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January 27

Big numbers in C++

How can I deal with big numbers which are too large even for a "long long unsigned int" in C++ --RMFan1 (talk) 00:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you getting paid in Zimbabwean dollars. See Arbitrary-precision arithmetic Dmcq (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

the not-ipod

My best friend's brother just got this new handheld iPod-like thingy. It's South Korean, has (approx) a 4-inch screen, can play 720p video and music, movies, pictures, etc. Everything that an iPod can do (plus 720p vids), but on a bigger screen. I'm in the market for a new portable media player device thingy that's not and iPod and this thing looks like it fits the bill. Only thing is, I have no idea what it is, what it's called, or where to look for it. Does anyone know of such a device, or where I could buy one? flaminglawyer 00:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does it look like an iPod? A quick Google search for "iPod copies" threw up this as the top result. Cycle~ (talk) 00:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for not clearing that up: No. It looks nothing like an iPod. Imagine a rectangle, about 4x5 inches, with like a 4x4 inch screen and the other inch for buttons. And you've got it. flaminglawyer 00:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It has a 1280x720 screen at 4x4 inches? Are you, uh, positive? An older news article (2005) suggests the most popular companies for media players in Korea, at that time at least, were iRiver, Cowon, and Samsung. You can get these just about anywhere, might as well look at their sites and see if you can spot the one you're looking for. None of them have 4x4" 720p screens though. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I assume he meant it takes 720p as input, then down-converts to something more like 480p for display purposes. Otherwise, those are some freakin' tiny pixels. StuRat (talk) 01:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have a browse around DealExtreme, you might find it there. It's a Hong Kong based company that sells almost anything you could think of (and probably many that you could not!) with free worldwide shipping. If you do find it, you might then want to read the forum comments as well as do a Google search to find out how haclable it may be, if that's your thing. Zunaid 08:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Holy schizz, dude... That site's got some crazy stuff on it... Thanks for pointing me to it :) flaminglawyer 23:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update

I've found it (it appears at 19 seconds in the MegaWhat video on this page), but I still have no idea what it's called. Anybody know? flaminglawyer 23:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see a Casio camera 19 seconds into that video, and then a Palm Pre a few seconds later. No media player. 24.76.160.236 (talk) 01:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia layer in Google Earth

Does anyone know how often the Wikipedia layer in Google Earth is updated? It presumably uses the {{coord}} template. I've noticed that the placemark for Westchester County, New York is in the city centre of Birmingham (UK) and has been for at least a year. The coordinates were removed from the article on 19 January 2008, but the placemark remains. Similarly, articles I've created (with coordinates) haven't been included. Cheers! Cycle~ (talk) 00:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

all the tech conferences

It appears that there are a bunch of different conferences for people announcing new tech stuff. There's G3, Mac World (cancelled), and all the other ones that I don't know of... which is why I'm here. Is there a list of all the tech conferences that regularly happen? Also, how does anyone ever find out about the ones that are announced short-notice? Like the one to announce the Palm Pre? flaminglawyer 00:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Check out Trade fair for a list of a lot of technical conferences. Livewireo (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Niche calculations

What's the best way to automate calculation of the random Fibonacci sequence? Let's say I have 10,000,000 bits of "random" data that I want to seed my random Fibonacci algorithm with. For each and every bit, I want to either add f(n-1) and f(n-2) or subtract them, depending on whether the current "random" bit is a 0 or 1. This would be easy enough to do with a spreadsheet like Excel, except that Excel has a very small limit to the maximum number of cells, and it's very time-consuming to import bit-wise data into Excel (am I right?). So I guess I'm looking for a super-spreadsheet to do this. Suggestions? Accuracy of the result is not too important, as long as the exponent is close to the actual one. An arbitrary precision/speed tradeoff would be nice, of course. 4.242.108.158 (talk) 01:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excel would be a horrible choice, for the reasons you've mentioned as well as the fact that a huge amount of processing power goes to its (quite poor) GUI, and all you want to do is crunch numbers. You'd be better off with just a scripting program (in your language of choice) that would input your numbers from a text file and output to another one. I'm sure someone on here could write you such a program in Python or Perl quite quickly.... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
#!/usr/bin/env perl
local $/=\1;
$a=$b=1;
while(<>) {      # input is 0 or 1
  $a*=-1 if $_;
  die "Odd input count" unless defined($_=<>);
  $a+=$b*($_?-1:1);
  ($a,$b)=($b,$a);
  print "$b\n";
}
This expects as input a file containing only the ASCII digits 0 and 1 (no spaces or newlines!) and prints what follows the two initial 1s. It uses floating-point arithmetic if the numbers get big. --Tardis (talk) 18:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Volume configuration file on Ubuntu?

Does anyone knows the configuration file that stores the value for the volume control in Ubuntu ("master" and "speaker")? I've searched a lot, but with no success... :(

PS:I know there are GUI and CLI tool to change that, but I really need the file that sores that info...

PS-2: I know it is a global value (for all users, so it is probably not stored at the home)

Thanks. SF007 (talk) 02:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's stored in the device itself (/dev/mixer), apparently, although I don't know how it's made persistent over shutdowns. There's a write up on how to use it, with example code if that's your thing. It may also involve /dev/snd/controlC0; I ran strace on gnome-volume-control to find these two. --Tardis (talk) 08:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Single-user PostgreSQL

Is there a version of PostgreSQL that's simpler to install and use for a single-user, non-network database, but that has all the same features for the database itself (e.g. triggers, polymorphism and inheritance)? NeonMerlin 03:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on Linux. The complete install process is: "yum install postgresql-server". In Windows, I believe you download the installer and double-click on it, then click ok-ok-ok-ok-ok. I don't know about Mac. So, my problem with answering your question is how to make it simpler. -- kainaw™ 13:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IP address

Question moved from the Miscellaneous desk. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 04:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Just wondering, is it legal (or even possible) to modify one's computer or Internet device so that the location and IP address it gives off can be controlled? Tezkag72 03:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Proxy server, Tor. –Capricorn42 (talk) 04:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) We cannot give legal advice, but I don't think setting an arbitrary IP address would be illegal (pretending to be a different person, however, could be). In fact, it is quite possible to set any IP address you'd like on your computer. The problem, though, is that many other computers will not talk to your computer if it isn't at an expected IP address. Realistically, the closest thing you can do is route your traffic through a proxy which will make your IP address appear to be the proxy address. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 04:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on the method you use to spoof your IP address. Using a proxy (as mentioned above) is usually legal. But cloning someone's MAC address or using someone's firewall as an unauthorized proxy would be illegal.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 04:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How is setting your MAC address to some arbitrary value illegal? Now, connecting to another computer with intent to defraud is another matter, but it's the fraud that's illegal, not the MAC. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Uh..Mac Addresses can't be changed....Rgoodermote  15:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Our article MAC spoofing disagrees with you. Algebraist 15:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I need to hunt down the makers of my Cisco course then and show them said article. XD. Rgoodermote  17:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure you can; the card is in your physical possession, after all. On my machine the syntax is "ifconfig eth0 hw ether 12:34:56:78:9a:bc". Multihoming ethernet basically requires you to make up a MAC address for your virtual interfaces. It's a variation of "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog". --Sean 18:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Address Bar question

Is there a way to adjust the address bar in Windows so that it doesnt show all the sites that I've been to? What I mean is when Im about to write an address into it,as soon as a write the first letter it gives me the list of all the sites that I've been to starting with that letter. Can that be adjusted and how?

Thanks a lot(and please do answer if you know how to do it,cause I would really hate my girlfriend to know all which sites I visited).

87.116.154.181 (talk) 07:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would depend on the browser. Some browsers have an option of not memorizing addresses. (Safari, for example, calls this "Private browsing".) And I think every browser allows you to delete its memory of addresses (as well as cookies, etc). -- Hoary (talk) 08:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you use Internet Explorer (IE7 here, but it was similar in IE6), you can turn Auto-Complete on or off. Click Tools at the top of the screen, then Internet Options. Click the Content tab, then where it says Settings beside Auto-Complete. There are a number of boxes there which you can check or uncheck, depending on what you want Auto-Complete to store. Tools/Internet Options also enables you to delete your browser history. In IE7, the Favorites Center has a History feature which, when clicked, displays everything you've looked at in detail unless you delete the browser history. Pavel (talk) 09:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

720p vs 1366x768

Hi. Our article on 720p states that it is 1280x720 and mentions absolutely nothing about 1366x768. However, every single 720p TV I've seen advertised in South Africa has a resolution of 1366. Actually to be more accurate, they are always advertised as "HD Ready" rather than 720p. Similarly, 1080p TV's are advertised as "Full HD". Now at the moment we still don't have digital broadcasting although it WILL come in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Not sure if it wll be 720 or 1080.

I'm looking to get an "HD Ready" LCD for gaming (Xbox360) and watching TV series via PC. So in light of all this, is there anything to be concerned about? If any of these sources are coming from a 720p signal, stretching it to 1366 would probably look terrible given how close the ratios are. On another note, I've noticed that most graphics cards (including the onboard graphics on my PC) only support 1360x768 as a standard resolution. What would happen to the extra 6 pixels? Will the display from the PC look absolutely horrible (trying to stretch itself horizontally)?

Nth question (how many is that now?): How did 1366x768 for TV's come about in the first place if the standard was 1280x720 for broadcasting and 1360x768 for graphics cards? Why choose a ratio that is not a standard? If anyone can untangle this whole mess I'd be grateful. Thanks. Zunaid 08:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On my LCD TV, when I plug my computer into it and set it to the max resolution it allows, I believe it might have a few pixels of black at the top or bottom—it doesn't try to stretch it. This is with a MacBook, and not necessarily generalizable, but anyway, that's my little experience, if that helps. If I recall more completely, depending on the monitor mode I use in the MacBook (mirroring vs. multiple monitors), it works a bit differently... (one stretches a bit, one does not), but maybe I'm not remembering this right.. --140.247.241.150 (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Take a look here: High-definition_television#High-Definition_Display_Resolutions, and you will see that 720p is 1280×720, or just a bit less than 1366x768 (WXGA). So, I would hope your screen will letter-box it (put black borders around it), instead of stretching, which could indeed introduce some distortions. StuRat (talk) 20:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1280x768 (WXGA) has an aspect ratio of 15:9, the 16:9 equivalent of which is 1366x768. ((1280/15)*16 => 1365.3333). However, 1366 is not evenly divisible by 8, so 1366 gets rounded down to 1360. -- Fullstop (talk) 03:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pywikipedia code

Hello, where can I find (or how can I make) some code which I can use to have my bot copy automatically templates from other Wikipedias every X days? There are some templates which have to be updated often from the corresponding templates on other Wikipedias every now and then, and it would be great to be able to do that with a bot. I'm bad at pywikipedia programming so I hope someone can please lend me a hand. Thanks a lot. Leptictidium (mt) 09:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perl, Regex, translation, ARRRRRGGHHHHHHHH!

Microsoft Excel can understand January 1, 1911, Feb 2, 1922 but not Mar. 3, 1933. If the name of the month has a period in it, it fails to parse the date. So I am writing a simple Perl program to fix my text documents.

open (IN, "<dates_in.txt");
@test = <IN>;
$i = 0;

foreach (@test) {
    chomp($test[$i]);
    print $test[$i] . " - ";
    $test[$i] =~ tr/(Jan\.|Feb\.)/(January|February)/;
    print $test[$i] . "\n";
    $i++
}

For simplicity's sake, only two months are translated here. The output is beyond my wildest imagination:

Jan. 1, 1911 - Janu 1, 1911
Feb 2, 1922 - ry| 2, 1922
Mar. 3, 1933 - Maru 3, 1933
Apr. 4, 1944 - Apru 4, 1944
May 5, 1955 - May 5, 1955
Jun. 6, 1966 - Junu 6, 1966
Jul. 7, 1977 - Julu 7, 1977
Aug. 8, 1988 - Augu 8, 1988
Sep. 9, 1999 - Sypu 9, 1999
Oct. 10, 2000 - Octu 10, 2000
Nov. 11, 2001 - Novu 11, 2001
Dec. 12, 2002 - Dycu 12, 2002

What went wrong? -- Toytoy (talk) 10:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You invoked transliteration (or translation) instead of substitution. s/tr/s/ -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 11:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But can I do many-to-many replacement? I tried:
$test[$i] =~ s/Jan\.|Feb\./January|February/;
It doesn't work at all. The "Replace With" part does not allow multiple one-on-one mapped alternatives (like "case" of flow control).
Surely I can do 11 replacements for each month except for May. But if the text files are huge, 11 replacements may take a long time to execute. What else can I do? -- Toytoy (talk) 12:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps s/(Jan|Feb|Mar)\./$1/ is more to your liking? It doesn't expand the months, but it does remove the dots. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 12:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the text files only contain the dates, why not do a global search and replace, replacing "." with ""? - any text editor should be able to do that. Astronaut (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can solve my current problem by using the UltraEdit. However, I want to see if there's a way to do "case"-like replacement. For example, I can expand each country's shortened name to its full name (e.g. U.S. -> U.S.A. -> the United States of America) in a very large text file. Or I can use a complicated replacement program to simplify a HTML page downloaded from a web site. -- Toytoy (talk) 13:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A slightly more complicated alternative is to add the 'e' option at the end of the regex, which causes Perl to eval the substitution string. So you could, for instance, create a hash mapping Jan=>January etc., then use s/(Jan|Feb|Mar)\./$hash{$1}/e to expand the months. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a much more advanced solution. I guess that you can't use the 'o' option (compile once for all replacements), if the replacement is executed within a loop. But this is a much better solution. This may be used for other purposes, such as mapping an animal's English names against its scientific name (if one-to-one). Thank you! -- Toytoy (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like that Perl has a major bug.

%month = ("Jan" => "January", "Feb" => "February", "Mar" => "March", "Apr" => "April", "Jun" => "June", "Jul" => "July", "Aug" => "August", "Sep" => "September", "Sept" => "September", "Oct" => "October", "Nov" => "November", "Dec" => "December");

open (IN, "<dates_in.txt");
@test = <IN>;
$i = 0;

foreach (@test) {
    chomp($test[$i]);
    print     $test[$i] . " - ";
    $test[$i] =~ s/\b(Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Sept|Oct|Nov|Dec)\.?\b/$month{$1}/ge;
    print     $1 . " > " . $test[$i] . "\n";
    $i++
}

Perl fails to clear $1 (group 1) when there's no match, see May:

Apr. 4, 1944 - Apr > April 4, 1944
May 5, 1955 - Apr > May 5, 1955 <-- See the bug!
Jun. 6, 1966 - Jun > June 6, 1966

This is a potential source of unpredictable output. Larry Wall I want my money back.-- Toytoy (talk) 14:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The s/// operator returns the number of replacements made (or a false value if that's 0). If you want to use $1 iff it's current, you need to say something like
if($test[$i]=~s/.../.../) {print $1,...;}
Hope that helps. --Tardis (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If Perl was created by Microsoft, this bug is certainly a valuable "feature." But why did Perl have such a "feature"? Is there a reason to justify its existence? Can anyone name a good use of it? -- Toytoy (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The documentation says "The numbered match variables ($1, $2, $3, etc.) and the related punctuation set ($+, $&, $`, $', and $^N) are all dynamically scoped until the end of the enclosing block or until the next successful match, whichever comes first.", so it's working as advertised. --Sean 18:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict] Perl, as you've already said, was created by Larry Wall. The man page perlre describes the feature as follows:
  • NOTE: Failed matches in Perl do not reset the match variables, which makes it easier to write code that tests for a series of more specific cases and remembers the best match.
When you use s/.../.../g, you may do any number of matches in one statement; which value of $1 is so important for you to have afterwards, anyway? --Tardis (talk) 18:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Internet

My internet connection is not working, I have been told by my provider that the problem is either with my cable from my modem to my computer or with my modem itself. I have however tested my conection with a different computer, and this workied, I have also tested all of these with other cables, and modems, I am now confident that the problem is with the provider in one way or another. The enat light on my modem, is off, and I hae been told this indicates a problem with my conection on my side. Now what I think the problemis is that there is one conection coming from outside the house, and then split into two in the hall way thus allowing myself and another person in the house access to the internet via two seperate Accounts. Could this be the problem or can any one who is more computer savvy than myself help me to fix the problem as I am tired of having to use other peoples computers to access my email, and my beloved wikipedia. Plese help. Thank you very much guys and girls. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.74.58.129 (talk) 13:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It could be your computer's settings. However, the shared connection thing is worrying. Here in the UK, we are only allowed one ISP per physical connection to the phone exchange, and ADSL modems only allow one account to be set up in the modem. So, maybe your connection is not working because the other person is monopolising the modem and account. I suggest you talk with this other person and find out if they're having the same problem or if they changed anything. Astronaut (talk) 16:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Epson Stylus Photo R2880 and Quality Photo Papers

A keen photographer, I am about to set up a mini studio where I can print my own work for exhibition, and have chosen the above printer as my first step. My only concern is that I am very inexperienced in choosing good quality paper to use in such printers to get the best quality. I am particularly keen on matte prints and plan to print largely in A4 and A3 sizes. Can anyone give me some good suggestions and some useful suppliers online?

