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May 4

edit swf

Resolved

I don't think this is possible, but is there any possible way to download an .swf flash file and view/edit its source? -- penubag  (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You can use a flash decompiler (e.g., Flash Decompiler Trillix), which will convert the .swf to one or more .fla files, which can be opened in Adobe Flash Professional. It doesn't work as well as editing the original source files, though.--24.9.71.198 (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Thanks just what I was looking for! -- penubag  (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

div/mod in C?

in Haskell and Standard ML, they have two sets of integer division and remainder functions:

1. div / mod - div is integer division truncated towards negative infinity; and mod a b is a - div a b, or equivalently, mod a b is the remainder with the same sign as b
2. quot / rem - quot is integer division truncated towards 0; and rem a b is a - quot a b, or equivalently, rem a b is the remainder with the same sign as a

Other languages seem divided on this. In C and Java, it seems that signed integer division and remainder are the second kind (i.e. truncating towards 0, and remainder has same sign as first argument). In Python and Ruby however, they seem to use the first kind. What is the easiest way to do the "div" and "mod" operations in C? --206.72.77.76 (talk) 02:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You know that / in C++ will truncate towards zero. You want it to truncate towards negative infinity. Correct? It seems to me that it would be very simple to use a ternary operator: quot = a<0 ? (a-1)/b : a/b; -- kainaw™ 03:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Except that the actual sign of the remainder is implementation-defined. I suggest making a simple function that also checks the sign. decltype (talk) 06:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not implementation-defined though. According to the C99 standard, the division operation is defined to truncate towards 0. And the remainder is defined such that (a/b)*b + a%b == a. So it has to have the sign of the first operand. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 08:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct. I was responding to Kainaw, who gave his example in C++. The OP mentioned C, which in practice often means C89/90. decltype (talk) 07:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's the best I can come up with:

      div(a,b) = (b<0 && a>0) ? (a - 1) / b - 1     : (b>0 && a<0) ? (a + 1) / b - 1     : a / b
      mod(a,b) = (b<0 && a>0) ? (a - 1) % b + b + 1 : (b>0 && a<0) ? (a + 1) % b + b - 1 : a % b

If you know b > 0 then you can shorten things considerably:

      div(a,b) = (a < 0) ? (a + 1) / b - 1     : a / b
      mod(a,b) = (a < 0) ? (a + 1) % b + b - 1 : a % b

You have to be careful when writing these things because of integer wraparound. For example, (a-b+1)/b wouldn't work in place of (a+1)/b-1. I think this will correctly handle the weird boundary cases like b == INT_MIN. -- BenRG (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

XP non-admin account vs. Power control panel

So on my XP machine, the account with administrator rights (let's call it "XAdmin") has the "Power" control panel set up such that the display is never automatically turned off. On the account that lacks administrator rights (let's call this "XUser"), the "Power" control panel shows that the display is automatically turned off after 20 minutes. From the XUser account, clicking the popup menu that changes this 20-minute setting causes an "Access Denied" dialog box to appear.

Is this behavior working as it's supposed to? Does the machine have a single setting for this configuration item, and it applies no matter what users are logged in? Currently the display indeed does not ever turn off - why does XUser show it as turning off after 20 minutes? (I would not care much about this except that I'm trying to diagnose a problem where if the computer is configured to turn off the monitor, sometimes it seems to crash while the monitor is off.) Thanks in advance - Tempshill (talk) 03:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I also run non-administrator, and certain things just don't work right, because Microsoft wrote them that way. The "access denied" box is very familiar -- just like when you try to open the system time. - mako 05:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Promote software?

What is the best way I can promote my software (get lots of users)? I've tried submitting it to Softpedia and MajorGeeks but that doesn't increase downloads much (except when there are updates). It's hosted on SourceForge, if that helps. Any ideas? --wj32 ^t/c 09:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Having them on good-name download sites provides the potential user with good comparisons between similar products. BUT you must have your own site as well. A simple blog or free web page is enough. Check the developers' sites for some other programs from Majorgeeks. These sites give a description of the program, often include a change-log of updates and fixes, and form the user manual and FAQ for the program. On some, the developer actually personally provides tech support for individual queries. Such a page increases the search engine hits that mention your product (look into how to tag the page for more hits). You can also ask users to put a mention of your product on their blog or site. And you can mention your product on forums about related topics (but do not spam them).KoolerStill (talk) 13:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I use software having websites with nice URLs and easily available license information. Many users prefer to use packages from their own GNU/Linux distribution, adding it to some popular ones should help. MTM (talk) 19:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Restricting access to all but 2 websites

I would like to know if it's possible to set Internet Explorer (I don't know which version, I havent't seen the computer yet. I do now it comes with Windows XP SP3) to prevent access to all but Mozilla Firefox's and Ubuntu Linux's website. I need to access these two websites in order to download a live distro.

On a sidenote, as a user without administrator priviledges in Microsoft Windows XP SP3, am I allowed to download files? I know I won't be allowed to execute them, but what about downloading? -- 219.101.253.98 (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't specifically help with XP, but this is what I did using vista. it might work in XP.

I set up my kids Firefox running on vista so it only goes to a few sites. Go to windows user accounts, click on manage another account, choose the account you want to set the restrictions on(in this case my kids account), then click on 'set up parental controls'. Then click on 'Windows web filter', then click 'edit the allow and block' list. Now you can put in only the sites that you want, remembering to put /* at the end of the address, for example 'www.bbc.co.uk/*' will allow access to all of the bbc, but nothing else. It doesn't matter if my kids use firefox, or explorer, or somehow get hold of another browser, they can not get to any other sites other than those on the list. Well, they've not figured out a way so far.121.220.220.12 (talk) 11:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Why would you want to block all but two websites?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It's what people call a "practical joke". -- Hoary (talk) 01:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I thing this feature can only be found on Windows Vista, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

And no, it's not a practical joke, I just don't want to run the risk of running into malware and such things. Call it paranoia, if you will, but never a practical joke. I am, after all, the only person who uses this computer anyway... -- 219.101.253.98 (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

problem in c++ program

Hey! can someone please sort out the problem with this program?? Thanks in advance.--59.103.12.232 (talk) 10:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

void main()
{
    int s, r, n, c;
    
    for (s = 20, r = 1; r <= 4; r++, s--)
    {
        cout << setw(s);

        for(n = 4; n <= c; n--)
        {
            cout << "x";

            for (c = 1; c <= r; c++)
                cout << "y";
        }
    }
}

You could start by initializing the variable c to something before using it. Bendono (talk) 11:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

(Formatted the code). --wj32 ^t/c 11:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Also in the second for loop... You are checking for n to be less than another value. Then, you decrement n. For the loop to start, n must be smaller than c. Then, you make n even smaller. It will be difficult for this loop to ever run to completion. It is more likely that n will get smaller and smaller and smaller until the int wraps. -- kainaw™ 11:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The program is ill-formed because main does not return int. What was the program supposed to do? decltype (talk) 07:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

My website

This is my website. I would like to know how to add meta tags to it so that i can optimize it for search. [Link to website] Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duality32 (talk • contribs) 14:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, editing the RefDesk talk header is not the answer. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Nor is using your talk page for spam--Jac16888^Talk 14:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at our article about meta tags. See if that helps at all. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  18:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Most crawlers do little with meta tags as far as I can see, mainly because user-reported data about what your website contains is not usually accurate. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yea, Meta tags are sort of an obsolete technology. Great in 1998. But now search engines pretty much ignore them and try to base their listings on the pages' content. APL (talk) 19:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Downloading embedded videos

Is there any way to download this? I don't want to download this specific video but I was wondering if it is possible to download this type of media? Thanks! --217.227.68.197 (talk) 15:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Using Real Player you can download videos from websites easily. But be sure to check the copyrights of the website you are downloading from. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  16:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

For some reason that doesn't seem to be working...--217.227.68.197 (talk) 17:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

After installing it you have to restart your internet broser. Once that has been completed load the video, move your mouse over it and near the top (top right corner) of the video you will see a real player toolbar popup. clicking that will allow you to download that video. You can also just right-click on that video and choose 'Download this video to RealPlayer" at the bottom of the list. Now if it matters i am using winXP w/ Firefox. If you are using something different please let us know.– Elliott(Talk|Cont)  17:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Vista and I have now tried with Google Chrome, IE 7 and Firefox but to no avail. I get the realplayer toolbar and I can click it and it loads and then says that it's not possible! Thanks for your help, though! --217.227.68.197 (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Try it on YouTube(or another website that shows videos) , If it works then we know that the website you are trying must have protections on it. If it does not work maybe you downloaded the one for windows XP.– Elliott(Talk|Cont)  18:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It has worked! Thanks! Is the quality always quite bad? --217.227.68.197 (talk) 18:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I dont know about the quality but i think there might be an option in Realplayer to change that... – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  19:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Flash Videos in Ubuntu 9.04

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04 and i am having a problem watching flash videos full screen. They just seem really jumpy and laggy. This was not happening in 8.10. Initially i just thought it was a problem with the upgrade so i wiped my hard drive and did a fresh install of 9.04. I am still having that problem. This is on a Dell latitude D610. I have noticed this problem on Hulu, YouTube, And Adult Swim, I have not tried anywhere else. Any help would be greatly appreciated. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  17:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Does this ubuntu bug posting help at all? There are several solutions tried in it. -- JSBillings 21:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  04:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

TI 89 Titanium list sorting

Are there any list-sorting routines built into the TI 89 Titanium that can be used in functions, not just in programs? --Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

May 5

Need help with ASP

Hi All,

I working on getting a basic email sent from a website hosted at volusion.com.

They don't provide access to CDO, and but they did give an alternate solution: an 'smtp' class of their own. Am getting an error tho, but their support isnt very good so I'm trying here.:

[1]

The what i have so far (the class is from volusion.com):

<%
Class vsmtp
	Public VsmtpKey
	Public EmailSubject
	Public EmailFrom
	Public EmailTo
	Public TextBody
	Public HTMLBody
	Private Attachment
	Private AttachmentFolder
	Public Sub AddAttachment(ByRef FilePath)
		If AttachmentFolder = "" Then
			AttachmentFolder = Server.MapPath("/v")
		End If
		If StrComp(Left(FilePath,Len(AttachmentFolder)),AttachmentFolder,vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
			FilePath = Replace(Mid(FilePath,Len(AttachmentFolder)-1),"\","/")
		End If
		If StrComp(Left(FilePath,3),"/v/",vbTextCompare) <> 0 Or InStr(FilePath,",") > 0 Then
			Err.Raise 512, "vsmtp.AddAttachment", "Invalid Attachment Path"
		End If
		If IsEmpty(Attachment) Then
			Attachment = FilePath
		Else
			Attachment = Attachment & "," & FilePath
		End If
	End Sub

	Public Sub Send()
		Dim HTTPRequest
		Set HTTPRequest = CreateObject("WinHTTP.WinHTTPRequest.5.1")
		HTTPRequest.Open "POST", "http://" & Request.ServerVariables("LOCAL_ADDR") & "/vsmtp.asp", False
		HTTPRequest.SetRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
		HTTPRequest.SetRequestHeader "Host", Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME")
		HTTPRequest.Send _
			"VsmtpKey=" & Server.URLEncode(VsmtpKey) &_
			"&Subject=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailSubject) &_
			"&FromEmailAddress=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailFrom) &_
			"&ToEmailAddress=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailTo) &_
			"&Body_HTML=" & Server.URLEncode(HTMLBody) &_
			"&Body_TextOnly=" & Server.URLEncode(TextBody) &_
			"&Attachment_CSV=" & Server.URLEncode(Attachment)
		If HTTPRequest.ResponseText <> "True" Then
			Set HTTPRequest = Nothing
			Err.Raise 8, "vsmtp.Send", "Unable to send email. Check logs for details."
		End If
		Set HTTPRequest = Nothing
	End Sub
End Class
%>

<%
Set m = new vsmtp
m.VsmtpKey = "my long key here"
m.EmailSubject = "Test Subject"
m.EmailFrom = "test@testdomain.com"
m.EmailTo = "test@testdomain.com"
m.TextBody = "Hello World!"
m.HTMLBody = "Hello World"
m.Send()
Set m = nothing
%>

note: When I comment out m.Send() I get no errors, so i'm guessing thats where the problem is. Also Im new to asp, how can I get the error description to show?

