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July 16

Sniffing BitTorrent Traffic

If I am using BitTorrent (Azuereus client) to download movies, will someone, say an ISP or a hacker, be able to sniff or find out the content of my traffic and hence, know what movies I am downloading? Acceptable (talk) 00:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

yes, this is very easy to do with each client. If you look at the piece graph/information of each torrent it will list your IP and anyone elses that is uploading/downloading. No need to packet sniff. it is public info Ivtv (talk) 01:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

This is true if the ISP/Hacker is taking part in the file upload/download. What about others who are not taking part in this way (such as the ISP providing internet access to the user)? --Jwoodger (talk) 03:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Any user can see this data. It is clear on any client. I use BitComet and Under your tasks there are menu's you can click. One menu, I forget the name at the moment because I am at work you can see every IP attached to the torrent either uploading or downloading and how much of the torrent you have accumulated and your upload/download speed. It is out there in the open. Then, if you really wanted too you can take those IP's and do a whois to determine what ISP it is attached too. The short of it, when you download or upload via torrents, your IP is CLEARLY visible.

edit: Ok, I think I mis read your question. To re-answer it, Anyone that is using a TORRENT program that has the same torrent as you can see your IP on it. so if you are downloading show X, and someone else is downloading show X, they can see in the ip list your ip and you can see theirs. But if you were downloading show X and they were downloading show Y, they cannot. Your ISP, if they wanted too(even tho it is illigal) can record what you are doing while you are using their service. Also, I know that when you download a torrent your ip can be stored somewhere. So, if people wanted too they could gain access to the information you are worried about

Ivtv (talk) 04:37, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Basically, if you don't want your ISP (or hackers, although that's unlikely anyway) to be able to view anything you're doing on the internet, you need to use some sort of encryption. Most secure websites (like banks and such) use SSL/TLS. BitTorrent clients, for the most part, don't have any kind of encryption. It would slow down your downloads, and all the other peers would have to support the same kinds of encryption. The pirate bay guys were trying to make an encrypted network with IPREDator, but it's still beta-invite-only. So, yeah, until something better comes along, anyone who can intercept your traffic can tell how much porn you download. Or whatever. :) Indeterminate (talk) 06:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

At least µTorrent supports protocol encryption and it's possible to set it enabled or forced. In the forced-mode it'll only connect to peers with encryption enabled. The torrent-files themselves aren't encrypted (unless you download it from a https server). Thykka (talk) 13:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Note that as the internet transitions to network switches instead of network hubs over more of the hops, "fewer" people can intercept your traffic. This does not mean "zero" people can intercept your traffic; especially if you do not trust the ISPs to respect the privacy of your data. As a general rule, you can not be certain which network(s) your data will traverse when you connect to the internet, so you must assume that it is possible for some untrustworthy third-party to intercept your data. Nimur (talk) 09:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

How does protocol encryption help? The way your ISP will find out what you're downloading is when the copyright holder (or the FBI, depending) logs onto the torrent themselves and saves the list of peers. You can encrypt your packets all you like, but that won't stop them from getting a list of everyone who has downloaded a particular contraband file. APL (talk) 15:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

APL, that's a valid consideration. With modern encryption (properly implemented), we can "guarantee" that no third-party can eavesdrop. However, as APL points out, the fallacy with peer-to-peer networks is that the "second" party (whomever you are connecting to) is an unknown individual - so it is technically meaningless to verify that you have a secure connection to an anonymous recipient. Nonetheless, this is a totally different class of network eavesdropping (in both the technical and the legal sense). Encrypting the protocol categorically denies eavesdropping capability to anybody who is not an active participant in the transmission. (This may actually be beneficial, from a legal point of view, because it forces the eavesdropper to actively participate in a protocol connection. In some jurisdictions, this can implicitly bind all parties to certain terms of service, etc., etc., and certain obtained evidence may be inadmissible in court, etc, etc. Of course, your local jurisdiction may vary and Wikipedia can not give legal advice. Nimur (talk) 18:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out, to the 'at least uTorrent' comment, that the main protocol encryption used was developed between the uTorrent and Azureus Inc. people, way back when. Azureus/Vuze also has the very same 'force encryption' modes, with at least two different encryption methods.

On topic: a third party, not part of a particular torrent's swarm, would have a somewhat hard time figuring out what you were transferring with even plaintext encryption on. RC4 is a wee bit more effective, though (somewhat effective shaping tools don't really care though, BitTorrent traffic is somewhat easy to spot). Also, remember that the encryption is only on the protocol headers, not on any of the piece data! Washii (talk) 10:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Playstation/PC

Kind of a dumb question... I recently bought a Playstation I game, and rather than drag out the Playstation my roommate has, I was hoping to play it on my PC. I run Ubuntu and have PCSX. However, my computer couldn't even mount the CD, quite possibly due to the black underside. Is there a way around this? I could just try to download the ROM from the internet I suppose, ha ha, suggestions? Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

You tried to mount the disk through the emulation software correct? I've never been able to mount the disk in the traditional windows way of clicking on it in "My Computer" (Or the Linux way, for that matter), but doing it through the emulator software worked just fine.

Failing that, it could be a problem with your CD drive. I know that Playstations with slightly "misaligned" laser assemblies will sometimes read silver disks but not black ones, or vice-versa.

Incidentally, In my opinion a lot of PlayStation 1 games look a LOT better on an emulator than they do on hardware. It's amazing the difference you get drawing the exact same geometry on a modern PC video card. I was disappointed when I discovered that the PS3's emulator didn't work like that. APL (talk) 05:47, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all, you were right APL; I had to download a BIOS from the internet, and it opened, though it appears this game is not running correctly, and unfortunately I must drag out the old PS1 beast itself. Magog the Ogre (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

SATA hard disk for a 2006 MacBook

Hey guys, I have not been here for a while now ... I guess things have changed ...

I have a question, I habe a 60 GB hard disk on my 2006 MacBook and I am considering getting a bigger alternative. How does this http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Scorpio-Drive-WD2500BEVS/dp/B000SIG5QW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247714298&sr=8-3 look? I don't think I need to get much bigger than this ... any suggestions? How about the price? Please respond ... :) Kushal (talk) 03:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

At 5400rpm, it might be a little slow, but it shouldn't be too bad. And that price is pretty good, those drives usually go for about $90. I did about the same kind of upgrade on my laptop (40gb -> 250gb) and it totally gave new life to my old laptop. Indeterminate (talk) 05:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response, Indeterminate. I already have a 5400 rpm HDD (60GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA - http://support.apple.com/kb/SP31). It might be worth mentioning the model number is MA254LL/A. One more question, is there any reason I should get a SATA 3 Gbit/s instead? Will it even work? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 14:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, it'll be faster. :) But yeah, if your laptop is 3 years old, it might actually not be faster - it might fall back to 1.5gbps. If there's a big price difference, I wouldn't bother, but it's your call. Indeterminate (talk) 23:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The price difference is not that great. and perhaps I could reuse the newer drive (hopefully I don't have to) later on. Thanks a lot. Now the only question is the disk size ...I wonder if 320 GB will be big eno.. Kushal (talk) 14:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)ugh. .

Haha I meant enough. :P BTW, I am also looking at

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001JSSDGU/ and unable to decide which one. :( Kushal (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

(I'm in the business, I always get asked the "big enough" question! :) Big enough for what? Because this article is about to get archived, I'll try to answer blindly. If you are storing pictures and music, and compressed video, You'll take a long time to fill a 320GB. And if you fill it quickly... Well, suffice to say the 500GB won't be enough either. That's when you start considering a large external drive. Hope this helps, or try my user page! Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 04:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. To tell you the truth, I feel stupid to be asking this question ... I think I will be dealing with photos and some digital videos from my i85. I don't keep my video clips for long, most get deleted within a month and some end up on YouTube (usually as private videos). I am glad you answered my question. I am pretty sure I will be fine with a 320 GB internal hard disk drive. Thanks. Kushal (talk) 15:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

i think my memory card reader is disabled

i think my memory card reader is disabled (the thing that you put SD cards in). is there a way to re-enable it? it worked fine before I did a system restore, now it doesn't recognize any SD cards and doesn't show up in "My Computer".--Drawngray19 (talk) 12:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Go to the Device manager it may be that that piece of hardware has been disabled. Here's a guide on how to get to it if you don't know how to (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/f/finddevmngr.htm). ny156uk (talk) 17:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

i was looking there already, but i can't seem to find anything that says "memory card reader" or "5-in-1 reader" so i dont know what to do.--Drawngray19 (talk) 15:50, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

network adapters??

how do i find which network adapter i have in my computer (ie. wireless)?? and which driver do i install to make "airopeek" work on my computer??

sushil —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sushil shenoy (talk • contribs) 13:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I have never used Airopeek, but to find out about your network adapter, first open the Device Manager and then click "Network adapters". You didn't tell us what OS you are running on your computer, so for instructions on how to access the Device Manager, I'll refer you to our Device Manager article. Tempshill (talk) 16:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

i run on win xp !! simply the best !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sushil shenoy (talk • contribs) 15:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Sending huge files as time intervals

Is it true that if we had virtually zero latency across networks, we could send arbitrarily large files almost instantaneously? If we converted the binary value of the file into a number, x, and then sent two pings to another computer, x miliseconds apart, the other computer should be able to create the original file, right? (Idea from Dinosaur comics).

