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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[1], if you already have an MP3 decoder (or you can download e.g. Audacity[2]). There's a lot of paid-for software but most of them offer free trial versions[3]. 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)

Super Ubuntu is ubuntu on steroids, you might like it...

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)

It also happens when a web-site assumes a character encoding but doesn't bother to specify it (like a bank I use), and your browser is set up with a different encoding as default. --ColinFine (talk) 17:49, 10 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)

Well.. Nimur is correct that I am a business student trying to gain some knowledge on the IT side. I have been assigned a project to work on the same lines as mentioned in my question. Will have to surely come up with a questionaire that would help me in making the final decision. I guess I will require a questionaire for the client and also for the company developing the soultion. Please guide on these lines and provide me with references / case studies (if any).203.99.215.11 (talk)

Do it yourself. Ask your librarian what reference databases or journals that you can access. You are not allowed to ask homework questions on the Reference Desk. If you find your studies boring, then you should change your major. Frankly, this project of yours is a waste of time in any case. It is all theoretical bullshit that will do you no good in the workplace. I know this because I majored in Business Management as an undergraduate and then Computer Information Systems (inside a business college) for my master's degree. Avoid theoretical subjects and learn something applicable in the real world -- accounting, programming, law, etc. Strategy cannot be taught. It is unique to every company. This is not trolling, but blunt honesty. Sorry.--Kje53yt (talk) 09:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all, to to the other respondents - there's no need to be so brash; he's asking for help, not answers. Secondly, to the original questioner: while you're learning strategy for dealing with IT, you might as well learn something about the culture of IT as well. People who work in front of computers for 8 hours, and then go home for another 8 hours of recreational computer use, rarely take kindly to "outside advice" about how to run their technology infrastructure better. (How can you possibly know their system as well as they do?) This is especially painful if the outside advice comes from a non-expert computer user. (This is not meant to be a jab at you, it's just the way it is). This culture is widespread and prevalent, and it's the source of a lot of jokes about sysadmins and programmers. So, step 1 in your strategy must be to become more of an expert than your client regarding the particular technology in question. Did you read through the ITIL library? Did you come across some technology names and terminology in your project? Did you read and understand the appropriate Wikipedia articles, and dig deeper into the external links? One thing is for sure - the internet has no shortage of detailed information on the subject of technology operations. Nimur (talk) 14:58, 11 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)

If choosing Dell, check out the Dell Outlet section. They sell previously ordered, returned, refurbished and cosmetically damaged computers at lower cost then new. I recently picked up a 13 inch Inspiron with 2GB of ram and 160 GB hard drive for just over $400. The laptop was listed as refurbished with no physical blemishes.

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)

For the record, Tramp mode worked (with some modifications to my local system - my Tramp version didn't support plink but all I had to do was to create a ssh.bat in a directory with PATH access and put plink (with the parameters to use a key file) in there). Editing files remotely then works fine, still haven't managed to run shell commands from emacs but that is almost as easily done in a separate terminal window. Thanks again! Jørgen (talk) 13:32, 15 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 [[4]] 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)

I have created many of my own Wiki's (http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki, http://www.miniownersoftexas.org/wiki, etc). On Linux machines, it's very simple. You just download the MediaWiki stuff and unpack it in whatever directory your webserver is going to serve it from. You do need a copy of MySQL installed - and for me that was the hardest part. You also need to be sure that Apache (or whatever HTTP server you are using) has the PHP stuff turned on. SteveBaker (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

In fact, hearing SteveBaker talk about his wikis made me want to find out how to make my own. Thanks, gENIUS101 19:48, 11 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)

Here is a wiki for a community that is a little smaller than a city. --ColinFine (talk) 17:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a Rochester, New York wiki. 76.117.247.55 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:40, 11 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)

Who do you think has the authority to give it a 'proper name'. It is what people call it, and I would say 'dollar at'. --ColinFine (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I just thought there was a "proper name"... Hacktolive (talk) 00:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything in the bash source code to name it? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:52, 14 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)?

Resolved

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)

I'd go with checking $DISPLAY, as suggested above. --Sean 14:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

both the tty and $DISPLAY seem to work. thanks people. Hacktolive (talk) 00:57, 14 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)

I found the answer (ot "an answer") elsewhere. The refresh rate of 60 hz bothers some eyes, including mine. I increased the refresh rate to 75 hz on my new monitor and the result was immediate. No discomfort to my eyes. I got this from a comment on another site, which is not authoritative enough to reference, so this should be considered merely anecdotal at this point. Rafael Mark (talk) 02:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That is complete bogus, or in your case placebo effect. LCD displays, unlike CRT displays, are persistent. With CRTs the recommended refresh rate is 75Hz or above to scan the image more often on the screen so it flickers less, and causing less eye strain. LCDs have no such need and even if you can set the refresh rate to 1Hz the content of the screen will stay there, albeit only updating once every second. To reduce eye-strain try turning on ClearType (if you're on Windows, other OSes should have text AA enabled by default), and run your LCD screen at native resolution and set your dpi to something comfortable. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:29, 12 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)

Ah, good idea! In the meantime, I thought I'd try feeding the URL to the WDG's HTML validator, with "display input" turned on. Very, very bizarre results. No surprise that the web misdesigners optimistically had the DOCTYPE declaration cite XHTML 1.0 Strict, against which it abjectly fails to validate. (The maximum number of errors was reached. Further errors in the document have not been reported.) This degree of incompetence is normal for "professional" websites. But what gibberish it contains! Notably, row after row of a table, telling us e.g. error and mistake definition / barbara logic / scientific superstitious reasoning objectivity integrity concise intro logic / definition of language. Tomorrow I'll try Wget. Thanks again! -- Hoary (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Scribd allows anyone to upload any one of numerous file formats for "on-line publishing" and has had complaints against it for pirating (including Harry Potter) because they don't check the ownership of the uploaded material. Some people might be uploading formats they don't quite handle, too, accounting for some of the gibberish. Alexa reports the average user spends 2.7 minutes there, so I don't see where they make their money. It's not on several suspicious-sites places that I checked.