TIA PrinzPH (talk) 00:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I am no expert in VBScript, but it looks to me that the volusion supplied class is attempting to use an uninitialized variable Attachment. Try adding the following to the top of the following to the top of the Send method.

		If IsEmpty(Attachment) Then
			Attachment = ""
		End If

If Attachment is undefined, it might be invalidating the expression in ther HTTPRequest.Send statement. If that doesn't help, try adding ... & " " & Err.Description) to the end of the Err.Raise statement, which might give you a more informative error message. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks for the reply, tried it, didn't work and I found the reason: Turns out the '(serverip)/vsmtp.asp' does not exist. It took me a long while to locate the log files. Thanks any ways! PrinzPH (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

An easy and cheap (preferably free) way to read & convert JPEG 2000 files to regular JPG?

What I would like to do here is get scans from the Internet Archive which are in JPEG 2000 format, convert them to JPG, and upload them to Commons. The Archive used to provide book downloads in JPG, but converted over to JPEG 2000 after a certain date, so more recent scans no longer have the option to be downloaded in JPG format. Thanks. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 05:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm not really offering a suggestion for software or a method to do this conversion, but if you're going to do this you might consider converting the images to PNG rather than JPEG, so that you aren't compounding compression artifacts. —Bkell (talk) 07:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Adobe Photoshop will do the job. It's almost free, at the low price of $999. You can download a 30-day trial, though. Plus, Photoshop supports automated conversions of groups of files, if you're dealing with a sizable collection.--67.174.107.10 (talk) 07:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Read [2]. There are a few free options that might work for you. --Stefan ^talk 09:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

GIMP has a JPEG2000 plugin to open those files and it is easy to save them as JPG once they are open. -- kainaw™ 14:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

ImageMagick is good for scripting or converting large numbers of files. I think it supports JPG2000. APL (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want to do batch conversin if images, IrfanView is a good choce. I'll say it's easier to use than all the above programs. F (talk) 07:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the recs. In looking at the list of software that works with the file format I was unsure of which ones to try out, so I wanted to get people's input. Will report how it goes if I have issues. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Google and Wordpress

I've recently started a blog with the help of Google's free blog service, and it seems that Google doesn't support Wordpress.Is it possible to install Wordpress for blogs in Google? Please help. 117.194.231.202 (talk) 07:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In case it helps, I'm talking about something like this http://aanushaghosh.blogspot.com/ blog. 117.194.229.230 (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No - if you want a Wordpress blog, just sign up at Wordpress.com — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 07:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Bitrate vs Quality

I have a video in VOB format with:

Variable Bit Rate Video Stream (12.8 Mbps, 9800 kbps nominal)
Constant Bit Rate Audio Stream (448 kbps)

I would like to convert this video to MP4 iPod format, but am unsure what bitrates to use so as to get the best quality. Video quality must not be so low as to cause noticeable artifacts in the video, and Audio quality must not be so low as to cause random static or buzzing in the audio stream. I'm using SUPER to convert the videos and it would be a LONG conversion process. Numbers are good. Thanks in advance.  Buffered Input Output 12:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

creating lists in Excel

I am trying to use Excel to create picking slips for product in a storage facility. Is there some version of the LOOKUP function (or other worksheet function) that will return more than a single value for the cell being looked up? I would especially like to be able to control the number of values returned.
On one sheet, let's say I have a whole bunch of different items (apples, lemons, pears, etc) in a column with the column next to it listing the slots where each lot can be found. Maybe there are dozens of fruits, with dozens of lots apiece. On a second sheet, I'd like a way of saying "apples, 3" and having it return the first three values for apples found on the first sheet. The MATCH and LOOKUP functions can return the first value, but nothing else. Is this possible? I have Excel 2007. Matt Deres (talk) 13:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at using a Pivot-table = you should be able to place the items in to show each of the available items and have a drop-down list to choose the item you're interested in. It may mean reorganising the data in the background depending on how 'table' like the information you have is. Worth a look though as pivot-tables are extremely flexible and very useful in many situations (once mastered). ny156uk (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Pivot tables seem to provide me with what I want, but not the way that I want it. :) For one thing, there seems to be a lot of extraneous stuff that gets added to the screen that I don't need. Also, it seems difficult to get the table to work fluidly; I don't want to have to redo the query every time circumstances change. With something like the LOOKUP function, I can easily use references to other cells to semi-automate queries and make the sheet more user-friendly for people who don't like Excel (!). Any other suggestions? Matt Deres (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've managed to do at least some of what you want by using a mixture of MATCH, INDEX and OFFSET and some "helper" columns. If your fruits are in a named range called FruitList and "Apples" (or whatever) is in A2, then =MATCH(A2,FruitList,0) in B2 gives the position of Apples in the list. Then in C2 put =MATCH(A2,OFFSET(FruitList,B2,0),0), which means "look for Apples, starting after the previous one you found"), and in D2 =MATCH(A2,OFFSET(FruitList,B2+C2,0),0). Then if the slots are in SlotList you can use the formulas: =INDEX(SlotList,B2), =INDEX(SlotList,B2+C2) and =INDEX(SlotList,B2+C2+D2) to get the names of the slots. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Ho, ho, ho! That's the kind of thing I had in mind. I make use of hidden columns, etc. all the time, but hadn't figured this arrangement out. Well done! I was hoping for something straightforward, but that doesn't appear to me to be an option, so this is a huge step forward for me from what I'd been playing with. Thanks very much. Matt Deres (talk) 02:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Game too slow

I just bought a new game, GTA IV, on my laptop, Windows Vista platform. It has a 1 GB ram and a built in NVIDIA GeForce card. Yet it was unable to play this game. The game plays in still images, very slow....the configuration is not enough. So what are my options ? Is it possible to make the game play better by downloading (free) game accelerators ? Will it help if i upgrade my RAM ? Is it possible to put a new graphics card in a laptop ? What do i do to make this and other new games play ? Rkr1991 (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

"Game accelerators" are fake. I don't have this game on my PC, but the Grand Theft Auto IV article has a "System Requirements" matrix that shows that 1GB ram is a minimum requirement, which doesn't bode well. You should compare the model of your GeForce card with the "minimum" and "recommended" card types - maybe your GeForce card is particularly old (believable since laptop GeForce chips are usually pretty weak). You need to make sure you have the very latest GeForce driver (use the nvidia website). If that doesn't work, you may need a beefier setup with more RAM and a better graphics card. Tempshill (talk) 14:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I got an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M graphics card. Is it too old ? So what do i do know ? Is it possible to download any free update for this which would make it work ? And first of all can a new graphics card be inserted into a laptop ? Will increasing ram speed halp ?Rkr1991 (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The 7150s are not high-performance cards, and I think the "Go" cards are even worse (to conserve energy.) They also came out mid-2007. I hate to break it to you, but what you've got is a low-end video card that came out nearly two years ago. I don't think you're going to be able to play GTA4 with this machine. GTA4 requires a pretty high-performance system. Sorry. APL (talk) 15:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried to play the game on minimum settings? Lots of games have lower resolutions/draw distances/less enemies/whatever so that you can play them on lesser machines more smoothly - lots of people seem to leave it on standard and put up with jerky-playing but it's better (in my eyes) to play at worse-quality smoother. Anyhoo it may be worth a try as often the resolution can be reduced to a smoother-running level. ny156uk (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that GTA IV's PC version is well-known for having various problems and glitches, including serious framerate problems. I believe Rockstar has released a number of patches for the game, but I'm not sure how well they address these issues. In any case, as the game is known to be pretty buggy, the problem might not get solved by simply buying a new graphics card. (Or, you know, it might. But you might want to look at what kind of results others have reported before you make your purchase...) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I used Windows Vista with 1 GB of RAM and while I kind of like Vista it seems to me that 1 GB of RAM is not enough for anything beyond basic use. Everything runs great when I am just using Firefox and such, but when I try to use Photoshop it all grinds to unusable slowness. Perhaps my problem is something else and not that Vista is a major memory hog, but my understanding is that it is. My current working theory is that 1 GB of RAM is not enough to run anything serious under Vista. Pfly (talk) 08:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Vista is widely regarded as Microsoft's devious way of getting people to shell out for XP.

I don't know about your part of the world. In mine (Tokyo), the computer "makers" (companies that sell computers made for them in China, Taiwan, etc) all dutifully put in their catalogues the Japanese-language equivalent of "[name of company] recommends Windows Vista [particular version]"; however, they say less conspicuously but still clearly that the products are also available with XP. Meanwhile, the retailers make it very clear that XP is an option. This seems to be a big sales point.

NB I have no personal preference here. Actually I've used Vista a lot more than I've used XP, though I've only used Vista on spanking new, expensive machines belonging to others. I only retain a single Windows machine, on which I am typing this very message, using K-Meleon contentedly running under Windows 2000 on a nine (?) -year-old computer with 192MB of RAM. (Not that I'd dream of touting this as a games computer.)

