will let you move them at least partially off the screen. (Also, the usual terminology is to "restore" or "unmaximize" a window; "minimize" means to reduce to an icon or other small object (a button, commonly) that isn't a window at all.) --Tardis (talk) 18:18, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me. I should learn to remember the words for things. That makes it a lot easier to look things up. :) But what I meant is, what does one call that 'grabbing' of the window? You mention a method to move it with the arrow keys, but I once stumbled upon a way to grab it (anywhere on the window) with the mouse while holding down certain keys, and then moving it about. DirkvdM (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Fullstop, thanks. Took a while, but I found /home/Dirk/.mozilla/firefox/bk2jnqo3.default/chrome/userChrome-example.css. Good thing they put an example there, because else I wouldn't have found it. So I made a new file, with the name userChrome.css, with just your line in it, in the same location. Is that the right place? I ask because at the top of the example it says: "Edit this file and copy it as userChrome.css into your profile-directory/chrome/". Annoying that they never say what 'your user profile' means. Anyway, I've tested it, but the ad is not always there, so only time will tell if it works. Btw, when I studied html some years ago, I wanted to play with the browser's css because users should always decide themselves how sites are presented. So now I know where to do that. Too bad my knowledge is a bit rusty. The first thing I would like to do is stop ads from taking up (blank) space on my screen. Any idea how to do that? DirkvdM (talk) 18:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Damn, no it didn't work (completely). The ad is there again. Now the TOP_AD section in the source has changed a bit:

<iframe src="/images/a/ifb/doubleclick/expand.html#imdb.consumer.title/;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;g=th;m=R;g=co;tt=f;id=tt0362526;g=cr;g=brc;g=dr;coo=usa;ord=[CLIENT_SIDE_ORD]?" id="top_ad" name="top_ad" class="yesScript" width="0" height="80" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" onload="ad_utils.resize_iframe(this)"></iframe>
<noscript><a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/imdb.consumer.title/;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;g=th;m=R;g=co;tt=f;id=tt0362526;g=cr;g=brc;g=dr;coo=usa;ord=590984622936?" target="_blank"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/imdb.consumer.title/;tile=2;sz=468x60,728x90,1008x150;p=t;g=th;m=R;g=co;tt=f;id=tt0362526;g=cr;g=brc;g=dr;coo=usa;ord=590984622936?"  border="0" alt="advertisement" /></a></noscript>

Oh, I now notice the comment and the div section are only visible in the source. How do I stop it from rendering? I thought that would work with the <nohtml> tag, but apparently not. Anyway....
The last lines are the same, with the <noscript> section. But the script above it has been replaced with an <iframe> section. Can't I make Firefox ignore any lines with the string 'doubleclick' in it? Or, since I only have the problem here, any div with id="top_ad_wrapper"? I believe that is possible in css, but it's been many years sice I looked into that and I barely worked with it, so I remember very little. Googling things like ' css id "not render" ' did not help. DirkvdM (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Install Adblock Plus and Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper. When you next browse to the offending screen hit Ctrl+Shift+K, highlight the ad or frame you want blocked with your mouse (it will show a red rectangle around the element) and press "s". You can also play around with "w" and "n" to enlarge or reduce your selection. I find ABP:EHH extremely powerful, it can block literally ANYTHING with you having to know regexp or examining the page source code. It successfuly blocks evrything that I don't want, including TEXT ads. I now search Google and use Gmail complately ad-free :) Zunaid 10:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

DirkvdM: ~/.mozilla/firefox/<somehash>.default/chrome/userContent.css (not "userChrome.css"). For your continuing enjoyment ;), I've pasted all the ad-blocking bits of my userContent.css to User talk:Fullstop/Sandbox/T2. There is also some stuff at http://www.floppymoose.com/userContent.css you may wish to take a look at.