Even if x were very, very large, couldn't we compress it even further, by taking factors of that number and sending those factors all at the same time? Say for instance the factors of x were y and z. We could send the transmission like so:

ping!----[y]----ping!
  pong!--------[z]-------pong!

So we should be able to send any number, no matter how large, in a very short time, with enough factors, right?

Obviously, we don't have zero latency. But we could have some known time slice that was large enough that both computers could be sure they would both measure accurately, say "number of half-seconds" between the two pings. Two computers on the same network should at least get that kind of accuracy. Then if you broke down the factors so they were small enough, each one would only be a few "half-seconds."

Are people already using this kind of compression?

— Sam 14:00, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment : Why are you factoring the numbers? That's an expensive operation. Why not just break the file up into chunks of some number of bytes in the traditional way? APL (talk) 14:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Or that. I just figured factoring would allow the number to be broken into even smaller chunks, but I don't know which would be more efficient. Point being, either way you could break a large number down into many smaller ones and just send those smaller ones as very short time intervals, all at the same time (or very slightly offset). Would that work, and does it already exist? — Sam 14:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Your factoring is nothing more than a form of data compression. You are using a well-defined method to take a large data item and represent it as a small data item (two or more factors). So, you are asking: "Can we use data compression to transfer large files over a network faster than sending the large file itself?" Yes. It is used all the time. Most large files are compressed in some fashion before being transferred over a network. There are also programs for some slower networks that compress all traffic on one and and decompress it on the other. -- kainaw™ 14:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Using time intervals between pings is not a practical method of compression. Here's why. Let's assume we chop a document into kilobit chunks and turn each chunk into a binary number between 0 and 2¹⁰⁰⁰. Half of these numbers will have a 1 in the most significant place, so average value is about 2⁹⁹⁹ (give or take 1). Some of the numbers will be prime numbers, for which factorisation will not help. So at least some of the time intervals involved will be of the order of 2⁹⁹⁹ time slices which is 2⁹⁹⁸ seconds. Turn this into years, then compare it with the age of the universe.

Now you could refine the method by using smaller chunks, which makes the average time intervals shorter. Ultimately, you can use a separate pair of pings for each bit - say half a second apart for 0, one second apart for 1. Then what you have done is reinvent Morse code. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

This is why I was suggesting taking factors, and not just chopping up the number. Say we were sending a kilobit. That would be a number in the order of 2¹⁰⁰⁰, right? So if we take the hundreth root of that, we get 1024, So if we sent out a hundred pings in a row, and sent a hundred pings again 1024 ms later, then that would be read as 1024¹⁰⁰ = 2¹⁰⁰⁰. Now obviously I'm seeing that this is silly, since it should take much less than 1024 ms to send one kilobit of data. Is there any case where this might be useful? If the clocks were so synchronized that they could count the nanoseconds accurately, say, then 1024 ns would actually be very fast, right? And it would always be able to send the kilobit in 1024 ns no matter what the speed of the network (or rather, 1024 ns + initial latency) if the computers could confidently measure the time interval. No? (Well, I guess there are a lot of hypotheticals in that last thought, so I guess we're in hypothetical land now...) — Sam

63.138.152.238 (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

If such reliable clocks could be synchronized, they could be used for transmitting data directly. The flaw here is that the bit-rate is actually very low on the average. Assuming a uniformly random distribution of numbers to be sent, ranging from 0 to N, you need an average of N/2 symbols. It "seems" like you are sending very little information, ("two bits"), but in fact you are simultaneously sending "no information" (... zero-value bits) for the entire intermediate time interval. This must be counted as part of your coding scheme (because if you sent anything in the intermediate time, you would change the transmitted message). Like all perpetual-compression-schemes, this method cannot and will not violate the Shannon information theorem - the data transmission rate can be no faster than half the Nyquist-rate. You might be interested in other methods, like CDMA, PSK, and the like - these use chipping or symbol coding by methods other than "binary bit" - but in the same sense, they always must be limited by Nyquist criteria. (The Computer Scientist can invent whatever coding method he wants, but when he passes it off to the Electrical Engineer, it must have a hardware manifestation which is invariably going to be bound by certain physical law)... Nimur (talk) 18:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

If you have nanosecond accuracy in the timing of when you can send signals out on the wire, you're likely to have at least a 1 bit/ns throughput. That is, as you count off the nanoseconds, you can monitor the communication channel. If there's signal, it's a 1, if not, it's a zero. So in 1024 ns, you're likely to be able to transmit at least 1024 bits of information in such a fashion ... which is exactly equal to the kilobit you're trying to encode. The only possible application for something along the lines of your idea that I can envision is if you have some sort of system where the recovery time for the signal is much longer than the timing accuracy. That is, if you can initiate a signal with nanosecond accuracy in any arbitrary nanosecond, but once you trigger the signal, it suppresses further signals for a significant period of time. An example is a theoretical system transmitting signals with high intensity laser pulses. The signals can be very brief and timed to the sub-millisecond level, but it might take the capacitor bank several milliseconds to recharge for the next pulse. -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

You just can't win...the laws of information theory are every bit as rigid as the laws of thermodynamics (to which they are closely related). One law is that you can't compress arbitary data without loss. Your scheme MIGHT compress numbers that happen to not be prime - but prime numbers take MORE space to send because you have to send the two factors '1' and the full value of the number. When it all averages out - you lose. Perfect, lossless compression is like perpetual motion machines - it's DEFINITELY not possible. So, forget all of the compression...all you have left is "turn the file into a number - 'send' the number as a delay. Fine - OK - so let's send (say) the Declaration of Independance (of Lithuania as it happens!): it's 818 bytes. So if you send that as a number, it's 6544 bits long - making the length of your transmission significantly longer than the expected life of the universe! So you can't do that. How about sending each letter as a delay in the range 1-256 ms? Well that's only 209 seconds...but we can do better. If we chop each letter into two 4-bit numbers in the 1-16 ms range - then your system can sent the 1636 four bit numbers in a mere 26 seconds! If we go to 3272 two bit numbers in the 1-4ms range then it's only going to take 13 seconds...and (guess what?!) if you send each bit as a delay of 1 or 2 ms - then you can still do it in 13 seconds. But hold on - rather than sending "START....delay...STOP" why not just send "ONE" or "ZERO" - no delay is needed - and you only need to send one 'special code' instead of two. In fact, what we've just demonstrated is that the most efficient possible way to send the lithuanian declaration of independence is as a simple, uncompressed binary code. Boring, eh? Well - that's life. You can't do better - it's quite simply impossible - and that's as true as that perpetual motion machines are impossible. SteveBaker (talk) 01:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

regarding pointers

can pointers be declared using different datatypes? can a float value be stored using *ptr? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srividhyaathreya (talk • contribs) 14:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

What language? Pointer handling is different in different languages. APL (talk) 14:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure in most common languages the compiler will work out/require that the pointer is associated with a particular datatype, so the answer is yes in general, when you are using a high level programming language such as pascal, or if using C. In a lower level language such as assembler you have to do this yourself sometimes - ie the you need to remember what type of data a memory pointer is pointing to. Are there any exceptions?83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The obvious issues are if you try accessing data that might not actually be a float (or might be in a different byte order). In that case, you can still read it or write it as a float, but the actual value will be garbled if it is re-accessed as something else. Another worry is word-alignment. In C, for example, a byte* can point to any address; while a float* should point to a 4-byte-aligned address (on many architectures). Some machines will give you an alignment exception if you use a 32-bit float on a non-word-aligned pointer. Others will re-align the word at runtime. Nimur (talk) 19:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