Many thanks. Lukerees1983 (talk) 13:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You could have a peek at http://epsonality.com/. Also kind of cool site. Lanfear's Bane | t 15:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest sticking with Epson's own line of papers to start with, as the printer driver should be optimized for their media. In my experience (in the US), the prices on their website are competitive and they often offer discounts and/or free shipping. --LarryMac | Talk 15:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking freeware program to compare two binary files

I had thought it would take seconds to find such a program on the internet, but I've now been searching for over an hour. I am seeking a windows freeware program that will compare the contents of two binary files and tell me if they are either exactly the same or different. Can anyone recommend one please? Note that this is not comparing text files, but comparing two binary files. The files names will be different. I would prefer to avoid bloatware, and highlighting of the differences of the files would be a bonus. Thanks. 78.146.240.116 (talk) 14:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Our article diff has links to various implementations. Algebraist 14:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) In Unix/Linux, the program is called "diff". So, I just googled "diff for Windows" and found this as the first hit. For binary files, it will normally only say they are different since it can't print binary code nicely. -- kainaw™ 14:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Would and MD5 check do the same thing? --Russoc4 (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Usually, yes. Technically, no. If you just happen to have two files with an MD5 collision, it will say they are the same, but they are actually different. The same applies for all hashing techniques. Timewise, I doubt hashing will be any faster than diff. -- kainaw™ 14:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Lets be clear about this: yes, comparing MD5s would work excellently. The chances that two files will collide is so vanishingly small (remember, there are vastly more possible MD5 checksums than there are atoms in the universe) that it is pretty much not possible. The only risk with doing that is that since MD5 has been shown to have some weaknesses, you could artificially create two files with the same MD5 hash, but it would take a long long time (I'm think it's essentially infeasible for anyone without a supercomputer), and that problem goes away if you just use another, safer, cryptographic hash like SHA-512.
As for comparing just two files, using hashes and just comparing them directly, then yes, they have the same computational complexity (straight comparison would probably be slightly faster, but not much). But if you had, say, 1000 files and find any two that are identical, hashing is much faster. In short: hashing files to check for equality is an excellent way to do it (btw, I realize that I'm going a little off-topic from the question. My apologies) Belisarius (talk) 21:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for replies so far, but none of the links indicated (or links to the links) are Windows programs. It may be possible to get the GNU program to run in Windows if you have a degree in computer science, but I do not. There is a Wikipedia table comparing different file comparisons programs, but it ommits to record if they compare binary or merely text, and all the ones I have come across so far are only text. So I'm still looking please. Thanks again. 78.146.240.116 (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The link provided by Kainaw (which is also linked from the article I pointed you to) is to a Windows program. It can be installed and used without a degree in computer science (though my testing cannot exclude the possibility that a degree in mathematics is required). Algebraist 15:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I took it for granted that "for Windows" was a very technical term for implying that a program was designed to work in Windows or that a link labeled "Complete Package" would download the complete program package so it could easily be installed. So, for non-computer-science people, go to the page linked above (which is titled Diff for Windows) and click on the link that says "Complete Package". You'll get an executable file. You should select the option to run the executable. After a lot of the normal "accept this license" and clicking ok-next-next-ok-ok-next-next..., you will have finished installing Diff for Windows. -- kainaw™ 15:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See fc. It comes with all modern versions of Windows and can do what you want. Comparison of file comparison tools does have a "Binary comparison" column in the "Features" table, but for some reason it had neither yes nor no for fc. (I fixed it.) --Tardis (talk) 15:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Apart from fc (which is dos-in-windows), KDiff3 is the only other one listed which compares binary and is free. I have now also found the Comparison Of Hex Editors Table, and those that are both free and can compare are HxD, AviHex, and HHD Software Hex Editor Neo. The GNU diff page seems to indicate that it requires four or five other programs as well to work, and that it will not work interactively - so too complicated already. Thanks again. 78.146.240.116 (talk) 16:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing Extremely Long Startup Times On IBM Laptop

I have a friend who has a problem with her IBM Laptop. I haven't seen the laptop yet, so I don't knwo what type it is, but she says it is only two or three years old. She has also informed me that she uses a P2P software to download music, so I believe that it must be an adware/spyware/malware problem. I have told her I will try to fix it tomorrow, but in order to do so, I may need to get software that I can put on a USB to run on her system, without the huge start-up time (in excess of 20 minutes). What I want to do is get the computer to run as fast as possible so I can install the anti-spyware and anti-adware, as well as software to deal with the malware that may be present. I am doing this for free, so I don't want to have to burn a disk (which I would have to go and buy), so USB is the only option. Does anyone have any ideas here?--KageTora (talk) 15:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd suggest booting into one of Windows's "safe modes" where a lot of extraneous crap isn't running. That'll probably be sufficient to install your anti-malware and clean things up. And seriously, how much do blank CDs cost over there? -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Try to find out which version or Windows your friend uses and whether or not they have the original install disk to hand (not a "recovery disk" which will wipe all your friend's data). You should be able to get the laptop to boot from that CD and repair the operating system. If the install disk is not available, you can put together a few tools on a USB drive (when downloading this software make sure it come from the official site rather then the first link you come across - some fakes exist made by malware makers):
The next step is to boot your friend's laptop into safe mode (press F8 before Windows starts). Make sure it's disconnected from the internet. Use Process Exploer to look for unusual programs running. Use Autoruns to look at all the stuff that runs at boot time (again you're looking for unusual stuff - it is helpful if you are familiar with what is supposed to be there). Sweep the machine for viruses and malware. If it is still acting up, look for rootkits and go through the whole process again.
Astronaut (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, malware or something like it may certainly be the problem, but there is another possibility: anti-malware software. On not-so-hot computers, a firewall/anti-virus that's extra intrusive (it continually scans files and TCP streams and so forth) can completely cripple a computer. This is a particularly on computers with low memory, because those programs can take up hundreds and hundreds of megabytes and the OS has to constantly keep paging the stuff to the hard disk. I've seen it completely screw up boot time several times. I'm not recommending you to just plain remove security software, but keep that possibility in mind.
As for what programs to use, IMHO the most important one is Process Explorer (like my friend the space-traveller recommended). It gives you a complete inside look into what's going on at any given time. Look for things that shouldn't be there. Then use Autoruns to kill the useless stuff that's starts with the computer. And, oh yeah, do the whole malware/virus sweep thing :) Belisarius (talk) 01:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weather Radio Alarm

On my weather radio (I don't remember the model or anything), there is a setting which transmits a loud somewhat high-pitched beeping noise. That is the only thing it does. Do you have any idea what that is? There is a seperate setting for Weather Radio and normal radio, but I want to know what the alarm does. It is not a clock alarm beause my weather radio does not have a clock. Nick (talk) 16:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)nicholassayshi[reply]

I've got a radio like that. On mine the documentation indicates that you're supposed to use the alarm as a sort of siren so that rescue workers can locate you.
I figure it would work because anyone who hears it would drop whatever they were doing to locate the radio so that they could turn it off. I'm not certain that they'd be inclined to rescue me, though.APL (talk) 16:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thats odd, because mine is periodic at random times. It is never on all the time. Any ideas?Nick (talk) 17:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)nicholassayshi[reply]

Presumably if it remained on continuously it would a) run down the batteries significantly faster and b) possibly be undetected as background noise. By making an intermittent beep battery life can be preserved for ~10 times as long, and by making it semi-random it is more likely to catch the attention of potential rescuers (less likely to be discounted as background beeping). At least, that's my idea. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 21:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On a NOAA Weather Radio equipped with an alarm, the alarm is activated when an emergency alert(Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Tornado Warning, Flood warning, i.e., anything that is issued by the Emergency Alert System) is issued for your general area. With most radios, you are able to input your specific location, which the radio uses to determine which alerts should activate the alarm, and which ones should not. Hope this helps. Until It Sleeps 05:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A safe Php -> mail form

I'd like to add a simple "contact us" form to my website (which was written in php, which I don't know). While Google finds any number of "php email form" type things, I'm all too aware that, naively implemented, these things are susceptible to all kinds of misuse. Is there a simple, well-respected free (in both senses) php->smtp form that takes adequate care of escaping its inputs to make it safe for use? Thanks. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 17:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perl, regex, line number counter

Let's say I have the telephone directory of the NYC or Tokyo. There are several million entries and each entry counts as a line.

I want to do a pattern matching, e.g., all persons having the last name John or Johnson.

In Perl I can store all hits into an array.

How do I create a list of the hits with line numbers?

I can split the file into a million-line array or hash and use the loop and counter to solve this problem. If there's a match at Line No. 8,775,765, the hit and the number are saved.

This is certainly not a good idea. You have to execute regex several million times. If you have a very complex expression that requires "e" option, you may take a long vacation and forget about your computer.

Is there an easier way to do it? -- Toytoy (talk) 17:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI:
$ wc wikipedia.all.titles 
4264251  4264251 85551445 wikipedia.all.titles

$ time perl -lne '$num_johnsons++ if /Johnson/; END { print $num_johnsons }' wikipedia.all.titles 
3278

real    0m2.763s
user    0m2.712s
sys     0m0.052s
--Sean 18:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
awk can do it too. It might be a bit easier than perl for some cases like this. --194.197.235.61 (talk) 19:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On your average multigigaflop desktop computer doing a regex millions of times is not a big deal. However if you want to do this many times you may wish to build an index. One time you scan through the file, extract the surname, and then make a string indexed array with the value being all the record numbers that have that surname. Then you just have to look up the surname and count the record numbers it returns. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point wasn't awk vs. Perl, but man vs. machine. It took longer for me to type the brute force Perl one-liner than for it to execute, so it doesn't make sense to optimize it for runtime efficiency. --Sean 00:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I meant easier as in having to think less writing that one-liner (of course it doesn't make much difference if you already know perl well as it seems to). --194.197.235.61 (talk) 14:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Linux

Hi all! I joined Wikipedia recently. I have a question about Linux, that is why is not Linux easily infected by Viruses? Asimsingh121 (talk) 17:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! Unlike most other OS, Linux creates a special account on the computer, known as root or Superuser. The general user accounts in Linux do not have permission to access the system files and critical areas of Linux. Only the root has the permission to access them. So, even if the account of an user gets infected by a virus, only the areas are infected which are accessible to the user and not the critical areas. Another reason for this is that, Linux does not automatically execute the .exe files, which are the most probable files containing virus. So, Linux does not get easil infected by viruses. You may check out the Linux article for more information on this question. Thank you. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 17:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia! Hope you enjoy it here :) I'll get the snarky answer in first second (dam! beat me to it!), before everyone else weighs in with the "proper" answers. Let me answer your question with a question: who would bother to invade Timbuktu? Virus writers are looking for attention, they want to affect as many people as possible by their actions. Given that Linux has such pathetic market penetration amongst desktop users, 90% of the world wouldn't notice the virus's existence. If I were a virus writer I'd certainly put more effort into writing viruses for the OS that most people are using. It's the same reason why most software developers don't port their games to Linux, it just isn't worth the effort for the size of the market. I'll now politely give way to SteveBaker to explain about root privileges and the inherent security of Linux having been designed from the ground up as a networking OS. Zunaid 17:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never really bought that argument. It may not be a common desktop OS, but there's plenty of high-profile web servers running Linux, and a virus that pwned those web servers would be a highly visible accomplishment. (By the same token, Code Red was a well-known worm, even though only a small fraction of Windows machines ran IIS.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

::Windows also has a vast, vast majority of the market share on PCs, so there isn't as much a market for viruses on Linux (if you could call it that). And I was beaten by an edit! Curse you, Zunaid!Livewireo (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In answer to your question, the last people to attack (one doesn't normally speak of invading a city) Timbuktu seem to have been Tuareg rebels in the early 1990s. Algebraist 18:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But that is not the answer to the question! And whom are you cursing? Me?! But for what reason? Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 18:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Anirban16chatterjee, one thing I did not get from your answer, that is, what prevents the virus from accessing the root or superuser? Is it something like Windows Firewall or DEP? Asimsingh121 (talk) 18:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The thing goes like that, the root or superuser has some other password, which is unknown to the virus. One may log into the root too and change the password. For example, in a machine with Redhat Lnux, the default superuser log in name is root and the default password is redhat or simply password. Thus it prevents the virus from accessing the root. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 18:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! Now I acn understand. Thank you very much for making me understand. But can you tell me how to log on to root? (if we can do it) And, suppose one account named UserA gets infected, what should be done to delete the virus? Asimsingh121 (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To log on to root, just type the word root in place of your user ID. And, you must know the root password which you should type in the password field. And, to delete the virus, you can delete the account of UserA from the root with all his/her documents from root. This will delete the virus too. If still the problem exists, then you should check out http://www.linuxburg.net/conhtml/sgs-scanners.html for downloading virus scanners for Linux. You may have heard of I love You virus of 2000-2001, which infected hundreds of Windows Computers, but not a single Linux Computer was infected. But still, gradually, the Kaspersky Lab has stated that there are still yet 800 malwares for Linux. So, we should better take care. Again, let me give you some more information. In 1997, a virus called Bliss was made which wasprimarily targeted to Linux. But the result was zero. So, don't worry, Linux is very secure. Although I am an admirer of Windows XP than that of Linux, still I appreciate the tough security of Linux-based Computers in general. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 18:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! That solves my question. Cheers. Asimsingh121 (talk) 18:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another slightly related note... On a Windows box, you just write a virus that infects the machine and tries to infect all other Windows machines. There are usually two reasons to do this. First, you are a pathetic person who just wants to cause trouble, so you write a virus to do damage to other computers. Second, you want to make use of a lot of computers (called a bot-net) to do things like send out tons of spam, so you write a virus to take over control of the computers. Windows is a great environment for both reasons. You can be an ass to a lot of people and/or control a lot of machines. In Linux, you won't get a lot of people mad or control a lot of machines, but you have the possibility of getting access to some rather important machines, such as financial databases. So, in Linux/Unix, the people who would normally be writing viruses spend their time simply trying to gain root access to the machine. With root access, they can gather the information they want and try to profit from it. It is mainly the usage of Linux/Unix that makes it less a target for virus activity. -- kainaw™ 22:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RoseGarden Playback Feature

Moved from Entertainment desk:

Does anyone have any info about if RoseGarden, the sheet music engraver program that comes with Linux, has a playback feature with sounds for ALL or at least most of the instruments it features? I have never used before and I'm trying to research about it but the RoseGarden article here mentions the playback feature but does not specify about which instruments have that feature and the same info did I find in the RoseGarden official page. Any info would be very appreciated. PabloClark (talk) 02:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Although I haven't used it a lot, I'll attempt to answer until someone more knowledgable comes along. The sheet music engraver program that comes with linux is Lilypond, which AFAIK does no playback. The article on Rosegarden states that it has no built-in software synthesizer, but can use other software synthesizers such as Fluidsynth, and it can also of course use hardware synthesizers or sound cards, provided there are drivers for the cards in question. With sound cards of the Soundblaster series, you can load Soundfonts, and will then get the instruments that are contained in the sound font. So General MIDI should work. I should add, that I've found working with midi under linux rather troublesome. Apart from silly (yet frustrating) things such as not loading a sound font and not turning up the volume, there are things such as conflicts between the sound card that I've installed, and sound chips on the motherboard that I've disabled in the BIOS, yet which still are detected by linux and preventing my sound card from working. And once I've got it working, if I decide to switch to another distro, it's the same story over again. It's one of the major issues that's keeping me from switching completely to linux. --NorwegianBlue talk 17:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for moving the article and for the answer. I had read a bit about what you said but I hadn't really understood it. Because of the problems mentioned in the previous answer now I'm not sure RoseGarden is exactly what I need. To give you the context of my question I need to clarify that what I'd like to do with RoseGarden is basically create sheet music for the bass guitar, however, I didn't know if the program had the capability of playing back what I write using the sounds of the bass guitar, without having to get sound cards or anything as Norwegian Blue mentioned in his/her answer. I tried Rosegarden first because it's free, but a bit off the original question; for what I want to do with the program, what would be more easy for me (I'm not very knowledgeable about sheet engraver programs) to use; RoseGarden or Guitar Pro? Thanks for the answers!PabloClark (talk) 01:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which operating system do you intend to use? RoseGarden is linux-only, Guitar Pro is Windows and Mac, but not linux, according to the article. Also, do you want tablature or ordinary sheet music or both? --NorwegianBlue talk 14:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to take a look at the list Category:Scorewriters. I've used the Windows version of Sibelius in the past for arranging vocals, and found it reasonably user-friendly, with beautiful output. --NorwegianBlue talk 21:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SWF

Anyone know of any open source SWF player that allows you to skip frame? Thanks. 99.226.138.202 (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any experience with them, so I can't tell for sure, but I think that Gnash and Swfdec are the premier open source flash players. So I'd check them out, if I were you. Belisarius (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

US Government Digital Certificate

Anyone know where I can find the United States Government's root digital certificate? --Melab±1 ☎ 19:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by "root digital certificate". The whitehouse.gov site has an SSL certificate with an 1024 bit RSA key, the public part of which starts with "30 81 89 02 81 81 00" and goes on for a while. Is that what you mean? It can be found by going to https://whitehouse.gov and right-clicking and examining the page information (I use Google Chrome in an odd Teutonic language, so I don't know what the specific menu items and such say) Belisarius (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unix security model