So you may wish to consider "downgrading" to XP (or even 2000), if you can't add more RAM (or even if you can). -- Hoary (talk) 08:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I dispute most of what Hoary wrote. Anyway, Vista doesn't have anything to do with the problems the OP is experiencing. He needs to change his settings to minimum possible graphics options and see if that works. If not, his graphics chipset is probably insufficient, and his RAM is, too. Tempshill (talk) 15:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I have GTA4 for PC myself. I think the short answer here is that the laptop in question is well below the minimum specification for playing the game, and even somebody with the minimum specification will probably still find the performance of the game to be unacceptably bad. The game performance is more dependent on CPU and graphics than RAM though. Rjwilmsi 18:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

GTA IV is a very high requirement game on the PC and even with (for example) a GTX 200 series GPU, a 2.5+Ghz quad core processor and 4GB of RAM, you still can't play the game on the highest settings. With a similar setup to what I listed, I need to keep the settings on medium or I get a lot of stuttering and dropped frames. On top of that, I would reccomend a MINIMUM of a 512MB GPU with 1GB or more being prefereable because this particular game stores a lot of texture data. A fast and multicore processor will also help. If you have a modern desktop, I'd reccomend installing it on that or seeing what happens when you turn down all settings to minimum. Downgrading to XP will not help in this case. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Digital audio player with resume-from-playlist function

moved from WP:RD/S

I am looking for a digital audio player with a function that allows me to resume from playlists. Let me explain: I have a playlist 1 of, say, 10 tracks. I listen to it for awhile and get to the middle of track 3. I turn off the player, turn it on a while later, and would like it to resume where I left off (in the middle of track 3), and continue to track 4 of the same playlist when track 3 is done. I listen for a bit longer, get to the middle of track 5. I stop playing, and load up playlist 2, composed of, say, 8 tracks. I start listening to playlist 2, stopping when I get to 20s into track 6 (of playlist 2). I stop, and switch again to playlist 1 - at which point I would like it to resume from where I left off on playlist 1, namely the middle of track 5 (of playlist 1). In other words, I would like a player which not only stores the location where I last stopped, both when I turn it off, and when I switch playlist (where it should store my location within a track and the track's position within a playlist). Are there any players which do this? Thanks in advance! — QuantumEleven 15:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This for sure belongs at the Computing Reference desk. Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm unfamiliar with other devices (read: Apple fanboy), but I know in iTunes there is a setting to set songs to play where you left off. There may even be an option to set a whole playlist to act like that and have that transfer over to a newer iPod that would support it. -- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 16:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comparing two CPUs

Lets say I have one CPU that has a clock rate of 2 GHz and 4 cores. I have another CPU which has a clock rate of 1 GHz but 8 cores. Other than that all specs are the same.

2*4 == 1*8

So which one is faster? Assuming their prices are the same, which one should you buy?

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.234.68 (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Not information to compare the two. See Megahertz myth. Taggart.BBS (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If the two CPUs are exactly the same, except for the fact that one has twice the number of cores, but runs at half the speed, and other components (particularly things like the Northbridge also perform the same in both configurations, then the theoretical speed would be the same

That said, I can't think of any range of CPUs which have variants with double the cores at half the speed - though you could perhaps Underclock a multi-core CPU so you could end up with this situation.

Its difficult to write software that works optimally on multi-core CPUs - with more cores, you're less likely to use all of the CPU's power - so if there was a real world choice between the two for typical home/office use (e.g. Web browsing, office apps, games, etc.) 4 Cores at 2Ghz would likely be faster than 8 cores at 1Ghz. Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 20:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Amdahl's law says that N processors each running at speed M give you less performance than one processor running at speed NxM. So in your example, 4 core at 2GHz wins over 8 core at 1GHz - no matter what. Worse still - many programs are still not written to make use of more than one or two cores - so unless you're running lots of programs in parallel, it's rare indeed for more than a few cores to be doing much work. With more cores you may also get contention for resources - so even in programs that are designed to work with more cores - they may run faster on fewer. But it's a deep and tricky subject...you can almost certainly find corner cases where this is not the case. SteveBaker (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

List of different processors and their speeds or ages

I'm considering buying a secondhand computer from a shop that has several different models for sale. Since its very cheap to buy extra memory from eBay, I want to buy the computer with the fastest or most recent CPU. I have read the article Megahertz myth. Is there a list to be had anywhere that orders the ages, speeds, or desirabilities of CPUs over the past few years please? I want to be able to quickly glance at the list while in the shop and use it to select the computer with the best CPU. 89.241.158.255 (talk) 20:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Benchmark (computing)#External links includes CPU benchmark database which seems to have most modern CPUs in it - as for ages / release dates, the pages within ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:Lists of microprocessors would be a good place to start. Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 20:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the kinds of software you're going to run - but the speed of your memory and the memory bus is typically the bottleneck...so pay attention to motherboard speeds and the speed of the RAM you add.

I have some other advice - which is: Don't buy the latest technology. Buy something a little older that's a LOT cheaper. Counter-intuitively, this gets you a faster computer...bear with me!

If you have a fixed amount of money to spend on computer technology each year - your computer will be faster (on average) if you buy cheaper, slightly outdated, compute power and replace it more frequently - versus buying the very latest, greatest technology, but spending so much that you have to keep it longer before upgrading again. I studied this rather carefully as a work assignment about 5 years ago and concluded that buying year-old technology would save you about 60% of the cost and therefore allow you to upgrade almost three times as frequently - resulting (back then) in having a computer that's about 40% faster on average. However this depends on the rate of progress of the technology and the rate of price drop for older technology and all of that is pretty variable - so you'll have to make your own call on that one. SteveBaker (talk) 03:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a list anywhere that ranks the desirability of common older models of computers sold say from 2003 to 2006 please? 78.145.24.191 (talk) 12:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

"Models of computers", no, because there are too many manufacturers and configurations to make a chart that is possible to understand; but this chart at Tom's Hardware is a processor ranking from 2004 that tested the CPUs' speed at compressing files with WinRAR. Over to the right there's a 2006 chart and a 2007 chart, and under each one there are many benchmarks other than WinRAR that you can examine. By the way, a tip: Ask new questions at the bottom of the page rather than appending a question here - the readership of answerers is better at the bottom of the page. Tempshill (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

CMOS AND gate

When constructing an AND gate using CMOS logic, why can't one simply reverse Vss and Vdd instead of combining NAND and an inverter? 173.73.140.91 (talk) 21:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

See the MOSFET article, as it has a fairly good description of FET operation. The NAND circuit consists of a combination of p-channel and n-channel FETs. The p-channel FETs (the ones with the small circle) are connected with the drain towards Vdd (+voltage) and the n-channel FETs are connected with the source towards Vss (-Voltage). What is not apparent is that there is also a substrate connection which is connected to either Vdd (for p-channel FETs) or Vss (for n-channel FETs). The diagrams on this web page (about half way down) shows these connections more clearly. To form a channel in a p-channel FET, a negative gate-to-source (gate-to-substrate) voltage must be applied. Similarly, to form a channel in a n-channel FET, a positive gate-to-drain (gate-to-substrate) voltage must be applied. If the Vss and Vdd voltages were swapped, neither of these conditions would occur and no active channels would form. The result (I believe) would be that the output would be undriven. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

May 6

Computer programming comics

I'm looking for some comics based on computer programming (and I'm rather surprised at the sparsity of them on XKCD). Any references to computer programming comics (even just one comic in a collection) would be appreciated. -- kainaw™ 03:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a few from Dilbert: http://www.globalnerdy.com/2007/11/28/dilbert-on-extreme-and-agile-programming/ http://www.s-anand.net/dilbert.html#20050823 http://www.s-anand.net/dilbert.html#20050824 http://www.s-anand.net/dilbert.html#20051116 — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

There were also lots of programming comics and longer storylines in Userfriendly, too many to list them all here. One more thing that instantly came to mind are the old Topolino comics (the mass-produced Italian Disney comics), especially those from the late 60s/early 70s. Depictions of computers, programming and the effects of changing programs were as stupid and unrealistic as you can probably imagine in early 70s kids' stories, but there was the occasional gem. In one memorable story, Scrooge McDuck has bought a new computer that nobody understands how to program, then they discover by accident that a savage from Polynesia is the only person in the world who can talk to the computer. The savage has an extremely long, scruffy beard and talks in a peculiar dialect that consists entirely of phrases like "grrrk awk sed". I don't know if it was intentional (I have no idea how probable it is that mid-70s Italian comics artists would even have heard of Unix), but it always makes me think of Richard Stallman. If you want, I can try and dig up the story - this would take a couple of days, though, as I have several hundreds of these comics to dig through :P -- Ferkelparade π 12:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Abstruse Goose often has computer programming comics, along with science & math ones. -- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 01:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I had created Category:Workplace webcomics long back, unfortunately it has not grown enough to have a sub-cat for Computing webcomics. What is XKCD? Jay (talk) 08:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

XKCD F (talk) 10:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added these to my list of searches. I am trying to build a database of them so when it is relevant, I can locate a comic on a specific computer topic. Of course, there are some topics that I'm sure won't be covered. How much humor can you extract from the ternary operator? -- kainaw™ 19:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

MySpace

For anyone who knows a lot about MySpace. I just created a MySpace account but I meant to create it as a musician account. First, is it possible to change the account to a musician account? Second, if I cancel (close) an account, can another one be opened with the same name? Tezkag72 (talk) 03:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about MySpace, but I really doubt you can create a new account with the exact same name if the names are limited (that is, if you can't make one with the same name right at this moment with the other one). It would not be very intelligent to set up a system where once someone retired a name, it could be created again (it would create all sorts of impersonation problems). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

IP slash notation

Hello, I am studying for a networking course, and I am trying to familiarize myself with IP slash notation. The instructor expects us to interpret an IP address and its slash notation (x.x.x.x/x) to provide the IP address range, the network address, the subnet mask, and the broadcast address. I tried to Google for specific guides but cannot seem to find any results. Can it be explained more thoroughly here or a link provided to elsewhere? For example, with 216.9.137.100/24, how do I find out that 1-254 are usable addresses, that the network address is 216.9.137.0, that the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, and that the broadcast address is 255.255.255.255? 98.228.34.62 (talk) 03:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a good reference. -- kainaw™ 03:53, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

See also CIDR notation. --Spoon! (talk) 07:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The WP CIDR notation article isn't very accessible. Here's my quick attempt at an explanation (please point out if I'm wrong).

An IP (IPv4 at least) is 32 bits, some of which will be the "network" part and some of which will be the "host" part. So 192.168.1.1 has a network part (192.168.*.*) and a host part (*.*.1.1). In the old days, we knew which part was host and which part was network because they were predefined (Class networking). So you had Class A, Class B, and Class C addresses. The "slash", or CIDR notation, is a better way of defining which part is network and which part is host. So, whatever number's behind the slash (/24, /16, /28, whatever), that's how many bits of the IP are part of the network. Whatever is left is part of the host.

Keep in mind that an IP address like 192.168.1.1 is written in decimal octets. That same address could also be written 11000000 10101000 00000001 00000001 (or 3,232,235,777 (decimal), or C0A80101 (hex)). If you've got 192.168.0.0/24, then the first 24 of those bits will be the network, and the next 8 will be the host.

That tcipguide is good. Shadowjams (talk) 02:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Note: Shadowjams is referring to Kainaw's link. Thanks, gENIUS101 20:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

PostgreSQL: Adding columns to a view that other views depend on

I have a view in my PostgreSQL database that I need to add a column to. Other views are based on this view. PostgreSQL refuses to create-or-replace the old view with the new one; it also won't drop the old view and create the new one, even in the same transaction block. Is there any way to automate one of the following approaches, or any other approach that I haven't thought of?

1. Find and drop the dependent views, but keep their definitions stored in the main database, and add them back once the view update is done.
2. Create a copy of the view being updated, perform the update, change all references to the original to point to the copy, delete the original, and rename the copy to the original name.