And if you are using C, you could of course destroy yourself if you had used malloc to reserve enough space to store a 16-bit word, but subsequently you end up storing a 64-bit float. Tempshill (talk) 21:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't frighten the questionees - memory overflows do not cause one to physically disintegrate.83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Also think of the questioner, we wouldn't want to frighten him or her either. --Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.254.170.8 (talk) 01:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

the damage has probably already been done ;(

Pointer (computing) might answer any specifics. in C I think it's

float *peter to declare a variable called peter used as a pointer for/to floats

in Pascal I think it's

var
 peter: ^float  different syntax, same effect

though you are obviously asking about something like C Pointers in this context are always pointing to memory locations so they are always integer types themselves - probably 32 or 64 bit. If you wanted the pointer itself to be a non-integer datatype that's a different question, and an odd thing to do.83.100.250.79 (talk) 01:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

HELP NEEDED

Hi All, the other day i inserted a flash drive in to my USB port and since i have open the drive, i can't see my "FOLDER OPTIONS" in "TOOLS" menu... and moreover i also can't use the "SEARCH" feature in "START MENU"...

Can anyone let me know how to overcome this problem?

Does this look like what is happening to you? Google is our friend. Kushal (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

autorun.exe

How do i see the autorun.exe of any flash disk/pen drive??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sushil shenoy (talk • contribs) 15:19, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The autorun.exe file is usually marked as "hidden", so the easiest way to do this is to tell Windows to "show hidden files". In Windows XP, do Control Panel->Folder Options, and then I think it's on the "Advanced" screen. In Vista, open Control Panel and then type "folders" in the search field, then choose "Show hidden files and folders". After this is turned on, the autorun.exe on a flash drive will be visible (and easily deletable, which I assume is what you're aiming for). Tempshill (talk) 15:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

exactly ..... i hate autorun.exe! slows down everything !!! and at times can get infected also !!

You mean autorun.inf I think. 68.123.28.58 (talk) 05:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

COBOL Help

Hello. I installed OpenCobol, which uses Visual C++'s cl command to make binaries from COBOL source files. So, I made a COBOL hello-world program (TEST.COB), and compiled it, but it just creates (1) test.dll, (2) test.dll.manifest, (3) test.exp, and (4) test.lib. Anyone know how to make a .exe or at least use those files to output the message to standard out? I tried running the .dll using rundll32, but nothing happened. Here's the source for TEST.COB:

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. "TEST".
000300 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000400 DATA DIVISION.
000500 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000600 DISPLAY "HELLO".
000700 STOP RUN.

Thanks for any help.--H. Gutmans (talk) 18:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind. Sorry. I needed to add a -x to the cobc command to get it to output a .exe.--H. Gutmans (talk) 19:08, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Who am I connected to?

Is there any way of checking that I am connected (broadband) to the ISP I expect, and that my broadband connection has not been hijacked and put through some expensive thing? I know my anti-virus software will check for diallers, but is there any more direct way of checking please? 78.145.23.157 (talk) 19:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

If the hijacker is good enough, it is impossible to tell. The hijacker will inspect and fake all traffic so even something like traceroute will show you incorrect information to make you think you are on your network. It really isn't worth it do go to that much trouble for some random Internet user. So, just run traceroute on something like Google. You will see each IP address between you and Google. You can check to ensure that the ones closest to you are your ISP. -- kainaw™ 19:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Dialers affect users using dial-up, not those on broadband.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 20:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think the OP is asking: When he connects to the Internet via his laptop or iPhone or whatever, might he be connecting to the Internet via some expensive ISP that charges him a lot of money? Offhand I can't think of any way this could happen, because unlike with a telephone line provided by your local phone company, you have not authorized your ISP to charge you for services that are performed by other companies. At least, I haven't ever heard of such a thing. Tempshill (talk) 21:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Mathematica 6.0

Does anybody know what algorithm Mathematica 6.0 (student edition) uses when the Sort[list] function is called? --72.197.202.36 (talk) 20:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be Quicksort which we also have an article about.-KoolerStill (talk) 23:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

How to compare two folders?

What would be the easiest way of comparing two folders and checking that their subfolders and the names of the files within them are the same please? I just want to confirm they are the same, not move files around. The folders may be on different drives. I am using Windows XP. Thanks 78.145.23.157 (talk) 21:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

command prompt: tree C:\path\to\folder1

command prompt: tree C:\path\to\folder2

put the windows side by side

Ivtv (talk) 22:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Even better!

CMD: tree c:\path\to\folder1 > c:\folder1tree.txt

CMD: tree C:\path\to\folder2 > c:\folder2tree.txt

CMD: fc c:\folder1tree.txt c:\folder2tree.txt

(If you don't know what '>' does, it redirects the output into a file of name some (path and) file)

This should work pretty handily without any extra software on I believe Win2k+ Washii (talk) 10:34, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Get the free winmerge.exe (http://winmerge.org/). Wonderful tool! Saintrain (talk) 00:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree! We do have an article on WinMerge though. Jay (talk) 09:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Security

http://news.runescape.com/newsitem.ws?id=2003

How secure is this, really? Someone was claiming people would "work around it", but if you had such a key I can think of no way, beyond physical theft, to compromise the security of someone else's account. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding it entirely. Is it possible to hack someone's RuneScape account if they've got one of these keys? Vimescarrot (talk) 21:47, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The security token article may be of interest to you. Tempshill (talk) 22:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I cannot access this page, but I am assuming that you order a physical device and through a random number generator every 10 seconds it matches the same number generator to your account. World of Warcraft does the same thing. if you implement this to your account it is next-to-impossible to crack it. each number generator is unique Ivtv (talk) 22:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

How to identify a running application in Ubuntu?

Say I have a GUI application running on Ubuntu, for example the tracker applet or the sound recorder or the screenshot application and I'd like to report a bug against it. The command ubuntu-bug <packagename> would take care of that but how would I know the name of the package in the first place? (This is also very useful if you would want to use killall <NameOfApplication> or simply want to know how to start the application with parameters from the commandline.)

Does it boil down to using top or htop to look through possible application names or asking at the forums or is there a smarter, better way? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Jarl Arntzen (talk) 23:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I usually use top or ps auxf. The tree organization of ps auxf sometimes help find the program, and if you just started the program, it's often the last item in the ps list. There must be some better solution, though. Indeterminate (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That's certainly one possible way. Have anyone else some other, good technique to suggest? Jarl Arntzen (talk) 23:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Many window managers have an "identify window" widget. If yours doesn't, the following Perl script will change the cursor to a crosshair, you click on a window, and it will tell you the command line of the process that opened that window:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

`xwininfo` =~ /Window id:\s*(\S+)/ or die "could not find window";
$id = $1;

`xlsclients -l` =~ /^Window\s*$id:.*?Command:\s*([^\n]+)/sm
    or die "could not find client";

print "$1\n";

--Sean 14:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

JSON texts versus values

RFC 4627 says that "A JSON text is a serialized object or array.", and that "A JSON value MUST be an object, array, number, or string, or [one of 'false'/'true'/'null'.]" What reason is there for requiring that the top level construct be an aggregate? My impulse would have been to make the text be a value so that there was only one concept to address. Is it perhaps related to XML's restriction that the top level be a (single) tag? --Tardis (talk) 23:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

We may have to wait for The Design and Evolution of JSON, but I've also found that weird. --Sean 22:58, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with this javascript widget?