SigmaEpsilon: *= is CSS 3, see "6.3.2. Substring matching attribute selectors" of the CSS 3 spec. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

-- Fullstop (talk) 17:26, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Web-hosting with Perl and PHP, program in C++

If I have a web-hosting plan with Perl and PHP (like many out there) and a program written in C++ that generates html (like doxygen), could I run this C++ program so that users can generate docs dynamically? Mr.K. (talk) 10:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

With Doxygen it is simpler to generate HTML and upload it to the server where it would be served statically. If a web-hosting plan allows running custom CGI scripts, and gives access to a C++ compiler, it may be possible to run a C++ program designed for CGI. MTM (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you do it? Depends on the CGI settings of the server. Should you do it? Depends on the situation, but in most cases I'd say, "stick with Perl or PHP, they're a lot more straightforward for this sort of thing." If you're using it to generate something that doesn't change that often, definitely don't have it render everything from scratch each time, that's a huge waste of server resources. (Even a site as dynamic as Wikipedia uses a huge amount of caching.) Generate the page in a database and then just make a database call. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Many web hosting services simply don't allow you to run CGI programs (that's anything that compiles down to machine-code basically) because of the risk of you doing something horrible to their server. That's not universally true (my web hoster allows it) - but you shouldn't be surprised if they say "No". If you are allowed to do that - then it's a matter of sticking the binary in the appropriate CGI directory (where Apache looks for it) and making sure that it provides a web interface. Basically, your C++ code has to read the data the user entered either on the standard input or through the commmand-line parameters (depending on the method you selected in the HTML form through which your user launched the program) - and anything that comes out of the standard output ends up being sent to your end-user as if it were an HTML document - but you have to be very careful to provide EXACTLY the right header stuff. SteveBaker (talk) 18:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

PDF built-in font set

I'm creating some PDF reports through code. I'm using the built-in fonts (Times, Helvetica, and Symbol). I need to print a lowercase alpha and beta. I can't find those characters in any of the built--on font sets. They also don't appear to support high ASCII, just 0-255. Can someone point me to some information on the built-in PDF fonts? -- kainaw™ 12:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. I just made jpegs of the characters and pasted them in. -- kainaw™ 14:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't they be in the Symbol font without any difficulty? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I printed every character in the Symbol font. It didn't have any symbols that I'd ever use. -- kainaw™ 18:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I discovered that since I'm using PDFlib-lite, it is extremely lacking in symbol support and has no unicode support. -- kainaw™ 23:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Networking for Dummies?

I've tried to resist this, but I think the time is near when I have to have a second Internet-connected computer in my house. (Technology-wise, I've only been on DSL for a couple of years, and this upgrade will certainly take me beyond my comfort level.)

So, can the experienced home-network-builders gently point me toward "Routers for Dummies" or some such very basic reference? Questions I have start with: I have one ActionTec DSL modem; do I still use it, or does it get replaced? What's the minimum amount of hardware I have to buy, and install, and maintain? Same for software. I'm on WinXP, and don't plan to upgrade that yet. Also keep in mind that I was perfectly happy for many years writing letters on a typewriter; that should give you a good measure of my tech savvyness! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 21:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You just need a router. The modem will plug into the router, and the router will split the connection so multiple machines can use it. The only other hardware you'll need is ethernet wiring if you are going to make it a wired connection. (None of if you are doing wireless, unless your computers don't have wireless cards.) You don't need any software other than the software that comes with the router.

Basically what will happen is that you will plug the modem into the router, and plug a computer into the router. The router will come with very basic instructions as to how to find the router setup screen from the computer. Then depending on your internet service provider, you may or may not have to input settings so that your router can use the internet. In some cases the router can figure it out automatically, but sometimes you have to put in account information. Once you have that in there your router should be ready to go. If it is a wireless router there are issues relating to setting up the wireless signal (whether to use encryption or not), but other than that it's basically the same thing.

Does that make sense? It's not too hard. The most difficult part is sometimes the router will have inexplicable problems connecting through your existing internet connection, due to settings your DSL people won't have necessarily told you about, and you might have to get them on the phone. But that's really it, usually.--98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

If all you need is WIRED ethernet (ie no laptops - no wireless) - then go to anywhere that sells computer stuff (WalMart for example) and buy a router. Don't pay more than $25....if you do then you're probably getting more than you need. You'll need two more Ethernet cables - and you're done for probably under $30. The router has one cable that goes to the modem (where your computer is plugged in now - and probably between four and six outlets for you to plug your computers into. It's that easy. No software...nothing. Think of these things as being like a dumb multiway power outlet - but with the Internet instead of 110volts!