Is the superuser model really suitable for modern OSes? Reading about the trojan on the iLife torrents really made me think... is the superuser model any better than the everyone-is-admin "model" that Windows uses? Viruses and rootkits may start using these social engineering attacks to gain root access, so Unix systems are only slightly more secure than Windows systems. Plus, Windows does have a better security model, even if it's not used - ACLs for all processes/threads/files/objects, privileges (GNU/Linux has PolicyKit though), etc. Can anyone point me towards any resources/papers on this subject? All the stuff on the web seems to be fanboy-type material biased against Windows. Thanks in advance. --wj32 t/c 21:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unix, including GNU/Linux, also has ACLs, btw. The trouble with ACLs has been, on Windows as well as Unix, that in practice administering the roles involved and the permissions available turns out to be a complex affair - it's manageable on a nailed-down system but becomes very complex in many real-world cases, such that ACLs aren't really used to full effect on any platform. Secondly Windows isn't "everyone-is-admin", merely "first user is admin"; if a multi-user system is routinely set up with everyone as admin, it's set up wrongly. Just like on Linux, admin privileges should be granted only to people who know what they're doing. That admin privileges end up in the hands of both windows and linux users who don't really know what they're doing is a social problem (stemming from the way in which computers and OSes are distributed and sold at retail), and bar a draconian law that says "you only get admin/root on machine you own when you pass a test of competency", enforced by something like TPM, there's no technical solution to that (it sure ain't ACLs). That inevitable, if unfortunate, profligacy of admin/root to the unqualified means that, as you say, these systems are susceptible to social-engineering-based attacks ("install megacursor now!!!"); no technical solution can exist to fix that if the computer's incompetent owner has the keys to override the security. One might argue that our society requires people who operate powerful, dangerous machines like forklifts and cars and nailguns to take classes and pass tests before they're allowed to use them where misuse might harm others; computers are powerful machines too (and hugely more complex than a car) and are available to everyone with no qualification. Every time you receive a spam you've been victimised by the incompetence of someone who allowed their computer to be come a spam proxy. Now there is a solution to this, but it's a social one, and as I noted above, it's very draconian. You have (say) two categories of computer - "open" and "closed". Closed systems are remotely administered (by AOL, or Microsoft, or Comcast, or whoever) and stuff like software updates and backup are done by them, en masse. Only approved applications can be run. To get an "open" computer, one like you have now, to which you have full admin access and can do what you like, you have to pass a test, and maybe a background check, and probably post a bond or provide evidence of insurance (insurance that will compensate anyone harmed by your maladministration of your own machine). This would, by and large, put paid to viruses, spyware, trojans, and probably to most spam too. But it's a police state; inevitably those external parties contracted to manage the computers of ordinary people will seek to run their networks to their own advantage - so you'll get no p2p apps, no dvd ripping, and the browser and IM client and mail program they, and not you, choose. This essentially is how most non-trivial business installs are (whether windows or unix), but introducing it to everyone is a drastic step. Right now the freedom to install and set up your own computer is the freedom to grant too much privilege to the wrong people, and thus the freedom to screw all kinds of stuff up. Like the song says, freedom isn't free. 87.113.74.22 (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what I really meant by "everyone-is-admin" is that most people who use Windows choose to be admin because they can't be bothered to use a restricted account/UAC. Surely, there must be a way to minimize the risk/damage of viruses by having some sort of a mechanism-policy system? I guess this is where GNU/Linux will succeed in the future with PolicyKit. Windows won't be getting anything similar anytime soon... --wj32 t/c 22:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PolicyKit is clearly an improvement - particularly if, as I think it does, it addresses the perennial unix snafu whereby a process has to be (effectively) root to open a privileged port, meaning that (historically, less so now) far far too much code was running as root (although decent programing can mostly avoid this already). A few years ago I did have the idea of using "security envelopes" for each application, which enumerated in detail what a given application could do (that, by itself, is kinda how security is handled for Applets and other downloadable content in Java2). But to be useful it needs two wrinkles - firstly the envelope itself can (optionally) have some executable code (because defining what a given application can and cannot do in a purely declarative language isn't enough. Secondly break with Java2's model of having the security descriptor packaged with the program (which returns us to the "install this or not" question to an unqualified person, which is the same pointless exercise as UAC). Instead you subscribe to one (or several) envelope-feeds, wherein a trustworthy third party provides the envelopes for applications. On Ubuntu (say) you'd get an envelope feed from Canonical, and you'd pay a few dollars a month for a second feed from McAfee. The feeds verify apps by checksum, and if an app tries to exceed its envelope you get a warning. That's like UAC, but you never see it unless a known app is misbehaving, so average users don't get conditioned into always approving, the way UAC tends to. This is, kinda, like ACLs but with the complexity outsourced to someone knowledgeable and kept up-to-date as applications evolve. It's still an issue how you handle an envelope-transgression by default (on a system Joe Bloggs set up for himself). I'd probably default to simply saying "SuperMegaCursor as tried to do something that McAfee Lovelyshield doesn't like, so SuperMegaCursor has been stopped". There's still an avenue for social-engineering-attack (as inevitably there would have to be an admin-level override for stuff), but the evil authors of the trojan would have to say on their page "make sure to disable your McAfee security before installing SuperMegaCursor", which hopefully regular users can't be trained not to do. Doing all this without killing system performance is a challenge (some security enhanced OSes do a simpler version of this, and it does indeed hurt). I guess this is a half-way-house between the police-state, above, and the current anarchy. 87.113.74.22 (talk) 23:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps it's simpler to just mandate that everyone who connects to the internet must have "internet insurance", to compensate for any problems their systems might cause. You get a steep no-claims discount for not being a malware victim, and maybe other discounts if you (as a home user) can show you're using a modern OS, proper security software, and you have some qualification in administering the thing. That way a) it's people who don't manage their machines properly who pay more and b) the insurer is incentivised to improve client security - and historically insurer have been pretty good at forcing safety improvements on other products, rather better either than regulators or consumers. 87.113.74.22 (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To get back to the original question, yes, it is unquestionably more secure to use the GNU/Linux model of regular users having very few permissions (this is called the Principle of least privilege, btw). It's true, if a malicious hacker is able to use social engineering to fool you into installing a certain software, and you give that software the permission it needs to wreak havoc on your computer, then obviously the hacker has succeeded despite a regular user only having limited access.
But here's the thing: security is never an "all or nothing" proposition. Just because there is a possibility that a devious person can get around an obstacle doesn't mean that the obstacle is completely useless. It's certainly possible that a thieve can pick a lock, but that doesn't mean you necessarily leave your door open when you go on holiday. It's even possible that he can hack your alarm system, but that doesn't mean it's stupid to buy it in the first place. The lock on the door and the alarm will make it significantly more difficult for a burglar to rob your house, so they're definitly not "useless".
Lets consider a real life example of a breach of computer integrity: say that there's a buffer overflow vulnerability in your browser, and just by entering a certain web-page a malware author is able to execute arbitrary code (not an uncommon way to infiltrate computers). If the browser is running with administrative privileges, the code can do anything; it can install viruses, bots, worms, trojans, adware, spyware, even rootkits which makes these things pretty much impossible to detect. If the browser is running with lower privileges, the damage that the code can do is severely limited. It can't modify the OS, it can make it so a certain process starts every time the computer starts, it cannot in any way harm the other users of the system. It's possible that it can find a buffer overflow in the OS itself, so that it's able to elevate it's own privileges, and do all the things it wants. But that's a significantly harder to do, you've presented the author with a significant, almost undefeatable, obstacle.
The fact is, your argument can be applied to pretty much any computer security equipement. Firewalls, anti-virus software, non-admin accounts, routers, rootkit detectors, passwords, encryption, etc. can all be defeated one way or another (well, really good encryption can't, but then it has to be really good). Does this mean that these things are all useless? No, of course it doesn't! But they are going to make you much safer. Belisarius (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My point was that Unix-type (desktop) systems are only slightly more secure than Windows (or at least the way most newbies run it) if the user is attacked using social engineering. Thanks for the replies. Anyway, this is turning into a discussion... --wj32 t/c 02:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

how to print a wikipedia article to pdf file

I'm having trouble printing an article to a PDF file. I can "print it" to a pdf file, but sometimes a page is missing (e.g. if i print an article that is 5 pages long, page 2 will be blank for some weird reason). Please help me correct this. thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nippon22 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What article are you looking at, and how exactly are you converting it to PDF? Algebraist 23:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are using a PDF printer, I assume. The output depends on two things:
  1. the web browser (IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, ...) rendering the pages, and
  2. the PDF printer (e.g. PDFCreator).
You can make sure that the PDF printer is working properly, by trying to use it with another application, e.g. a word processor. You could also try to print using another web browser. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


January 28

found it, but what's it called?

I've found what I was looking for in my previous post: it's the square-shaped thingy that appears at 19 seconds in the MegaWhat video on this page. Does anyone know what this is called? flaminglawyer 00:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The device on the video at 00:19 (after the dude on the Roland drum kit and before the Coke machine) looks like the back end of some sort of digital camera. Cycle~ (talk) 01:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, you're right. I've been conned by my own brain! flaminglawyer 01:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

Diode Matrix ROM

How does a diode Matrix Rom Work? Can I construct a diode matrix only with four LED's and 9 diodes, if yes then HOW? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.138.111.178 (talk) 04:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A diode matrix ROM has multiple address lines, each of which is connected to a number of output lines using diodes. When the first address line is active, any output lines that are connected with a diode will become active. Similarly, when the second address line is active any output lines that are connected to it with a diode will become active. Here is an example circuit diagram from this project on instructables. You can easily construct the left half of this circuit using your specified materials (plus two switches and four resistors). Here is a historical example of one diode matrix ROM panel. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 06:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! That takes me back. I once hand-wired a 30 byte diode matrix containing a ROM paper tape loader subroutine...ROM chips were prohibitively expensive and that was the only way to boot my hand-built Intel 8008 home computer. Debugging hand-assembled-binary software while also finding dry joints and diodes put in backwards is TOUGH! SteveBaker (talk) 02:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

iTunes and MP3s and WMAs

I'm fairly computer literate and I'm also a musician and a songwriter. But my girlfriend is computer illiterate. She's curious in my music and would like to add the tracks I've written and performed by myself into her iTunes library. The problem is that (in the end) she's having trouble listening to my songs on her iTuns. I recorded my songs mostly WMP but also a few MP3 files. My computer illiterate girlfriend says that she has problems importing them into her computer. (I assume because they're not in Apple's proprietary format? You knows?). So my question is actually pretty simple. How do I add songs into iTunes library if the songs are MP3s or WMAs? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 05:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you'll see from the section immediately below, I am no Mac expert. But I think VLC media player may be your answer. -- Hoary (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
iTunes can convert from WMA to MP3 or AAC (both of which work with iTunes/iPod). A problem would only arise if you've made your WMAs with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). And although Apple does have their own proprietary format for loseless audio, Apple Lossless, they seem to prefer AAC. --wj32 t/c 07:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, let's ignore the issue of WMAs. There has to be a way to get iTunes to play MP3s, right? I mean, how can the world's most popular media player not play the world's most popular media format? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why are you thinking that it doesn't? You do realize that the iTunes store recently stopped selling protected songs and is now selling mp3's? iTunes, like iPods, are 100% compatible with mp3's... as long as you converted it right. If you just took a WMV file and changed the file extension, that would be a problem. flaminglawyer 12:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
iTunes Store non-DRM files are still AAC, not MP3. --LarryMac | Talk 13:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't use iTunes. (I use Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey.) This is just what someone else is saying. I'm just trying to help her figure it out. Anyway, I'm downloading iTunes right now so I should be able to figure it out. Sometimes, it's hard for computer-savy people to explain to non-computer savy people how to do things on their computer so I was hoping maybe somebody already created a step-by-step guide, preferably with screenshots. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never had trouble getting MP3s to work with iTunes. You add them to the library (in the file menu) like you would any other kind of file. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

Genuinely standalone Mac OS X installation

Last night I set up a brand new Mac 10.5 computer, straight out of the box, for a friend. She connects to the net via modem [remember those?] and plans to get a 21st-century-style net connection within days, but anyway I thought we'd get the main hardware up and running first and only then connect it to the world. So I arrived with an external HD brimming with goodies like NeoOffice and Inkscape that I definitely wouldn't want to get via modem.

No modem jack on the back. Well, no big surprise there; Apple got rid of FDDs decades ago.

What did come as a surprise was to be asked during initial setup which of four available wireless networks I wanted to use. Uh, no thanks; click return to previous screen. (Or whatever it would be called in English; by this time the computer was already talking in Japanese.) However, unless I overlooked something (and I looked very hard), there's no option to bypass selection of some conduit to the web. So, forward again. Luckily one of the wireless networks wasn't password protected so I used that. [My apologies, Mr/Ms unknown neighbor.] The connection wasn't a bad one, and I forgot how to prevent NeoOffice from updating itself to the tune of tens of megabytes.

It made me wonder, though: What's one supposed to do with no net connection during installation? Or is a net connection mandatory? The section of the Mac OS X article about hardware compatibility doesn't mention any requirement for net access. No urgency here, since I got the job done: just wondering.

(Feel free to tell me to RTFM, though I have to say that TFM is petite and seemingly full of vital stuff like reminders of the need to connect to a power supply.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One thought: Perhaps if you chose a type of network which isn't available, it would have given you an error message, and then allowed you to retry or continue without a network connection. I agree that they should either give you an option to install without a network connection right up front or else make it very clear on the box/packaging that this is a network-only computer. Even for people who want to use it with a network, they might quite possibly want to install and test the computer first, before adding the network connection. This would be a good way to tell, for example, if it's slow because of the network connection or for some other reason. StuRat (talk) 15:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't that simple. Another network had a three-letter name but required a password. First I tried a zero-length password (a stab at the enter key) and was told I was wrong, then I tried using the same three letters as the network name and was told that was wrong. No "Hey, wanna give up?" option. Well, I'm happy I could "piggyback", and I'm happier today to learn this wonderful new verb for what I did and also that "piggybacking" is only thought by some people to be a sin that will damn me to burn eternally in a vat of molten lead as cackling devils thrust their white-hot pitchforks into my sizzling flesh. (Or so I hazily recall the scenes from some rather good old paintings.) -- Hoary (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about OS X but I know that on some Windows installs you must connect to the internet in order to register your serial number with them or something along those lines. If you can't do that, there's a number you can call in the manual and someone at the other end reads off a string of numbers that you type in to prove you called them. Or something like that. But again, that might not apply here, but I suspect there's some way to do it (for the simple reason that there are just so many imaginable situations in which you couldn't have a network connection without yet having the computer set up). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, 'Doze XP and beyond, and for something like "product activation", if I remember correctly. But with OS X it was, or seemed to be, different: I wasn't given any OK from Apple ("Thank you! We've verified that your Mac isn't a Chinese knock-off! Congratulations on buying the real thing, made in Taiwan!"). Instead, there seems to be an over-eager assumption that you are connected to the world, and a desire to get this working smoothly. And I agree with the last part of what you say too. -- Hoary (talk) 01:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there is a "don't connect" option built in. When the Setup Assistant gives you a list of wireless networks to choose from, instead click "Different Network Setup" (at the bottom left of the screen). This should take you to the "How Do You Connect" screen, where you can select "My computer does not connect to the internet". -- Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that I did see [the Japanese-language equivalent of] "Different Network Setup". If I did, it didn't occur to me that "different" would encompass "no". Well thought of, Speaker! -- Hoary (talk) 03:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biggest non-white contribs to comp sci

What are the greatest contributions to computer science that have been made by non-white people? NeonMerlin 06:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You also could browse Category:Computer scientists by nationality: Category:Chinese computer scientists, Category:Japanese computer scientists, and Category:Indian computer scientists all have several members. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:09, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

White House email

According to this article, the White House's domain is who.eop.gov. I figure the "who" stands for White House but what does "eop" stand for? Dismas|(talk) 09:44, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the Executive Office of the President of the United States, I believe. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

web page not updating

A website I'm viewing is not updating when I go to it. I know its updated a few times over the last few days because I've viewed it on other computers. But I am seeing a page from a few weeks ago and I can't seem to get a more up to date page. I'm guessing its a problem with my browser (firefox) but I don't know how to fix it. Thanks in advance for any help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.137.211.202 (talk) 11:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try Ctrl+F5 to clear the cache. –Capricorn42 (talk) 11:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or there's ⇧ Shift+F5 on some browsers, or ⇧ Shift while clicking reload. These are all browser-specific. flaminglawyer 12:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the (old) version of Firefox I'm using now, it's F5 or Ctrl-R (Shift-F5 does nothing). -- Hoary (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's just to reload. We're talking about clearing the cache, which is totally different. On Firefox it's Shift while clicking reload. flaminglawyer 19:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like that tag for displaying the keys... very cool - learning something new all the time. Ched (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Me too, I didn't even realise until you said it. I kinda assumed flaming has uploaded images. 86.145.152.5 (talk) 06:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TCP/IP

hi... whats meaning of the swift segment using TCP/IP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramky singh (talk • contribs) 16:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never heard of it before but it is a TCP modification to change the method of flow control and re-establishment. Technically it's a whole new transport layer protocol designed for satelite systems. This is the primary article [1] and the abstract will give you some basic info. Shadowjams (talk) 02:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sound in Firefox

Argh. Suddenly I get no sound from Youtube. (It worked before my last reboot.) What gives? I'm using Firefox on MacOS (current versions). —Tamfang (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Might be a problem with the flash plugin, try re-installing here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No luck. I do still get sound in movies from some other sites. —Tamfang (talk) 21:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Calculating values that add up to a given sum in Excel

Hi, I have a question about MS Excel, and while I suspect the answer is "It can't be done", I figured I'd at least try.

My problem is this: Say I have a large group of numbers, and I need to know if there is a combination of them that add up to a specified separate number, is there an easy way to do this?

For (a really simple) example, let's say I have the following numbers:

1, 3, 10

and I need to know if any of them add up to 13. Is there a formula (or other method) I can use that will give a 'True' value for this? My list of figures is pretty huge, and so I suspect this may be beyond Excel's capabilities (it would have to, I imagine, calculate the sum of every combination of two or more numbers and try and match them to my specified number(s)), but even a long shot is worth a try, right? Any assistence would be gratefully received. Phileas (talk) 17:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This may be of at least some interest to you. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:14, January 28, 2009 (UTC)
See here and related message board thread here. Mike R (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See also here. Mike R (talk) 18:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! That's great! Thanks for your help! Phileas (talk) 19:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Perl, regex, distinct matches

In Perl, you can store the regex matches into an array.

Can Perl only store distinct matches? I mean it may act like SQL's SELECT DISTINCT * FROM blah.

For example, I want to store all distinct words (no numbers) of an article into an array. I may use the array of distinct words for other purposes. -- Toytoy (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried searching Google? Generally, hashes enforce distinct values; arrays do not (though they can be post-processed). – 74 18:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Idiomatic Perl for getting distinct values would look like:
$hash{$_}++ for split ' ', $article;
my @distinct_words = keys %hash;
--Sean 20:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


January 29

Unexplained internet activity

My windows icon for network activity lights up frequently when I'm not using the LAN/internet. When I pull up the 'Local Area Connection Status' there will typically be more packets sent than received. I have a router, asdl modem, 'Windows Live One Care' virus and spyware monitoring, and my firewall is on. I realize that some of my programs auto update, but it can't be as frequently as my light flashes. The unexplained network activity is really driving me nuts.