@Hoary -- the images on it are all in Flash, so the text won't show up in Page Source.KoolerStill (talk) 19:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

"they don't check the ownership of the uploaded material" - yes they do; I've had a document incorrectly flagged as a copyright violation when it wasn't, so there's definitely a system running. Its effectiveness is another matter, but it's no more a haven for piracy than YouTube is. I like the service in general though. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:02, 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)

If the project is intended to teach you to write 8086 machine code - then using the compiler to do the job isn't going to help at all! Machine code written by the compiler looks utterly different than stuff you build by hand. SteveBaker (talk) 01:10, 11 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)

Small Resolution Images

I was wondering how to scale a large resolution image, 3264 x 2448 pixels, down to 900 x 675 pixels while still maintaining a high quality image. This picture shows that is can be done: [5] (click full-view). The picture I'm trying to scale is moderately high quality, little or no noise and has a lot of detail, but the detail and quality goes down a lot when I try to scale it using the cubic interpolation on GIMP. I assume that picture I used as an example was over 20 megapixel before scaling, so shouldn't it be easier to maintain quality on my smaller full resolution picture when scaling? BeefJeaunt (talk) 14:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Cubic certainly looks OK to me, but have you tried the sinc interpolation option? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 14:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't find that option, all I have are none, linear, and cubic. BeefJeaunt (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What version of GIMP do you have? I'm on 2.6.6 for Windows - I don't know what version sinc was added in — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 17:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The secret is to sharpen after you downsample. Don't worry about cubic versus sinc versus Lanczos. -- BenRG (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You could also try seam carving, which is available as a GIMP plugin. chocolateboy (talk) 21:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Amount downloaded since reboot (Windows XP)

I downloaded a bandwidth-monitoring program (NetStat Live from AnalogX.com) which unfortunately didn't seem to like my network adapter, reporting zero bandwidth usage all the time.

However, it did accurately report the amount I had downloaded (and uploaded) since I last rebooted the computer, even though most of that traffic occurred before I installed the program. This suggests to me that Windows keeps a record somewhere.

I'm currently having issues contacting the author of the program, but figured I may as well ask here too -- does anyone know an obvious way to ask Windows how much has been downloaded and uploaded since the last boot?

Cheers, all. Rawling4851 15:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I know it's not exactly answering your question, but another good program for monitoring network usage is NetMeter, which stores all the bandwidth statistics in its program files directory. I've found it to be very reliable. 8I.24.07.715 ^talk 15:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd come accross that but not tried it 'til now; it's got quite a nice report feature. Interestingly, it only knows about the data downloaded/uploaded since I started it, not since boot. Rawling4851 15:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

1. Open Task Manager and click on the Network tab.
2. Go to the View menu, and choose Select Columns. Turn on columns for Bytes Sent and Bytes Received. Click OK.
3. Go to the Options menu, and check Show Cumulative Data. --Bavi H (talk) 02:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, cheers, I only got as far as step 2 on my own. So Windows does indeed keep a record. Rawling4851 13:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Woot, I found a couple of C++ programs (FreeMeter and pcread) using performance counters to get the data I need, and managed to understand them enough to cut out what I didn't need. :D Rawling4851 15:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

#using <mscorlib.dll>
using namespace System;

#using <System.dll>
using namespace System::Diagnostics;

__int64 bytesDownloaded(String^ instanceName)
{
	PerformanceCounter^ perfCounter;

	perfCounter = gcnew PerformanceCounter("Network Interface", "Bytes Received/sec", instanceName);
	return perfCounter->NextSample().RawValue;
};

int main()
{
	Console::WriteLine(String::Concat("Bytes downloaded: ", bytesDownloaded("[my network adapter's name]")));
}

google and work internet

i work at a conservative workplace and sometimes not-so-conservative emails get sent to my gmail. I like to check my personal email at work, and this is certainly allowed, and i only click on emails i know will be ok. But...I'm afraid that gmail pre-emptively opens email that I haven't even read with its fancy scripting, and that technically my company's IS algorithms could interpret this as me reading "bad" things at work. any idea if this is just paranoia or am I onto something and if so is there a gmail setting I could turn off to help this? thanks, -Bob 173.30.14.113 (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You can set gmail to always use https instead of http. You'll find it at the bottom of the settings page. I think this should eliminate the possibility of anyone intercepting the communication between your browser and gmail's server. The only minor disadvantage, is that if you use the iGoogle interface, the gmail gadget will no longer work. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

use Tor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 19:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

HTTPS should solve the problem. Does Google transmits data preemptively to your web browser client? Surely it does parsing and processing on all your emails at the server-side, but I was not aware it would start transmitting data to your webbrowser before you request it. Unless it is doing such preemptive caching (maybe as some part of an "accelerator" technology), those unsavory emails will not ever be detected by your local network snoopers. You should also be open about this stuff with your authoritarian IT people - they will probably understand that "random data" shows up on their network for a variety of reasons (have you ever looked at the output of a packet sniffer?! WHOAW the things you see - 95% incomprehensible, 4% relevant, and 1% ... well, you know). As long as it's not interfering with the workplace, hopefully nobody will care. Nimur (talk) 19:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

"Unless it is doing such preemptive caching" - Yeah, it prefetches messages listed in the current view (certainly in the inbox - not sure about elsewhere) to speed up loading if the user opens the message. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

cabling

advantages and disadvantages of twisted pair cables213.55.87.137 (talk) 16:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

We have this exact section in our twisted pair article — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 17:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

EEE PC 901

Resolved

Does the EEE PC 901 come with out of the box support for 2gb of RAM? The Linux kernel I mean. I have searched the EEE PC wiki and it doesn't say that it definetly does. CAn anyone clarify?