NeonMerlin 08:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You cannot automate it in Postgres, but you can dump the database, run a search/replace (regex would be better) on the text file, and restore the database. I've done that many times when the work required was too difficult inside the database itself. As a benefit, you can restore on a different machine first to ensure it works. -- kainaw™ 17:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

PC to XBOX

Is it possible to convert a PC game to an XBOX 360 compatible one ? What software do i need to use ?Rkr1991 (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

No. APL (talk) 13:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

In practical terms, APL is right, of course - there's no simple converter you can use to play PC games on the XBOX (unless you count installing linux on your XBOX and then trying to run your PC games in Wine). But it is possible - it happens all the time when games developed for the PC are ported to the XBOX. You'd need the complete source code of the game, the XBOX development tools and a pretty good idea of what you were doing programming-wise, of course -- Ferkelparade π 14:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It might also be worth pointing out that you are entering a legally gray area here. Although you technically own the game, I seriously doubt that it would be legal to port it to another platform unless it is open-source or if you have permission from the game developer Dougofborg^(talk) 14:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You also need 8 to 10 months with two coders, some art, and some producer-type work. Tempshill (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Ferkelparade's Wine solution would not work. Wine does not emulate the CPU. Pre-existing Windows programs are all compiled to work on x86 CPUs, and would therefore not run on the 360's PowerPC chip. APL (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

If you have to ask, you won't be able to do it. --140.247.4.172 (talk) 15:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok so that's something for all you software geeks out there.... See of you can code a software which does...Rkr1991 (talk) 15:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Nope. Like every other console, the Xbox is a closed platform that is controlled by the console manufacturer (Microsoft, in this case). The only way to port a PC game to the Xbox without getting a title ID (basically, without cooperation from Microsoft) would be to somehow write a PC emulator in XNA Game Studio and then come up with a way to move the PC data over to the Xbox in some sneaky manner. It shall not happen. Tempshill (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm a game programmer - I've written software for the Xbox-360, PS-3 and PC. The consoles (all of them) are really very limited machines compared to a PC. The only reason people can make games that look so good on them is that because every Xbox-360 is identical to every other Xbox-360, you can use every quirk, every trick in the book. On PC's you never really know whether you can use this shortcut or that shortcut because it might not work with one particular graphics card or one particular RAM configuration - so you have to program extremely defensively - always assuming the worst. On a console, you can also program "on the bare metal" - you can talk directly to the graphics chip - no drivers - no nothing! But that advantage vanishes when you try to run PC software on it - and the relatively slow CPU, GPU, lack of RAM, etc become painfully obvious. Sure - with enormous effort, you could maybe port really simple games - tetris and such - but nothing with any degree of sophistication. Hardly any modern PC games will run in the tiny memory footprint of an Xbox. SteveBaker (talk) 01:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Which free GTD tool on windows would you recommend?

For people who are chaotic, tools for organizing things would be of immense help. A software that uses David Allen's principals would be an ideal one. I cannot evaluate which of the http://www.abstractspoon.com/tdl_resources.html or http://www.fusiondesk.com/products/starter.html or http://www.mylifeorganized.net/downloads/index.htm is good since iam too chaotic. Has anybody tried any of these?. If you have other recommendation, I would be more than happy to hear that too. 131.220.46.26 (talk) 14:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I always kept a "todo.xls" file around and used Microsoft Excel. Tempshill (talk) 16:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a lot of discussion of such tools at the Lifehacker blog; including topics such as which tool is best for specific tasks. --LarryMac | Talk 17:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

3 year old Windows XP computer

has an annoying habit of switching itself on in the middle of the night, when nobody is using it. Sometimes this happens during the day as well. Am I doing something to cause this? When I shut it down I usually use the Hibernate command. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.217.250 (talk) 17:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Try looking in your BIOS screens and see if the BIOS has been set up to start your computer at a particular time every day. Tempshill (talk) 17:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I knew someone with a computer that would spontaneously turn itself on. If would also sometimes turn itself off, or refuse to turn on when the power button was pressed. Our theory was that it was a dodgy connection in the power switch. Could it be the same issue with yours? --Tango (talk) 17:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

unplug it from the mains when not in use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 20:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Check the Wake on LAN settings on the card as I believe this is what is causing it to turn back on. You can find these settings by going to Device Manager and selecting Properties and then the advanced tab. WoL can either be activated via a "Magic Packet" or more simply by the network card receiving traffic or simply having the network connection plugged in, one of those last two is probably what is happening in your case (the router/switch is forwarding packets to it which in turn wakes the machine for example). Hope this helps! ZX81 ^talk 03:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't use hibernate; use shutdown instead. Astronaut (talk) 13:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That shouldn't be causing the issue, should it? Technically when you hibernate, the RAM state is saved and then the computer shuts itself off. Unlike the Standby mode, there is no difference in state between a computer that's been shut down and a computer that's been hibernated. I am betting ZX81 is correct here. Tempshill (talk) 20:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Setting up Belkin G (Wireless router) with a Edimax AR-7084gA modem-router

ill preface this with...I'm a technical person - I understand computers and have had no trouble in the past setting up networks, nor adding a router to an existing network (though to be fair it was wireless-to-wireless). Anyhoo i've tried about a million times now to get these two devices to share my ADSL connection - I want the modem to do its job and be a modem and I want the Belkin G to be a router and let my laptop connect to the net wirelessly. I've used the install cds, i've tried configuring in the router and the modem and so far i've got nowhere. Does anybody have idea of what you need to do to get a wired-router-modem to work with a wireless-router that hasn't got a modem. I've tried putting in the wireless router to A) use a dynamic connection B) use a PPPoA connection with same details as modem (i.e. username password etc.) and C) I've tried setting the router up as a 'wireless access point' under an IP within the main modem's DHCP range (is that right?). Any help would be hugely appreciated - at the moment my laptop is tethered to the world by wires (admittedly a very long network cable). ny156uk (talk) 20:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Scratch that i've figured it out. ny156uk (talk) 20:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

May 7

DOS

1. If Windows 2000, XP, and Vista had DOS support, would DosBox exist?

2. Why did they even remove the DOS support from those operating systems?

3. Does Microsoft know about DosBox?

143.238.237.25 (talk) 01:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

MS-DOS is only 16-bit and whilst the Windows 9x tree could use 32-bit file access, it was still running on a 16-bit operating system. To be able to run a true 32-bit (or higher) operating system (Windows 2000, XP, Vista) removing DOS was the only logical option. ZX81 ^talk 03:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course Microsoft knows about DOSBox. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

They didn't just remove DOS from Windows, they started from scratch with a completely new operating system, like Apple did going from OS 9 to OS X. Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32-bit) do have some DOS support—they recognize MS-DOS executables and fire up an emulation environment, though it's pretty limited (unlikely to work with any graphical games). If you want DOS support in the sense of booting your whole system into DOS, you could probably still do it if you wanted to, but do you really want to? People aren't writing DOS drivers for new hardware any more. At the very least your sound card wouldn't work. I don't know if modern hard drives would work, so you might end up running off of floppies, if you even still have a floppy drive. DOSBox is better. Microsoft could write an emulator to compete with DOSBox, but I don't think there'd be any money in that. -- BenRG (talk) 22:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

See Virtual DOS machine (ntvdm) and Windows on Windows. These are two programs already used in Windows to emulate DOS and provide backward compatability.--24.9.71.198 (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

MP3

Are there any free programs that can convert MP3 to MIDI? If so, could you please direct me to one? 143.238.237.25 (talk) 02:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This is like creating a vector image from a photograph, i.e. very difficult. The opposite (MIDI->MP3 or vector image->bitmap) is much easier. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of programs for this, some of poor quality and some quite expensive but some are free. GN Midi have a free wav2midi utility[3], if you already have an MP3 decoder (or you can download e.g. Audacity[4]). There's a lot of paid-for software but most of them offer free trial versions[5]. Unless people have recommendations, you'll have to try one of those (I used one a while ago but can't remember which; it wasn't great.) --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Dual-booting Win7/WinXP help

I had a dual-boot system running the Windows 7 RC, and Windows XP Home. I deleted the Windows 7 partition, and resized the main one back to take up the entire HDD. Now, when I turn my computer on, it still comes up with the dual-boot menu, and selecting Windows 7 results in an error message. How do I get rid of the dual-boot menu? 144.138.21.41 (talk) 07:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all it's wise to make a backup just in case, but if you have an XP CD (not a recovery CD) you can boot from that and select "repair using recovery console". When at the prompt simply type the following three commands without the commas pressing enter after each: fixmbr, fixboot, exit (and the machine will reboot after that last one). You SHOULD find the XP bootloader has been restored and your machine starts again without the Windows 7 bootloader/menu. As mentioned above though, please take a backup first! If you have a "Recovery CD" this won't work and you won't have these options - Those CDs are destructive created by the system manufacturers which will wipe the entire harddrive and put it back as when you first received the machine (losing all your files and programs). ZX81 ^talk 12:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a recovery CD, but it seemed to work anyway (strange). Thanks for that! But out of curiosity, is there a way to do it without the CD? Thanks!144.138.21.235 (talk) 21:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In XP's System->Startup there are settings displaying the startup order. Remove/edit carefully to get the desired result. feydey (talk) 11:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

That wouldn't work. Vista and above use a completely different boot manager. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Washii (talk • contribs) 04:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Vista, Core 2 Duo and 64-bit MSIs

Windows Vista Home Premium correctly identifies my dual-boot ThinkPad T61's CPU as an Intel T7300 Core 2 Duo, and the 64-bit version of Kubuntu 8.04 works fine on it. However, when I downloaded the 7Zip MSI packages, Windows told me of both the x64 and IA-64 versions, "This installation package is not supported by this processor type. Contact your product vendor." I ended up using the 32-bit version. Is this a bug in the MSIs or in Vista? NeonMerlin 07:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you using 64-bit Windows?F (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Following on from what the above wrote, it sounds like you're only using 32-bit Vista which is why the x64 installer won't work (Vista doesn't even come in an IA-64 versiom so there's no way that one will work). If you download the 32-bit MSI from the same page (second link down), does that work? To check which one you are using load "Control Panel" and select "System". On that screen that appears you'll see a part that says "System type" which will be either 32-bit or 64-bit. ZX81 ^talk 12:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

@

How to write @ on Mac? Kurtelacić (talk) 10:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

For which keyboard layout? File:Apple-wireless-keyboard-aluminum-2007.jpg clearly show the @ symbol as the shift character on the number 2 (ie. you hold down shift and press the "2"). Of course, it might be in a different location if your keyboard is not a US English layout. You user page suggests you might prefer to use a Croation/Slovene keyboard; File:Qwertz-si.svg is the layout for a Croation/Slovene PC keyboard, which suggests @ is accessed with Alt-GR + V. However, Apple keyboards don't have the AltGr key and instead use the Option key.

To summarise: If using a Mac US keyboard, use Shift + 2. If using a Mac Croatian keyboard, try Option + V.

Astronaut (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I took the liberty of fixing your qwertz link. --Sean 14:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That's been helpful. Thanks! Kurtelacić (talk) 21:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

How about an ANSWER!!! [converting VOB to MP4]

(ec) Fine then. Let's try this again.