If you think you might want to provide a wireless access point (probably because you have a laptop with WiFi) - then you need more expensive router. I'd buy a LinkSys box - I believe they are around $100 - but other brands may be OK too (I have four of these beasts right now - and they all work GREAT). These function just like your regular router (as described above) - but also put out Wireless internet signals for maybe a hundred yards around the box itself. If you are in anyway concerned about other people 'stealing' your bandwidth ("Yes Steve, I'm VERY concerned" is the only correct answer here!) then you'll need to turn on wireless encryption. This is actually very easy - and still doesn't need any software. Just connect up your PC to the wireless router by plugging it into the back - open up your web browser - and somewhere in the manual it'll tell you the URL of the wireless router itself. Type that into Firefox (or whatever you use) and you'll arrive at a little web site that's served from inside the router itself (that's *SO* cool!) - and from there you can turn on the security stuff really easily. The Linksys manual explains this better than I can. If you want to save money - you could probably pick one up on eBay for less than new - if it doesn't come with a manual - don't worry - you can download it from the Linksys web site.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Caution: The "router" Steve is talking about is not the "router" you have for DSL (aka your DSL "modem"). A router is a thing that routes data from one network to another. What you have for DSL is such a router, in the case of DSL, routing between WAN and LAN. What Steve refers to in the second paragraph is another kind of router that routes between wireless-LAN and wired-LAN. What Steve is referring to in the first paragraph is actually a "switch" (it "switches" the data packets back and forth), not a router.

There are devices that have multiple functions in one unit. For example, a single unit could be both a DSL router and a wireless-LAN router in one. What you need to buy depends on what you already have, and how you intend to connect the second PC to the net. If you had nothing at all, and you were connecting via a network cable, you would need a DLS router and a switch. If you had nothing at all, and you were connecting via wireless, you would need a DLS router and a WLAN router.

So, depending on how you want to connect the second PC, and what functions your DSL router already has, you may either need to buy a new DSL router, or add missing features with other thingies, or buy nothing. A new DSL router with integrated WLAN and switch costs $50+. Just a WLAN access point costs about $30, and a switch about $10. You didn't say which ActionTec model you have, so we can't tell you what you need. -- Fullstop (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Blackberry Storm/YouTube

I recently purchased a Verizon Blackberry Storm. Along with it I have a $30 basic data plan (e-mail and web). The upgrade to that plan is the unlimited data plan for $45 a month. The sales rep did not recommend this plan for me. However, I cannot find how much data I am eligible for. Truth be told, I dunno even know what they mean by data. During train rides to work, I would like to watch YouTube video. But if I access m.youtube.com too much will I go over my data plan??? Is there any way to calculate how much data I have use? Thank you in advance --209.183.190.77 (talk) 21:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe YouTube uses flash video which can have pretty large file sizes (several MB) - though maybe the .3GP format files used by the mobile version of YouTube are smaller (I'm not sure how much smaller for the typical files you might watch). All the same, I suggest you get back to Verizon to clarify how much data is included in your plan, and upgrade to the $45 plan if downloading a few MB every day will cost more than $15 a month in extra data charges. Astronaut (talk) 12:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to say but the sales rep was probably not looking after your best interests. I second Astronaut. You should go back and clarify with VZW what the exact terms of your contract are. <speculation> It is most likely well below 5 GB per month. </speculation> Kushal (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

X11 in minimal Debian installation

I'm experimenting with a really minimal Debian installation. I installed from a net-installation CD, and unchecked absolutely everything. Then installed openssh client and server, sudo and xorg. When running startx, I got the default background, and an xterm window in the upper left corner, no border, no possibility to move windows around. So far, everything as expected. Next, I installed metacity, and voila, the xterm window gets a border, and I can move it around, and spawn other xterm windows. However, when I now exit and re-run startx, I only get the background and the mouse pointer, no possibility to start a program (without switching virtual screens). So obviously, the behaviour of startx has changed, it now starts metacity instead of xterm. So my question is: what configuration file has been modified? I've looked unsuccessfully in various /etc subdirectories. The behaviour is the same whether I run as root or normal user.