Thanks 89.241.252.228 (talk) 18:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind sorted it myself. Keep up good work 89.241.252.228 (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice clean startup

I have searched through the OpenOffice docs and forums, but I can't find this particular "feature" discussed anywhere. When I start OpenOffice (regardless of if I start writer, calc, etc...), it feels the need to open every OpenOffice document I've every created. It is becoming a huge nuisance. Right now, if I open any OpenOffice document, I have to wait a few minutes and then close a bunch of windows that I have no interest in seeing. This appears to be something related to sessions, but I can't find anything on OpenOffice sessions. Can anyone tell what this is called so I can forcefully disable it? -- kainaw™ 20:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

this describes how to do it, so maybe check and see if one of this has occurred and can be removed? 76.117.247.55 (talk) 00:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

disc synchronisation

What Mac OSX synchronisation software can synchronise entire drives, as opposed to merely folders? What I want to do is to keep the normal drive inside my mac in sync with an external hard drive - that makes a spare bootable drive. The difference between drives and folders is that synchronising drives is a simple matter of only one sync. To do the same for folders means making a separate synchronisation for each drive in the root folder, and a new sync, for each new folder/file added. 78.33.187.178 (talk) 23:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

List of disk cloning software has a few Mac OS X programs that will do what I think you're wanting to do. I don't know of any software that will actually "synchronize" two drives in the sense of preserving the most recent changes made on both drives. Tempshill (talk) 02:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Disk cloning software would work, but I would say disc cloning is rather different to synchronisation. When I used Carbon Copy Cloner to make an incremental backup, it took about an hour. It felt rather less "fault tolerant" than File synchronization - quite a list of software.78.33.187.178 (talk) 10:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Some of the disk cloning software on that list - well, Norton Ghost is the only one I am familiar with - will make incremental backups of entire disks. Can you explain what it means to "feel" less fault-tolerant? Tempshill (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

May 11

Bash Scripting errors

Hello there, I am having a problem with the script below, The script works just fine but it returns some errors. I was wondering how i can make these errors go away. If it helps i am running Ubuntu 9.04. Thank you

Script

#!/bin/bash
#Checks for and promps for data
echo "Please wait"
AIRESSID=$3

if [ $1 = ]; then
	echo "BSSID?"
	read AIRBSSID
else
	AIRBSSID=$1
fi
if [ $2 = ]; then
	echo "Channel?"
	read AIRCHANNEL
else
	AIRCHANNEL=$2
fi
if [ $4 = ]; then
	AIRTIME=3m
else
	AIRTIME=$4
fi
#Start the wireless interface in monitor mode on the specific AP channel
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down > null
sudo airmon-ng start wlan0 $AIRCHANNEL > null
sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel $AIRCHANNEL > null
#Use aireplay-ng to do a fake authentication with the access point
if [ $AIRESSID = ]; then
		sudo aireplay-ng -1 0 -a $AIRBSSID -h 00:00:00:00:00:00 mon0 &
		gnome-terminal -x sudo aireplay-ng -1 6000 -o 1 -q 10m -a $AIRBSSID -h 00:00:00:00:00:00 mon0 &
		else
		sudo aireplay-ng -1 0 -a $AIRBSSID -e $AIRESSID -h 00:00:00:00:00:00 mon0 &
		gnome-terminal -x sudo aireplay-ng -1 6000 -o 1 -q 10m -e $AIRESSID -a $AIRBSSID -h 00:00:00:00:00:00 mon0 &
	fi
#Start airodump-ng on AP channel with a bssid filter in a new window to collect the new unique IVs
gnome-terminal -x sudo airodump-ng -c $AIRCHANNEL --bssid $AIRBSSID -w /home/User/output/output mon0 &
#Start aireplay-ng in ARP request replay mode to inject packets in new window
gnome-terminal -x sudo aireplay-ng -3 -b $AIRBSSID -h 00:00:00:00:00:00 mon0 &
#waits while airodump gathers data
echo "Please wait" $AIRTIME
sleep $AIRTIME
#Run aircrack-ng to crack key using the IVs collected
sudo aircrack-ng -z -b $AIRBSSID /home/User/output/output*.cap
#Stops the WiFi card and brings it back up for use by the user.
sudo airmon-ng stop mon0 > null
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down > null

Output Errors

User@CompName:~$ ./startaircrack 00:00:00:00:00:01 6 123456
Please wait
./startaircrack: line 6: [: 00:00:00:00:00:01: unary operator expected
./startaircrack: line 12: [: 6: unary operator expected
./startaircrack: line 28: [: 123456: unary operator expected
Please wait 3m

SmilyHill (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Your script seems to be doing something to crack WiFi access. If the access point is not your own, what you are doing could make you very unpopular with your neighbours and could be illegal in some jurisdictions. Astronaut (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

This is very true. I will not dive in to my business practices on a public forum, but i will tell you that i do not break in to anyone's WiFi without their express written permission. SmilyHill (talk) 18:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't do any testing right now, but I think the problem is that in the lines like:

if [ $1 = ]; then

there has to be something on the right side of the equals sign. A common approach is to put an "x" or other symbol on both sides:

if [ x$1 = x ]; then

See if that helps. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I just tried it, I get the same error.

Output Errors

User@CompName:~$ startaircrack 00:00:00:00:00 6 12345
Please wait
/bin/startaircrack: line 10: [: 00:00:00:00:00: unary operator expected
/bin/startaircrack: line 16: [: 6: unary operator expected
/bin/startaircrack: line 32: [: 12345: unary operator expected

SmilyHill (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

So presumably you're doing pen testing or something. I'd expect you to be able to fix some simple and obvious bash errors. Hint: RTFM for test. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:27, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what error's are "obvious". That is why i am here.