I have User:Henrik/sandbox/google-search installed in my monobook.js. It's supposed to put a google search box in the left menu column, which indeed it has done for ages. Today I found no such search box & am v.depressed since I make major use of google searches of wikipedia. Does anyone have a clue what's going wrong? thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:VPT would be a better place for this question. Algebraist 23:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with it, and it works fine here. Have you tried bypassing your cache? Algebraist 23:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It was a cache problem, or, was solved by clearing the cache. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Windows needs disc to boot

My PC with a Gigabyte motherboard and Windows Vista has an odd problem. It will not boot unless the Vista DVD is in my DVD drive. It then does not boot *off* the DVD — it just seems to need the DVD to get started, and then it proceeds to boot from the hard disk. I may have faulty recall here, but I think a similar problem occurred before I had installed the current hard disk and installed Vista — the old hard disk, with Windows 2000 on it, required a boot disc in the DVD drive in order to proceed to boot from the hard disk. Changing the boot device order in the BIOS does not seem to affect this issue, other than when the DVD drive is set to be the boot device, it boots from the DVD. Any suggestions? Tempshill (talk) 23:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

this does not seem to make much sense at all. Try resetting your bios to default, then boot to windows and update your bios. did you do a clean install of vista? Ivtv (talk) 00:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

This sounds contradictory (though I'm guessing you're pretty sure you're accurately describing the symptoms). Are you very certain that the system is not booting off the DVD? Maybe there is a broken bootloader; can you try booting off the DVD and reinstalling the boot-loader (or using a Linux CD to install GRUB)? Nimur (talk) 00:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Some more details: I'm very certain it's not booting off the DVD, which runs an installer. Yes, this was a clean install of Vista. Each time I boot the system, after the disks are listed and the memory check is done, it seems to hit the hard disk for a long time (during which the LED seems lit at half-intensity, telling me it's flickering fast), and then an error message appears saying, "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". I have now clumsily tried installing GRUB from a Knoppix CD (I fumble with Linux) and after mounting the C: drive into /mnt/temp, and trying "grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/temp /dev/sda", it hit the hard disk for a while and then said "The file /mnt/temp/boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly." I also have booted the Vista install CD and tried installing the Windows Boot Manager, and got a file error that I didn't write down. I haven't tried re-flashing the BIOS; I guess I'll attempt that (and then reinstalling WBM) next. Tempshill (talk) 04:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Try shuffling your boot order. Sometimes if you have the optical drive as the first boot device the BIOS can be stupid and stop at that when it detects no disc in the drive. Set it to hard drive and make sure the drive priority is correct. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I found that my BIOS is a couple of revisions old, but the only BIOS flash utility from Gigabyte I was able to find on their website is for 32-bit Vista only (yay Gigabyte), and from the descriptions, it appears that the changes are some CPU ID additions and one added feature. I checked my boot order; it's HD first (always was) and I verified the drive priority is correct (SATA HDD, then a PATA HDD master). I stared at the drive light while booting, this time, and logged the following bizarre behavior, which does occur with 100% reproducibility:

1. Memory test completes on the BIOS screen
2. Drive indicator light turns "half-intensity" (which I interpret to mean it's getting accessed repeatedly but not continuously) for 25 seconds
3. The BIOS lists all the connected drives
4. The drive indicator light turns "half intensity" for 35 seconds
5. The BIOS lists all the PCI devices then says "Verifying DMI pool data"
6. Drive light is off for a couple of seconds
7. Drive light turns on, half-intensity for an amazing 122 seconds
8. Text appears saying "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD..." At this point I leave it alone and it boots Vista off the hard disk.

So, yes, it takes me 3 minutes to boot my computer, and nearly all of that time is spent accessing the hard disks, if my drive indicator light isn't lying. Could this be the root of the trouble? Tempshill (talk) 07:49, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Strange, indeed. (1) nothing to do with the BIOS version, if it ever used to work at all (2) looks like it is searching madly for a boot sector, as indicated by the "disk boot failure" error message. Having finally found the boot instructions on the DVD, it then proceeds to load these into memory and run the rest of the OS from the hard drive.

It sounds like the boot sector is corrupted. So stranger still if it did, indeed, do the same with another hard drive and OS. If it's done it with more than one disk, it is more likely a kinked or cracked ribbon cable to the drive. Triple check, flatten out and reinsert the cable, ideally replacing it with a new one. (I've had cable problems create Disk Boot failure errors with no other trouble once the HDD was running).

The DVD should have a Repair section on it. Fire that up and go to the Booting section, which should allow you to "fixmbr" (rewrite the master boot record).This will overwrite the Grub, which does not sound a very successful installation either. Or get a hand from this BCD repair programwhich works without the DVD. Leave the BIOS set up to start from the HDD. - KoolerStill (talk) 12:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

OK - I tried the Vista disc's "Repair -> Startup" process, and it went through a diagnostic and said that no problems were detected. Following a Googled tip, I did bootsect.exe /nt60 all from a command prompt after booting from the DVD; bootsect went through and stated for both my C: and D: hard disks that it had "Successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode." This didn't lead to any change in my 3 minute boot times or the need for the Vista disc in the drive. Thanks for the tip on the cables — I guess I'll take a look this weekend. I would have guessed that a cabling problem would cause ongoing HD access failures and wouldn't have expected problems only at boot. Tempshill (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It's possibly a more insidious failure, e.g. failing hard-disk that is intermittently flaking out. By the time the OS boots, error-correction can make this seem transparent or nonexistent. It's also possible that there is a power brownout in effect - your hard-disk may be right on the edge of consuming more power than your PSU can supply (again, intermittently failing). I would treat this system very cautiously and back up all important data; hopefully a fix can be found, but these symptoms may indicate a more severe crash is imminent. Nimur (talk) 20:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It's weeks later and this is in the archives now, but in case any person of the future finds this thread: I "fixed" the problem. My boot drive was a SATA drive and the second hard disk (used for backup) was an ATA drive. I disconnected the ATA drive from the system and now the computer marches quickly from the BIOS screen through the device ID screen and then boots normally off the SATA drive, and the Windows disc is no longer needed. I have no explanation for the malfunction and don't know whether it's the ATA drive itself or the ATA cable. Thanks Nimur for pointing to physical problems. Tempshill (talk) 00:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

July 17

Using PC power supply for scanner

My flatbed scanner power supply (wall wart, 12VDC, 1A) went away. :-(

Any potential problems using a +12V line from my PC's power supply; ground loops, etc?

Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 00:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Does the PC supply have a 1A overhead ? (You know how cheap a new 12W power supply can be right ? ) 83.100.250.79 (talk) 01:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

If scanner (data cable) is connected to the same computer as power supply, there could be no ground loops. I do not know for sure, but scanners peak power consumption does not seems to be very large, so it should work. -Yyy (talk) 07:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Kristin ITC font

I have the font "Kristin ITC" installed on a computer at work but not at home. Work machine is XPH and the home is XPP. Can someone tell me what software app comes bundled with this font? There seem to be several like that but this is a good start I think. ZabMilenko^{How am I driving?} 06:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Oops, maybe if I googled right the first time, this would have come up. Thanks. ZabMilenko^{How am I driving?} 06:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Database (MS Acess)

How can I have the value for a field be calculated automatically based on values in 2 other fields one of which is in the same table and the other in different table? --195.244.210.38 (talk) 09:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly, for a particular table you want a particular column in each row to be calculated based on the value stored in another column (of the same row in that table) and a column in a different table? If thats right - then no; not possible at the raw table level. Can I assume you are actually referring to creating a form tied to underlying tables? If this is the case, complicated manipulations of data is possible... Jwoodger (talk) 14:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought they might have meant 'cells' when they wrote 'fields'.83.100.250.79

Yes, 'cells' is probably easier to write than my definition, but they refer to the same thing (columns of a row) Jwoodger (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

(talk) 15:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are using a Query, it is easy to do this with complicated functions. Set the value to one of the columns to something like =Table1.[Foo]+Table2.[Bar]. Syntax might not be exactly right but it is something like that. You can't do this with raw table view itself; it needs to be done in a Query. (Tables are just data, they don't have functions. Queries are basically tables+functions.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you certain tables are raw data - eg are spreadsheet functions like sum(a1:a10) lost when importing a table and converted to a number? This sounds like a nightmare. There's another way right??83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Spreadsheet functions are NOT included in tables. It's not a nightmare, it's a different paradigm. Tables are NOT the same thing as Excel spreadsheets AT ALL and should not be confused with them. They hold numbers and text and things like that. No functions. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, to be precise tables are not just data, they include structural definitions as well (data types, relationships, other metadata). As for the rest of that question, I'm not sure what you mean... Jwoodger (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

From your previous questions, you appear to confusing the database and the application. The database is nothing more than a bunch of tables of data. The thing that you use to put data in the database and get reports out of the database is the application. Access is unique in that it combines a database and application into one product. Most databases do not include the application. So, understanding that Access is two things combined into one, the database should not contain data that is just a combination of two other fields. That is something you place at the application level. When a person fetches data, you add up the two columns and display the result. -- kainaw™ 15:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

There must be properly integrated database/spreadsheet systems out there though, surely?83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the application (spreadsheet) must be customized for every purpose. For example, I have a field on my report (which you are calling a spreadsheet) that is a percentage. The denominator is the number of times a patient has a systolic blood pressure > 140 or diastolic blood pressure > 90 and the previous blood pressure was also > 140 or > 90 (unless the patient is diabetic, then I use 130/80, not 140/90). The numerator is how many of those occurrences coincide with an increase in anti-hypertensive medication. So, do you propose that MS Access (or some "properly" integrated program) include this special field? Of course not. It is the job of the database administrator to customize the application to the user's needs. It is not the job of the program to instamagically create the application because no matter what is available there will be requests for more application features. -- kainaw™ 16:32, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that the database program be able to handle the same form of data as the spreadsheet. So if the spreadsheet can handle your data - the database would be able to (sounds like you have 2 values per cell or something - I don't know medicine) and vice versa

I don't see what is so outrageous to expect that sort of commonality. It's not a case of application features - it's a case of expecting two closely related programs to be able to use the same data set, without loss of data (or functionality).