I have a video in VOB format with:

Variable Bit Rate Video Stream (12.8 Mbps, 9800 kbps nominal)
Constant Bit Rate Audio Stream (448 kbps)

I would like to convert this video to MP4 iPod format, but am unsure what bitrates to use so as to get the best quality. Video quality must not be so low as to cause noticeable artifacts in the video, and Audio quality must not be so low as to cause random static or buzzing in the audio stream. I'm using SUPER to convert the videos and it would be a LONG conversion process. Numbers are good. Thanks in advance.  Buffered Input Output 12:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

There is no need to be rude. How can you possibly demand an answer from volunteers? If no-one replies then it's safe to assume no-one knows. Try posting in a more relevant forum or newsgroup. It may well be that, someone who doesn't check the reference desk each day does know the answer, but will now choose not to answer you because of your rude demanding tone. - 194.63.116.72 (talk) 14:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

perhaps you missed my above question, not set to a rude tone at all  Buffered Input Output 16:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The instructions at the top of this page tell you it might take several days, you only waited two. Be patient! --Tango (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Use a quantizer, set to 4 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not possible to say a good bit rate without knowing the video resolution and the frame rate, but obviously the higher the bit rate the higher the video quality is going to be. Ultimately though you'll need to trial and error it until you find something that you're happy with. To speed things up don't encode the entire video, only encode 60 seconds of it until you find a quality you're happy with. I'm not sure it's any help, but on my 320x240 phone I create Xvid AVI files (not MP4) at the same resolution, but with a frame rate lowered to 12fps and a bitrate of 250kb/s (2 passes) and an audio rate of 112kb/s and I find this produces very watchable video with low filesizes, but your mileage may vary. ZX81 ^talk 18:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

how do i do that on SUPER? It conveniently lacks a help file. PS--Sorry, everybody...  :(  Buffered Input Output 12:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Open source Java programs

I am working on some Java development projects. To learn more advanced coding techniques, I like to look at source code from top quality open source projects to see how and why others do things in the way they do. For php, there are scores of open source projects. For Java, I'm especially interested in end-user applications and Java web start applications, but it would be helpful to look at any high quality Java code.

I already know about and am using GeoServer, along with NASA World Wind and GeoTools which are SDKs/libraries. Aside from these, I'm not so sure what some of the top quality open source projects are and would like some suggestions. --Aude (talk) 14:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The Eclipse IDE is developed in Java, so that might be a good one to look at. Rjwilmsi 18:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

And the Vuze/Azureus BitTorrent client is open-source Java (though it doesn't use the Java windowing toolkits). It may not be particularly well documented, and sometimes it seems the files are a mess, but they may be worth a look too. (Warning: There are lots of files in Vuze). Washii (talk) 23:26, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

LG KP500 Mobile Phone

I know it isn't really computing but its technology so I thought this was the most appropriate place to post. Anyway my sister gave me a LG KP500 'Cookie' mobile phone for my birthday that she got 2nd hand off ebay but I've no clue on it. I know I need a Sim card but how do I tell if it has been unlocked so it'll take a sim card from any phone company & how do I get it unlocked if it hasn't been? Also is it possible to get a pay as you go sim card (contract?) for it & how would I do that? I'll need to get a charger & download the instructions book from the net anyway (all I've got is the phone) but is there anything else I need? Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

One fairly sure way of knowing if it's unlocked would be to temporarily borrow two SIM cards (different operators) from friends and try them in the phone. If they both work it's probably not locked. ZX81 ^talk 18:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In the UK at least, you will find that the mobile phone operators will happily sell you a pay as you go SIM card for a nominal charge of £1 or so. You should be able to order these off their websites. just borrow SIM cards from a couple of friends to see what networks your phone will work on. Rjwilmsi 18:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

New gTLD Applications

Where on ICANN's site can I find a list of all new gTLD applicants and which gTLD they're applying for for the current "New gTLD Application Proccess"? --Melab±1 ☎ 21:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Viruses

Hi, I have AVG and I have just had it scan for viruses, it found these...

\\?\globalroot\systemroot\system32\gxvxcmikhcfvqilgxmuuoxynpcuxiifvwvowu.dll

It identified this as a "Trojan horse clicker.YPK", I wasn't sure whether to get it to deal with it because its in system32 and I know thats important and so I didn't want to destroy the computer on a false positive.

C:\ProgramFiles\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe [3732]

This was also identified as a "Trojan horse clicker.YPK", isn't this just internet explorer? or should I move it to the virus vault?

More importantly when I search something in Google the links redirect to adverts about half the time, the problem is AVG can't find the virus doing this. I have googled this issue and many of the sites suggest the users running HijackThis to find problems, but ont get it to fix anything as it finds many problems, then posting what it finds on the forum and the users will tell the person what to do. The problem with these forums is they are very specific to each user. Can any one help with this?

Thanks very much for anyway in which you can help. 92.0.157.174 (talk) 21:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You've made the right choice in asking for help. First off, don't panic; malware can and will be removed. :-)

As for the Trojan that AVG detected it is almost certainly not a false positive. In this case it appears to be a redirection Trojan.

As for the second detected threat; did you make a typo? Internet Explorer's executable is supposed to be "iexplore.exe" under "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer"

HijackThis would probably help in removing this infection however it is not necessary right now. It can be run after the clean-up process to help to check that the malware on your computer has been removed.

To help prevent problems resulting from malware removal and to help prevent re-infection, please:

• Disable Windows System Restore
• Update Windows using Windows Update

Additionally, please provide the following details:

• Your version of Windows
• Your version of Internet Explorer
• The version of AVG you are using

--Initial Steps for Removal of Malware--

• Update and scan with whatever version of AVG you are using. Please post the log here but within collapse templates (Ideally you should register with Wikipedia so you can post the logs to your user talkpage). Please use {{collapsetop}} and {{collapsebottom}} at the top and bottom of any logs, respectively, for any logs you post throughout this malware removal process. This does not appear to be a major infection at the moment but that cannot be determined until you post your logs.
• Download, install, update, and scan with Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Please post the log here afterwards.
• Download, install, update, and scan with SUPERAntiSpyware Please post the log here afterwards.
  • If necessary, (Both programs will alert if necessary) reboot to finish removal of malware

These are the initial steps for removal of malware. If necessary, I will list further steps to complete removal of malware.

--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 22:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xp54321,

Thanks for your help, I have now made an account.

For the second threat it was a typo, its ‘’’C:\ProgramFiles\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe [3732]’’’.

I have now disabled Windows System Restore. On Windows Update is says I have no high priority updates so I haven’t updated; there were 3 software and 2 hardware updates but they were really random such as some tool for smart card vendors.

Version of Windows:Windows XP, Home Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 3

Version of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.11

Version of AVG: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.5.325

My AVG is up-to-date, after I scan; how do I post the log? and what is the log?

Once again, thanks. Random_Elephant 23:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The "log" is a record of events, usually detected threats and things such as updates or the disablement of components. I see you're using AVG Free. (As I suspected) Well, now you know why I don't recommend it. ;) I usually recommend that AVG users move on to avast! or Avira AntiVir instead. Now, I haven't used AVG Free in a long time, (Not since about early September of 2008 I think) but the log should be under "History" I believe. When you find the log screen please look for an "export" option. This should export the log to a text file that you can then copy and paste here (Within the collapse templates). [Would any AVG Free users on this Reference Desk please help out? AVG Free is not something I use ;)] Please post also the logs of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware after you scan with them.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 02:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, here is the log that AVG made. I downloaded and installed Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware but it wouldn't open when I clicked the logo. I also downloaded SUPERAntiSpyware but it wouldn't even let me install it, every time I tries it experienced an error and needed to close.

I also noticed that I have Spybot - Search & Destroy, but when I tried to open it it also wouldn't open.

Thanks, Random_Elephant 17:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Uh-oh. The infection may be worse than I thought. Be warned also that AVG Free did detect password stealing ware (PSW) and also Trojan Bankers (Trojans designed to steal personal information, especially banking details). Monitor your finances and online accounts closely over the next few months. :| Not being able to install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware or SUPERAntiSpyware is a potential sign of malware that will, unfortunately, be hard to remove. [It could be other things however] Under these conditions I'd normally use a bootable disk to remove malware. [Do you have a Windows Install CD handy? If you do, you'll be able to create an excellent malware-destroying Ultimate Boot CD] It appears that AVG did not remove the infected Internet Explorer executable. Please switch to an alternate browser for now. (Firefox is highly recommended) If you do wish to use Internet Explorer as your main browser, you'll probably have to reinstall it. Internet Explorer 7 download page I will go over steps and recommendations to secure your computer later but right now removal of malware takes priority. For the moment, try renaming Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware's installer to something random and then attempt to execute it. Try the same with SUPERAntiSpyware's installer. Download, install, update, and scan with:

• A-Squared Free
• Dr. Web CureIt!

Please also try installing and using all of the above again, but in safe mode [With networking for updating; but since malware often downloads updated versions of itself when you are connected; don't select this option right away, go to normal safe mode and scan for and remove any threats they find first. After those threats are removed, you can reboot then go back into safe mode, this time with networking so you can update and scan again. Some malware affects even Safe Mode. If some of the above anti-malware programs fail to work in Safe Mode, just move on to the next one] (Press F8 upon boot) Good luck. Following this, we'll look for any rootkits on your computer and also run HijackThis.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 20:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

VLC media player

For all its specialised features, why, why, WHY... does this program not have options that you can SAVE to get it to

• open as a maximised window by default
• repeat the file indefinitely by default

Some of the most commonly desired features are not even included (or if they are I can't find them). What the hell were the programmers thinking? I'm raging right now.--Yo Dawg! What's Going On Today? (talk) 22:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Why the FUCK is there no options menu? I can't control my anger here.--Yo Dawg! What's Going On Today? (talk) 22:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

OK fixed the latter problem it seems but I rage at annoying programs.--Yo Dawg! What's Going On Today? (talk) 22:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

So tell me, how do you get this program to run in a maximised window (NOT fullscreen) BY DEFAULT and get rid of that STUPID thing when you open a file and it displays the file's name at the bottom? I hate programmers sometimes, they're such idiots.--Yo Dawg! What's Going On Today? (talk) 22:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Media Player Classic, an alternative player, has a lot of really nice interface tweaks, and most of its options can be specified on a command line or saved in a shortcut. Nimur (talk) 01:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It strikes me that perhaps you would get more knowledgeable responses at the official VLC forums, especially to questions like "why is it like this", as it's a little unlikely that one of the designers of VLC is hanging out here. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 05:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

and unlikely a counsellor to help you manage your inner rage... Sandman30s (talk) 07:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

VLC appears to have command line options that will do what you want (-f -L). If you don't need a GUI, you could also use mplayer, which can do this as well (-fs -loop 0) and is far less buggy than VLC. -- BenRG (talk) 10:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

May 8

Which Distro Should I Use?

Now before the flamewars and links to polishlinux start, let me say that I know that each Linux distro has its advantages, and am familiar with the "how to choose a distro" websites.

What Linux (or BSD; really anything that's free) distro is right for me? I run Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex right now, and wanted to do a fresh install to Jaunty Jackalope (because screw KDE 4.1), but then I started shopping around to see how the other distros are doing again. Gentoo looks needlessly complicated (I'm not against a steep learning curve, so long as it's worth it, but I'm not convinced that Gentoo is) and I'm hesitant to switch to RPMs.