I know this script is written in a sloppy way, infact i had to rewrite it for Ubuntu 9.04. If someone know a better way to write this.. or even a way to throw this in a GUI, feel free to let me know. SmilyHill (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Try some whitespace between your brackets and your expressions inside the [ : = :$VAR ] statements. As for being "obvious", the error messages are telling you exactly which line of code is broken. As mentioned above, fix these lines of code. If you need further help with test statements, type

man test

in the terminal, and you will get all the correct syntax for this type of statement. Nimur (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That worked. Thank you. SmilyHill (talk) 18:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

I'd like to know how i can rewrite this script to accept expressions. What i mean by this is that i would like to type in the following code to run the program:

User@CompName:~$ startaircrack --Mac=00:00:00:00:00 --channel=6 ESSID==12345

Or

User@CompName:~$ startaircrack -m 00:00:00:00:00 -c 6 -e 12345

The reason i'd like to do this is because the order that i give the expressions would not matter;

SmilyHill (talk) 18:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

As you might have already figured out, BASH doesn't have such a feature built-in. You can either write your own argument-parser (think of a simple for-loop to iterate over the input arguments, and some switch statement logic), or find a "library" utility which already does this for more complex argument-lists, with error-handling. Nimur (talk) 18:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure it does. Type "help getopts" or google for Template:Websearch for tutorials. --Sean 20:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The most cross-platform way to write an if statement for Bourne-ish shells is:

if [ "X$var" = Xwhatever ]

This will parse correctly whether var is empty, has spaces, etc. You must of course quote the thing on the right if it's got anything weird in it. Also, I can't believe some of the rude responses in this thread. --Sean 20:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Infinite Boot Loop

I am not a computer expert, in fact far from it, I know very little about computers. But I was reading an article the other day about some pranks to play on people using their computers where you formed what they called an "infinite boot loop" where the computer would try to start, then shut down part of the way through, then repeat the process, obviously infinitely if there is a power supply. The article said that in order to stop it all you had to do was to start up in safe mode then delete it. Well, safe mode didn't work either. What I did was create a shortcut on my desktop that said this in the location box - "shutdown -r -t 10 -c "Your Message Here"". Is there any real way to undo this action and how can I get rid of it? Thanks jondn (talk) 19:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The easiest way is probably to boot from a different medium. This used to be done with floppy disks, but I doubt you have any of those lying around. The most likely candidate is your windows installation CD. If you start up with that in your drive, your computer is likely to boot from the CD, rather than the hard disk. If this doesn't work, you'll need to enter you BIOS and change the boot order. Once you've booted from the windows cd, you can enter recovery mode, which gives you a command prompt, you can type "C:" to change to your hard disk. "dir" to get a list of files and folders in your current location, and "cd foldername" to change to another folder. In Windows Vista, the startup folder is in

C:\users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

So you would type "c:" hit enter, and then "cd users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu". then you can type "del nameoffile" to delete your shortcut file. risk (talk) 19:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

A different way to do the same thing as suggested above would be to stick your hard drive in someone else's computer, delete the offending file from in there, and then return it to its place in your machine. --Sean 20:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

So is following these instructions different than getting in cmd through safe mode and deleting the file without the disk? A friend of mine was able to get into it and supposedly deleted the file (the next time we looked for it it was gone), but the problem still persists.

Thanks for your help jondn (talk) 22:05, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you made a shortcut in your Startup folder (not on your desktop, it wouldn't run automatically there) which runs "shutdown -r -t 10". That restarts the computer (-r) after a ten-second warning period (-t 10). One thing you could try, if you're a fast enough typist, is pressing Win+R to open the Run dialog and then typing "shutdown -a" (without the quotes, followed by Enter). You can start typing the command before the ten-second warning dialog comes up, but don't press Enter until it's visible. That will cancel the restart, and then you have unlimited time to hunt down the file before your next restart. If you're using Windows XP or earlier then another solution is to hold down the Shift during the startup process, which will prevent programs in the Startup folder from running. They removed that feature in Vista for some reason.

Am I also to understand that your friend did this to his/her own machine, then undid it by deleting the file, and it's still happening? That makes no sense at all. -- BenRG (talk) 11:44, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

You could try holding down the shift key during the boot process. I think it is supposed to suppress the running of anything in the Startup folder (at least it did so on older versions of Windows but I haven't heard if this still works on Xp or Vista). Astronaut (talk) 11:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

rss feeds

Hello, I am looking for a way to open all linked .html pages in a given rss feed into new tabs automatically in firefox. I would like the system to update the rss feed and when a new .html page appears to open it also in a new tab, but not to open .html pages that have already been opened into new tabs. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saving rss feeds (talk • contribs) 20:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I have an iMacros macro that will open links from a static page, on one particular site. You'd need a script that will monitor the feed, either continuously or at intervals, and be able to identify the new content. I'd love to have one like this myself. If you'd say what scripting or programming experience you have, someone is sure to offer a solution.KoolerStill (talk) 16:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Future trend of the FCC's regulations in the 2.4-GHz RF spectrums?