How can I easily find out what's autonomously pumping through my LAN/internet connection when I'm not using it? Is there a simple little monitor or shell program that will show where the data packets are going to/from, like a scrolling shell where I can watch it in real time without having to open a log file. I'd really like to know what Windows is doing with my computer. thanks. TungstenCarbide (talk) 00:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Get a packet analyzer, or a software firewall like ZoneAlarm. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A packet analyzer would help tell you what the info is. It could be something as nasty as spyware calling home, or something benign as your AV software checking for updates or IM proggie checking for activity. Ched (talk) 01:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be too concerned if this is the only symptom. Installing a packet analyzer is a good idea, and you will be amazed how much ambient traffic exists even on your own personal network. The internet is worse. My recommendation would be Wireshark, which is both open-source and free. Shadowjams (talk) 01:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want to install anything, you could also try the built in command "netstat" (in windows, mac, and linux, it's the same). This will show you what connections are in use. Generally it only works for TCP connections since UDP is connectionless. In windows you will probably want to use the following command netstat -o 15.
The command netstat -h will tell you more options. Shadowjams (talk) 02:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might also consider installing a personal firewall (compared here) on your computer. Typically they can be configured to only allow connections to and from specifically authorized applications, such as your web browser. If any other program attempts to connect, you will be alerted to the program's identity and given the option to allow of deny the current (and future) connections for that program. This should help you track down what connections are being made, although not what information is being passed. -- Tcncv (talk) 05:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do also read this thought-provoking page. -- Hoary (talk) 11:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe what you are looking for is TCPView from www.sysinternals.com Sandman30s (talk) 12:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone. Those programs were just what I was looking for. So far I've deleted btdna.exe. This really pisses me off. Once a year I have to download a torrent. Afterwords I uninstall bittorrent, yet it still leaves this program lying around, always on, firing off barrages of UDP events to 800 IPs around the world whenever it feels like it. TungstenCarbide (talk) 17:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try uTorrent. --grawity 09:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No program-writing program

One of the few things computers still can't seem to do adequately is write programs. Is this because it's not actually possible to create a satisficing general-purpose program-writing program, or just because no programmers want to render themselves obsolete by creating one? NeonMerlin 05:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The essential thing the programmer does is provide information. For example, "when this happens, we should do this". I can imagine a program for writing programs, but it would then need to ask a person a great deal of questions to figure out exactly how the program should work. Let's take a very simple program to "ask a person their name, then print it backwards". The program-writing program would have to ask "how long can the name be ?" and "by backwards, do you mean 'John Doe' becomes 'nhoJ eoD' or 'eoD nhoJ' ?". StuRat (talk) 06:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, for general purpose program-writing program we have to wait till Artificial intelligence software becomes reality. For limited use, Wizard (software) are useful. Many Integrated development environment software offer wizard that take input from end user and create (sample) programs (to demonstrate concepts of programming language). manya (talk) 07:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure the programmer who was able to accomplish such a task (assuming such a task is possible) would be both obsolete and obscenely wealthy. Yeah, I'd say if it were possible today it would definitely have been done already. Although, in a way we do have programs capable of making other programs: we call 'em compilers. Unfortunately, the use of these compilers requires significant domain knowledge and training. There have been several efforts over the years to provide so-called natural language programming, but Dijkstra argued such was foolishness. The problem is that any sufficiently robust system exhibits the inner-platform effect anti-pattern: to provide as many features as the original platform, the inner platform ends up at least as complex. Other efforts have focused on visual programming with slightly more success, notably Simulink, but that program is focused primarily on system simulation using discrete (individually separable) components, which is a tiny fraction of a generic programming language's solution space, and still requires significant domain knowledge to operate. In essence, this question is like asking "why isn't there an automated assembly line that anybody can use to make automated assembly lines?" – 74  07:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on a point that 74 briefly made: There are program-writing programs, they're just not magical or intelligent. Compilers are certainly program-writing programs, and so are more specific programs like parser generators. Also, many dynamic Web pages need to write JavaScript programs on the fly. The reason that program-writing programs don't make programming obsolete is that you still have to be able to precisely tell them what to do, which is programming. A program-writing program that did not itself have to be programmed would have to be able to take imprecise requirements and turn them into a precise sequence of steps, which would require an AI equivalent to an educated computer programmer. rspεεr (talk) 08:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's because it's not possible to create anything remotely close to app that writes apps. Think about it this way. Before you can even begin to write an app, you have gather business requirements. So first, the program would have to be able to have actual discussions with human beings and have it actually understand what people are talking about. Those don't even exist right now and might never be possible.
People sometimes get the impression that computers are intelligent because they can perform complex calculations very quickly. The reality is that computers are extremely stupid. According to our AI article, no program can even pass the Turing test which is an very poor indicator of intelligence. The Turing test doesn't even measure intelligence. It measures the ability to trick a human into thinking it's human. A better indicator would be an actual IQ test which I severely doubt that any of these programs could score higher than a 0. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to the information gathering portion, there also has to be an estimation phase. That is, what resources would be required to complete the task. Often, a programmer has to say "we can't do that, but how about if we do this, instead, which should be just as good or even better". A programmer often suggests additions, too, like "since we're printing out all these error messages, wouldn't it make sense to store them in an error log, too ?". So, this program-writing program would not only need to follow instructions, but make suggestions, too. Also, programmers must deal with faulty info. For example, I've had documentation that says "you provide this input to this call and it returns this output", but I've found the documentation is wrong in some way, so updated it myself. You can also get specs which are illogical, and must figure out where the error is, rather than implement them. StuRat (talk) 14:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The act of computer programming, is to precisely describe what you want the computer to do. That process is being simplified all the time, and there are many simplified, or graphical programming languages. I don't understand how that process could be removed entirely.
I suppose you're imagining a programming language that is the same as conversational English. If that's the case you've got a long time to wait. Natural language processing is one of the most difficult problems in computer science, we are not anywhere near a general solution. APL (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We have to be rather careful about how we answer this. First and foremost, in order for some 'program writing program' to know what program to write - we have to tell it. The form in which we tell it is...what? ...It's another program! Even if you somehow managed to have it accept standard English, you'd still have to say "Look up every one of my employees in the company database, look at how much they earn and write out a check for their monthly salary putting their name and address into the appropriate box on the envelope.". But I'm not sure you really want natural language English here because it's too ambiguous. I remember trying to write a natural language 'adventure' game - it's really not easy: "Hit the Wizard in the head using the sword"...OK, no problem..."Hit the Wizard in the cave using the sword"...ah...not so easy is it? So we tend to want to use a form of language that's a little more formal and is defined unambiguously. That's just a programming language. Your first reaction will to avoid things like C++ :
  • template <class T> const void *Get ( T &x ) { x = 6 ; return &x ; }
... and instead use
  • "ADD A TO B AND MULTIPLY BY C GIVING D"
...but sadly, that's a language called 'COBOL' which is probably the most hated language on the planet!
So where all of this leads us is to a program writer that uses a formal language which is not horribly verbose. That program-writer is what we call a 'compiler' and we use them all the time!
The issue is how high-level the language is. Very high level languages do exist - but they tend to be limited to small problem-domains. Very general-purpose languages tend to be quite low level.
Attempts have been made to make 'full-scale' program writers - one that comes to mind was arrogantly named "The Last One"[2] (meaning 'the last program that'll ever be written') - but it was a total disaster.
Many people have claimed to make 'program writers' using graphical input such as flow charts. If you buy a Lego Mindstorms system - it' comes with a flow-chart-like program generator. But in truth that's no different from conventional programming - except that you are doing it graphically instead of with a text editor - which may be a little less intimidating for the neophyte - but for people who do this for a living, it's frustrating as all hell! But it has it's place. I've just finished writing a graphical programming language to let artists write 'shader programs' for computer graphics cards - and many computer games make use of a system called Kynapse for programming AI and other game 'logic' without directly writing lines of code.
More directly to the answer the OP wants - we have genetic algorithms and neural networks that (in effect) "write programs" - but without a formal description of what the program has to do - they "learn by example". These things are becoming relatively mainstream. My car (a MINI Cooper) has an engine management computer that learns how to optimally tweak the engine parameters to suit the climate, the kind of gasoline and your driving style. When you take it in for a service and they have to download a new version of the software into the car, your miles-per-gallon drop by about 20% until it re-learns over then next few weeks.
SteveBaker (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another point to consider is that even if such a program could be built, could you afford to pay for it? We had a potential client where we recommended buying a utilty that would help upgrade their code. The utility cost 17 grand and the client couldn't afford that. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 16:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, there are plenty of things computers can't do well. F'rinstance, I've heard that computers can't cuddle. I dunno whether that's true or not, but every time I tell mine to wash the dishes or wash the windows, it plays dumb and tells me it can't find wash (I suspect it just likes being dirty; its always full of dust bunnies, and sometimes I can barely move the mouse for all the grime). On the other hand, the plethora of compilers available suggests that computers can write programs almost as well as they write sonnets. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My computer will vacuum my floor. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removable USB Disk Drive for Ubuntu

I recently received a new USB disk drive (a Western Digital "My Passport Essential" if that makes a difference). I plugged it into my laptop under Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), and using the Partition Editor (GParted 0.3.5) partitioned the drive into a NTFS partition and a ext3 partition. The partitioning seemed to work O.K.; when I plug in the drive, the NTFS partition shows up as "/media/disk" and the ext3 partition as "/media/disk-1". Unfortunately, I can't copy anything into the ext3 partition (the NTFS partition seems to work). When I right-click copy something on the Desktop and then attempt to right-click paste it into the /media/disk-1 window, I can't even get the Paste option. Using the command line, I noticed that there were no write permissions for group and other on /media/disk-1 (unlike /media/disk , how'd that happen?), so I sudo chmod go+w /media/disk-1 to get that in, but it still doesn't work. Newsflash! I just discovered that I can use the command line to copy files into the ext3 partition (or create them with vi for example). I still can't do the right-click Copy/Paste though. What gives???

Also, when I get the properties on the partition (by right-clicking on the disk drive symbol for it and choosing Properties), it says under Contents "(some contents unreadable)". Wha...??? (It doesn't say this for the NTFS partition.) And what could those unreadable contents be, since there was nothing there except the "lost+found" directory when I looked at Properties.

A few more questions: where did Ubuntu come up with the names /media/disk and /media/disk-1 (as opposed to "/media/MyNiftyNewDisk" ? Is this something I can change?

Also, I thought about the /etc/fstab config file as being something I should look into regarding this problem, but there are no entries for these partitions in it, presumably because they are on a removable drive. Is there somewhere else I should examine? TresÁrboles (talk) 06:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See [3]. Relating to the second question: my old iPod's FAT32 partition had a label, and when Ubuntu auto-mounted it, it used the partition's label. Have you set a label for your NTFS drive? Surely, /media/disk and "160GB Media" can't be worse than letters (F:, G:, etc.)? --wj32 t/c 09:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus in the thread you linked is just to chmod the mount point, but isn't that what I did with "sudo chmod go+w /media/disk-1" as I mentioned? TresÁrboles (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And have you tried Properties... for your disk? Can you change the label there? --wj32 t/c 09:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, on the Properties window, there's a Volume tab with a Settings dropdown. On the Settings is a space called "mount point". It's blank but looks like an editable field. This may be where you can do it... but I decided I'm not going to bother at this point. It looks like the Ubuntu system automatically creates the /media/disk and /media/disk-1 mount points when it automounts the partitions (and then also removes them when you unmount them). TresÁrboles (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have a broken file system on your disk. When Linux spots the file system is broken, it remounts as read-only (see /var/log/syslog for this happening). It does thiss silently (bug 28622). You can fsck it to fix it. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't think that was it. I didn't see any such messages in the /var/log/syslog file. Also, I had done nothing with this disk besides partition it. In addition, there was obviously something weirder going on since, like I said earlier, I could use the command line to write files into the partition. TresÁrboles (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks anyway for the help. The problem has resolved itself, and it looks like I can now copy and paste into both NTFS and ext3 partitions. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened to make it work. But there was some useful (mostly Windows) stuff I learned along the way, which I'll write below for reference (for myself, if no one else).

What I did: Plugged the drive into a Windows XP desktop system, saw the only the NTFS partition as expected; didn't see an "Eject" option like I usually use for a USB flash drive, so I just yanked it out (I hadn't noticed the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on the Taskbar); plugging the drive into my Ubuntu laptop gave me a message that it couldn't mount the NTFS partition -- obviously I should not have just yanked the drive out; however, copy/paste now worked for the ext3 partition!?! Unmounted the partition, removed the drive, and plugged it back into the Windows computer in order to re-remove it properly; however, when I tried the Taskbar "Safely Remove Hardware" it kept giving me the "device ... cannot be stopped right now" message. I wasn't aware of any program using anything on the drive, and restarting the computer didn't help. Luckily, googling led me to this which led me to the Process Explorer program; while looking for \device\harddisk stuff didn't lead me anywhere, I learned from this other post to do a search on "G:\" (where G is the particular drive letter assigned to the drive in question). That in turn showed me that some process called mim.exe was using the drive, and this handy site said that it was part of Musicmatch Jukebox. Whaaa?? I don't think I've ever used that program in my life, but armed with that knowledge, I decided it was safe to end the mim.exe process through Windows Task Manager. After I did that, I was able to use the "Safely Remove Hardware" taskbar thing, unplug the drive, plug it back into the Ubuntu machine, and voila! both NTFS and ext3 partitions pop up and I can now copy/paste into both.

The only thing remaining (I hope) is that in the Properties window for the ext3 partition, it still says "some contents unreadable" which I don't know is normal or not. TresÁrboles (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's because lost+found can't be read by you - it's only accessible to root. --wj32 t/c 05:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

videos in powerpoint

is it possible to embed videos from youtube etc, onto a powerpoint presentation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.79.249 (talk) 10:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on your operating system, you can usually embed Windows media files or Quicktime files without too much difficulty. You can't embed straight FLV (the native YouTube format) into Powerpoint. You need to download the FLV from the YouTube video and then convert it to another format, first, and then you can import it to Powerpoint. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or, to be more specific: you can download the video with something like vixy.net (which only works for me about 50% of the time), and have it be converted into either an AVI file (Windows) or a MOV file (Mac, or Windows if you have Quicktime player installed), and you should be able to import it. Powerpoint can be a little finicky about such things, and you have to remember to include the movie file when you copy the Powerpoint somewhere else (if you do), since I think it usually just references it and does not really "embed" it in the file itself. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Use KeepVid. It works the best (for me at least) and offers to let you download in iPod format, which is more easily converted into AVI.  Buffered Input Output 16:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In addtion to all these, you may also try the Safari Browser, which can download almost any video without any plug-in. Simply go to Window--->Activity
and check out for a file with 0.5 MB to 5<< MB size. Double click on it, and you will start downloading. For Firefox, I think Sothink Video Downloader is the best. Along with this, you may also try the Sothing Video Converter, which converts the flv. video to desirable formats. Both of these are free and you may download them at this link. Thank you, for such an interesting question. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 18:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate my computer...

Alright...here's yet another problem for someone to solve.

Yesterday, the fan in my case started making grinding noises. I turned off the computer, and carefully removed the fan and checked it (it was broken, btw). So then i turned the computer back on, and the CPU fan began racing at full speed. My BIOS settings say that system fan control is enabled. So, i reconnected the broken fan, thinking it would fix the problem, but instead both fans started going full speed. Did i break something, or do i need to DUMP THIS SHITTY eMACHINES T5010??? ANY help would be appreciated.  Buffered Input Output 16:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like the fan's temperature sensor isn't being read. Check the leads/connectors and the senor itself. Many bios' will show you what they think the temperature at the fan is. 0° == no reading. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't know fans had a temperature sensor. The fans I'm familiar with have an RPM sensor, while the internal temperature is measured by sensors on the motherboard. Anyway, operating a computer with the case open can cause less than optimal air flow patterns, which may lead to a fan speed increase. Also, if one of your fans is broken/missing it could be confusing the BIOS. If you replace the broken fan (which should be quite inexpensive) and put everything back together again, you might still have to modify your BIOS (try disabling fan speed control then re-enabling it) to get everything back in order. – 74  20:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If someone could direct me to a 90mm case fan, i could actually fix it, but all the fans i find are 120mm or 80mm; 90mm seems to be a weird size.  Buffered Input Output 20:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know where you're located, but NewEgg, starting as low as US$2.99. -LarryMac | Talk 21:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Programs for drawing illustrations

What program would you use for drawing things like or the illustrations on this page [here]? --Mr.K. (talk) 18:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You would want a vector graphics editor, like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator. --Sean 19:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
my guess would have been a 3D Graphics Program Ched (talk) 22:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can do some kinds of diagrams with some kinds of programs - but sooner or later you'll need at least one of each of the three major categories:
  • A 'raster' paint program - Photoshop ($650) or GIMP (which is free).
  • A 'vector' graphics editor - Adobe Illustrator ($250) or Inkscape (which is free).
  • A 3D graphics editor - Lightwave, Maya or 3DStudio (~$500 to $7000) or blender (which is free).
In all cases, I strongly recommend the free version. In most projects, I find myself using at least two out of three of those programs in every piece of graphics I do! SteveBaker (talk) 00:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, do you have an example you can show? TungstenCarbide (talk) 01:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't make diagrams much - I do interactive 3D graphics for games and simulation - but the same three basic tools are involved. Here is an ancient example: http://www.sjbaker.org/steve/personal/sg.png - the 3D objects are modelled with a 3D graphics editor - the textures that give them their appearance were painted using a raster paint program. In this case I don't recall using a vector editor for any part of the process - but I might have done used one for the lettering and various decals on ship and helicopter...I don't remember. SteveBaker (talk) 13:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Override IP address in Firefox

Is there any way to (either for testing purposes, or to deal with problems accessing the DNS) instruct Mozilla Firefox to request a page from a particular IP address, even though the URL has a domain name that may correspond to a different address? NeonMerlin 19:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps edit the hosts file on your development system? -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:25, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could always just put the IP address in the URL--which works for at least the individual page, and might work for subsequent pages (depending on how the server is set up). It is also possible to dynamically rewrite links from a domain to an IP address using something like greasemonkey, even on sites that use fully-qualified links. The easiest solution, though, is probably the hosts file modification Coneslayer suggested. – 74  20:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most smaller sites use name-based virtual hosting, so entering the IP address directly would not work for them. --Sean 22:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks for the correction. Technically, even name-based virtual-hosted sites' URLs can be redirected to an IP address (a local development machine, for instance), but no URLs (virtual hosted or otherwise) can be successfully redirected to a site with name-based virtual hosting (unless the site supports an alternative virtual host access method). – 74  23:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ntoskrnl.exe