I need two virtual displays, so what I would like to do is something like this:

startx -- :0
export DISPLAY=:0
xsetroot -solid "one_color"
xterm
startx -- :1
export DISPLAY=:1
xsetroot -solid "another_color"
xterm -e ssh -l myname 192.168.31.16

(Correction after posting: corrected "setxroot" to "xsetroot") NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:11, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Except that I would like the X session to terminate when I exit the last active application. The code above works (when I switch between a console screen and the X11 virtual screens and type ctrl-Z and bg as needed), but is rather awkward, and I suspect there is a "right" place to put such code. And I would very much like each X session to terminate when its last active application terminates. I definitely do not want to install a desktop environment like gnome. Any suggestions? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

You should look into using a ~/.xinitrc with whatever applications running that you'll like. -- JSBillings 02:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I read the man page of xinit after posting this. There were no .xinitrc files in the /root or /home/myname directories, but I could of course create them. I also tried to locate the system-wide xinitrc file, but didn't find it. I was looking in /etc and /usr/lib/X11. Googling now took me to this page (Slackware's implementation), which says that the global xinitrc is under /var. Since the behaviour changed after installing metacity, there's got to be a global xinitrc file somewhere, so I'll have a look there (or else search the whole filesystem). The page I linked to also says that exec is the way to go to make the X-session terminate when the xterm exits. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Powering down HDDs

Hi, if you power down a spinning (but idle) hard drive, does it have any effect on the lifespan of the drive? My guess is no, but I've seen people claim otherwise. Some insights will be very welcome. :) --Kjoonlee 22:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about drives that are on 24/7, but external USB drives. --Kjoonlee 22:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Should matter little as long as the Disk read-and-write head is parked. Kushal (talk) 15:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

There are theories that say that the stress on the bearings when spinning the drive up to speed - or slowing it down to a stop - cause it to wear out more rapidly than simply leaving it spinning all the time. However, almost all hard drives spin down when idle nowadays - and I haven't seen any abrupt worsening of drive life. If you care about the life of your hard drive - This amazing Google survey of 100,000(!) of their hard drives is by far the most careful survey done to date. They found that the failure rate doesn't depend on the amount of use a drive gets - except in very young (<3 month) and very old (>4 years) drives. SteveBaker (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

One thing that survey doesn't cover is the impact of spinning a drive up and down: as it says in section 2.2 of the report, all the drives studied were always on and spinning. --Carnildo (talk) 22:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Word

Hello guys, I am having a little problem handling my microsoft word. I added a custom watermark and chose it to be a picture, with wash out. Now whenever I type text on the page, my text replaces the watermark line by line. What I mean is, as I type, the watermark keeps getting overwritten and invisible, but isnt a watermark supposed to be there completely? Like now i write half a page and it looks as if half my page is filled with letters and words and the rest half with the watermark. What do I do? Please advise. I have microsoft office 2007. Thanks a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.188.79 (talk) 23:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure that isn't just how it's displaying it to you? Try saving it as a PDF and see if the watermark comes through. My bet is that it is just erasing the watermark as it redraws the screen with the text on it, but when you print it, it won't look like that. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I also suggest printing a page to see what that looks like. StuRat (talk) 01:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

November 26

Combining multiple files into a single executable

Hey, I'm looking for a (preferably free) program that is able to combine multiple files such as DLLs, EXEs, files in subdirectories, etc. into one EXE. I'm not looking as to run them all at once, but rather still have functionality for a certain program. For example, if I had a game file whose location had 6 subdirectories (containing data files), several DLLs, other EXEs, and game.exe, the program would be able to combine all those files into a game_full.exe, where the functionality would be the same if I'd just run game.exe. Does anyone know of any program that would be able to accomplish this? Again, free preferably. Many thanks to helpful answers. Vic93 (t/c) 01:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Winzip and some other file compression programs let you make an "executable archive" which compresses a large number of files into one handy executable program. However, you must then run that executable archive to unpack the files at the destination before you can use the files again. However, I suspect that what you really want to do is something like how Busybox makes some flavours of Linux work. Astronaut (talk) 11:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

ILMerge does this on the .NET Framework. Chemical Weathering (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

There is no that you could do it without some sort of background virtual drives. If you want programs to be installed to 1 file, the best way is to use a program like truecrypt, create a container file and amount it as a drive, install to that drive, so on your file system you will have one file, and on the mounted drive you will have the game.--Dacium (talk) 04:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo

How do I turn off the marketing e-mails from Yahoo? I've asked this question several times on Yahoo Answers. I've done what the answerers said - go to the e-mail page, click "My Account", and choose "marketing options" - but there is no such option on my My Account page. So now what can I do? JCI (talk) 04:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

footnotes in Word: page breaks

I'm constantly having issues with footnotes in Word: Page breaks occur in the middle of footnotes, sometimes several in one footnote (spreading the footnotes over three pages!). And sometimes, for no apparent reason, footnotes simply aren't printed on the same page as the text they refer to, but at least one page later. That's not just the case for footnotes near the end of the page--sometimes, a long paragraph follows the passage with the footnote, but the footnote is still moved to the next page.

I'm using simply text, no tables, no graphics, nothing else that seems to prevent footnotes from just appearing on the page that they refer to. I'm using a Word version from 2000 (strangely, I can't remember having had any issues like that until relatively recently). Switching to a new Word version is not an option, nor is switching to OpenOffice (sorry, not at the moment).

Any recommendations would be welcome--if I cannot make Word automatically do it right, what's a way to at least manually correct this mess (except not using footnotes, which isn't an option either)? Thanks a million (!), Thanks for answering (talk) 04:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I've often had such situations. Word seems to balance...something...to keep the footnote region from getting too large. I've never seen a footnote get pushed onto a different page than its antecedent unless putting it on the same page would not fit (though sometimes it took me a while to recognize those situations!). Only solution comes to mind and only aimed at one of your issues: adjust the Footnote Text style paragraph-formatting to "keep lines together". DMacks (talk) 06:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

google maps

How accurate is google maps, in terms of measuring the distance in certain segments (e.g. point A to point B to point C.) when looking up directions? --AtTheAbyss (talk) 04:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, not very accurate at all, though I'm sure it varies. --Sean 14:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Do not count on Google Maps giving an error of less than ±200 meters. Your mileage may vary. Kushal (talk) 15:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Their street addresses are occasionally extremely off. If you have a short street, that's obviously not a concern, but when it's a long street, I've had some "surprising" locations. Their distance should be calculated based on these false locations, so they can be very off. I don't know if there distances between intersections etc. have the same problem. --Thanks for answering (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

One further complication is that Google apparently places addresses based on postal codes (ZIP codes, in the US, I guess). That's normally not an issue, but renders my address very inaccurately as I don't get home delivery of the mail; the mailbox is actually two blocks from my house and that's where Google thinks I live. The people across the street from me have their mailbox in front of their house, so Google would presumably show our residences as being perhaps 200m apart from one another. Matt Deres (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I find yellowpages.com more concrete in giving directions, IMO. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 21:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I have found that when getting directions it can give a distance of say 6.8km, then when using the pen to write your own path, the same path gives a distance of 7.8km, then when using google earth instead of maps and going from the exact same places I get a distance of 8.6km.Dacium (talk) 04:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Address in google maps, and basically all addressing mapping applications, use geocoding methods based on interpolating addresses between known numbers at street corners. At least this is the case in the United States, where address numbers for intersections are easily available, but actual parcel data with corresponding address numbers is much harder to come by (and involves more data and processing effort; plus there are privacy issues regarding parcel data, or should be at least). Geocoding is "good enough" most of the time, but there are some cases where it fails miserably. Also, while the streets are fairly accurate, spatially, for most of the US, they can be way off and highly simplified in other parts of the world. It depends, I expect, on what data is available. And, even in the US there are numerous minor mistakes in the street data that can radical change driving directions. As an example, all computerized street datasets I've seen, including google maps, show a very short street segment near my house that connects two other streets. There is no such segment, but if there were it would be an excellent way to get to my house. I've informed the local governments who made the data, and google as well, who acquired the data from them, to no avail. I suspect the error originated with the US Census Bureau, which creates and freely released geospatial street data and address geocodes for the US. The fact that the segment is exactly on a county line probably makes it trickier for local governments to fix it. Anyway, these kind of minor errors are quite common. Combined with address geocoding.. well... results may vary. (Looking at the geocoding WP page now I see its intro is misleading and perhaps plain wrong. The "Address interpolation" section describes what I'm talking about. Pfly (talk) 07:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The reason I used google maps was because it has walking directions, and I'm trying to map out distance for my run. It says the distance from point A to point B is 1.1 miles, but now I'm not so sure...--AtTheAbyss (talk) 07:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I just looked it up on yellowpages (thanks for the idea), and it stated the distance as 1.9 miles, so I guess it's close enough. Thanks all. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 07:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Image size