In other words "properly integrated" means the database accepts a .xls file or whatever as a (dynamic) table (keeping the interelatedness between values), not just a static 'snap-shot' of the numerical values. Obviously access can't do that - I have to open a spreadsheet to alter data that affects a third value, then reimport it to create a report or whatever. Or maybe write out the statistical functions twice - ones for the spreadsheet, and once for the data report in database mode - doesn't sound good.83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you are looking for functionality that would be available as a calculated column, or a view in full database system. As far as I know, MS Access does not have calculated columns or view by that name, but the same effect can be achieved by defining and saving a query that contains the desired calculation, and then referencing the query as if it was a table. For example, if you have a table Table1 with numeric columns a and b. You could define a query on that table as "SELECT a, b, a / b as c FROM Table1;" and save it as Query1. (Although I've written this as a SQL SELECT statement, you can do the same with the query designer.) You can then browse Query1 or write another query against it just as if Query1 were a table. You can even save data to columns a and b, and column c will be calculated automatically. -- Tcncv (talk) 04:32, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the sort of thing. I was wondering if more money can buy better integration between a spreadsheet and database program - but it looks like that particular product is called a database engineer.. Actually I'll shut up because I just remembered that this wasn't my question - don't want to start hijacking it83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't confuse the spreadsheets of Excel with the tables in Access. Their similarity in appearance is only superficial. You cannot use Excel-like functions or row references or calculated columns in Tables. You CAN do waaaay more awesome and complicated things with your data in Access Queries than you can in any Excel spreadsheet. They do two very different things, don't confuse them!! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

OK then, can someone help me out with a query to pull this off. This is basically what you need to know. Ive got the following tables with the relevent fields in brackets and a brief explanation in square brackets:

• Currencies(CurrencyID, Currency, ExchangeRate) [This is where the exchange rates used by the company are stored]
• Demand(DemandID, Stock, Currency, Cost, CostInPounds) [This is where requests for more stock are stored]
• Stock(StockID, StockNumber, Description, Size) [This is where the details of all the different stock are stored]

Basically, I want someone to be able to make/view any requests with the important feature being that they can select the currency being used (as stock may be coming from a company in a different country and therfore uses a different currency) enter the cost and then have the cost in pounds (GBP) calculated based on information in the Currencies table and entered in the CostInPounds field. Can this be done using queries and if so how as I'm quite new to queries/SQL --|||| —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.244.210.38 (talk) 08:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Comparing zip file to directory in Ubuntu

If I have a directory (and I have one) and if I want to compare it to a zip file (and I want to) to know what is different and add or remove stuff from the zip file, what can I do it in Ubuntu? This would be like a simple backup, but it is also useful for other purposes (like packing a set of up-to-date docs).--Quest09 (talk) 10:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Beyond Compare will compare a directory to a zip file. I have only used the Windows version but according to their website, they also do a Linux version. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Extract the zip file to a temporary directory, run rsync -av --dry-run /dir-from-zip/ /other-dir/, it will give you a list of changed files. Amoe (talk) 09:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

banning ip ranges in php

Hi everyone, I have another question about php, this time how to ban entire ip address ranges. This is the code I've got so far, but it only works on single ips:

<?php $blockip = array( '123.456.789.123'=> 'block reason', ); //'address'=> 'block reason', foreach($blockip as $key=>$val) {if ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == $key) { die("You are banned because: $val"); } } ?>

How can I ban entire ranges in php? Thanks for your help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a tricky problem because of the syntax of IP addresses. Here's the simplistic solution: If you want to block, say, 12.34.xxx.xxx, you can add the key 12.34. to your block list and, if the incoming IP begins with 12.34., you block it. So, instead of comparing equality between the remote address and the key, you see if the remote address begins with the key. Here's the problem: what if you specifically try to block 1.2.3.4, so you make that key. Now, someone comes in with the remote address 1.2.3.45. That begins with 1.2.3.4, so it will be blocked. So, you are better off doing wildcard matching. So, instead of blocking 12.34., you block 12.34.*.*. Now, you have to write a comparison that matches "*" to any number. Regular expressions are commonly used for that. Another problem: the period is a reserved character in regular expressions (it means ANY character). So, 1.2 will readily match 152 (the period between 1 and 2 matches anything, including 5). So, what can you do? A million or so things. One is to not use periods. Use dashes. So, before the comparison, $key = str_replace(".", "-", $key) ... and the same with the remote address. Now, the period will be a dash and the address will look like 12-34-56-79 instead of 12.34.56.78. Then, if you used * to mean "any number", you have to change that to regex syntax with $key = str_replace("*", "{0-9}*", $key) ... no need to do that on the remote address as it won't have a * in it. Now, you can test: if (preg_match($_SERVER['REMTOE_ADDR'], $key)) { die... I know, it isn't as easy as you probably want, but it is one of a thousand or so ways to do it. Want a different example using the explode function on the IP addresses? -- kainaw™ 13:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Might it be better practice to block IP ranges at the HTTP server or even at the network level, rather than at the application level? I guess it depends on your application. If you are the server administrator, you can edit the web server settings. Even if you are not, you can create a .htaccess file (this works with most configurations of Apache). (Here's a quick and easy tutorial. Nimur (talk) 14:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That would probably be better, but I'd really need this to work in php so that I can just transfer the entire web folder from place to place and run it in an instant without any server setting up. Thanks Kainaw, I'll give your suggestion a go. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 16:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Just for your information... you can have an .htaccess file which specifies such IP blocks in the same directory as your PHP files; and you can move this .htaccess file around with the PHP source (as long as the webserver recognizes .htaccess files, which most standard-configuration servers do). Good luck with your implementation, however you choose to do it... Nimur (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Preventing background tabs from playing YouTube movies automatically?

When restart Firefox 3.5, it restores the tabs from my previous session. It's a great feature and I love it. But one problem is if I have multiple YouTube tabs, it starts playing ALL of them and I have to step through each tab to stop the movie. I don't remember this problem in the past. Is there a way to prevent YouTube movies from auto playing unless it's the frontmost, active tab? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 12:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I have added the Firefox addon "flashblock" which replaces all flash content with a placeholder. The flash will only load and the movie start playing when you click the flash object placeholder. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 12:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

There's a dedicated Greasemonkey script for this. -- penubag  (talk) 07:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

NooB wireless LAN question

For years I was happily connected to the net via wired LAN or (olde-worlde) modem. But these days I have to be connected via wireless LAN and I'm acutely aware of not knowing what the pluck I'm doing. The wireless router has instructions in Japanese only, which doesn't help, but I can't make sense of the en:WP articles either.

First, the OS I'm using isn't among those for which the manufacturer (Corega) of the wireless router provides idiot-proof instructions. A sticky label on the router tells me that its SSID or ESSID is such and such and that the "network key" is a certain eight-digit number. The OS wants the SSID (unproblematic) and also either or both of "BSSID" (which it glosses as "Only connect to the station with this hardware address") and "MAC address" (which it glosses as "Override hardware address"). Specifying an address that one then overrides makes no sense to me, or perhaps I should say that it makes even less sense than anything else does. Should I then use "BSSID"? Whichever I choose, I'm to supply it in the format "__:__:__:__:__:__": a twelve-digit number; should I type this in from the left, leaving the rightmost digits blank, or to the right, leaving the leftmost digits blank?