What is the future trend of this agency's regulations in the 2.4-GHz RF spectrum —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.151.177.58 (talk) 23:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

May 12

Music Transcriber software

Is there any software out there that will allow me to manually enter in notes for a sheet music and transcribe the entered notes into any key or any octave I want? Acceptable (talk) 02:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sibelius certainly does this, and no doubt other score-writing packages do so as well how do I do a wikilink to a category?. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Put a colon after the second square bracket: Category:Scorewriters— Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Easy when you know how - thanks. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah thanks a bunch. Acceptable (talk) 03:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Dotcom Bubble mk II

How do Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk make money? I overheard someone saying something like "Twitter must be worth a fortune"? srsly?? They don't charge for their service and are barely providing anything of actual value to society. Is this Phase II of the dot-com bubble? Incidentally, Twitter has zero information about their revenue or business model, to the extent it's possible to have a business model based on free blogging. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.28.115.135 (talk) 07:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Adverts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 07:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

First off, both of you should try to sign your posts with four ~'s. And now for the actual answer: As far as I know, they don't. I recall reading that neither Facebook nor Twitter have ever turned a profit. Thanks, gENIUS101 21:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

So it is overvalued then? Even if they make some money from advertising, I don't see how that would even come close to paying for their costs. 98.28.115.135 (talk) 02:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It can't be overvalued if it's not for sale. Twitter mostly runs on private funding, from what I understand, though they're looking at deals to bring in revenue from corporations. They've been fairly mum on what that entails. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It comes from venture capital too. Also the $200 million that Microsoft paid Facebook for a small percentage could have helped you think? (heavy sarcasm here) Sandman30s (talk) 07:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You guys are overlooking the obvious answers: Facebook is funded entirely by the NSA (google it) and Twitter is run out of the back of some guy's van (seriously, how hard is it to ship 160 byte messages around?) On a more serious note, both of these companies demonstrate a post-dotcom agenda of "It's the visibility, stupid". If Twitter or Facebook went out tomorrow and said "hey microsoft, yahoo, google, what will you give me for my domain and all my customers?" the price would be astoundingly high considering the estimated ROI would be "never". Instead, it's the fact that those services simply appear in front of millions of eyeballs a day that makes them incredibly valuable. Just look at the sale of Myspace (except nevermind that it's been relegated to the social networking dustbin). --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Simplify bitwise expressions?

Is there a way to simply bitwise expressions? For example, in CRC32 there is an expression: (h >> 1) ^ ((h & 1) ? POLYNOMIAL : 0). Most compilers don't implement this very efficiently but with some bitwise operator tricks you can implement this in 4 x86 assembly instructions. Is there some systematic way of doing things like this? --wj32 ^t/c 11:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes - you need to learn about Karnaugh maps (or "K-maps" for short). The problem is that in your example here, 'h' is not a boolean but an unsigned integer or something...which makes it harder. However, understanding what the expression is doing and writing that down in English will usually help you figure out another way to handle it. In this case, we're downshifting 'h' and XOR'ing it with either POLYNOMIAL or zero. Since XOR'ing with zero does nothing, we're saying "downshift h ; if the bit that fell off the bottom end is a 1 then XOR h with POLYNOMIAL" - what you can do to optimize this depends on the machine-code of whatever processor you are using. On some CPU architectures, there is a down-shift operator that puts the bit that falls off the end into the carry flag or something - in which case you can downshift and do a conditional branch around the XOR instruction...but what is optimal depends on the architecture of the CPU you are using - and also on whether you are optimizing for minimal code size or maximum performance - and whether your input variables are already in registers...lots of things! SteveBaker (talk) 12:48, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I assume the four instructions you're talking about are

   shr eax, 1
   sbb ebx, ebx
   and ebx, POLYNOMIAL
   xor eax, ebx

I think the major x86 optimizing compilers know the SBB/AND trick, but they're not very good at making use of implicitly set flags (the carry flag in this case). They generate carry-setting instructions followed by SBB and AND, but only as part of specific three-instruction idioms. Probably that's because the optimization phase that could make use of the carry flag runs before the code-generation phase that could notice that the carry flag is available. But this is clearly a soluble problem because they solve it for / and %. X86 has a single instruction that produces both a quotient and a remainder and every optimizing compiler I've used is smart enough to generate a single division instruction for code that uses both. I don't know how they do that, but probably it's by turning x = b / c; y = b % c; into (x,dummy1) = divmod(b,c); (dummy2,y) = divmod(b,c); and letting common subexpression elimination handle the rest. Whatever trick they use, it would surely also work for >>1 and &1. So why don't they do that? My best guess is because it would seriously slow compilation to generate those compound assignments for every instruction that sets flag registers. Every addition and subtraction would become a compound assignment to five registers, which would cause major intermediate-language code bloat. So, yes, I think standard compiler tricks could systematically produce better bit-twiddling code, but the compiler writers aren't willing to pay the price in compilation speed.

Or maybe they just don't care. Look at the output of Microsoft C 15.0:

   mov ebx, eax
   and al, 1
   movzx eax, al
   neg eax
   sbb eax, eax
   and eax, POLYNOMIAL
   shr ebx, 1
   xor eax, ebx

So it converts the value to a byte before doing the &, then converts it back to a word, then does the NEG-SBB-AND idiom even though a simple NEG-AND would have worked. GCC 3.4.4 emits a conditional jump that will be mispredicted 50% of the time (though it can't be expected to know that). At least it's smart enough to change that to a CMOV when I specify -march=pentiumpro. GCC 4.3.2 was the only compiler that produced the kind of code I expected them all to produce, namely

   mov ebx, eax
   and eax, 1
   neg eax
   and eax, POLYNOMIAL
   shr ebx, 1
   xor eax, ebx

I'm curious to see what Intel's compiler does with this code, but I don't have it installed and I'm not too keen to download a 586 MB tar.gz file just to try a trivial two-second example.