An error with this file is stopping me from logging into windows (xp). I have no windows cd and no recovery disc but i do have a vista cd and a fujitsu siemens drivers and utilities cd. Can i repair the problem or should i give up and just install vista? 90.221.219.238 (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Computer Hope carries an article on this. I've also seen several downloadable "repair ntoskrnl" proggies that will rewrite the file. If you have access to a bootCD (LiveCD, ERD, BartPE, Ubuntu, etc.) you may be able to find a copy in a backup folder (I don't remember which one) you could copy to the root. It's a long shot, my experience has been that when you get this error, it's just the first in a long line of system file errors to come. Ched (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edit video image size

I want to make a video from several clips. These clips have different image sizes. Is their a way for me to standardize the final video so that the image doesn't change proportions trough out the length? Currently I am using "Movie Maker". I don't know if it's at all possible to do anything like this with this program. Thank you in advance. Maziotis (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Departmental Wiki

Keep in mind my computer literacy is that of an end user. My question revolves around what it would take to develop a wiki for an academic chemistry department website. The intention would be that the general internet audience would see only a regular web page. However once signed in an authorized user (one of a few hundred members of the department) could easily modify the entire site to keep it up to date. In addition the method by which wiki maintains histories would allow administrators to actively track changes. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.--OMCV (talk) 23:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Installing MediaWiki (the Wiki that Wikipedia uses) is fairly easy - you need first to install a package called "MySQL" on a suitable internet-connected server. You need to have an HTTP server that handles PHP (which is the programming language that MediaWiki is written in...if you're running web pages from that computer then you probably already have that) and you have to download and unpack MediaWiki itself. If everything went well, you should have a working Wiki that looks and feels a LOT like Wikipedia. You'll then need to create yourself an account and a system's admin account. Then you can choose what privilages anonymous users and users with accounts have. But (for example) preventing anon-users from editing articles, you force everyone to have accounts in order to edit. If you disable the ability for anon-users to create accounts, then you have a 'by invitation only' system where any signed-in user can invite more users to 'join' by creating an account for them. If you disable account creation for signed in users too - then only you (as sysadmin) will be able to do it. There are many, MANY more things you can do. Adding plugins for things like math rendering and such is also useful - but get it all working first. There are lots of tutorials out there - you shouldn't find it too difficult. SteveBaker (talk) 00:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly I would suggest that you get a tech person (an eager undergraduate, perhaps) to look into other content management systems other than MediaWiki, which is notoriously difficult to get up to speed and is really overkill for your needs. Tell them that you want something that supports user accounts and versioning (histories). There are a lot out there that do this that are not as complicated as MediaWiki. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What?!!? That's a terrible answer! (well, apart from the "eager undergraduate" part) MediaWiki is really quite easy to install and hundreds of thousands of people have gotten 'up to speed with it' because they use Wikipedia or other MediaWiki sites. It's by far the most well known such system on the planet! Having used various other Wiki's (Twiki, clearspace, etc) I can tell you that MediaWiki is a million times better than any of it's competitors. I use MediaWiki for my local car club (my members have no problem getting to grips with it) - and I use my personal Wiki for keeping in touch with other members of my family - who also have no problems using it. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 17:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the replies and double thanks to Steve for his comments on "Programs for drawing illustrations". I was wondering if 98.217.14.211 could suggest what the "tech person" would install and how much would it cost?--OMCV (talk) 03:55, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It really may be overkill to hire a full-time administrator. After following the installation tutorial and following the configuration manual, you don't really need a whole lot of "administration." I've operated numerous multi-user wikis that I install-and-forget. Depending on how fast you can follow instructions, setup and configuration can take anywhere from 5 minutes to one or two hours (I think I've even beat 5-minutes on a ready-to-roll Ubuntu system). Nimur (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In case it was not clear, all of the necessary software is free and open source software and is available without charge. Nimur (talk) 14:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

January 30

Gamma Thingy

If I display a png or bitmap which has a sequence of shades in linear progression (say 0, 64, 128, 192, 255) will I see a linear sequence of intensities, from completely dark to completely light, or is there some kind of distortion? Black Carrot (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is a surprisingly tricky question. The naive answer is yes - in the case you describe, you'll see a set of stripes. If you went 0,1,2,3,4,5,....253,254,255 then it would be a smooth gradation. Now - linearity: Tricky. There is a phenomenon called "Gamma correction". The monitor on your display probably doesn't naturally produce equal numbers of photons for equal steps of brightness. CRT monitors are particularly bad - but all display technologies have SOME kind of non-linearity. Computer software has to compensate for that - either by drawing un-equal steps of brightness for equal steps across the screen - or by using a hardware feature of most graphics cards that adjusts this non-linearity as the data is turned into an analog signal to send to the monitor. If you have a pure-digital system, the monitor may take account of that. No two monitors have the exact same gamma - and gamma may change over the life of the machine as it wears out and the phosphor coatings fade or outgassing affects your plasma or the xenon bulb in your video projector gets old...or whatever.
Now - here comes the ugly part. Back in the early days, those bozo's at Microsoft didn't pay any attention to this - the display would show the data 'raw' - non-linearities and all. UNIX/Linux/MacOS all had gamma correction from the get-go...but not Windows. So what happened was that each individual program had colors that were hand tweaked 'by eye' by individual programmers. That history continues even now that Microsoft finally woke up and put the feature in there. The trouble NOW is that if you set the gamma so it's mathematically correct and you have pure linearity - some programs look terrible. It's a mess basically.
SteveBaker (talk) 00:39, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Crazy. If I produce a png or bitmap myself, though (using java ImageIO) and a gradient is linear, does that mean that on most modern monitors, in most modern versions of Windows, the gradation of intensities will appear almost linear to the extent our eyes can distinguish? I ask because I'd like to render things like solid balls, but I'm not sure whether I can simply set each pixel in the file to the intensity I want to see, and let the OS and hardware handle it, or whether I have to make things like gamma corrections manually as I render it. Black Carrot (talk) 17:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RAM won't work

I tried to upgrade the ram in my dell dimension 3000 from 512mb to 2gb. I went to microcenter and they assured me it was the right ram. I tried to put it in and all I got was six beeps and no screen. I tried putting the old RAM in and it still won't work. I lined up the little hole in the bottom with the slots, and pushed the clips back in, but nothing. Is it possible my attempting to fit the ram in, I could have scratched it so bad, that neither set will work, or am I doing something wrong? Also- before I put the ram in, I cleaned out some dust. Could that be a factor, although the ABCD buttons on the back indicate it's just a memory issue?97.118.230.106 (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It can take significant force to get the memory modules seated properly. You need to apply steady pressure on both ends of the chip, but you should not have to push hard enough to flex the motherboard (which can cause internal damage). When properly inserted, the plastic clips will automatically latch the memory module. Each of the 1GB DIMMs can be tried separately (likely in either slot). Try to narrow the problem down to a specific module or a specific slot. – 74  02:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have replaced a lot of RAM in my day and even I got totally perplexed by some RAM that appeared to be dead-on-arrival but ended up just needing more force in putting it in the machine than I had expected (it was not a model of laptop I had used before). Try it again. Slowly but very firmly keep pushing the RAM in. It should be VERY snug. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I pushed in my new RAM and it works fine!97.118.230.106 (talk) 02:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Online money

Resolved

Is there any way to do anonymous online payments? I know there is something like paypal, but not all sites accept that. (Of course I do not want something like stolen credit cards and stuff like that...) 87.196.76.214 (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A reasonably "anonymous" approach to online payments is to buy a prepaid credit card (often sold as "gift cards" in stores/malls; look for one with a major credit stamp). Pretty much anywhere online will accept it as a credit card. – 74  02:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
eCache 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's something concerning about an anonymous bank (not an anonymous account at a named bank). If they decide to abscond with all the deposits tomorrow how do you find/prove who has your money? – 74  21:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I will check out the prepaid credit card.

Signal handler typedef

does anyone know more about these two statements

typedef void (*f)(int) .......statement1 (was declared outside the main() )

signal(SIGFPE,(f)SIG_IGN) ......statement 2 (was declared inside the main() )

the above two statements help me to ignore any kind of mathematical error

but i don't know what the words exactly stand for

can anyone help me ?

please....


I put a title to your question so people might notice it better. The first line (type-)defines f as a pointer to function that returns void and takes one int parameter, google for function pointers if you want to know more. On the second line (f)SIG_IGN casts SIG_IGN to be of type f. --194.197.235.61 (talk) 09:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also see here if you don't know what signal, SIGFPE, SIG_IGN are doing. --194.197.235.61 (talk) 09:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When you get certain types of math error (like taking the square root of -1 or dividing by zero), the floating point hardware generates a "signal" - an "interrupt" that causes the CPU to execute a "signal handler" - which is a piece of software that reports the error up to higher levels and causes your software to fail (as indeed it should if you are being 'naughty' like that!). The 'signal' function call lets you replace one signal handler with another - which could be your own function that prints "naughty, naughty!" and then carries on working. However, it's very common to want to "do nothing" for a particular kind of signal - and the operating system therefore provides a "do nothing" function called 'SIG_IGN' that IGNores a SIGnal. OK - so the second line could read:
signal ( SIGFPE, SIG_IGN ) ;
Meaning "replace the SIGFPE signal handler with the signal-ignore function". SIGFPE is the name of the SIGnal for Floating Point Errors. The trouble appears to be that the definition of the 'signal' function isn't compatible with the definition of SIG_FPE for some bizarre reason. I've noted myself that the definition of the 'signal' function has changed a lot over the years and doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. (I even started collecting them at one time: [4]!!!) It looks like someone is trying to patch around an incorrect definition of either 'signal()' or 'SIG_IGN'...which really shouldn't be necessary. So the first line defines a 'typedef' that maps the correct data type for 'pointer to signal handler' to the name "f" (YIKES!!!! What a crappy choice! Please club the author of that line to death with a blunt instrument so I never have to read another line of his/her code!). The second line then does a 'cast' to convert the type of the SIG_IGN function to be of type "f" so you don't get a complaint from the compiler. That messing around shouldn't be necessary in a correctly set up system of header files.
SteveBaker (talk) 13:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Screensaver setup help

Im trying to install a screensaver. it is an executable file. when i try to start the installer, it says "Unable to register Shockwave Flash ActiveX control. Please close all other applications and try again." Now, ive tried closing everything else, but still get the same message. what can i do? 71.223.237.170 (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

try visiting the macromedia/shockwave website and make sure you have the correct/most current version firstly and then try the screensaver. However if the message keeps appearing it may be a corrupt file.--CorrectlyContentious 16:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Macrovsion - How TVs are able to play and VCRs not?

Why the AGC and color stripe modifications used in Macrovision, prevent recording and playback with a VCR, but don't interfere with AGC or color burst of a TV system? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisfriend (talk • contribs) 10:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to our Macrovision article (as best as I can understand it), they take advantage of the limited dynamic range of VCR's - that is to say their inability to display very bright and very dark signals. To prevent that from being a problem the VCR examines the average brightness and contrast of the input signal and either boosts or limits the amount of brightness adjustment it does to it before writing it to the tape. This "automatic gain control" is then tricked by Macrovision into thinking that a very bright picture is being displayed when it's really not...which causes the VCR to 'turn down the brightness' to an extreme degree when recording - and turn it way up when replaying...which produces a very noisy - even unwatchable - video. How they do that is to inject a very, very bright signal into the scanlines of the image that are off the edge of the screen for most TV's. This pushes the 'average brightness' calculation inside the VCR way up - and disrupts the recording process. I would guess that this doesn't upset TV's because they don't look at the entire screen to do AGC - but do it more line-by-line. But as our article points out - not all TV's ARE unaffected. Some are screwed up by the Macrovision system.
Hopefully, the death of the VCR and birth of the recordable DVD (which won't suffer from THIS problem) will also be the death of the accursed Macrovision artifacts.
SteveBaker (talk) 12:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, DVD recorders/players are backwards compatible (or would that be backwards incompatible) with Macrovision signals. Upon receiving a Macrovision signal DVD recorders are supposed to stop recording, and DVD players are supposed to add Macrovision signals to any played content that is marked as 'copyrighted'. It looks like we will be saddled with this ugly signal hack for the foreseeable future. – 74  13:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is certainly true of the DVD player and DVD recorder I have here in the UK. I tried copying a commercial DVD and the recorder only displayed a message saying "Copyrighted content". Astronaut (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

css uploading

I have been teaching myself html and now css.Have been able to make a working css website in browser with external style sheet.I have uploaded index html with a link to the external style sheet but nothing happens when viewed on the web except that the background image appears and repeats itself as specified in the style sheet. I have gone over the links from each page to the external css and they appear correct. Any idea where I should look for the problem.I use a Mac. Any advice appreciated.91.125.144.22 (talk) 17:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is a specific URL available? - Jarry1250 (t, c) 18:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Try the W3C Validation Service on your css.Dmcq (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does it work locally on your computer? If it works locally but not remotely it may have to do with how your server is set up or how you have specified the external link. --140.247.242.36 (talk) 20:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sibelius music software and Kontakt Player

I'm using Sibelius 5.0 and the Kontakt Player libraries/function etc that come with it. I'm wondering if there is a way to import my own samples from elsewhere so that they can be used in Sibelius and in audio exporting.

Thanks, --86.3.86.123 (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Sibelius Help Center is the best place for this sort of question, especially the "chat page", where you will find a lot of knowledgeable users as well as some Sibelius staff. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RLE files

What program should I use to view RLE files? Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 20:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IrfranView? --wj32 t/c 21:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Check a file extension library site - here is one [5] - this will tell you all the programs that have used the extension. Exxolon (talk) 01:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A RLE file could be a run-length encoded bitmap (BMP) file. Try to rename it <file>.bmp and open it in any bitmap editor (e.g. Microsoft Paint). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spellcheck has Wrong Language

The spellcheck in my Outlook Express, which comes from my Microsoft Office Word, is French and I can't change it to English. If I do a spellcheck I have to add every other word, which doesn't tell me if it's right or wrong in English. I can't find out what the spellcheck dictionary in my Word is. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.225.125.182 (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you open Microsoft Word, you'll see, at the top of the screen, a series of tabs, one of which is Tools. Click that, then click Language from the drop-down menu. This should produce a pop-out list from which you can click Set Language. According to the legend on the box which appears, the spelling and proofing tools automatically use the dictionary from the selected language. Just click whichever language you wish from the box and close everything again. Pavel (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What you are seeing is a "feature" of upgrading to Office 2007 - see this Knowledge Base article. Outlook Express uses the Office spell-check dictionaries but Office 2007 made some changes to the format of the spell-check dictionaries (except for the French dictionary) which made them incompatible with Outlook Express. Unfortunately, Micro$oft didn't think necessary to patch Outlook Express because everyone will soon be upgrading to Vista and Windows Mail - the Outlook Express replacement in Vista. So what to do? Microsoft's solution - use an external spell-check is a hopeless suggestion. Instead, I suggest migrating your mail to Outlook 2007 or download a non-Microsoft mail program like Thunderbird. Astronaut (talk) 01:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Pavel and Astronaut for your quick replies. 1) My "Word" doesn't have a tools tab but I did Start>Programs>Microsoft Office>Tools>Language Settings and found I was in English(US). 2)I went to the "Knowledge Base Article" and wrote them a note saying they should create an English Dictionary spellchecker just for Outlook Express because Vista and Windows Mail stink. I have tried other non-Microsoft external spellcheckers and I agree that they are hopeless, and I don't want to migrate to Outlook 2007 or a non-Microsoft mail program and loose all the benefits of Outlook Express, so I see that it is hopeless. Thanks for trying both of you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.225.125.182 (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC) P>S> Thank you Astronaut for clueing me in to http://support.microsoft.com/. I bookmarked it and recommend it to everyone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.225.125.182 (talk) 17:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outlook 2007 is not too bad and is certainly superior to both Outlook Express and Windows Mail. Outlook 2007 can easily be configured to work with your mail provider and you don't need a huge Exchange Server to make it work well. I really don't see what "benefits" there are in sticking with Outlook Express, that cannot be found in Outlook 2007 or many other mal programs. Astronaut (talk) 08:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vista