I am only an "intermediate" level user, but am not afraid of getting my hands dirty with more complicated systems, as I'm willing to learn whatever I need to; so long as it's worth the trouble. The asthetics of the OS aren't important to me at all, nor is it's OOTB operability, as I install all my own software and customize it manually (so I care nothing about what software it comes with nor its themes, or anything like that). The most important things to me, then, are stability (which seems to be Debian's claim to fame right now) and "bleeding edge-ness"; what intrigues me about Gentoo is that I don't have to wait forever between releases to get the features I want. Also important, but less so, are flexibility and performance (it looks like OpenSuse or Fedora are the most responsive, right now).

Is Ubuntu a good compromise between the stability of Debian and the short release cycles of, say, Fedora? Or is there another OS that I should be looking into? Is Sabayon (the Gentoo derivative) worth trying out?

I don't expect some "objective" answer, I just want to get some opinions. Thanks, Deshi no Shi (talk) 00:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC) (P.S. KDE rules Gnome drools)

I spent a good portion of my undergraduate time working between different unixes and linuxes and qnixes and things you've never heard of. Boy, is it confusing! First of all, you've made the important first step in comprehending that the front-end user interface (GNOME or KDE or fvwm or whatever) is not the operating system distribution. (In fact I've run all of the above environments on all of the above *nixes and sometimes as a result I can't tell which machine I'm currently on!). And, your csh and bash and tcsh and zsh will probably run on all of the above as well. So... what's it all about? What's the difference between the distributions? (Linux distribution might help out here, but seriously... what exactly is a "distro" anyway? Why is Debian different than Ubuntu, if they both use the same package manager, same shell, same GUI, same libraries, ...)

Well, first of all, the Linuxes are all running the linux kernel, while the Solarises and BSDs and Mac OSXes are not. (And QNX? Well, just suffice to say that although it presents you with a POSIX-like shell and a lot of the standard system-calls, it's... not very much of a linux at all!) But all of them are POSIX compliant, and support networking and multithreading and encryption and so forth. But if you are going to remap your memory system for a custom coprocessor and need to recompile your kernel memory-module to handle variable page sizes based on current coprocessor instruction, you're going to need to choose your kernel carefully (I've heard, from people who would know, that CENTOS and Solaris make this task "easier"). And if you were planning to do something more benign, like maybe mixed shared memory programming with OpenMP and a little pthread code in the same program, you might actually find that there's a difference in the dynamic scheduler capability for different incarnations of the kernel. Or maybe you've got some files mounted on an AFS drive and you want to ensure that the network traffic stays encrypted, all the way through the machine, past the network, up to the shell, through the user-space, and decoded at the point-of-use in some kind of protected memory. Then you better have a kernel with libPAM module support! Are you doing these things? If not, you may never really notice your distribution.

Backing up a notch or two, at the "intermediate" level, you are going to want to install or compile some program some day which is going to have some dependencies. A lot of libraries are pre-packaged and precompiled for the common distributions (in the form of a DPKG or an RPM or sometimes even straight-up .so files). Pick a distribution that's going to be used by people who work with things that you work with... that way, you'll have a community which has already prepared the sort of tools you are going to need. It's not often worth anybody's time to trace back seven levels of library-dependency when you just want to get a standard tool to run.

Compiler support may be an issue between vendors. Some of the more esoteric optimization flags and the less standard extensions (like some c99 complex-math support) turns out to be not very platform-portable - this usually means that it's getting linked in with some system library (like libm.so).

So, what's the moral here? Distributions make a big difference if you're doing non-standard things; but if you follow "best practice" and write code that doesn't link with weird libraries, and doesn't jump from high-level logic to operating-system calls in the same module, you'll be better off and spend less time tracking down portability problems. I would stick with Ubuntu if I could, but some of my tools are only available on other linux platforms (and aren't worth the hassle of porting).

Hopefully this will give you some perspective - use "whatever distribution is easier." If you actually get to a point in your professional or academic development when you can decisively state that "the Solaris cilk scheduler gave me a 20% speed improvement" or "the network stack on QNX was insufficient to handle packet buffers for gigabyte-sized files using https" or some other distribution-specific issue, you're probably going to care what distribution you are using. Until then, pick a good shell, pick a good user-interface, and use as much standard unmodified software as you possibly can. Nimur (talk) 01:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, opinions are free too! I use 64 bit SuSE 11.x (now OpenSuSE) on all but one of my half dozen home computers (the one that doesn't is my firewall machine which is running SuSE 6.3 with the barest minimum set of files necessary to allow the computer to boot and firewall (security in obscurity!). I use SuSE because back in the early days of Linux, the SuSE guys gave away gorgeous boxed editions of the full SuSE distro to anyone who contributed software that they used. The boxes kept coming over many years - so whenever I needed to install on a new machine, it was just easier to grab the latest SuSE box and stick it onto the new computer. Since the Novell take-over, they stopped doing that - but OpenSuSE works pretty good too - and I'm kinda stuck in a rut.

The full SuSE distro is nice because SO many programs can be pre-installed from the honking great DVD image. The mechanisms for adding more stuff post-install aren't particularly nifty - but when pretty much everything you'll ever need is right there in your original install, it's rare indeed that I see a program I want and find that it's not already on my computer. Since I want to USE Linux in a productive way - and not spend my time tinkering with it - I think SuSE is a pretty good choice. However, if you are a tinkerer or a learner or you have to have the very latest version of everything - then SuSE is probably a poorer choice.

However, Ubuntu is pretty amazingly popular - and there are good reasons for that too. I don't have a recommendation - it truly is the case that everyone has a different idea of what works for them.

01:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I've never used or even seen Zenwalk Linux so my opinion is worth squat; but for the nothing my opinion is worth, Zenwalk sounds lean, adaptable, reliable, and palatable. -- Hoary (talk) 01:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Puppy linux was recommended to me. 78.147.3.176 (talk) 08:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I'm surprised I got so many good responses! Thanks everyone, I appreciate your advice. I've thought about what you said, Nimur, and it makes a lot of sense. I think I understand the differences and options a little better now. I think I'm going to stick with Ubuntu for the time being, with maybe Fedora and Sabayon partitions to play around. Thanks again! Deshi no Shi (talk) 20:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Apostrophes and quotation marks to question marks

Why is it that on some web pages, all the apostrophes and quotation marks get changed to question marks (e.g. here)? I've seen this phenomenon pop up with relative frequency in my time on the Net. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

That's what you get when you paste text from Microsoft Word into your web-design application. Word converts apostrophes and double-quotation marks to "smart quotes" -- so-named because they are slanted: ' becomes ’. But note that, in order to produce the second glyph, I typed ’. Likewise, " becomes ”. If you paste such angled characters directly into certain pages with custom fonts, they aren't displayed. The presence of boxes or question marks is a sign of an inexperienced or lazy web designer. View the source of the page (View → Source in Internet Explorer or Firefox) and you'll see what I mean.--24.9.71.198 (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

You can get lazy and not get caught. Just turn off Smart Tags in the Word application.KoolerStill (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Web programming supports special characters which are available on plain text editors (such as textpad). For any other characters, you will have to specify the html equivalent failing which it would either be shown as a box or a question mark. For reference you can google 'html equivalent of special characters' which will give you the list which you should use for web programming. I would suggest not to use any special character and develop a habbit of using HTML equivalent.203.99.215.11 (talk) 10:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Infrastructure design for Information Technology services

After knowing the client's requirements regarding a particular service or solution, how do we decide on the approach to be taken for the complete project (things like the environment, the resources, the technology, the servers, database, permissions and the associated risk analysis)? 203.99.215.11 (talk) 10:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

ITIL? (As always, we have an article on everything). Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of publications which outline setup, configuration, technology choices, and so forth, for "best practice" in a large organization. It sounds like it's exactly the answer to the question you are asking. Unfortunately, ITIL is also hundreds of volumes (covering every detail for the entire enterprise). If you have a specific question, like "what's the best way to load-balance the network storage for a federated database", you can drill down to that volume in the ITIL library. (Also, I think the actual information is "proprietary" and expensive - sort of like hiring a ready-made consultant - even though most of the practices revolve around using free, free software). Nimur (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Usually these decisions come from a combination of the client's needs and your team's experience and which technologies and setups they are familiar with. The question implies that you're in over your head on this one (if the consultant is in the position of having to hire consultants to make basic decisions). Tempshill (talk) 15:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that's really what this sounds like - but for the benefit of the doubt, maybe the OP is a student? Maybe a business-student trying to get involved in IT? As Tempshill mentioned, the correct answer is "use your technology experience and domain-specific knowledge; balance cost versus return for various options; and check with some standard references for the implementation details." Nimur (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Gmail error

I got a error 500 today from my Gmail account. The account was temporarily not available. What happens with the incoming emails in the mean time? Are they saved and delivered?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 10:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I gots the same thing, googles help page about the error says "while Gmail is inaccessible, your messages and personal information are safe." I don't know if they applies only to already saved messages though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 11:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The real answer is, "it depends on how catastrophic the outage was." In a normal configuration, your email client (Google's GMail website) is a front-end, and the mail exchange servers, file servers, etc., are different software on different computer systems (maybe in different geographic places, even). Most likely, the 500 Service Unavailable message referred only to the client front-end. In that case, new mails would not be lost. But unless anyone has an insider-view in to the actual system status at Google, it's impossible to know for certain whether the back-end stayed alive when the client-side crashed. Email has some redundancy (like "wait and retry the send later") built in to the protocol design (if the sender's side SMTP server supports it), so even if there was a short outage on the backend servers, all mail is not guaranteed to be lost. Nimur (talk) 12:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Laptop advice

I'm looking to get a new laptop, and I've shopped around a bit and can't find exactly what I'm looking for. Was hoping for some advice.

I have right now (and love) my dying Lenovo Thinkpad. Two main issues with it, other than the fact that it's really beaten up. 1) the speakers suck. I want good ones. And 2) the harddrive's really small. It's about 80 gigs, I think, and I'd like something closer to 2-3 or more hundred.

I am looking for a computer that's similarly solid and fast, though. It should have a nice keyboard. It should be Windows (XP's best), but I can switch from Vista. It shouldn't be prohibitively expensive (above $1500 or so), shouldn't be more than 6ish pounds (for a 15 inch screen), and it shouldn't heat up or be noisy when running (my Thinkpad's silent and cool most of the time.)

Is this asking too much? Any ideas? Also, non-ugly would be nice.