Is there any image format that takes up more size for a given image dimension than bmp (assuming a single (flat), non-vector image)? Thanks :) 203.122.33.194 (talk) 13:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Uncompressed TIFF Chemical Weathering (talk) 14:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. However I went to that article and it seems TIFF incorporates layers and vector images. Can you please shed some light on this? 124.30.235.62 (talk) 14:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

TIFF can incorporate those but it doesn't have to. It is a versatile format, though it is usually used for flat, bitmap images. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, so if I understand correctly, TIFF uses somewhat higher number of bytes even when storing an image as a flat bitmap than the BMP format, and that's because it has extra information attached (like whether layers/vectors/compression has been used or not)? 125.21.165.158 (talk) 14:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Not always so… Uncompressed TIFF may be larger because it may contain extra records: physical resolution, author's name & used software, etc. On the other hand, BMP requires each pixel row to be multiple of 4 bytes, padded if necessary – and that means up to 3 extra bytes per row. For example, 999×1000 24bit BMP image has 3000 bytes wasted for padding. Skarebo (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Strictly, TIFF is a 'tag file' and it can contain any set of tags with associated data whatever. Since you're allowed to make up your own tags (and many software packages do exactly that) - the file could be arbitarily long...it could even contain a BMP image. So for sure, BMP isn't the most inefficient image format. Probably the largest would be one of the high-dynamic-range (HDR) image formats - where the image could have more than 8 bits per color component. But then there are also images (often stored as TIFF varients) that are used for satellite imagery that may contain infra-red and ultra-violet "image" data and other color samples as well as (or instead of) the usual R,G and B. Also - it's untrue to say that compressed images such as PNG ALWAYS take up less space than uncompressed images. It is provable mathematically that no lossless compression algorithm can squeeze data out of every possible image - so it's theoretically possible in some extreme cases for (eg) a compressed PNG to come out larger than the BMP. SteveBaker (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

That's not only theoretical. Just compress pure random noise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.106.12 (talk) 02:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Buying advice for macbook hard disk drive

Hello, I was looking into the possibility of upgrading the hard disk on my macbook. Here is some information from System Profiler. According to toshiba, this hard disk seems to have "ATA7/Serial ATA 1.0a/Serial ATA II 1.2"as its interface.

What would be the best value for money replacement drive? Would something like this NewEgg drive be good? I welcome any suggestion and criticism.

You guys are awesome. You helped me with the HP Compaq laptop among many other stuff. Thank you very much in advance. Kushal (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hamming distance

How many errors in a single code pattern could be corrected when using an error correcting code in which each code pattern is a Hamming distance of at least seven from any other code pattern? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.211.122 (talk) 16:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know.

(You might try reading Hamming distance and Error detection and correction - the answer you seek is definitely in there - but you're going to have to learn something to find out!) SteveBaker (talk) 17:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

gmail doesn't work with google chrome??

This is the weirdest thing in the world! I uninstalled google chrome, reinstalled it. this is a fresh computer with windows xp and the latest service pack. gmail used to work until they introduced themes, now it works fine in every browser except Google Chrome! am I the only one with this difficulty? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.99.209 (talk) 17:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Works fine here (Chrome 0.4.154.25 on Vista, Gmail with the 'Planets' theme). What happens when you try to access Gmail? Does the basic HTML version work? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Video Cards

Should a PCI video card work (inserted in a PCI slot of course) on a motherboard that has a dedicated PCI Express slot? I have a mother board I'd like to use but no PCI Express cards. I have several cards that look almost like PCI Express cards but don't quite fit. So I'm left with a PCI card, but it's not producing any video signal....69.180.160.77 (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the PCI card will work if you have PCI-E slot, but I think the other cards that don't quite fit are probably AGP. Useight (talk)