My machine crashed a few days ago. Is it okay to get a PC w/ Vista, or should I still run (not walk) to XP? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I were buying a high-spec computer, I'd still want to run XP instead of Vista. I see no virtue in continually changing operating systems, once you've got a good one. Pavel (talk) 20:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These 1 2 3 4 5 reviews for Vista should help you, plus these 1 2 3 4 5 for Windows 7 if you're interested in upgrading to Vista's successor. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 21:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just don't buy a "Windows 7 Capable" computer. – 74  22:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm generally a Linux nut, but if you are purchasing a new computer that's not totally low-end, Vista is a fine operating system. IMHO it's much nicer than XP. There's a lot of Vista FUD out there (one can only imagine it's divine justice against Microsoft), but if you do get it on new hardware, it will almost certainly work perfectly for you. I know people like their XP, but come on people, it's time to move on. Belisarius (talk) 23:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion (which is no more qualified than your own) there are few if any compelling reasons to choose Vista, and a number of compelling reasons not to. The somewhat ridiculous hardware requirements ensure that a "good" Vista experience likely translates to an "great" experience on XP, and several of the new "features" are antifeatures (Protected Media Path, User Account Control, Windows Genuine Advantage). – 74  00:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just repair the computer you have. If it's too slow, buy faster parts for it, but don't buy one with Vista. A computer with Vista may not even be able to handle XP due to driver issues. Plus, no matter what type of hardware you buy, it'll always be a little slow if it uses Vista. I run a computer-repair business, so trust me when I say that Vista is not immune to viruses. In fact, they're very common. Users just click OK when they get the extra confirmation dialog in Vista. If you have to buy a PC with Vista, though, be sure to get Vista Business or Vista Ultimate -- not Home Premium! Home Premium is a pain in the ass to troubleshoot due to the lack of administrative tools.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 00:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would definitely buy a good Windows Vista computer, and upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as possible. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Vista has some pretty horrible compatibility issues with older software - I'd strongly recommend XP instead, it's by far the most stable and usable of all the Windows variants I've used. Exxolon (talk) 01:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Which issues? The only compatibility issues I've had are with Windows 3.1 apps, and that's merely because I'm using x64 Vista; it would be the same with x64 XP. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've had some issues with Visual Studio 2005, SkinStudio, and the ZoneAlarm firewall. I'm working on a computer right now that's blue-screening whenever it tries to connect via dial-up to AOL. I think that's also a software issue since her modem works otherwise. (I don't ask why she uses AOL because that's not my job.) Some other legacy programs don't run elevated by default, but that's fixed easily. The biggest problems, of course, are related to drivers. I've had more than a few issues with that on Vista.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 03:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On ZoneAlarm and the like, remember that they're mostly snake-oil. If you're going to use Windows, skip XP and go for Windows 2000: it's faster (if not quite so pretty), it does all you need, and there's none of that "product activation" nonsense. (Of course I mustn't recommend GNU/Linux, because your computer has broken down and there's a rule here that Windows users whose computers have broken down mustn't be nudged toward Linux. There's also another one: "If a questioner's Windows computer ain't broke, don't explain how to fix it with Linux.") This message typed on my sole surviving Windows computer, contentedly running Windows 2000. -- Hoary (talk) 03:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Where are these "rules" located? ;)--Xp54321 (Hello! • Contribs) 03:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's just common sense. I would never tell a customer, "Just format your hard drive and install Linux." One guy at the tech. support desk at my old school told me that and I felt like punching him in the face. I couldn't start my computer and he wanted to have an argument about how Linux was so much better than Windows and how stupid I was for actually wanting to get something done on my computer. In fact, I never tell customers to switch operating systems at all. Fixing a computer generally takes me a couple of hours or so. Installing Linux would take me at least 8. They'd ask, "Can I still use Roxio? Can I still use AOL? Can I still use MSN Explorer? Can I still use my scanner?" And I'd have to say no a bunch of times. As for Windows 2000, as I mentioned above, a lot of these computers won't even run Windows XP because the SATA HDD drivers aren't included on the XP (or 2000) installation disk.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 04:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They seem to locate themselves on the rare occasion when I've as much as suggested the possibility of Linux in response to a question, any question, here. (What such a suggestion has to do with wanting to start an punch-in-face-worthy argument eludes me.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Switch to Linux" answers are almost always useless. If a (potential) poster already uses Linux, it's very unlikely that they would be asking their OS-question here in the first place. If they don't use Linux, they probably don't want to or know how. By "use" I mean "have used for a while". --wj32 t/c 05:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll keep the indentation going because it's neat. Zonealarm? AOL? It's not a surprise that poorly written software breaks when the kernel changes. Windowblinds works fine in Vista, and Skinstudio by extension should as well; they even advertise it as such on their site. It does do strange things to the OS though, so YMMV. As for 2K and XP, I would always recommend XP. It's nicer to use, and adds other things. The product activation may be a concern, but there are, uh, ways around it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wj32 sez: "Switch to Linux" answers are almost always useless. Hmm. See my thoughts at (or shout me down at, or conceivably even agree with me at) "'Switch to Linux' answers". -- Hoary (talk) 10:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Much as I would like to switch to Linux, I don't think Pokerstars would be overly pleased. Thanks everyone. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Building a computer diagnostic and repair utility

For this question we will assume that all computers support booting from USB.

I am trying to build a diagnostic tool that I would use in the event that a windows computer becomes overwhelmed with viruses and spy-ware, or, in the event that windows it self becomes corrupt. The way that i have decided to go about this is to make a boot able usb hdd. This 30g hdd has three partitions; a 10g partition for Ubuntu8, a 1g partition for Ubuntu's swap, and the remaining is a fat32 partition that contains instalation files for AVG, ad-aware, Spybot, HijackThis, and other windows based tools. on Ubuntu I have installed ClamAV as an antivirus. My goal is to be able to find, repair and remove any viruses / spy-ware on a windows partition from my bootable usb hdd using linux based programs. This leads right in to my question; What programs could I use to do the following:


Detect and repair corrupted Mast boot records for a Windows hard drive.

Detect and remove any viruses that are on a Windows hard drive

Detect and repair corrupt operation system files for a Windows computer

Detect and remove spy-ware that are on a Windows hard drive

Edit a window's registry

All from within Ubuntu

I am not that familiar with Unix based operating systems, I would greatly enjoy a program or programs that can do what I want that has a nice GUI, but i am not opposed to using a command line based program. So far I have booted this hdd on 5 uniquely different computers with great success. One of these computers i have filled up with viruses and spy-ware, I will be using this one as a test subject. E smith2000 (talk) 23:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a very interesting project - please keep me posted. How do you get an ISO or bootable part onto the thumb drive? — Ched (talk) 04:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I did it by removing the hdd from my labtop and plugging in my usb hdd. I have tried it with XP and it keeps giving me the blue screen of death when it tried to load up the usb drivers. E smith2000 (talk) 06:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could repair the mbr and missing system files by using a Windows CD. 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, I could. But my aim here is not to just fix the problems, I am also trying to learn about the different programs out there that technicians use to repair computers. To try and expand my knowledge and learn. That is why I want to construct this. But your comment did give me an idea, I could have an ISO of a windows installation disk, by mounting that, along with the hard drive that I wish to repair from within a virtual PC running from within Ubuntu. Thank you. E smith2000 (talk) 21:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Update, i have installed Virtual Box, allowing me to load up the host's computer's OS as a guest operating system, This will allow me to remove files from Ubuntu that are being used by programs in the host computer. (like viruses) – Elliott  17:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

January 31

time error

I have installed windows Xp sp2 when ever i adjust the exact (pakistani) time on my computer .It automatically changes after( first boot) some time and remains one hour behind .But one hour below it remains same .for example if at 7:00 a.m of pakistane time ,i adjust it 7:00 ,it changes one hour behind .but if i adjust it 6:00 a.m in place of 7:00 a.m it remains as it is .Sorry for my wrong English . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 02:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Windows will automatically adjust the time based on Network Time Protocol. It sounds like you need to modify your timezone setting so that Windows will adjust the computer to the correct timezone. To do so, double click on the clock in the system try, select the "Time Zone" tab, and use the drop-down box to select the correct timezone. You may also need to disable daylight savings time (a checkbox at the bottom of the page). Alternatively, you can use the "Internet time" tab to disable Windows automatic time adjustment. – 74  02:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
must be those damn indians hijacking your computer and changing it to their time --76.173.201.40 (talk) 05:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Software cracks

Are there cracks for all kind of softwares that is sold and have the trial version, whch mekans, that if i have a 30 days trial version of a software i can get it extended by entering a crack code for it? is it available for all kind of softwares? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 07:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, yes. But for legal reasons, such circumvention of copyright protection is generally frowned upon by most software companies. My best bet is to try open-source software instead, like Gimp, especially if you can't afford the more expensive Photoshop. Blake Gripling (talk) 07:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't know how to find it on your own, you'd do best to not seek it out. All you're going to end up with is malware. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most trial software comes in either two forms; a basic scaled down exe that only has some of the functionality of the full program or the full exe which has all the functionality but will not work without a serial code. For the latter you simply need to search for the correct serial code and it will work, but the other type will require you to get a full version first, either already cracked or then enter the serial code. As for if cracks are available "for all kind of softwares" that largely depends on the popularity of the software; the less known and used it is the less likely there will be a crack for it. SN0WKITT3N 11:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Try using a sandbox program like Sandboxie. Install it in the sandbox. When the trial period is over, delete your sandbox and install again. Repeat for as long as you want. --wj32 t/c 22:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That may not work for software that 'phones home' over the Internet. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How big is an ordinary portable harddisk??

How big is an ordinary portable harddisk?? What is the average size specification for a 160 GB external harddisk? Because I just found this amazing external hdd by samsung-- it's called "S1 Mini" and it's as small as a friggin credit card!! and it can hold 120 gigs!! They also have "S2 Portable" they come in 160, 250, 320 and 500 GB's and they are all 82x111x17mm (a bit bigger than the S1 Mini's) I suppose this is quite small by conventional standards, but I'd like to know exactly by how much. I tried searching on the internet, but collecting a few samples wasn't enough for me. So, my question is, how big is an average external harddisk?? for those of you who already own one, what its the exact size (both physical volume and digital capacity)???Johnnyboi7 (talk) 08:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hard drives come in a few standard sizes: The most common are the 3.5 inch (101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm) and the 2.5 inch (69.85 mm × 9.5–15 mm × 100 mm). The Samsung S1 mini is a 1.8in (54 mm × 8 mm × 71 mm). The largest available sizes are 2000GB for 3.5 inch, 500GB for 2.5 inch and 250GB for 1.8 inch. Note the above measurements are for the harddrive itself. Add a cm or so for the enclosure. 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
how big is an average external harddisk?? I really don't know. for those of you who already own one, what its the exact size (both physical volume and digital capacity)??? I've got two: each is about 13x8x2cm, and one holds "30GB" and the other "160GB" (NB these are sellers' gigabytes, significantly less than users' gigabytes); the technical terms for the pair are "ancient" and "cheap" respectively. I think that if I had one as small as a friggin credit card [and that can] hold 120 gigs I'd probably mislay the frigging thing and then I'd certainly feel frigging stupid. So I'm happy with my cheap, boring external hard drives. -- Hoary (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just as an indication of things, an internal laptop harddrive is pretty small indeed, and those can hold quite a bit (I just installed a 320GB one into my laptop and it is a small thing—credit card dimensions, although thicker). The difference between an external and internal hard drive size is just how clever the engineers are in putting it all together. The toughest thing, I'd imagine, would be making sure a tiny tiny hard drive was cooled adequately. Of course, flash drives are now getting comparable to that, and they are even smaller. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then there's the tiny hard drives made by Cornice that are used inside some iPods. They are about the size of a box of matches, yet store 160GB. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are some Compact Flash-style hard drives that hold 32GB+. Very usefull for some aplications, but pointless for others. If you mean "harddisk" in the most generic sense there are thumbdrives and memory cards in all sorts of configurations and sizes. 63.80.111.2 (talk) 17:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

https and Wireless Hotspots

If a Website is https and we are in a wireless hotspot, and we decide to visit a financial site like paypal, is our details secure? Or are we supposed to use VPN? --33rogers (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A VPN connection would theoretically provide an extra layer of protection, but as long as you are only accessing secure https sites your data will be encrypted and reasonably secure. – 74  12:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Be aware that some sites only use HTTPS for login transactions (so the password isn't sent plaintext), and then switch back to HTTP for the regular transactions (like GMail), making them vulnerable to the man-in-the-middle attacks associated with fears about wifi hotspots. If the site stays in HTTPS mode the whole time, though, then you're fine, as the browser is encrypting/decrypting the information (not just the server). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For Gmail there is an option (Settings -> General -> Browser connection) to have it always use HTTPS. But some other sites, most notably Facebook, unfortunately don't provide such an option (Facebook uses HTTPS for login, but not for the rest of the site; I don't get this, as my Facebook account has much more personal information than my bank account).
I also want to say that, if you don't have access to a VPN, if you have access to an SSH account, you can use SSH's dynamic port forwarding to easily forward all of your Internet applications over the secure SSH connection. All common SSH clients and servers support this. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 01:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

domain names with the f-word in it

I just searched to see if one I was interested in is available (its not sexual or anything, its grammatically like fuckedcompany). It's available, but do you think I'll be able to register it without any problems?

Well considering all sorts of other curse words are present in .com domain names, they don't seem to be too picky about it. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how aggressive content-control software can be but I guess it's possible that some computers, ISP's, or even entire countries could block surfers trying to reach the domain. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah - you shouldn't have problems registering it. What people will think about the site and how it'll get blocked will be entirely predictable though! SteveBaker (talk) 15:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I remember reading a blog a while ago about some guy who was trying to register fuck.com but was always being denied. Then apparently they allowed the name but he was too slow to get it.
A domain name like that would be worth a small fortune to porn site owners. Most likely the domain registrar was in negotiation with some sleaze-bag and the price negotiations were going on behind the scenes. Once the deal was agreed - nobody else would have had a chance. You can read the saga about another domain name in our article Sex.com - now imagine that your example probably went through the same grief behind the scenes. Someone just going to a domain registrar hoping it would "become available" for $100 has no chance whatever. You'd have to be paying millions for a name like that - and such amounts of money don't change hands without lots of haggling! 72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Companies regularly register domain names that are offensive to themselves, if only to keep them away from people who would use the name against them. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Colour Selector in Windows 7

Does anyone know if Microsoft Corp. has upgraded the Colour Selector in Windows 7? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not as far as I can see - the GUI is definitely the same. I guess it could change between Beta 1 and release, but I doubt it — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 14:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. A new GUI would be nice, though. It has not changed significantly since Windows 3.1... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

What's Google's problem

Does anybody know what is causing this? When I try to see why Wikipedia is such a dangerous site all I get is a 502 Server Error. It's seems to be the same no matter what I search for, almost all sites, including Google, will "harm my computer". This was not happening earlier but is visible on different computers indicating that it's not my computer that is the problem. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 14:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but I've been trying to figure it out for the last 15 minutes myself. Looks like Google has a really bad bug. Every site on every search is marked with "this site may harm your computer", and it gives you a malware warning page when you try to go there. Antandrus (talk) 14:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, something is wrong. I bet it'll be fixed within the day. Unless it's a general cultural disclaimer: Warning: The Internet May Make You Stupid. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

shy of relief. i thought my comp screwed again.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to join in the relief at finding this is Google-side and not my computer. Thanks! 79.66.89.178 (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I bet they're regretting laying off their weekend techs. Maybe someone will write a knol about the problem ... except that you won't be able to read about it without harming your computer. Bet Yahoo search gets lots of new users today. Antandrus (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just realised that the problem makes Google usless right now. Unless you know the site already or have something like Site Advisor there is no way of knowing which, if any, of the "This site may harm your computer." notices are correct. If you don't know the site then what's the chances that you are going to look at something that Google is warning you about? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


why don't they just TURN IT OFF - turn it off turn it off turn it off!!! they're losing credibility by the second —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.227.157 (talk) 15:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google is effectively down. Every site is marked as "harmful", and you can't click through if you try. It is astonishing they haven't fixed it by now. Antandrus (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fixed from this end...RxS (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Fixed now. And no doubt just because I complained about it! CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a story about it on Slashdot so I guess it was pretty widespread. SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was apparently caused by a misplaced '/' which matched all domains.[6] It took one character to bring down Google. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably 20% of all software bugs come down to a single character. Here is one I've been particularly upset by in the past:
if ( this_is_should_always_be_false ) ;
{
this_seems_to_happen_when_it_shouldnt () ;
}
But a plus that should be a minus - two variable names that differ only by one character (Xcoordinate, Ycoordinate) getting swapped over...this kind of thing is all too common! Big errors involving lots of code are often easier to find - but programmers can become 'blind' to tiny, tiny typo's. In the example above, you don't even see that extra semicolon on the first line...your brain somehow skips over it. Anyway - I bet someone at Google got seriously "talked to" over that one! Hopefully their management recognise that "bugs happen" and realise that their procedures for testing code before they "release it into the wild" are what's really at fault here.
72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In this case it wasn't code, it was data. Of course, similar considerations apply. --Anonymous, 06:08 UTC, February 1, 2009.

Hello World!

It seems like that computer language creators are born with a copy of thesaurus in hand. I don't know why there can be so many verbs for English-based computer languages to describe even a simple act of putting words on the screen or paper. In addition to syntactical differences, e.g., semi-colon, parenthesis, capital or lowercase, indent ..., the verb for printing can be print, echo, display, write, message, output, show, type, alert, ?, . (a dot) ... etc. and some variations of the above verbs.

Some specialized languages, such as Logo or Forth, are fundamentally different from other general-purpose languages. Some GUI languages may have more overhead. Some languages are created for fun. But most high-level languages, especially commercial ones, are not that different from each other. Isn't print a good verb that we all understand? -- Toytoy (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't explain all of them - but for example - when the C language (which uses both 'printf' and 'write') was developed, there were very few CRT-based terminals ("glass teletypes") - almost everyone talked to the computer via a teletype or a DECwriter - both of which print the computer's responses on paper. Hence "print" was a good choice. Subsequently, printing terminals have almost completely vanished - so "print" is archaic. Some language designers seek to fix that (hence "display" and "show") and others say "well, we've all used 'print' for so long, that the meaning of the word has changed to 'send data to the user'" - so they stick with "print". "type" is another anachronistic one - since what a teletype does is "type". "write" comes about because (at least in C and C++) it tends to be used mostly in the context of sending data to disk drives and other peripherals...which we all call "writing" because there just doesn't seem to be another common English word ("inscribe" maybe?!) for placing data onto magnetic media, etc. I believe that "alert" actually does have a genuinely different meaning - alerting a user to a problem rather than merely displaying information that'll generally be ignored...but I don't know which language you are referring to so I can't be sure. You missed a common one '<<' (from the C++ stream I/O package). That one comes about because of the way it's implemented by overriding one of the arithmetic operators ('<<' means shift-left). They had to pick one of the standard C++ operators and '<<' is the only one that really looks right for sending something from the object on the right into the I/O stream on the left. SteveBaker (talk) 15:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To me, you can "print" just as well on a screen as on paper, so that term seems to apply to both. StuRat (talk) 01:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes - to me too - but back when these things were new, it wasn't clear what words to use to describe that. You wouldn't say that your DVD player "prints" things to your TV screen would you? But in the end, it's just a word. The computer doesn't care what word you use and we programmers are adaptable enough that we can get used to almost anything given time ("grep" means "searching through files looking for patterns"...we got used to that OK!) SteveBaker (talk) 05:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And the P in "grep" stands for print, ultimately relating to the p command in QED (text editor), and there we are again. --Anonymous, 06:11 UTC, February 1, 2009.
Yeah - grep was originally there to give you a 'command-line' version of a command used in that editor. I didn't think it was QED but rather ed (text editor) because QED doesn't support true regular expressions as ed does. So you'd type /hello world/ to search for the next occurrance of "hello world" (which could be any regular expression) you could append a 'p' to the command to tell the editor to print the resulting line and you could preceed any command with a 'g' to tell it to do the command globally throughout the document. Hence entering g/hello world/p into the text editor would do what grep "hello world" does. Hence Globally: find a Regular Expression then Print it. Both QED and ed were designed to work with printing terminals though - so 'print' made sense. However, QED became 'ed' which became 'em' which became 'ex' which had a 'visual-mode' for glass terminals - which became 'vi' which became 'vim'...which is the editor I still use the most today - 43 year old technology, still going strong! In 'vim' you can still type a ':' to get out of visual mode, then type g/hello world/p and it greps the file for you! SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, I am working on a weekend WWW project of my own. I find myself forced to switch among six or seven languages or markup languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, SQL, regular expressions ... Sometimes I find it not the most pleasing experience to change the language. In addition to the "Thesaurus" problems, I find the syntax issues especially annoying. Many of these languages are created during the past 20 years. They are created to do mostly the same kinds of jobs: server-side (PHP), client-side (JS), CGI and offline data processing (Perl, Python, Ruby, ...), extraction of tabular data (SQL), matching of patterns (regex) and maybe AND, OR, NOT, proximity search (the full-text search of some SQL databases), tree-like structured data retrieval (XML database). They look very different to each other.