Thanks,

140.247.237.244 (talk) 14:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Dell do a 'Studio 15' laptop that's got a 320gb hard-drive, 4gb of RAm, is quite pretty looking, comes with vista though. No idea about quality of speakers but doubt many laptops will have great ones (not a lot of space for producing either a sizeable or bass-y noise I think). Anyway that's about £600 so I guess around $900 - you can get one with 500gb hd-drive and blu-ray for about $1250. ny156uk (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! What do you guys think about Dell's quality? I've heard mixed things. Lenovo's are, I think, generally considered pretty solid machines. Are Dells? 140.247.45.202 (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought dell is a great company and so ordered a dell latitude without seeing. but they sent me a laptop with very bad quality display. only after that, i came to know that only truelife branded displays are good. the display i am hanging with is difficult to use. so better see, use the laptop before you buy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.69.33 (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Well I got my parent's a Dell and my partner's pc is a Dell - both seem good and work very well for what they need, no complaints from them. I have a Macbook myself, and whilst I do love it the build quality is not as good as my previous iBooks....the edging has broken away around where I rest my arms, it's sharp on the edges rather than smooth and the trackpad has got 'shiny' much quicker than my previous ones). Having said this I would still go with Apple in the future - but then that's because i've got so used to the operating system (though I used Wintel PCs constantly at work and elsewhere). ny156uk (talk) 21:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm most unimpressed by the mechanical design and quality of my own "iBook" and have the impression that Apple devotes an inordinate amount of its energy to what its computers will look like when they are brand new. If you like OS X you are no longer limited to an Apple computer. I have a Dell on order not because I have any opinion of Dell but because it's light, it's cheap; and, unlike every other laptop "maker" selling in my part of the world that I investigated, Dell does not charge me for the copy of Windows that I would anyway delete (it comes with Ubuntu instead). -- Hoary (talk) 02:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thinkpads have come down in price. You could have gotten a T400 direct from Lenovo with XP Pro and Vista Business (XP preinstalled, dual license), 3GB RAM, and a 250GB hard drive for less than $800 shipped at the end of April when they had their last 37% off sale. The sales happen periodically—I assume there will be another in a month or two. A high-end T400 or T500 with almost everything maxed out (2.8 GHz, 4GB, 320GB, ATI graphics, high nit display) is still under $1500 after the discount. I'm no audiophile, but the speakers on my IBM T40 seem quite good, at least compared to the (expensive) Toshiba laptop I had for a while which was unlistenably horrible. -- BenRG (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Emacs on Win32 and remote Unix programs

Hi all, I am running Emacs (22.1.50) on a Windows XP system. I have access to Matlab remotely on a Unix system that I can connect to via SSH (I also have access to matlab on a remote WinXP system that I can connect to via RDP, but I doubt that helps). I have administrator rights locally but not on the remote systems. Now my question: Is there a way for me to start Matlab directly from Emacs (the same way I start latex by typing C-c C-c when I edit tex files)? It would be oh so convenient to test programs directly from Emacs. I realize this would likely involve some pushing of the files to the remote system on each run (by FTP?). I can connect to SSH with a key file so I would not have to enter the password each time. This might be a bit too complicated but I thought I'd ask. On a related note, if I ran Linux locally (might and might not be an option), would this be easier? Thanks! Jørgen (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered using SSH to connect to the Unix box and then running Emacs on the Unix box itself (through SSH)? Then, Matlab would be local to the running Emacs session. Of course, what you are trying to do is possible. I do similar things in my daily work, but I don't use Windows. I edit in Kate (on KDE). I have a terminal window in Kate that shows the command prompt from whichever remote computer I'm interested in. When I edit files, they are transferred back and forth in the background, so everything acts as though it is local. There must be a Windows program that does the same - one of which would likely be the KDE-on-Windows project. -- kainaw™ 15:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Try editing the file on the windows system as "/ssh:user@host:filename" (using Tramp mode). As long as the emacs can run ssh commands in a way it understands, you can directly edit the file through the local emacs. You might need to install OpenSSH if it's not already there. Then you can run another ssh connection to actuall run matlab with the file you're editing. Another thing you could try is running SSHFS on your windows system, and just edit the file like it were a local file. -- JSBillings 13:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Both suggestions are useful; when I have some more time I will look into the details (I've only vaguely heard of Tramp mode, for example, but now I know what to search for). I'll also look into KDE-on-windows. Jørgen (talk) 00:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

mobile number verification through SMS in USA

hi, I am based in India. For our website, we collect US phone numbers from people in US who want to register for our site. We want to verify the phone numbers of US registering people. For that, one solution would be to send a message to each registering person. That is costly. Another solution is SMS gateway whose initial cost is high. Is there any cheap solution to send sms to people in US from outside US, maybe India? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.69.33 (talk) 18:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I am unsure whether it would meet your needs, but check out [[6]] for sending SMS messages.--DThomsen8 (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Java Programming

In Java, is there a simple way to find the fractional and integer parts of a number? --Simeon24601 (talk) 19:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

If by number you mean a double or a float:

fractional part: x % 1.0

integral part: (int)x

--164.67.154.134 (talk) 21:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think your fractional part will work (I don't think you can take a modulo of a double in Java). You can do this,

double x = 3.1415;

int    xInt = (int) x;
double xFrac = x - xInt;

I vaguely recall that the Double Object type had some utility functions, but there is no way this is "simpler" than the above. (You would need to create a new Double object, initialize it with your primitive-double value, and then call functions on the Double object). Also, I can't find such utility functions in the API documentation, so maybe I'm mistaken about their existence. Nimur (talk) 15:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

If your solution may need to accept negative numbers, check that it gives the results you want with them. Certes (talk) 17:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Random colour picture

There is any website like that ( http://www.random.org/bitmaps/ ) website, but that create also pictures with colour?? 189.0.219.13 (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there an article for licenses that are free only for personal/private use?

There are two types of such softwares:

1. Free and open source software, but only for personal/private use.
2. Freeware, but only for personal/private use.

Is there an article about this type of common (especially the latter - most or at least many vanilla freewares are like this) license? I searched but found nothing. If not, how should such a new article be named? Thanks! -79.176.25.233 (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think such licenses need their own article. Do you think they are not sufficiently explained within the context of the above articles? (If not, how about just expanding a section within those articles?) Tempshill (talk) 20:30, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Wiki for a whole city

Has any city established a Wiki just for the single city? Any large city has far more details than can be accomodated here on en.Wikipedia, so I am thinking that some cities might have a Wiki running just for their own place, no other subjects than the particular city. --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I know I saw one for a neighbourhood, I think while looking at examples to set up my own wiki. Unfortunately, I can't remember anything else about it. Sorry, gENIUS101 20:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but tell me about how setting up your own Wiki worked out. Was it difficult?--DThomsen8 (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The wiki was my first website, so a lot of my problems came from finding out how ftp worked and stuff like that. Once I got the basics down, it was relatively easy. if you use MediaWiki, like WIkipedia, it does a fair amount of the work for you. Thanks, gENIUS101 23:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco seem to have them. Consider starting one for your city with Wikia. It's free, and there's no configuration or hosting necessary. Just register, and if desired, point a custom domain to it.   — C M B J   00:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent information! I am somewhat interested, but I would be curious about the effort involved, and from the examples, how the material gets a start from Wikipedia. I would certainly need help from others to do this, too much for one person --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Meta Repo?

I'm tired of, in Linux, having to either A. Wait around for the new release of my distro for new versions of software; B. Hunt down that software myself and update it manually, regularly; or C. Hunt for unsupported repositories for my software, which sometimes don't exist. For Ubuntu specifically, but any distro generally, is there some sort of Metarepo or comprehensive collection of other repos that one can find? That way, when a new version of OOo comes out, I don't have to wait several months, or search for it down myself, but can have it update automagically?

Thanks, Deshi no Shi (talk) 20:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I try to do that in my repo for Ubuntu/Super OS, but I have to say it is a very limited repository at the moment... Hacktolive (talk) 20:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Not all distributions have releases. In Gentoo most packages are available several days after upstream release (at least month of testing is needed to mark something as stable). Debian Sid also always has new packages. MTM (talk) 18:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

What does this mean (in BASH)?

I always wondered what was the proper name for this (in BASH): "$@"

I know what it is, and I know how to use it, but I simply don't they the official name for that! Google is also not a solution since we all know searcinhg with non-regular characters don't usually work Thanks Hacktolive (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The man page for bash only says it's one of the "Special Parameters" which "Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one." --h2g2bob (talk) 22:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I pronounce it "ess at" when I have to pronounce it. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

C printf bug?

If printf( "%dG", iNum ) produces a floating point number rather than an integer followed by G is this a bug in the compiler being used, or is this a valid variant of printf formats? (It was 'fixed' to the intended output using printf( "%d%c", iNum, 'G'). -- SGBailey (talk) 22:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

If your printf does that, then it's definitely not correct. It wouldn't be your compiler's problem (unless your compiler messes up strings somehow); it would be your C standard library implementation's problem. --164.67.100.135 (talk) 00:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a bug - but not in the compiler - it's an error in your standard library. (And a surprising one too!) This program:

  #include <stdio.h>

  main ()
  {
    int iNum = 6 ;
    printf( "%dG", iNum ) ;
  }

Prints "6G" (as you'd expect) on my Linux machine using the standard GNU libraries. SteveBaker (talk) 03:50, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll probably report it to our embedded compiler supplier. -- SGBailey (talk) 12:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be a very public-spirited thing to do! For what it's worth, "%0G" or "%-G" would legitimately produce a floating point number - so you can kinda envisage where their code might be going wrong. SteveBaker (talk) 17:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Trouble redirecting an Open Office Base file to a new SQL source

This is a question I first posted on an Open Office forum: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

However, that forum doesn't generate much traffic. I'm hoping for more exposure/help here.

We are using Base to access a MySQL database using the JDBC driver. The database itself is simply the raw SQL code (all the create and insert statements and such) running on a server. I also recognize that all the forms, reports, and queries are part of the ODF file that base created. We can change the SQL directly on the server if we choose to, and those changes are confirmed by Base as soon as the appropriate window is refreshed. So far so good. Here is our problem. Until now, we have been connecting to a local server (localhost). We now have an online server set up and wish to redirect Base to use the SQL on that server instead of the SQL on localhost. We could easily create a new ODB file, pointing it to the new online server, but we would lose access to all the forms and queries we've designed. Is there a way to accomplish this redirect without any such loss?

I am using Open Office ver. 3.0.1, MySQL ver 5.1, Window Vista SP1, and a remote Apache server running on a Linux machine. I will provide more details on request.

Thank you (anyone) for any help you choose to provide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.4.225 (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

May 9

Security: VPN versus standard database server

I'm looking at turning my home desktop computer into a private database server. My father's (Windows 2000) and my (Kubuntu 8.04) computers both have software firewalls and are also connected to the Internet (cable) through a router with a built-in firewall. Currently, neither computer can accept incoming connections, even from the other. My father wants the server to use a VPN, since the router has a special mode for VPNs; what security concerns might this eliminate, and what concerns might it create, versus simply opening the port and configuring PostgreSQL to accept logins?