It should certianly work. However, your bios might be set allow it. If its not working try to reset your bios by removing the battery or read your motherboard manual for more info. Usually the motherboard should know that it can't find a video card on the express slot and try a PCI slot. --Dacium (talk) 04:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course, if you are not getting video, then it might be hard to change BIOS settings. Also, maybe you can just try to wait a while and see if anything comes up after the OS loads, because most OSs can probably use PCI video cards. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 05:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Soft reboot

How do you soft-reboot on Windows 98 if your Ctrl key isn't working? And is there any explanation for why both my Ctrl keys aren't working while all the other keys are fine? --120.138.100.154 (talk) 18:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• If you press (but not hold) your power button, often this will force a soft boot. Seems less often this works on laptops, for what that's worth. Holding the power button will force a hard reboot. Other than that, if you download psshutdown you can use that to do a soft boot. --Kickstart70TC 01:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a way to test it, but you might open a command window and try "shutdown.exe /?" to see it exists and what options are available. If it doesn't exist, this site lists several commands that might help, such as "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 2". I have no ideas regarding the Ctrl key problem. -- Tcncv (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

November 27

RCA DRC628 dvd player

I have a RCA DRC628 dvd player...it has a USB port on the back. I found this page which seems to say that music and photos can be played from the port, but I was wondering if there was a way to get videos to play from my USB thumb drive as well? If so, how can I tell which video formats will play? I've tried a few (WMV, AVI, MOV) but it doesn't find them at all. Thanks in advance, Kickstart70TC 01:44, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

If it can play video at all it would probably only play mpeg files, probably only mpeg that is encoded same as a dvd.--Dacium (talk) 04:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

big number calculator software

I'm looking for a downloadable/online calculator that has little/no truncation and has adequate accuracy. This is will help in my ongoing quest to calculate e to a large number of digits. Don't say "Google search it, noob!" and point at link1 or link2, because I've already googled it and found those (which don't work for my purposes). flaminglawyer^cneverforget 08:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you check out the links in the External Links section of the Wikipedia article on e? One of them has e computed to at least 2 million digits. Another (supposedly) has example code for computing e to arbitrary precision. If, despite these, you're still looking for something that would allow you to do large integer arithmetic, you can try Python. I don't know if it's efficient enough for your purpose, but large integer arithmetic is a built-in feature of the language. --173.49.12.59 (talk) 10:39, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Every programming language has support for arbitrary length numbers. Usually, the numbers are represented as strings - so you are actually limited to how long the language allows a string to be. -- kainaw™ 18:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Reinstalling Ubuntu and extras in a new computer

How can I best clone my Ubuntu installation into another computer? Is there a command that would list all my presently installed programs? I would have no problem installing a new version of Ubuntu, but what about cloning the settings?Mr.K. (talk) 11:19, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I asked a similar question on linuxquestions.org a while ago, the answers there might be useful. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I have searching for. --80.58.205.37 (talk) 17:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

would the mac mini support some weight?

Could I put my LCD monitor (a very old and small one, like 15 inches) on a Mac Mini without problems? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.99.209 (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Not recommended according to Apple -

Don't put anything on top of your Mac mini or stack Mac minis on top of each other either. If your Mac mini is configured with AirPort or Bluetooth, you could hamper the signal strength since the antennas are located in the top of the computer.[7]

. Buy a stand instead. Exxolon (talk) 22:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Television and xbox 360 region encoding

Are televisions regionally encoded?

If so, then I would assume that televisions in South Korea would have PAL encoding. In that case, is it true that my xbox 360 will not work with such a television? If all of this is not a false belief, then is it possible to buy a converter?