Secondly, is a WPA2/WPA-PSK -protected connection to a given wireless router in any way vulnerable to an unprotected connection to the same wireless router? I really don't care if others are freeloading off my LAN as long as they can't sniff what I'm doing. I did once manage to set up one of these wireless routers, protected and all; but I never could figure out how to disable the bonus unprotected network "cg-guest".

Thank you. -- Hoary (talk) 12:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

The BSSID and MAC are typically supplied only when one is building an infrastructure-mode wireless network (that is, a bunch of wireless router boxes all connected together). Clients typically need only the network key (and often maintain a mapping table correlating the right key with a given SSID; so when your laptop sees ssid="hoarynet" it knows which of its stored keys to send). So I wouldn't set either of those, but instead look for some other place in which to input the key. Regarding your second question - home routers are set either to allow only encrypted connections or only naked ones (not a mixture); but it sounds like this Corega thing might be a bit fancier than a basic home router (such as the kind found in hotels)? If so it'll have two (virtual) lans, one for the encrypted traffic and another for the naked stuff; if anyone can sniff the encrypted traffic then the router is very stupid, but whether broadcast traffic is visible between the two depends on how the router was coded. You might not think you're doing any (ethernet layer) broadcast traffic, but Windows' wins/smb service announcements ("hi I'm a printer... hi I'm a network share called "porn folder"... etc.) are incessant. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

To disable the CG-Guest account, you need to open up the router's admin page. Then on the left side menu go to LAN側設定 | 無線アクセスポイント設定 | マルチAP設定 and set ステルスAP to 有効. I'll be honest and tell you that I don't know what the setting is for but it makes the CG-GUEST account/connection disappear :)

Ah, perhaps I'm starting to understand. The Corega device is (I translate from the Japanese) a "wireless LAN broadband router", a "super high power 11n wireless LAN", offering "150Mbps" -- which may all sound very grand but actually this little plasticky thing is about the cheapest device I could find (circa &eur;30). I merely want a wireless LAN for use within a single small office in which two people are often using any of five or so laptops to connect to the net and a printer -- this is more convenient than plugging and unplugging a USB cable and trying not to trip over LAN cables. It seems that every Corega wireless router is set up with an unprotected LAN named either "corega" or "cg-guest" (indeed, for one entire week I was connected to the net via "corega" belonging to some unidentified neighbor). In principle, I'm happy if anyone wants to be my "cg-guest"; if this threatened to be a great drain while I was doing some major once-a-year feat such as downloading the latest Debian, I'd simply (?) disable wireless while connected, um, wirefully. -- Hoary (talk) 00:20, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Is it one of these Corega routers? They all seem to have English manuals at the bottom of their pages. If you need the MAC address, it might be on the bottom of the router, near the serial number. And no, AFAIK being on WPA2/WPA-PSK or any other encryption should prevent other people from easily intercepting your data, even if you're both on the same router. It's still not totally secure, but nothing is... Indeterminate (talk) 08:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the tips. No, my device is specific to the Japanese market. And oddly it doesn't much look like any of those shown on that page. (Or perhaps not so oddly, as it advertises itself as "150Mbps".) Any idea on the best way of supplying an eight-digit MAC address to a blank for twelve digits? (Maybe if I took the number as decimal -- which it seems to be -- and converted it to octal....) -- Hoary (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Decisions on pyramid of images

I'm unaable to guess the levels of resolution microsoft maps or similar websites possess. When making an image pyramid, How does one decide on the levels of resolution and even the size of an indvidual tile?. Can anybody throw some light please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 13:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like to view the individual image tiles that sites like Google Maps download, the easiest way is with an HTTP proxy that lets you save the individual downloaded junks as files. For similar tasks I've used HTTPripper, but there are lots to chose from. Google's tile size is 256x256, so that's a pretty big clue that zoomed in tiles cover either quarters or sixteenths (I'd guess quarters) of their parents. This article says there are 17 levels of zoom, and he says it's quarters. Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Reformatting my Compaq Notebook

My notebook is infected with a weird virus and so I wanted to do a clean format of the HDD and reinstall Windows. Compaq (which btw is now HP) did not give me a recovery disk (which I have used in the past) but instead has a recovery partition on the HDD. How then do I use the partition to reformat and reinstall Vista? Also, will I be able to backup my data before the reformatting is done? I do not want to connect a thumb drive or external HDD to my system to save my data because the external device may also get infected. Help needed. Thanks 116.71.75.2 (talk) 21:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay so I found out how to do it.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=bph07145#bph07145_xp

But this means there isn't an inbuilt option to backup my data. Can anyone give me an idea on how to do this without letting the virus spread to my other devices? Thanks. 116.71.75.2 (talk) 21:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Tap F11 on boot will get you to the recovery manager. you can backup data in there with an external drive. contrary to popular belief you cannot 'infect' an external drive(anymore at least). Data can be corrupt yes, but as long as you avoid transferring over anything that can execute you will be fine. that and pdf files. Ivtv (talk) 21:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the last 2 sentences of Ivtv's answer help the OP much. 116, what you probably want to do is to indeed back up all your data to an external drive, and then reformat your internal drive, reinstall Windows, set up an account without admin rights for normal everyday use, install antivirus software, install all your applications you use, and then, while using your non-admin-rights account, copy your documents from the external drive to your internal drive and make the virus software scan them. There are several ways that documents can indeed be infected. Then take your external drive, put a warning sticker on it, and throw it in a drawer in case you need to get other files you didn't copy initially. Tempshill (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd recommend virus/malware scanning the external drive before copying the files back to your new, clean system, but yeah, good advice. Indeterminate (talk) 08:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Tempshill, but that is not really an option for me, because I use the external HDD regularly and cannot condemn it to the junk heap. What if I copy data from my internal drive onto a CD? Will that carry the infected stuff? Also, where do I get all the drivers for the notebook? Are they already on the recovery partition? 116.71.78.131 (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm confused now. Do you already own an external HDD? If you do, then the virus may exist on both the internal and external HDDs, and my advice would be to get a second external HDD (let's call it "Joe") and then copy the internal drive's contents to Joe, and reformat the internal drive and reinstall everything as described above. Then I'd use your virus software to "clean" or "disinfect" the external drive. And then Joe goes into a drawer. On copying your internal drive to a CD and whether viruses would get copied, too: Yes, because it's some of your files which are infected, and so you're just copying the files to a CD, infections and all. I'd echo Astronaut's advice below, which I think is the same I mentioned above. Tempshill (talk) 05:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

When you say a "weird virus", what does your virus scanner say it is? Why do you think reinstalling Vista is the solution - have you not considered cleaning the infection without reinstalling? However, if you insist on reinstalling, I would back up your data to your external drive; reinstall Vista and all your programs including the virus scanner; let it get all the latest updates to Windows, and the virus scanner; connect the external drive, cleaning each file of the virus as you copy them back to the notebook; reformat the external drive to make sure the virus is dead. Astronaut (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Freeware Calendar

I am looking for a popular freeware calendar application that I can use. I need one that allows me to create a schedule on one computer, then save it in a file that can be transferred to another computer (with the same app obviously) and then imported into the app on the second computer. Is there an application that will allow me to do this without distorting the original schedule of the second computer's app? 94.7.166.22 (talk) 21:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

why don't you just use goggle calender? --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

does it do everything i need? 94.7.166.22 (talk) 21:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it does — there is no app, and everything is stored on Google's servers, which you can access from anywhere (using any reasonable platform). It's free, so you may as well try it out. Tempshill (talk) 22:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Although, you'll need an internet connection everywhere you want to access the calendar. Unless you sync it with some software on your computer. Dismas|^(talk) 05:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Mozilla Sunbird can do what you want, but I'm not sure how easy it is to sync accros computers. Otherwise you might look at List of personal information managers. Or just use google. Personally, I hate trusting outside providers for that sort of stuff, I prefer using my own computers, but I'm forced to admit that Google Calendars works very well.