If you were wondering about searching for provably optimal code sequences, I'm afraid I have no idea. -- BenRG (talk) 14:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

See Superoptimization for optimal code for things like this. It has to be fairly important to start running that sort of optimization though. Optimizing a really critical section is one rason many compilers allow you to put a little bit of assembly inline. Dmcq (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your responses. I had come up with these five instructions originally (similar to what GCC produces):

; eax = edi = h
and	eax, 0xfffffffe ; if h & 1 then eax = h - 1, otherwise eax = h
sub	eax, edi ; if h & 1 then eax = h - 1 - h = -1, otherwise eax = h - h = 0
and	eax, POLYNOMIAL ; if h & 1 then eax = POLYNOMIAL, otherwise eax = 0
shr	edi, 1
xor	edi, eax

--wj32 ^t/c 05:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Tree structure

In a tree structure, the disadvantages lie in what is obscured or left out: relations that are neither hierarchical nor transitive, or overlapping. However, are there structures that specialize in every single kind of relation - overlapping, circular, etc? What are they?--Mr.K. (talk) 17:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A graph is a generalization of a tree that removes hierarchy and the parent-child relationship. There are many ways to implement graphs, such as using linked lists with multiple links per node. -- kainaw™ 19:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Collision detection in games

What kind of things they do for that in modern games? I've had a look on BSP, BHV and BIH but they don't answer my question. --194.197.235.70 (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Collision of spheres (or circles in 2D) is a very simple calculation, based only on the center of two spheres and the radius. Therefore, games tend to simplify things to spheres. When it is acceptable, things may become cylinders. In this case, the collision is based on the center of the cylinders and radius as before, but with height included. It is a 2D view from overhead. When things collide in the 2D view, height is checked to see if one object is above the other. Because games need to make many calculations quickly, it is rare that collision detection will go further. that is why it is not uncommon to see object partially intersect other objects before the collision detection kicks in. -- kainaw™ 20:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

This "Advanced Collision Detection Techniques" article on Gamasutra from 2000 may be informative. Tempshill (talk) 02:45, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It's an expensive calculation (in general) and the idea is to use the simplest possible shapes - consistent with the needs of the game mechanics. The critical thing here is that you very rarely need an exact test. Spheres, boxes, axially-aligned boxes, frustums and 'capsules' (cylinders with hemispherical end-caps) are very popular - but some things just have to be done with detailed polygon meshes - which is a pain to program correctly and hideously expensive at runtime.

In most cases, we use a simpler shape (typically a sphere) to do a rough check - if you penetrate the sphere, then we go on to do the full calculation with a more elaborate shape...but in cases where collisions are very likely (eg the wheels of a car being tested against the road in a driving sim), that might just add more time penalty. When there are a vast number of objects and even comparing sphere-to-sphere is too costly, we'll use a 'broadphase' check where the objects are dumped into a quad-tree or octtree structure first so that we only have to check things that are in the same or adjacent cells...when they are close enough, you dump potential collision candidate pairs into a queue and perform 'narrow-phase' checks on more detailed geometry.

Very often, this odeous problem gets handled by the physics software middleware - so you just let Havok or whatever handle it...and they are welcome to that because collision detection is a tedious and generally thankless programming task! You might just have your artists model the collision volumes on an object-by-object basis rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all solution. There are tricks using BSP trees that can be used where a full mesh collision is needed - but BSP's are a pain to maintain when objects are moving or changing shape - so you have to be pretty desperate to resort to using them.

However, no two games are the same - and collision detection is one of those places where "domain-specific-knowledge" can get you huge wins.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:35, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Aah gone are the days of 8-bit sprites and simple XOR algorithms... oh wherefore art thou Commodore 64? Sandman30s (talk) 07:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Problem transferring files to CD from digital camera card

Hello! When I transfer a photo (.jpg) from my digital camera to a CD to archive it and clear the camera card, a small amount of the images strangely get corrupted. I've uploaded some of the files from the CD-corrupted copy (the file originally looked okay on the camera card) to Commons as examples:

(I've cropped two of them to preserve the anonymity of the subjects.)

Cropped a little at the top

File:Digital Camera Problem 2.JPG

Uncropped—just a picture of a table; too big for thumb (2.17 MB), can be accessed by clicking for full resolution

cropped a litle from the left—the only true color of this photo is the sliver at the top

Why does this happen? Can it be fixed with some kind of photo-editing software (I no longer have the original file on the camera card to just re-copy it)? What steps can I take to prevent this in the future when I move photo files from a camera card to a CD? Thank you very much.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 21:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

This looks like a software bug in the implementation of the file system, or the JPEG compressor, on the digital camera (maybe there was a CPU brownout during file-transfer due to low battery on the camera). In some of the pictures it looks like you dropped a color channel (or something); in others, there is irrecoverable data loss. It's not likely that these photos can be recovered. Nimur (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

He said the images look fine before they are transferred to the cd, so it's not the camera corrupting the jpeg. I've seen something similar to this when downloading pictures from the internet and the download is interrupted half way through, perhaps your software isn't burning the images to the disk properly

ps I moved the images over to the right of the page as they were interfering with the text formatting

C programming

Does C have a built-in command/function/etc. that returns the number of elements of a list? If so, what is it? If not, how can one determine the number of elements of a list of unknown length? Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 23:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

C does not have a built-in list data type. You can have a static-sized array, but you must know its length ahead of time. Or, you can have a null-terminated array (or linked-list), and you must traverse it and keep count of number of items, in order to count the list items. Nimur (talk) 23:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Well - under very special circumstances. If you declare your "list" as an array:

  int myArray [ 100 ] ;

...then you can say:

  x = sizeof(myArray)/sizeof(myArray[0]) ;

...and x will be set to 100. But that can only work when the compiler can 'see' the array declaration. If you do something like this:

  int  myArray [ 100 ] ;
  int *myPointer ;
  
  myPointer = myArray ;
  
  x = sizeof(myPointer)/sizeof(myPointer[0]) ;

...then x will be the size of a pointer divided by the size of an integer - not the size of myArray! But in general - no. SteveBaker (talk) 02:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright... what would happen if I tried to access the n+1^th item of an n-element array? --Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 16:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's called a buffer overflow, and is a common cause of bugs and program crashes. -- 128.104.112.117 (talk) 17:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

May 13

TCP sockets, do they have two socket addresses...?

From our article, Internet socket:

"As seen in the discussion below, in the TCP case, each unique socket pair 4-tuple is assigned a socket number, while in the UDP case, each unique local socket address is assigned a socket number."