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.190.163.91 (talk) 14:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

NTSC/PAL are analog television transmission formats, not "region encoding". All modern TVs are multi-system and handle both NTSC and PAL. The distinction is historic and originally had to do with 50Hz/6Hz AC current, with NTSC designed for 60Hz current, and PAL designed for 50Hz current. South Korea is 60Hz so their analog television transmissions are NTSC (in SK's case, "NTSC M"). In addition to NTSC-PAL converters (ca 30$), there are also CDs for consoles that allow you to switch the TV format. Search for "xbox ntsc or pal". -- Fullstop (talk) 17:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Algorithm

Hello there, My name is Arslan Yaqub.I m the student of BSIT in Sargodha University Sargodha (Punjab)Pakistan. My question is "What is the Algorithm?"''''Bold text' Please send me or show here exact defination with examples. thanks a lot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arslan 26r uos (talk • contribs) 15:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

See algorithm. Algebraist 15:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

that addresses what algorithms are, but the user's question was what is the algorithm. I humbly submit that the algorithm is RSA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.99.209 (talk) 16:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I would need to see what the teacher put directly above the question to answer the question. Though I've been trying very hard for many years to learn how to use ESP to view all Pakistani homework assignments, I'm not that good (yet). -- kainaw™ 18:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

SQL query from win32 command line

Does anyone know of a free self contained program that can run on winxp, which can be controlled from the command line, which allows of sending of basic queries to an SQL server and outputs the results of the query?--Dacium (talk) 02:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

AND, OR Gates

How can I represent AND, and OR gates as decimal equations, can include if loops. Like these

NOT=MAX-1-Input1
XOR=(Input1+Input2)%MAX
Max equals a power of 2 like 2^8 for a byte

--Melab^±1 02:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

If you can get each bit first it makes it easy:

bit8input1 = input1%(MAX/2)
bit7input1 = (intput1 - (bit8input1 * (MAX/2)) % (MAX/4)
bit6input1 = (input1 - (bit8input1 * (MAX/2) - (bit7input1 * (MAX/4)) % (MAX/8)
and so on and so on (use loops and more temp values to make this easy)

When you have bit for each input then its easy to do AND:
bit8Anded = (bit8input1 + bit8input2)/2

OR would be:
bit8Ored = bit8input1 * bit8input2

Then reconstruct again:
AndOutput = (bit8Anded * (MAX/2)) + (bit7Anded * (MAX/4) + ... etc. etc.

--Dacium (talk) 03:03, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Without breaking it into bits. That's what I'm trying to overcome. If you can' t get an AND gate but you get it for a NAND gate tht's fine too.

$XOR=($A+$Z)%$MAX
XOR=(5+12)%16=1
$NOT=$MAX-1-$A
NOT=16-1-7=8
LIKE That

--Melab^±1 04:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

What are you doing exactaly? Your XOR seems to be wrong, eg. 15 + 51 = 66, but XOR it should be 60.--Dacium (talk) 04:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Interactive Website

I am competent in Visual Basic, Delphi, C and C++ but have only basic internet/website skills. I want to run a visual basic 6.0 program with special hardware, which will try to predict in advance which of two form buttons are about to be pressed by another person across the Atlantic, and show both him and myself the score and percentage (which my stand-alone program already does.) I am on a slow dial-up connection. What would be the easiest way to do this, for example using e-mail and two separate vb6 programs each end to communicate, or some sort of web client- server? And what language, ie vbscript ect, would be best? I would prefer to use vb6 from my end as I do not wish to spend time rewriting my program. Keep it simple. p.s. Also Tesconet's email seems to mess up SendEmail programs-how do you set outlook express as the default? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trevor Loughlin (talk • contribs) 03:00, 28 November 2008 (UTC)Trevor Loughlin (talk) 03:03, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

TV Question

I'm sitting here looking at TVs and I'm a little confused. I've been looking at this Samsung LCD HDTV monitor model T200HD (http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/features.do?group=computersperipherals&type=monitors&subtype=lcd&model_cd=LS20TDNSUV/ZA Hope that link works) and I don't know if I can watch over the air TV with it unless I have some sort of other antenna or not. Any help would be really appreciated.

RedStateV (talk) 04:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Website Development

Dear Sir, I want know about Website Development .. If i want to be a Web developer what should i study and how should i do?? Actually i know about computer basic concepts and some basic programming languages like C++ and C#. But i need to know what to study for website precisely. Please answer to me . Yours truly, Thaw Thaw —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.81.72.200 (talk) 04:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

What precisely are you wanting to develop? Language-wise you might want any of: XHTML, HTML, Javascript, CSS, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Java, ASP, ASP.NET, SQL, ActionScript, and... others. Plus, for just about anything you'll want at least basic relational database knowledge. 24.76.161.28 (talk) 06:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)