I think certain rules, like using indent to designate code blocks (Python) are created to force programmers to adhere to the rules. They may be very artificial (e.g., XML's requirement to close all tags: <br />, <img />), but they help to reduce syntax errors and typos. Many other syntactic requirements, such as if you can use /* ... */ or # or * or REM in this language to add remarks are pretty trivial to me. I wonder if these language-specific rules actually make programmers' lives more miserable.

It's like having dozens of cars. Some of them have doors while some others are entered from any of the windows. Some car's steering wheels are placed on the roof, in the trunk, on your seat back, inside the glove compartment, some doesn't even have a steering wheel, some have more than one ... . -- Toytoy (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've been a working programmer for a VERY long time and I've used an insane number of languages over the years. These days, I have it down to C++ and JavaScript...plus markup languages XML and MediaWiki...and shell scripting in 'bash'. HTML and CSS are essentially just sloppy XML. PHP and JavaScript are sufficiently similar to each other and to the basic syntax to C++ that it doesn't bother me to have to use PHP for a few simple applications. Bash works under Windows/Cygwin and Linux so I can forget the god-awful DOS scripting crap. Perl, Python, Java are all great languages - but they don't seem very useful to me because C++ does the job perfectly well - and usually, better. I can (and do) sometimes have to work in a wide variety of other languages because of the need to work with some other system - but that's fairly rare.
The trick to efficiency is NOT to pick up on all the latest whizz-bang tools just because you can. Instead get very good indeed at using the small set that you like. Sure, there are some jobs that Python can do in half the number of lines of code that C++ takes - but then there are things you can't really do at all in Python. Rather than switch back and forth all the time, I happily absorb the 'hit' for staying with C++ because in the end the total time to implement any given thing is vastly less.
Your car analogy is close to the truth. Cars are indeed all a bit different (not as drastically as you say) - my MINI Cooper has a stick-shift, my wife's Mazda is an automatic. The turn signals work 'weirdly' on the MINI but conventionally on the Mazda. Things like headlamps, wipers, seat positioning, A/C and radio controls are wildly different between the two cars. The only things they really share are the steering wheel and the brake and gas pedals. Even those work a bit differently because the Mazda has 'kick down' and the MINI has brakes that hold for three seconds for hill starts - and the MINI has switchable power steering modes that are unlike the 'feel' of the Mazda's steering. But I can drive both cars easily and without thinking because my brain has "MINI-mode" and "Mazda-mode". Since I'm British and I have to drive in both the UK and the USA - I also have "Left-hand-drive" and "Right-hand-drive" modes and I can comfortably drive my 1963 Mini (which has the steering wheel on the right) on Texas roads - which is yet a third 'mode' (and another complete set of car controls to get used to).
We humans can keep those things in separate 'partitions' somehow. Programming is much the same deal. When I'm working on C++ code I automatically say "int i ; float f ;" and when I'm in JavaScript mode I don't even have to think about typing "var i ; var f ;" instead. However, when I get into a new car - or have to learn a new language - it takes a while to get that 'muscle memory' back.
SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

At work, I'm trying to put together a formula or some code that will access data in Excel format on one of our secure websites, pull some data from it based on a URL I've generated with user input (it has a date portion that is variable). If I just create a bog standard hyperlink in a cell and then click it, I'm prompted for my LAN ID and then the remote xls file opens. However, if I put the same URL in a cell reference like so: 

='https://www.somesite.com/blah/blah/[somefile.xls]'A1

It cannot pull the data (assuming I haven't already authenticated to the server) from the remote source. My workaround for this has been to use a FollowHyperLink function in VBA when the command button (which drives all this) is clicked. It's a bit cludgy, but it works. However, I was wondering if there is some way I can authenticate more quietly, perhaps by passing credentials somehow, perhaps using the Windows API in some way? Any help is greatly received.--Rixxin (talk) 17:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The http protocol supports passing along authentication in the URL. For example: http://username:password@www.example.com/ It isn't recommended, since the password and username are in cleartext and might get recorded in history files, caches, etc. It also no longer works in some browsers -- or pops up warnings -- due to recent misuse of this feature in phishing. But it is worth a try, I think. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Encrypting single files

I am presiding over a student association and would like to protect membership details. Membership records are kept in a simple spreadsheet file and are kept on my hard-disk, the hard-disk of my secretary, and on my USB-drive. There will also be occasions when the secretary must e-mail me the spreadsheet file. Thus, I would like to find an open-source program that can be used with Windows (and ideally also with Linux) that is capable of compressing a single file simply. I'm new to encryption so I don't know what's possible but I don't really want to create a virtual partition just for this one file... besides which, I'm not sure that would protect the file during e-mailing. Thanks. ----Seans Potato Business 18:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TrueCrypt is a free program that is able to encrypt entire hard drives or just single files. Good luck. E smith2000 (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatively, you could just use a password-protected ZIP (file format). This has the advantage of being a fairly ubiquitous format that virtually anyone on any system will be able to open with the password. Disadvantage: a persistent attacker will probably be able to circumvent the encryption. Its use is therefore discouraged if this is a contingency you strenuously wish to avoid. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ZIP and 7z are both common archive formats created by open-source programs that support AES encryption based on a password. AES is pretty good encryption so I don't think that should be a problem if your archiver uses it and you have a good password. Alternately, GnuPG has an option (gpg -c on the command line) that allows it to use password-based encryption; and there are many graphical distributions of GnuPG for Windows and Linux. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 01:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Who would like to get their hands on your file? How much money are they willing to spend? If they are not too serious, I also concur with the recommendation about TrueCrypt. 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Try dsCrypt or any of the other tiny encryption programs from Dariusz SN0WKITT3N 11:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weird problem with PDF file from customer

My father told me yesterday he had had a weird problem with a PDF file from a customer. A customer of my father's company had sent him an e-mail with a PDF file attached, claiming it contained information about their deal. When he opened it, it contained an advertisement about a Finnish interior decoration company. My father then went to another person's workstation and opened it again, and it did the same thing. This again happened on a third person's workstation. My father then called in his company's IT support person and asked him to look at it. This time the PDF file contained the correct information about the customer deal. What the heck had happened? I have heard of Microsoft Word files containing version history of a previous customer's deals, but aren't PDF files supposed to essentially be snapshots of printable papers? My father thinks it had something to do with the filename resembling another filename on his computer system, but computers don't actually understand names, they operate on a purely factual "is or is not" basis. Does anyone have any idea what had happened? Please keep in mind that I have only heard this second hand and have not seen the files myself (I wouldn't have been allowed to, anyway). JIP | Talk 20:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thought: maybe the company's IT department has software to strip attachments and scan for viruses, and the PDF in question was named something descriptive like "file.pdf", which was overwritten by a different "file.pdf" before your father opened it from the "attachment store". The IT person pulled the correct version off the "attachment archive" and everything was fixed. – 74  21:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've gotta put this down to "user error" - PDF's aren't like WORD documents...they are essentially PostScript files. I'm betting that your father picked the wrong file a couple of times - but got it right when showing it to the IT guys. The fact that he had another file with a very similar name explains it perfectly. If he doubts that then he should show the IT guy what happens on his own PC. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed something similar which may shed some light on this: When I first open up a Word document, it shows me the previous file I was editing first, then the current file pops up. Sometimes the delay is a few seconds. It sounds like they are doing something quite inefficient, in loading the "default" file (last one edited) first, then replacing it with the current file. If PDF does the same thing, and if some error occurs in loading the current file, then it might just leave the last file viewed up instead. Could this Finnish ad have been the last thing viewed ? StuRat (talk) 01:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MS Word Spell Check

Hello! I know MS Word has spell checks for languages Spanish, English, and French, but are additional spell checks available for download somewhere for other languages? Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 21:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is this what you are looking for. BigDuncTalk 21:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 04:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PC Games...and Vista

This subject has probably been beat to death, but I'm going to bring it up anyway. Last night I bought a new comp. Its spec's are as follows: 4 GB RAM, 452GB HDD, Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1, Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2220 @ 2.4 GHz, and an Intel G33/G31 Express chipset family with 256MB of memory. I installed Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2, neither of which will work, and UT2004 and Battlefield Vietnam, both of which do work (although I cant get voices or music in BFV, with the exception of menu and loading music; can't play songs ingame). When I start Battlefield 2, the banner comes up, the screen goes black, and then crashes to desktop. When I start CoD2, the banner comes up, disappears, and then I get a message saying "DirectX has encountered an unrecoverable error." Also, when I try to run CoD2, a window pops up saying that this game has known compatibility issues. Thanks in advance.--AtTheAbyss (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, take CoD2 for example. It was released for the PC in June 2006. Vista was still in development in June and the final version wasn't released for game programmers to test with until October/November 2006 and it wouldn't really hit the streets until sometime in 2007. So that's an unfortunate case when the game developers would not have been able to test their software on Vista (because it wasn't finished yet) and yet the Vista programmers were so close to completion that they would not have had time to fix problems relating to very recent games. Hence it's likely that neither set of people had a reasonable chance of making it work. It's debatable whether the CoD authors would have cared anyway - they planned to sell most of their product over Xmas'06 and shortly after - and there were no Vista PC's around then anyway. So the cost of developing it to work on Vista wouldn't have had a big enough payback to be worth the considerable cost. The game was obviously developed for DirectX9 - and Vista uses DirectX 10, I don't know whether there is a DirectX 9 compatibility pack you can download for Vista - if there is then that might get CoD2 working - but there are not guarantees. Your best chance is to check the Activision website and see if there are any patches for CoD2 that you can download to make it work. Battlefield 2 was released in November 2006 - so it has the same problem. UT2004 was developed two or three years before Vista - so the UT developers OBVIOUSLY couldn't test against Vista - but there was enough of a window for the Vista developers to have tested UT2004 to make sure Vista would run it. Battlefield Vietnam is another 2004 game - so again, it couldn't possibly have been tested on Vista - and perhaps it was not a sufficiently popular game to have made it onto the Vista team's "must work" backwards compatibility list.
I guess the message is "Vista is crap" (which we all knew already) - you should probably stick to games that are modern enough to have "Vista capable" stickers on the boxes. Certainly games from the Xmas 2006 lineup are a poor choice because of that unfortunate overlap of game and Vista development windows. Try to find patches - either for Vista or for the games at their respective web sites - you may get lucky. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've, uh, played Battlefield 2 in Vista, so I can confirm that at least works. I've also played several other slightly older games, but none of the others listed. Are all your drivers up-to-date, AtTheAbyss? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The standard suggestions for running older games on Vista are: 1) play about with compatibility modes (r-click the game icon -> 'Properties' -> 'Compatibility') and 2) either 'Run as administrator' (r-click -> 'Run as administrator') or install to C:\Games instead of C:\Program Files to get around Vista's User Account Control - a lot of games made for XP assume they have administrator access rights, which they don't with UAC. I wouldn't advise disabling UAC though, unless you want to go back to the Windows XP malware free-for-all. Using this method, I've gotten really old games working on Vista, such as Total Annihilation and Homeworld. Apart from this, make sure all your drivers are up-to-date and the games are patched up to their latest versions. By the way, what graphics card does your new PC have? If it is just that Intel G33/31 (meaning that you probably have an Intel GMA 3100), that may be your problem right there, since that really isn't up to much. You can probably get a GeForce 7 or maybe 8 Series working on that hardware. CaptainVindaloo t c e 02:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm not sure if my drivers are up to date. I just got this computer last night. BTW, I just installed the original Call of Duty and it works just fine. I used to have an ATI Radeon 8500ST or something like that, but I accidentally broke a piece off of it. Maybe if I can find the right adhesive I can reattach it and use it. I know it works with all my games. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 02:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's definitely your GPU. It's essentially useless for gaming. You're not going to have any luck glueing the piece of your graphics card back on; you'd probably have to solder it and stuff, and that would likely be excessively difficult depending on how you broke it and how it's made up. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Plus the Radeon 8500s date from the AGP era. Your hardware almost certainly uses PCI Express. CaptainVindaloo t c e 03:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strange. I can play Call of Duty 2 on my Vista laptop with no compatibility issues, except for some lag because of a less-than-stellar processor. bibliomaniac15 03:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, probably MS compatibility updates. Considering how popular the CoD series is, it wouldn't surprise me if CoD2 was on the list at some point. Abyss; hit Windows Update (Start -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Windows Update) and make sure you've got every update available. Then see if there's any improvement. CaptainVindaloo t c e 19:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reverse-engineering EULAs

Say ACME Software Company makes Great Program. When I download Great Program, there is no EULA presented to me; I can just download it. Great Program's EULA prohibits reverse-engineering. I could reverse-engineer the setup program to make it install the program even if I decline to the EULA. For example, I could make the "Cancel" button go forward a page, or change "Accept" to "Decline". Is this illegal? Have I agreed to the EULA then? --wj32 t/c 22:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be hard to argue that you hadn't read the terms of the EULA during your reverse-engineering of the install program. If your argument held water then you could close your eyes during installation - cover your ears and yell "Not Listening!" while clicking at random on the screen until you hit the 'AGREE' button at random. You could then argue that you didn't agree to the EULA. Anyway - none of that crap would stand up for a moment in court. If you're going to steal the hard work of others, you might as well come right out and say it - because morally - that's what you're doing and you know it. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly am I doing? I'm asking a question here on the Reference desk. Calm down for a moment and please don't make unverified or untrue claims about people. See WP:ATTACK. --wj32 t/c 01:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick answer to both your questions: yes.

Simply speaking, your question can be answered under Contract law. In the scenario you describe here, you are basically asking, "If I am clever enough to modify a contract in such a way that I never actually see the terms of that contract with my own two eyeballs, can I still be bound by the terms of that contract?"

The quick glib answer is "yes". For example, Under the Uniform Commercial Code ambiguities are resolved by industry custom. In the case of software sales, it is a well-established custom that the use of software constitutes agreement with the terms under which that software is licensed.

In some jurisdictions you may be deemed a "user" of that software merely by downloading it. Therefore, that is the point you would be considered "in agreement" with the license terms. The EULA and nag screens at that point are really just a courtesy so you can't claim ignorance if push comes to shove and you really end up in litigation.

From a legal standpoint, this use of industry custom makes sense. It's what prevents you from going into a restaurant and getting a free meal by claiming you thought it was free, since they didn't charge up-front just like every other retail business.

From a **practical** standpoint, let's be real, no one ever reads those annoying things anyway, except perhaps the first lawyer who wrote it. Even if you did waste the time necessary to prevent the EULA from popping up, your cleverness could be considered a form of trespass and subject to both civil and criminal penalties.

The EULA is really just like those little toy locks on someone's personal diary. It's not there to keep dishonest people from breaking in ... it's there to remind honest people to stay honest and play by the rules by respecting the interests of the software maker, regardless of how easily those interests may be thwarted or ignored by "clever" people. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 22:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answer. --wj32 t/c 01:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

JQuery equivalent to PHP preg_match

Is there a JQuery method for seeing if a string matches a regular expression. I know of filter and replace, but both those methods change the string or html code. I'm looking for something that will tell if a given input matches customized regural expressions, like PHP's preg_match method. As in $("input").val().______($regexp) and returns true or false or the number of matches, but takes no action. Thanks24.181.20.108 (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try the standard Javascript match method of the String object, or the test method of the RegEx object [[7] [8]]. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brand new to JQuery. How exactly do you call the javascript method on a JQuery object? Is there some weird nested function requirement? Like, I know you can't do $("input").val().test()... so is it something like $("input").val().function(){this.test()}; [note to be used in an if statement, so I'm trying to get a boolean out of a JQuery match] Thanks again24.181.20.108 (talk) 23:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The trick with jQuery is to remember that it's just JavaScript with some handy built-in shortcuts for working with browser programming. Whenever you use $(), or methods attached to it, you have to remember what your method is returning, and what you are allowed to pass into the parenthesis. So for example, if you are using jQuery.trim(mystring) .. this can be re-written as $.trim(mystring). If you take a look at the documentation, it tells you that $.trim() takes a string as an argument, and returns a string as the result. At that point you know that you can use all of the JavaScript methods that apply to Strings. For example ...
   var upstring = $.trim(mystring).toUpperCase();

Probably the best way to get sorted out is to use visual jQuery [9] while you are coding, and pay close attention to what function you are trying to use and what it returns. If you don't find what you are looking for in jQuery, then just look in a JavaScript reference (microsoft has one that's pretty well written). dr.ef.tymac (talk) 23:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flash drive appearing Device Manager, not Windows Explorer

I have a USB flash disc which won't show up under the list of drives in My Computer. I've restarted, replugged it in, reinstalled drivers etc. and I still can't get it to appear. Even though it does appear in Computer Management>System Tools>Device Manager>Disc Drives as "USB2.0 USB Device." It did work before, but I couldn't get it formatted into NTFS - that's even after I changed the policies to "optimise for performance" to make NTFS appear in the drop down list of filing systems.My name is anetta (talk) 23:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, Windows has a habit of assigning removable drives a drive letter already in use by mapped network drives. If you have any mapped network drives near the top of the alphabet, unmapping them and reconnecting the flash drive might let you access it. If you don't have any mapped drives then it's obviously some other problem. – 74  00:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've got no network drives.My name is anetta (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does it show in Computer Management>Storage>Disc Management?121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, nor Disk Defrag or Removable Storage.My name is anetta (talk) 13:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is this "Points System" possible?