PS. I'm not sure what you mean "without distorting the original...", perhaps we're misunderstanding that part? APL (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I think he means that the second computer will have it's own user and they want to share appointments between the two. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Need help setting up a FTP server

Hey guys. I'm new with this whole FTP thing. I currently use BulletProof FTP Server v2.3.1. I followed many, many online tutorials and instructions on how to set it up, and I've almost got it... but ran into some problems. First of all, it seems that I'm able to connect to the server fine using PASV mode (I have a dynamic DNS name via No-IP), but for some reason I can't get the LIST working. I'm also a bit confused on some things concerning port forwarding. I think I've got everything forwarded correctly but I'm not too sure... Just to clarify, where do I need to forward ports 20 and 21 to? This question goes the same for the range (I'm using ports 50000-50100). If I need to forward them to the machine hosting BulletProof, how do I do that in my router firewall (2Wire 2071) and my software firewall (PC Tools Firewall Plus)? If there are any questions then ask, and I appreciate as much help as possible! Thanks. Vic93 (t/c) 22:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

You only need to do port forwarding in the router's firewall, and yes, you forward it to the machine hosting BulletProof. Here's a guide to forwarding a port on a 2wire router. On your software firewall, you just need to open the ports that you're going to be using. In the program window, you probably want to click on "Applications" or "Application Blocking" and define your ftp ports. To find out if everything's working, get a website (like this one) to run a port scan on your ip address (select "common ports" or something). If it tells you that you "failed" because your FTP port is open, then congratulations, it works. Not sure about the LIST problem, let us know if you still have that after fixing the port forwarding issue. Indeterminate (talk) 08:12, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for reply. I opened the FTP ports on my software firewall and forwarded port 21 and ports 50000-50100 on my router. After turning the server online I ran the port checker and sure enough, I failed with port 21 open. So it looks like I'm good there, right? However I'm still getting "426 Cannot Retrieve. Failed. Aborting." and "421 Connection timed-out!" errors when trying to LIST in BulletProof. Any suggestions? Thanks. Vic93 (t/c) 16:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, that's strange. In the options window, under "Other", you might check to make sure that the "Command for directory list" is actually set to "LIST". That's all I can really think of. They have a knowledgebase and wiki on that link I just posted, too... you might want to check there. Indeterminate (talk) 22:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

How to find out what kind of broadband I'm using?

I'm considering buying a second-hand internet gateway or router, because its cheap. How can I find out the technical details of the kind of broadband I'm using please? Do different types of broadband need different types of gateway/router/modem? 89.240.61.156 (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Your IP resolves to "OPAL TELECOM DSL NETWORK" in the UK. So you're using an ADSL broadband connection. Most broadband in the UK is ADSL, which comes over BT wires. The only significant exception to that is people who have Virgin cable; they need a different kind of box to the ADSL folks. Before you change box, you'll need to write down the login parameters (username and password) that are encoded in your current box, as you'll need to enter these into the new one. -- 87.115.153.0 (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

In the UK we basically have cable and ADSL. If you tell us your ISP (e.g. talk talk, orange etc) we will be able to tell you what is suitable. Rjwilmsi 07:03, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The ISP is Talk Talk and the device is either a Zyxel Prestige 700 series or a Zyxel Prestige 600 series. The owner probably disposed of them because they do not offer wireless: I on the other hand do not trust wireless and do not want it. My aim is to get more than one computer using the same broadband connection, while appearing to the ISP to be only one computer. And if possible to allow passing files between computers for back-up purposes. I do not think the Zyxels have any software CDs with them. One computer will be running WinXp (as the ISP requires), the other one or two will have Linux Ubuntu. 78.146.236.46 (talk) 08:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, Talk Talk provide ADSL lines, so to replace your modem and provide Internet sharing you will need an ADSL modem router. They cost between about £20 and £100 depending on the features you require. You will find that nearly all of them now are sold with wireless, but you can disable this and use the LAN connection instead if you wish. Personally I have a Linksys router (I'm also on Talk Talk). Because the routers are configured using a web interface it won't matter whether you have Windows, LINUX or some combination of the above. Rjwilmsi 17:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

You might be able to get more info from Zyxel tech support, including a copy of the correct manual. One thing to note: the previous owner might have set the admin user and password to something else, but I guess the Zyxel modem has a tiny reset button somewhere. If the Zyxel kit doesn't work out for you, pretty much any wireless modem/router available in the UK comes with two or more ethernet ports and a way to turn off the wireless section (from the modem/router's control panel). Astronaut (talk) 17:13, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

July 18

Framerate problems

When I play a computergame on my laptop, the framerate starts out just fine. However after about 15-30 minutes of playing the framerate drops to unplayable levels. I don't know what's the problem. It happens when I run any game, so it's not specific to any particular program. I'm baffled really to what might be causing this. I'm running an Intel Centrino Duo. Videocard is a Quadro NVS 110M. ScienceApe (talk) 07:56, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. That is a bit odd. It could be overheating, which some systems deal with by automatically underclocking, which would reduce performance. If you've had the laptop for a year or more, you might consider taking it apart and cleaning out the fan vent. It usually gets clogged with dirt on laptops. (It's not terribly hard, but don't do it if you're not comfortable with taking apart computers and putting them back together.) It's also possible that your graphics drivers might have a memory leak... have you already updated your drivers to the most recent version on the vendor website? Hmm... can't think of anything else right now, but there's probably other things that could cause this issue. If I think of any more, I'll post them. Oh right, you might want to try running some benchmarking software like 3dmark or something. It might be able to give you a graph or something of your system performance over time. Indeterminate (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that this is simply a memory issue. The longer you play the game, the more things need to be loaded into memory (models and sprites and textures and what-have-you), and after a while it can no longer fit. It then either has to be recycled and removed from memory (which can conceivably slow your game down) or more likely be paged off to the hard-drive, and when it needs to be recalled again, it can't do it from super-fast volatile memory, it has to do it from super-slow magnetic discs.

Of course, I can't be sure, but it would help if you posted how much RAM you have and what games this is happening on. 83.250.236.75 (talk) 00:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok I have 3072megs of ram. Memory speed is 533mhz. Memory type is DDR2 SDRAM. It happens on pretty much all of my games, including emulators. I mostly play Unreal Tournament 2004 these days. Even relatively simple emulators like Genesis emulators. It'll run at a smooth 60fps when I first start the game, then after 30 minutes or so, slows to 30 fps then 20 fps. I will also add that my laptop doesn't seem to detect my battery anymore. I once ran the laptop on batteries and was downloading something via wifi, and the battery drained in just a few minutes, and it hasn't worked since. Unplugging my laptop will shut it off. I have no idea if this has anything to do with my problem, but I figured I would throw it out there. I will say that I can't remember having framerate issues before the battery died on me... ScienceApe (talk) 06:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Download CPUID Hardware Monitor and monitor your temperatures while it's in the slow-down state. Overheating is the biggest possibility here, the age of your hardware means that it'd have gathered a significant amount of dust in its heatsinks, something like File:Laptop_dust.jpg. Memory leak is really unlikely because it does not depend on what you do, merely loading the cpu will cause slow downs. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

But that doesn't really explain why after I restart the game, the framerate is back up to acceptable levels again. I just tried Unreal Tournament 2004 now, and played for about 20 or 30 minutes till it became very choppy, then restarted the game, and it's back to normal again. ScienceApe (talk) 15:21, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree there, when the GPU isn't under load (i.e. the game isn't running anymore) then the fans blowing on it will return the temperature to a normal level very very quickly. Literally 30 seconds or less which is probably the time it takes to reload the game and start the level again. At which point the GPU is working hard again and the fans are trying to keep the temperature cool, but eventually it gets too much and the GPU slows down to stop itself burning out. Have you tried cleaning out the vents yet? Cans of compressed air are very good for this if you don't want to open it up (although it could be argued you're making it worse as in many cases you're blowing the dust further into the machine). Just don't hold the cans upside down! ZX81 ^talk 13:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you're right. I cleaned out the vents with an airduster and it appears to work great now. Thanks a lot for the help. ScienceApe (talk) 20:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Three gigs of RAM should be more than enough, that's certainly not the problem then. While the battery-thing is obviously bad, I don't see how it would have anything to do with this. Do you have any of those really intrusive anti-virus programs running in the background? It might do a scan or something every 30-45 minutes that will slow down your computer (I'm guessing here). Also, it might not lead anywhere, but if I were you, I'd download Process Explorer and start killing processes like an insane lumberjack. Just stop everything non-essential, restart your game and see what happens. 83.250.236.75 (talk) 19:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I actually formatted my computer recently and reinstalled Windows XP SP2. So it can't be any malware or viruses, because they should have been destroyed in the format. Could it be a problem with drivers? Do I need any drivers for RAM? ScienceApe (talk) 21:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok downloaded that thing, and stopped all non-essential things. I still got massive slowdown in my game... I'm going to try uninstall my sound drivers and see what happens then. ScienceApe (talk) 23:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