May someone, please, provide a reference for that statement? --Taraborn (talk) 00:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a reference, but I can explain it (which might help to assuage doubt or find a reference): it refers (at least) to a server's sockets, which will all share the local address and port but have different remote addresses and/or ports. --Tardis (talk) 14:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand what it says, and it seems reasonable to me, but I wanted to be completely sure that it is true since I've been unable to find a different source that states the same (that TCP sockets need 2 socket addresses unlike "normal" sockets (like UDP's) that only have one). --Taraborn (talk) 17:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

WAV Sound in Java

Hello. The Web was unhelpful to me. When I want to play a .wav audio clip in my applet, the console displays "java.io.FileNotFoundException: <File Name Here> (The system cannot find the file specified)". The .wav file is in the same folder as my source. I tried other alternatives on the Internet, which led me to a wide variety of other errors. How do I debug this? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 01:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Post a minimal complete program demonstrating the problem. --Sean 13:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Phone numbers when registering domains

I resent having to publish my phone number when I register a domain. I don't want to get any phone calls, and I don't want anybody to get my phone number from running a whois. I am under the impression that I can lose my domain name registration for not keeping the phone number updated and current (as I know you can get the name challenged, and lose the domain, for having an e-mail contact address that bounces). I assume this is a relic of the late 1970s that never got changed. Is there any way around having to have a phone number in the whois record, other than paying the registrar $20 a year for the privacy service? Tempshill (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Theoretically - you should provide that data. However, I don't think anyone would ever come after you if you put garbage there. But - should you ever need to prove that you own the domain - or defend your ownership of it in the face of some heavy-hitter who claims your infringing their business name or something - then having fake data there would be bad - which is why there is a concern. Most domain registration services now offer the possibility to put their address/phone number in those fields and have them keep your data privately in case it's actually needed. I think it's called "ID Protect" or something. See this [6] for example. $8 per year...ouch! SteveBaker (talk) 03:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Zoom concept in computer / Computer Graphics

If I zoom the image(both vector and raster) what will be the geometric pattern of the pixels or dots?. Whats are the operation and algorithim of zoom —Preceding unsigned comment added by Indranilzee (talk • contribs) 04:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

For scaling of raster (bitmap) images, see Image scaling. For vector images, take a look at Vector graphics. Both are limited by the available detail in the starting image. While raster images may become [Pixelation|pixelated] without interpolation or appear blury with interpolation, vector graphics retain their crispness. However, the accuracy and realism of the scaled image is dependent on how accurately the image represented is encoded. Well defined geometry, such as shapes and fonts will continue to look good, but images such as maps and terrain will reveal that they do not have unlimited accuracy as you zoom in on them. Also, subtleties such as texture is difficult to accurately represent in vector graphics, but can be simulated using texture maps. -- Tcncv (talk) 07:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Using Fractal compression you can zoom things like terrain and it can look quite reasonable, but it is generating detail that doesn't exist in the original and strange things can appear. Dmcq (talk) 17:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR

Write a program to multiply two 16-bit unsigned numbers stored in the memory and store the result in the memory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhi8 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see the top of this page for our policy regarding homework. And please do not post the same question to multiple forums. -- Tcncv (talk) 07:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a particular tech review site I can't find

Hi, I'm looking to build a new computer, and I remember an article on CNET/ZDNET/whateverNET, in a blog called Hardware 2.0, about CPUs, motherboards, etc... It's quite recent, but I can't find it. Thanks in advance! 144.138.21.201 (talk) 07:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MS word - replacing commas with dots in numbers

Does anyone know a good way to replace only the commas in numbers in a word document. I had an old script for a search string that replaced only the commas in numbers with a special character and you could then go and replace that character with the dot. But last time I tried I couldn't get it to work anymore. I think they might have changed something in "search and replace" or there's a box hidden somewhere that needs to be ticked or unticked - as usual :-( Any clues would be highly appreciated. 71.236.24.129 (talk) 08:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Look for a "regular expressions" search and replace feature. You would want to search for (this will depend a little on the regular expression flavor they use) "([0-9]),([0-9])", and replace it with "\1.\2". Or something. --Sean 13:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR

Program to multiply two 16-bit unsigned numbers stored in the memory and store the result in the memory?--Abhi8 (talk) 09:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This is the fifth time you've posted this question today, I asked you on your talk page to stop. If you continue to keep posting it, rather than wait for a reply in the original post, I will report you for disruptive behavior.

Since your textbook aparently doesn't help. here are a couple of pages that might help you with your homework assignment: Microprocessor (and links from that aricle) Computer program Assembly language Instruction set Machine code Multiplication algorithm Signedness Processor register Computer memory. Please note that our articles are not written to specifically deal with your problem, so referring to your class notes or textbook is likely to be much faster. You should also try to remember what your instructor may have mentioned regarding the relationship between adding and multiplying numbers. Lots of luck. 71.236.24.129 (talk) 09:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Open Source Bubble?

I fear that the next tech bubble is among companies like Sun Microsystems and Novell, who have made the decision to give away their products for free. In an effort to "compete" with Linux, Sun decided to give away Solaris. They also give away their Java IDE (NetBeans), their database program (MySQL), and their office suite (OpenOffice). They "sell" an identical suite (StarOffice). But why would someone buy StarOffice when they can download OpenOffice? I have no idea. What were they thinking? Did they want to make Sun into some sort of non-profit organization like Goodwill? If so, they more-or-less deceived the people who gave them their savings -- their investors. If I had been unfortunate enough to loan Sun money (via bonds or stock) then I'd be pretty angry right now. Giving your product away sends the message that it's worth nothing. The whole business-friendly open source theory is just that -- a theory that is looking more and more fanciful as time wears on.--24.8.183.197 (talk) 10:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You're in the wrong place. Rant elsewhere. Shadowjams (talk) 10:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

So, you must be the owner of the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, huh? I actually think that you are in the wrong place.--24.8.183.197 (talk) 10:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You're not really asking a question, though, you're just soapboxing. A suggestion you take that elsewhere is valid, as this isn't the place to promote your own views. You're already starting from a personal assumption ("Giving your product away sends the message that it's worth nothing") which does not apply to everyone.