Hi, I am trying to create a new operating system, and I was wondering if it was possible to make the system described here? Would that be possbile? Or it would be too easy to hack/trick the system? Hacktolive (talk) 23:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it's possible, and yes it would be possible to "game" the points system just as it's possible to "game" entire world economic systems. The bottom line is you'd probably be better off pitching your idea to existing open source communities and learning about what's already been done. Your entire "points" system will be irrelevant if you do not have a community of people already participating and gaining points.
This idea is actually already in place on several websites. See for example perlmonks and StackOverflow.com. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 00:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

February 1

how do you type in a filepath and other stuff on a mac

How do you accomplish the following things on a mac:

  • you know the path to a "folder" on your machine and you want to type it in, instead of visually navigating through a bunch of finder GUI windows
  • specify the root drive while typing in a path (i.e., what is the mac equivalent of c:\mydocs\shoppinglist.txt)
  • get the dock bar to show up using the keyboard if you have it on auto-hide
  • get the windows on your desktop to do the msft windows trick "cascade windows" or "tile windows vertically"
  • navigate the icons in the system preference window using the keyboard (up and down arrows seem to work, but left and right does nothing)

Any solutions whatsoever are welcome, including but not limited to going out and downloading some third party software to get these done. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 00:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Open finder, hit Cmd-Shift-G, or Go -> Go to Folder
  2. As with other normal POSIX OSs, the "root" is '/' . So, applications are at /Applications, for instance. Individual partitions can be directly accessed from /Volumes
  3. By default Option-Command-D. The hotkey can be set in the Keyboard & Mouse system preferences pane
  4. Holding down Option, clicking Window, and clicking "Arrange in Front" does something similar, but it's per-application only. Not sure otherwise. There is expose, but I know that's not exactly what you're wanting.
  5. You could tab to the search bar at the top-right and type in what you want. Dunno otherwise.
-- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with sending/receiving text over UDP connection in Java

Greetings! I am having an issue with a simple UDP based client/server Java program. The source code and their output can be found here, but I shall summarize the code, and the issues I am having here.

The server program, WriteServer, listens for any UDP packet on a port that is entered in the console when the program is executed. Upon receiving this packet, the server transmits a 'greeting' of sorts back to the client. The server then waits for a message from the client, and converts the string that is contained within the datagram to uppercase, then sends it back to the client.

The client code, ReadClient, takes a message from the user, the name of the machine to connect to, and the port to contact, all entered upon the code's launch. The client then sends a single packet to the server to initiate communication, then listens for, and then displays a greeting message that the server transmits. After that, the client then sends the message that was collected upon the code's launch, and then waits for a packet containing the uppercase message that the server sent back as 'confirmation' of transmission.

The code seems to work on the surface, at least when run on the same machine. However, there are issues. First, the client program has a string of boxes displayed to the right of the text, however, I am going to assume the boxes are just null characters. I am not quite sure how to get rid of those.

The second and third issues I shall lump together. When the client transmits the message given to it, the server seems to acknowledge this, as I am seeing a string of boxes that matches the length of the message. However, the message transmitted should be displayed within the server's console, and likewise, the message transformed into uppercase should be displayed in the client, however it is only displayed as a string of boxes within the client.

I am not quite sure what exactly is going wrong with this code relating to the transformation of the strings to bytes, and back to strings. I have tried running this code multiple times, however I haven't had any luck with getting it to work. I have also tried making a separate packet to receive each of the packets on the client/server side, even though I don't think that is a necessity.

I would appreciate any help that is provided, and I hope everyone has an utterly wonderful day! ~Shawna 137.155.187.56 (talk) 03:33, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You've got a pair of lines like this in ReadClient.java:
 (1)      byte[] retMsgBytes = new byte[rcvPacket.getLength()];
 (2)      retMsgBytes = rcvPacket.getData();
That basically says (1) create a reference named retMsgBytes and have it point to a newly-allocated array of bytes, and then (2) throw away that newly-allocated array of bytes, and have retMsgBytes instead point to the results of getData(). Why not skip the allocation and combine the two statements into the following?
 (1)      byte[] retMsgBytes = rcvPacket.getData();
As a side effect, it will fix your problem, which arises from forgetting step (2) in WriteServer.java. --Sean 15:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Javascript and 'onMouseMove' events.

I've been playing with writing a browser-based game in JavaScript (using 'canvas' graphics) recently. I want to use a full-color shape instead of the mouse cursor - so I'm using 'onMouseMove' events and redrawing the shape as needed. Everything works as programmed - but the timing is terrible.

The cursor will alternately track smoothly for about a half second - then freeze for another half second. Suspecting performance problems, I started trimming the game code back and back until I had NOTHING but a simple sprite redraw in the 'onMouseMove' event...and the result is the same.

I know my sprite redraws are fast enough because during the half second where everything works OK they track nicely. If I were to draw an 'X' in the onMouseMove function and then move the mouse rapidly from left to right, I'd get something like: 

 XXXXXX       XXXXX       XXXXXX     XXXXXXX     XXXXXXX

I'm doing this in FireFox on OpenSuse 11.0 64bit on a really fast computer - but I've seen the same behavior on other systems too.

Is there something inherent in the scheduling of browsers that makes this inevitable - or is there some 'trick' to make this work OK?

SteveBaker (talk) 05:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that different browsers' versions of Javascripts have some things they do well and some things they do horribly. (See this article from a couple years ago.) I would not be surprised if one got different performance with different machines for something like this. It used to be—and might still be, for all I know—that Firefox is actually one of the slowest when it comes to Javascript activities if one doesn't take into account the fact that IE just up and dies if you try to do complicated string manipulation. The only "trick" I can think of is to not do the development in Javascript, but to do it in Actionscript or something that is a little more robust and standardized in its implementations... but that's not much of a trick, I admit. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really about the performance of JavaScript itself - the smooth reporting of mouse events goes away for HALF A SECOND - that's not about JavaScript performance - it's about scheduling or something. When it runs, I get dozens of mouse position updates, processing though a dozen lines of stripped-down JavaScript code in a tiny fraction of a second with no problems - then NOTHING for an entire half second. I want portability - Actionscript won't cut it for me. SteveBaker (talk) 01:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google maps

In google maps, when you search for a place, it puts a "lollipop" as a marker on the point it has found. Is it possible to ( how do you ) remove said lollipop? The only means I have found of doing it is to look for a prominent place a little way away, to search for that - thus putting the lollipop there - and scroll back to the part of the map I am interested in. But that seems completely wrong. -- SGBailey (talk) 11:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It goes away if you click "My Maps". Google have been changing the interface over the last few months so it's not clear whether that disappearance is a bug or deliberate. It would be nice to have a 'Hide lollipops' button in the top-right menu though. SteveBaker (talk) 13:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can also clear the search box and hit enter (ie search for nothing) — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 16:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -- SGBailey (talk) 19:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hide active programs

I share a computer with my little brother and whenever he gets on he messes with my active running programs, such as utorrent and boinc and he constantly restarts the computer when installing games. I need a way that I can hide these programs from view, even from the system tray, but they will keep running in the background and will automatically run when the computer is turned on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 14:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Open taskmanager and kill explorer.exe. This will hide your taskbar, open programs, system tray, and icons. To get programs to open at startup, go to start, all programs, startup (I'm on Windows 7, this may be different for previous OSs) and drag a shortcut of the program into this folder. Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme!
If you kill explorer.exe that basically makes the computer unusable, and OP states it is also being used by someone else. Also, when the pc is restarted explorer.exe will be back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 19:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Theres a couple of different ways you can go about doing this... You could download Microsoft Virtual PC, and use that to essentially 'give' him his own computer to do what he wants. Another thing you could try is to set up Virtual desktop which would allow you to switch over to his desktop when he wants to play. But i think the simplest and quickest way to deal with that is to set up multiple users. That way when he wants to play you can just switch users. I hope this helped – Elliott  19:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this is revelvant but on MS Windows, if you type msconfig is the Run... window and click the startup tab, you can prevent apps from starting up.-- penubag  (talk) 20:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Autoruns is very good to control programs that start at startup of the computer (on Windows) SF007 (talk) 03:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding tracking of information

Is it possible to track the websites that have been browsed using the IP address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.71.98 (talk) 16:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not usually without access to their ISP logs (which could be subpoenaed, for example, if it was relevant to a criminal case). The exception to this is that websites that share a common cookie or otherwise share IP information amongst themselves can tell when a given IP visits those sites that are in on the sharing. This comes up in case of advertising servers—if you frequent sites that use the same ad software (like DoubleClick) then DoubleClick and its affiliates will be able to know quite a lot about your browsing habits. But I interpret your question to be, basically, "if I have someone's IP address, can I see what pages they have visited," and in that case the answer is usually "no" for most "I"'s of the world. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mouse decision

I suppose this is not a technical question... but i would like to know what you (the reader) thinks is a better mouse. A trackball or an Optical mouse. This will help me decide what my next mouse should be. Thank you. – Elliott  22:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Optical mice are so cheap these days (I've seen them under $5) that you might as well get one anyway. Trackballs are good for some kinds of stuff - bad at others - but it's a very personal thing. Some people love them - others hate them - so there is no objective test other than to buy one and see. But if that turns out to be a bad thing, it's not gonna cost you much to buy an optical mouse to replace it. SteveBaker (talk) 00:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Sure, you can buy a mouse for some ridiculously low price, but I would recommend you purchase a "good" mouse instead of a "cheap" mouse. The net price difference may be $50, but with even occasional computer use the mouse will pay for itself several times over. Particular features that *I* find useful are high precision, wireless, forward/back buttons, and an ergonomic shape. Visit one of those "big box electronic" retailers and find a mouse or trackball that works for you—it'll be money well spent. – 74  04:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I love Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

February 2

Getting wikipedia's version of tex running on my computer

Resolved

This year, I am going to need to write quite a few equations on a computer and I was thinking that TeX would probably be a good idea. What I would like to know is, is there any way I can get Wikipedia's implementation of TeX (<math> tags) up and running on my computer, as I believe that it uses some special typesetting specific to maths (i.e. the - sign always produces a minus sign instead of the dash and letters are always interpreted as variables and are italicized). Is there a specific package I can download or typesetting configurations I can add to the TeX installation I am currently downloading? I am running Mac OS X 10.4 and am downloading BasicTeX and TeXShop, what else to I need to do (once I've set everything up)?. It would also be ideal if I would somehow embed TeX (in tags like math) in TextEdit. Foxy Loxy Pounce! 00:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I always just use OpenOffice.org math for my TeX editing. The syntax is a bit different, but it's not that hard to get used to. [10] link is for intel mac Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme! 01:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Out of interest, is there a particular reason you want Wikipedia's stripped-down weak version of TeX rather than a proper version? Algebraist 03:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I've now read up on TeX, and my problem is now solved, thanks for all your help guys. Foxy Loxy Pounce! 03:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Give root powers to me (Ubuntu)

Is there a way to give me root powers on Ubuntu? I know I can enable the root account and use it, but that is not what I want (I am forced to use the username "root"), What I want is be able to login with some username "SF007", and that account having root powers (without the need for "sudo", etc...). Is this even possible? SF007 (talk) 00:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Runing as root or as an account that has root powers is high inadvisable. I am fairly new to Ubuntu, i have no idea how to do what you ask but i would suggest that when you need root access you sould use 'sudo' or log out and back in as root... i hope this helped. – Elliott  01:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely not recommended, but it's possible. Set your user account's numeric ID to 0. It's a very bad idea, and when I see this kind of question, it's usually someone trying to solve another problem and using a bad solution. What is your real problem? -- JSBillings 02:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That does not work: I created a new user with ID 0, enabled "allow admins to login", but I just can't login with the new username (I get "user/password wrong" or some error like that), and I also noticed that the new user I create just "disappears": if I create the user, then log out, and then login, if I go the the "user" section, it is not there! Any ideas why the user vanished? Any other solutions? (There is no real problem, but I really wanted to know if this was possible) SF007 (talk) 04:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Damn! I know why it does not work, the "user id" must be unique, and since the root already has "0" as uid, I can't have it! SF007 (talk) 10:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never done this, but I've always understood that you could set a user's groupid to 0 and gain (most) root powers that way. Is this wrong? APL (talk) 13:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ubuntu does something special in this regard - it's different from other Linux's. If you have a number of tasks to do as root, their approach can be a bit of a pain. One possibility is to say: 'sudo bash' - which opens up a command shell running as root. I believe you have to change some kernel options in order to be able to actually log in as root. But as others have said...running as root for even a moment longer than you need to is "A Very Bad Idea". SteveBaker (talk) 02:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
'sudo -i' or 'sudo -s' is the right way to do that. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 05:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to join the annoying herd of people saying: NO! DON'T DO IT! FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!. Running as root when you don't need to is a horrible idea, just say no. If you want to do something with root powers, use sudo. If you're going to do a lot of things with root powers, type in "sudo -i" or "su" at the command line, and you will be granted root access (but you will still be identified by the username "root"). If you absolutely must, use "sudo passwd" to set a root password, and then you can login as root, but even going that far is going too far, IMHO.
I'm not sure why it is exactly you want this? Why would you want to assign root powers to your regular old login? If you need to do something as root, just do it as root. No need to muck up your usual login. I agree with my esteemed colleague JSBillings, it seems like you want to solve some problem, but doing it in a bad way. Can you give us any information on the reason for all this privilege escalation? Belisarius (talk) 05:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I run a Virtual Machine as root (only for testing software/"playing", so security is not important there), and I use the root account, but I wanted to use a "regular" username... That's just it... SF007 (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could try switching to Windows. (I kid; I kid.) – 74  09:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dell laptop screen fading (resolved)

I have a Dell latitude D610. I have installed Ubuntu on it. I am having a problem with the screen dimmer. When I boot it up everything is fine except the screen brightness, over the course of 2 minutes it will slowly fade down, once it has faded i must bring it back up by holding down the function key and repeatedly hitting the up arrow (standard brightness control for most dell laptops.) Once I stop hitting the up arrow it starts fading again. It seems to start fading at random times, but once it starts fading it will continue to fade until I restart the computer. It is really starting to get annoying having to turn the brightness up every few minutes. I do not believe that this is a problem with the controller chip or the screen's inverter, this problem does not happen when I boot in to WinXP. Thank you – Elliott  01:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know this is an odd question, but does the display work normally when it's on battery? RxS (talk) 02:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, it acts the same way.– Elliott  02:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It could be a screen saver, which for some reason thinks you aren't using the computer. Try disabling all screen saver/hibernation/sleep/etc., modes. StuRat (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be as simple as a sticky 'down-brightness' key? SteveBaker (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Key no; as the OP mentioned it requires a combination of keys to change the brightness. It could, however, be some input device that is sending (presumably erroneous) key codes. Does this problem occur when nothing is connected to the laptop? My guess would be that something in Linux is calling into BIOS incorrectly and the result is a reduced brightness setting (StuRat's suggestion of disabling BIOS-interfacing features is a good avenue of investigation). – 74  03:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you,StuRat (talk) was right, I turned off the screen saver and turned off the automatic dimming. – Elliott  17:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

TFT monitor flickering

Dear friends, My TFT monitor is flickering i has did an autoadjust, and checked resolution etc, but i can't get solve, monitor has parchused just before four month please reply ASAP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajesh4028 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try powering off the monitor (at the plug) and leaving for a few minutes, then turning it back on. If the problem persists contact the seller or manufacturer - a four month old monitor should still be under guarantee. Exxolon (talk) 09:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also check that the video cable is securely connected to the computer and the monitor--these cables can be quite finicky to get attached. – 74  09:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know the refresh rate ? Is it adjustable ? What's the model ? StuRat (talk) 09:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Open Office tutorial

I have a text document with a table in it. It's a 2x2 table that covers one page. Each cell has a bit of text in it. Basically it's set up so that I can cut the paper in quarters and have basically the same text on each slip. The text goes something like "Here are your pictures of XXX. If you would like more pictures of (him/her)..." I also have a spreadsheet with names, gender, and some other info.

Each week, as names (and other info) are added to the spreadsheet, I'd like to print out that table again with the new names in place of the XXXs and the correct pronouns used according to the gender associated with that name. I need quadrant 1 to be the first name/gender in the spreadsheet, quadrant 2 to be the second, and so on. Yes, there are too many names each week to do this manually, not to mention the pronoun switches.

I want to use Open Office for this. What I'm looking for is a tutorial to show me how to get this done. I'm not sure what I need to search for though since the most obvious keywords get me a LOT of ghits. Any help? Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 10:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you want to do a Mail Merge. This site (http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1167989,00.html) suggest it will show you how to do it. Your best bet (by far) is to get all the data in shape in your spreadsheet and then have it placed into the word-doc for printing/layout. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

perl convert date to readable value

Using perl language, how do I convert active directory badPasswordTime to readable value ? Here is an example of an unreadable value: "128708024625164794". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.47.34.2 (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What date/time is that supposed to represent? IMHO it doesn't quite fit as a unix timestamp... or I could be wrong. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 13:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

maybe this will help:

dont know what the relationship is between windows and unix time. it seems to be similar to the times you post, since when I go perl -we 'print localtime()' I get 545115211091320, which is more or less as long as yours. Maybe yours starts at 1900 instead of 1970 (?) or something. Anyway just use the script above, take a known date, see how wrong the script's answer is, and add or subtract that many seconds from the windows badtime. good luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.227.157 (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Googling badPasswordTime tells me "This value is stored as a large integer that represents the number of 100 nanosecond intervals since January 1, 1601 (UTC)". Brilliant! --Sean 15:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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