If it makes any difference, I'm going to look into installing an open-source browser interface for the database if one is available, so that it can be accessed from computers without PostgreSQL client software. NeonMerlin 07:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

VPN may be useful for encrypting the connection, as the SQL protocol doesn't have any encryption. (There are some implementations using SSL, but they aren't common.) --grawity 18:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't Resize Partition

Hola! I'm trying to use "GParted Live" to resize a partition on my (Windows XP) system, but I can't because there's a warning that says "Unable to read the contents of this filesystem! Because of this some operations may be unavailable." Umm...what do I do? Digger3000 (talk) 07:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't give you any advice about GParted, but you asked what to do... The message sounds like something is inconsistent in the file system, so the very first thing I would do (which you may have done already), is to is to back up immediately to a usb disk. I would do both a backup at the file-level, and back up the partition(s). I use both Partimage (free as in speech) and The Seagate Disk Wizard (free as in beer) for partition-based backups. The latter works if there's a Seagate disk in your system. It's based on Acronis True Image, which of course is an alternative, along with those listed at List of disk cloning software. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 08:24, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

It might help other editors who want to help, if you told us how you have partitioned your disk. Did you buy a PC that came with two partitions, or have you set them up yourself, and if so what software have you used, how many partitions, which file systems? Mixing windows-based and linux-based partition managers is not a good idea, as they tend to have different opinions about where the exact boundaries between partitions go (something I've learned the hard way). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 08:49, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I bought my PC and it came with two partitions. I want to dual-boot Windows XP and Windows 7 RC. The guide I googled on how to do that specifically mentioned GParted Live. Digger3000 (talk) 09:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Try running chkdsk /r inside the command prompt in Windows XP. Disk errors will trip up partition editors.--67.174.107.10 (talk) 09:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't know anything about GParted, but see List of disk partitioning software for a list of other software you might try if you're unable to get anywhere with GParted. Note that you probably have to boot from a different drive to repartition - you didn't mention whether you're doing that currently. Tempshill (talk) 16:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The last time I tried, gparted didn't support ntfs out of the box. ntfsprogs is the relevant package to install (under ubuntu/debian), but then it would be weird if they didn't have that on a live cd. Have you tried mounting the partition and checked it's not mounted when you are trying to resize? --194.197.235.70 (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Detect that I am running on terminal-only PC (BASH)?

Is there a way to detect if a program is running on a terminal with no GUI? (example: computers with no GUI, tty1-6, etc...) I am not talking about "graphical terminals" like gnome-terminal or konsole __ Thanks __ Hacktolive (talk) 11:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Look at the output of the 'tty' program. If the tty is tty1, you know you're on the first console tty. Xterms look like /dev/pts/1, and serial consoles look like /dev/ttyS0, for example. Also, if there is no X session available, then the $DISPLAY variable will not be set. -- JSBillings 13:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

But that would fail on BSD. --grawity 18:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Easier way to resize an image view?

Whenever I view an image my browser makes it fit within my browser window. Sometimes when I place my cursor over the image it automatically turns into a zoom tool (a magnifying lens with a plus sign in it when over the unmaximized image and a minus sign when its over the maximized image). When that happens I can get the image to enlarge with a single click. However, Sometimes, it doesn't do that but instead the image is just fixed at a certain size. If I want to enlarge, the only way I know is by going to view → zoom → zoom in, and I have to do that multiple times to get to the largest image size available. This is using Firefox, which is the only browser I use. When I do that it causes a secondary problem. For whatever reason, once I've done that laborious zoom process, subsequent web pages I open are sometimes all zoomed up and I have to reverse the process to make them normal. Can someone explain a better way; and easier method for zooming in; anything else relevant to cure my ignorance on these issues? Actually I just checked and I should clarify one error in my writing. Actually when I go to a large image and get the magnifying glass and maximize, I can also zoom even closer from there, so is it maybe that images have a default size range and anything after that has to be done manually or something?--70.19.69.27 (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The magnifying glass goes back and forth between fit-to-window and pixel-for-pixel. If you don't get a magnifying glass it's because the pixel-for-pixel image is small enough to fit in the window already. You can use Ctrl = to zoom in, Ctrl - to zoom out, and Ctrl 0 to return to the original zoom level (either fit-to-window or pixel-for-pixel, depending on how many times you've clicked the magnifying glass). The zooming controls affect all of your tabs/windows, but the magnifying glass only affects the current image. Yes, it's confusing. -- BenRG (talk) 13:47, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Aha! Cntrl+ solves my problem. Thank you. I can click that five times in about a second and undo it with cntrl- in the same time. Doing it by going through menu functions was such a pain.—70.19.69.27 (talk) 14:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In general, whenever something is too tedious to do using the mouse and the menu - look at the actual words in the menu - very often, they list the keyboard shortcut right there. In this specific case, when I drop down the Firefox View/Zoom menu - I see:

  Zoom In   Ctrl++
  Zoom Out  Ctrl+-
  -----------------
  Reset     Ctrl+0
  -----------------
  Zoom Text Only

which contains the very answers BenRG gave you here! SteveBaker (talk) 17:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Converting FLV to MP4

So, I have a Sony-Ericsson W760, and I want to put some videos in it - but those videos are in FLV (Flash Video) format. How do I convert them to something that's understandable by my phone? (That would be 320x240 MPEG4 video, and AAC LC audio.)

I have tried using mencoder to do that ( -oac faac -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -of lavf -lavfopts format=mp4 ), but the phone doesn't like that.

I have tried using QuickTime's Export command, but QT doesn't support .flv :/

Any ideas? (Preferably either mencoder, or something free and without {spy,ad}ware.) --grawity 18:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, addition. I'm on Windows XP. --grawity 10:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What kind of computer are you using? If a Mac, try iSquint. You can also get Perian, which allows QuickTime to understand FLV. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I use MediaCoder for all this conversion stuff. It supports every format I've ever needed, and runs quite well under Wine. Indeterminate (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

ffmpeg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 23:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

How does google work?

I often amuse myself by typing stupid things into google to see what the results are. Today I was messing around adding "iggity" sounds before words; when I typed 'jiggity Joe Louis' the first result was the wikipedia page for Joe Louis, which does not contain the "word" jiggity. What's going on? 86.8.176.85 (talk) 22:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Weird. The general idea behind this kind of thing is googlebombing, where the words people use to link to a page get associated with that page in google (accidentally or intentionally). I have no idea why Joe Louis would be associated with 'jiggity', though. Indeterminate (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

See PageRank. In short, Google and other search engines hive the highest ranking to pages that contain all of the search words (or variants of those words), but will also find pages that contain some, but not all of the search terms. -- Tcncv (talk) 22:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Actually the above was not such a good reference. However, on the Google Search Basics page, the Exceptions to 'Every word matters' section contains the statement, "A particular word might not appear on a page in your results if there is sufficient other evidence that the page is relevant." -- Tcncv (talk) 23:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Google doesn't guarantee to find pages with ALL of the words you ask for (even if you use the "advanced search" option that tells it to do that). So it couldn't find ANY pages with "jiggity" and "Joe" and "Louis" - so it looked for pages with "jiggity" and "Joe" (and it actually found one - a YouTube page here... or "Joe" and "Louis" (it found plenty of articles - and the Wikipedia one had the highest page-rank) ... or "jiggity" and "Louis" (which there are plenty of - but none with the page-rank score to beat a Wikipedia entry. SteveBaker (talk) 23:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

"These search terms are highlighted: joe louis These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: jiggity" chocolateboy (talk) 05:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

May 10

Monitor settings and eye strain

I recently read somewhere an article discussing how certain settings on an LCD display monitor can cause eye strain. the article mentioned settings you can change that will reduce eye strain. I'm trying to find that article--or learn some other way what those settings are Rafael Mark (talk) 00:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Scribd obfuscation

A search in Google took me to a page of Scribd, a site of which I'd never previously heard. When I clicked on the link I was told that I needed Javascript, so I switched to a browser in which Javascript was turned on. I was then told that I needed Flash, which I purposely avoid. This all seemed bizarre in that Google had presumably digested the strings I'd searched for without any help from either JS or Flash. I therefore clicked on Google's cached version and could read the text (in an old version of Opera, though only part of it in a new version of K-Meleon). (Judging from the frequent mid-sentence occurrences of the string S N L Varieties of Meaning plus what looks like a page number, I suppose it's a scan, legal or otherwise, of something titled Varieties of Meaning.)

As well as serving up nightmarishly humongous CSS stylesheets, it's clear that this site is doing a considerable amount of browser-sniffing and assorted dicking around. When I save the page, I can't find the text anywhere. This has tickled my idle curiosity. If anyone else here is interested too, I wonder what's going on here. -- Hoary (talk) 04:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Changing your User-Agent to something like "Googlebot/2.1" or "Wget/1.11.4" will make it return plain text. There's also a Javascript-based menu at the top from which you can download PDF or plain text, though it seems to require logging in. This book may be a bootleg but it's definitely all-digital (perfect spelling, perfect alignment, no noise). However the plain-text extractor doesn't understand high-level document structure and just dumps everything on each page in rough top-to-bottom order. The S N L letters are in the margin of the odd-numbered pages for some reason. -- BenRG (talk) 14:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I hav mini project in 8086 programming....i want to know that how to convert this C program to assembly language for 8086 ???

#include<stdio.h> 
#include<conio.h> 
#include<iostream.h> 
void main() 
{
  clrscr();
  int i,j,n,m=0,k,g;

  cout<<"enter n";
  cin>>n;
  int l=n;

  if(n%2==0)
  {
    for(i=0;i<n/2;i++)
    {
      for(j=0;j<i;j++)
        cout<<" ";

      for(k=l;k>0;k--)
        cout<<"*";

      l=l-2;
      cout<<"\n";
    }
  }
  else
  {
    for(i=0;i<((n/2)+1);i++)
    {
      for(j=n/2;j>i;j--)
        cout<<" ";

      for(g=0;g<=m;g++)
        cout<<"*";

      m=m+2;
      cout<<"\n";
    }
  }

  getch();
}

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.74.103.74 (talk) 05:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

One approach would be to use the GNU Compiler Collection along with the -s option to compile the program to assembly language. Note however that the generated assembly language would likely contain library routine calls to accomplish the I/O operations and possibly to manage the environment. The generated code will also likely be much different than hand crafted code. Also, gcc appears capable of generating code for the 386 family and above, but I did not see an option for 8086 mode, which is significantly different. Perhaps an older version will have 8086 support. -- Tcncv (talk) 05:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Indented and spaced out the code to make it more readable. Astronaut (talk) 06:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I recognize this as old Borland/Turbo C++ code. You could download Turbo C++ from here, and compile your program from the command line using the -S switch. The result is 311 lines of code, which of course make calls to the standard library. The result is a lot more readable than the ~1100 lines of code you get doing the same thing with another ancient compiler (Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0), but I really don't see the point of the assignment. I have in the past occasionally compiled single functions to assembly and tried to optimize the output by hand, but with a modern compiler, the compiler will probably do a better job at this task than you are able to. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

See http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AoA/DOS/AoADosIndex.html. It has reference for some BIOS calls if you feel like using them and not external libraries. --194.197.235.70 (talk) 14:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Google Gallery Script

I'm trying to use this script but it doesn't seem to work for me. script source

Background info:
"Google Gallery Scipt"
Description of the script (Archived link)
Instalation link --Drogonov (talk) 10:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Blocking Gmail Contacts

Is it possible to block some of my Gmail contacts from sending me emails. As in, suppose they try to send me something, the mail will automatically bounce back, and they'll receive a message saying that their mail wasn't delivered. Is there an option that can turn this feature on? 117.194.227.220 (talk) 08:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.194.229.208 (talk)

No. You could set a filter that automatically deletes certain messages though. --grawity 13:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)