That said, many companies are seeking to transition to a service based revenue model, ie. give the product away for free but charge for the support service. Think of it as the disposable razor model of business. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a question above. "why would someone buy StarOffice when they can download OpenOffice? I have no idea." I have no idea either. Why would someone do that? Anyway, regarding the rest, all I can say that it seems like a viable business model. Services and more valuable than products and these companies are earning millions and millions selling their services. The products serve for attracting clients--Mr.K. (talk) 10:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

"why would someone buy StarOffice...?" It's probably for the same reason that someone would purchase an operating system. Clearly, there are dozens of free, free operating systems. To some extent, they provide "equivalent functionality" to non-free, non-free systems. However, in the assessment of most end-users, these systems are decidedly not equivalent, and there is some feature worth paying for in Windows, Mac OS X, or one of the licensed Linux or Unix systems. Why do most people continue paying for something that they could replace with a free alternative? Maybe because they see added value, where you see no added value. A free market allows for various opinions to interact with the price-point of any given product or service - but it's a statistical process. (If you decided that wheat had no value because it was useless to you, that would not change the market price of wheat - but if most of the major grain distributors agreed with your assessment, then... ) Equivalently, if you decide that OpenOffice does have a monetary value, you are more than welcome to find someone and pay them for it - but that won't change the market price. Nimur (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

You are indeed soapboxing, but one possible answer for the scattered question: Maybe you get some technical support when purchasing a StarOffice license? Tempshill (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Sequence of instructions

Sequence of instructions to reverse a two digit hexadecimal number available in the register AX using shift and rotate instructions.--Abhi8 (talk) 10:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see the top of the page about homework questions. Tempshill (talk) 15:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MIDI Interface Software

I am using Cakewalk's SONAR to write music using a Yamaha S03 synthesizer. It has its disadvantages. I was wondering if there is any other software to do the same job, but with more flexability but still with the easy-to-ues interface. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DJ Bogan (talk • contribs) 10:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

How to arrive at MTBF for an STB?

Hi, different vendors quote different figures for MTBF and have different methods to calculate. Is there any standard way of arriving at MTBF for STB? ThanksDearkundan (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Usually a HALT test is used. This process subjects many units to high temperature and constant use, and applies an empircal formula to convert failure rates to failure-rates under normal conditions. If there is a standard, ISO or some other more specific industry consortium would probably publish its methodology - but these sorts of technical standards reports tend to be proprietary and expensive (sort of a "certification fee"). Also, it's not guaranteed that all vendors follow the same system. Nimur (talk) 14:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR

Make any word placed in register AX equal to 0000H without using any MOV or AND instructions.--Abhi8 (talk) 12:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Be good if you specified the microprocessor but the simplest way I can think of doing this is to turn off the power. Then again that might make it all 1s or undefined so maybe I better think more. Hmm, perhaps I better shift the contents out, but then where do all the 1's disappear to? That's very worrying. I could of course subtract it from itself or exclusive or it with itself but that seems incestuous. Anyway once I've got it set to zero how do I keep it zero? You really need a write once register, I think best is to use an electron microscope and electron gun to zap the bits of the register so they can never be one again. Dmcq (talk) 12:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Find the 2's complement

To find the 2's complement of the word in AX without using NEG instruction is becoming difficult for me.Please provide me the answer.--Abhi8 (talk) 16:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Quote from the terms of the reference desk:

"If your question is homework, show that you have attempted an answer first, and we will try to help you past the stuck point. If you don't show an effort, you probably won't get help. The reference desk will not do your homework for you."

I see no evidence of any effort. Do you understand the question?, what have you read in wiki about it?, have you examples of code you tried but didn't work? Even then you probably won't be given 'the answer' but pointers so you understand the problem and how to solve it. Dmcq (talk) 17:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Count the number of logic 1's

To count the number of logic 1's of the word available in the register AX using rotate and other instructions is becoming a difficult task for me.Please provide me the answer.--Abhi8 (talk) 17:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Instruction sequence to exchange two register contents

To write a sequence of instructions to exchange two register contents using stack is becoming a difficult task for me.Please provide me the answer.--Abhi8 (talk) 16:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Instruction sequence to check whether a byte stored in AL is present in array of 10 bytes stored in the memory

To write an instruction sequence using string instructions ,wherever necessary, to check whether a byte stored in AL is present in an array of 10 bytes stored in the memory and to store the number of occurrences of the byte in register AH.This question is becoming a difficult task for me to answer.Please provide me the answer.--Abhi8 (talk) 16:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

MICROPROCESSOR-Code segment to find the square of a byte

To write a code segment to find the square of a byte available in register AL using XLAT instruction is becoming a difficult task for me.Please provide me the answer.--Abhi8 (talk) 17:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidently these questions are homework. We will not do your homework for you. Do you have a conceptual question? Nimur (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't remove other people's messages. I've restored Nimur's response. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 17:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

itunes space

I have been trying to add some songs to my itunes library but it keeps telling me there's not enough space so I deleted some stuff and yet the storage space available doesn't increase... Any light shed on this issue would be appreciated 79.153.197.238 (talk) 15:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Try emptying your recycle bin.  GARDEN  15:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Google map problem

I am having trouble locating the address of 72 rue Charles Michel in Paris. I can find nearby addresses and Google maps seems to do a virtual tour of the area - however not any high numbers anywhere near 72 on the rue Charles Michel. I can find only the low numbers of single digit and teens and twenties. I know the address exist because of this reference which I find in various other books as well. The address exists, however Google maps apparently does not show it even though it shows streets with similar numbers in the neighborhood. Perhaps the name changed when it got near that number. Clues? -Doug Coldwell ^talk 17:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)