How to take screenshots of Mac OS X applications's windows

I have recently found myself uploading screenshots of an application designed for Mac OS X, (see Chromium screenshot). However, so far I have only done this using Preview and the "grab" function. This meant that I have not been able to reproduce the semi-translucent shadow that windows in Mac OS X produce. Could somebody kindly tell me how I can capture the semi-translucent shadow, (as seen in File:Finder.png, and File:ITunes 8 OS X.png). Thanks alot, --P.Marlow (talk) 10:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Try Apple-Option-4. That should allow you to define a screenshot area that includes the shadow. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:09, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

and if you press the spacebar immediately, you should get a camera icon that will grab the image of the window only. :) Kushal (talk) 14:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

right, but it won't give you the shadow, which is explicitly what the OP wanted. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help. Another user very kindly answered it for me: you press Command-Shift-4 and then Space, after which you click the window you want to capture and it captures the whole thing including the shadow. Thanks for your help anyways!--P.Marlow (talk) 08:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

GIF2APNG

Please convert most animated GIFs on Wikipedia Commons to APNG! --88.78.10.214 (talk) 14:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the reference desk. Try the WP:Village Pump. APL (talk) 14:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

APNG is not supported on nearly enough of the current browsers that people actually use. Sure, it would be nice if lots of browsers supported MNG or APNG, but they don't, and promoting non-standard minority formats isn't Wikipedia's job. -- 87.114.153.140 (talk) 15:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I had never heard of APNG until this moment and using "...an unofficial extension to the PNG specification" which the "PNG group officially rejected..." would be a very bad idea. Anyway, what's wrong with animated GIFs which work everywhere? Astronaut (talk) 16:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Ideally we'd move away from animated GIF to an animated PNG format, in the same way that the web has mostly moved away from regular GIFs in favour of PNGs. MNG (which is the PNG group's suggestion for animated PNG, but which the Firefox people didn't like, and which no-one else seems to care about) and APNG both have the same advantages over animated GIF as PNG has over regular GIF: better compression, multilevel alpha (so you can do nice transparency), gamma support, and proper colour support (not just a limited palette). But the reality now is that no-one supports MNG out of the box, and for APNG there's no out-of-the-box support in IE, Safari, or Konqueror, and those browsers that do support it only did so relatively recently, leaving large populations behind that don't. -- 87.114.153.140 (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally the "PNG group officially rejected" thing isn't that serious a problem, as the PNG standard was built to accommodate new extensions without causing problems (which APNG is), whereas MNG doesn't "fail gracefully" on current browsers that do have PNG but not MNG. The real problem is that the web standards bodies haven't standardised a format, leaving an inconclusive chicken-and-egg situation (where browsers won't support things that aren't used, and authors won't make things that browsers won't display). That said, even if W3C or WHATWG did standardise on one or t'other today, it would likely be years before IE caught up, and it's difficult to justify creating general-interest content in a format that only a minority of visitors can see. 87.114.153.140 (talk) 17:03, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Isn't there an animated SVG format? JW _|^|_| Talk 17:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Two, really. SVG has basic procedural declarative animation where elements change according to some basic rules and paths (see http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/animate.html); this would be of some use to Wikipedia, animating some kinds of diagrams. The second kind is full DOM access, where a script (which means javascript in practice) can reach into SVG drawings and wiggle bits around. That's much more flexible, but it's very difficult to use in Wikipedia, because that would entail allowing ordinary contributors to supply javascript that's then run on others' browsers, and sanitising such general user-supplied code is very difficult. For both of these the spec exists, but the code is lagging; for MNG/APNG the code exists (either included or as an easy plugin for all major browsers) but the spec is lagging. 87.114.153.140 (talk) 18:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In any case, at the moment, animated GIFs are here, probably to stay. If in the future some other simple, animated bitmap format is widely acceptable, you can be sure Wikipedia will be all over that. That being said, animation for animation's sake is not necessarily desirable—a non-animated diagram can be sufficiently more enlightening than an animated one, if only because you can usually discover at a glance what a static image is trying to convey, whereas watching an entire animation (sometimes a few times) is required to make sense of it. There are places for animation, and there are places for static images. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

We can't convert GIFs to APNG because more than half the people on the net won't be able to load APNG since it's only supported on a few browsers. Animated svg doesn't even work in the latest Firefox alpha properly. -- penubag  (talk) 07:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

MHZ - Help (Again)

Can anyone please clarify more specifically this problem here. I am really stuck with my system. Please help. Thank you--119.30.36.46 (talk) 16:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

DNS settings sensitive?

Is it risky to post one's DNS settings from their domain/webhost on the internet?

I can't think of anything that a malicious person could realistically do with your DNS settings. Maybe they could figure out what ISP you use, but they could do that with your IP address anyway. Here, if it makes you feel any better, I'll post my DNS settings:

nameserver 24.25.227.55

nameserver 66.75.160.63

nameserver 24.25.227.56

Does that help? :) Indeterminate (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Since it's a domain you're talking about, anyone can just do a whois on the hostname and get your nameservers. If that's what you're talking about, it's not sensitive information. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

July 19

Power Supply Problem?

I just bought a new "computer" (really just the motherboard (Foxconn NF4UK8AA), processor (AMD Athlon 64 something), RAM and video card (GeForce 9600GT)) and I'm trying to set it up.

The system boots to my old hard disk (Win XP SP2), but as soon as it gets about 5 seconds into the "Windows" loading screen, it Blue Screen of Death's and restarts. The BSOD happens too quickly to read the error. It does this in Safe Mode as well.

I suspect the problem is that my power supply isn't sufficient to power the video card. The PSU is a Sparkle FPS300 (300-watt). Many forum posts and other online sources seem to suggest that 400-500 watts is needed for this card.

I was hoping someone else might be able to bang their head against this diagnosis. Is a BSOD-restart midway through the Windows loading screen consistent with insufficient power? Does the PC run the card at low power until some point during the Windows startup?

I'm probably going to buy a 500w power supply at some point soon, but it would be nice to save the money if this was not the issue. NByz (talk) 02:57, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Did you just move the old hard drive over into the new computer, without formatting or reinstalling windows? If the new computer is a significantly different architecture, that could be causing your bsod. Also, if you want to test the video card power issue, you could always just take the video card out and try booting the computer that way. If it still restarts automatically, it's probably not a power supply problem. Indeterminate (talk) 03:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Just as Windows XP starts to load press F8 and the boot menu will come up (you may need to press it a few times, but it will appear). There's an option on that menu to disable the automatic restart on system failure so when it blue screens again you'll be able to read the message. However, I agree with User:Indeterminate and it's likely it's caused by the configuration having radically changed and Windows simply doesn't have the drivers installed for the new hardware. Unfortunately the only workaround for this would be to boot from an XP CD and try a repair or "upgrade" over the existing installation, but personally I find this can leave the system quite unstable and a clean install would be better (wiping the existing drive). Please be sure to make backups of the data on the hard drive BEFORE trying and repair or upgrade options though! ZX81 ^talk 03:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried booting without the video card, but I can't tell if it auto-restarts. The light just stays on. The video card is my only output.

Thanks for the tip on the avoid Auto-restart. The error was 0x0000007B. Could be configuration related.

So now, my problem is that I don't have any bootable media handy. My version of XP is... less than registered, and I don't have the windows CD for a repair. I might be able to get my hands on a bootable USB tomorrow. I'm sure there are some windows XP CDs around somewhere...

The fact that the system will stay on with the blue screen makes me lean away from blaming the power supply.NByz (talk) 04:10, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Chances are it's a software problem (i've had the same problem before). If you still have your old motherboard, temporarily install it. Windows should load with the old hardware installed. If it does, back up your data right away. You may ultimately need to reinstall Windows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dursty (talk • contribs) 04:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Have you read this: [1]? 0x0000007B is INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. --wj32 ^t/c 05:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Java

I installed the Java JDK for a class I'm sitting in on (the teacher wants to use this as). I download this vers: JDK 6 Update 14 with JavaFX SDK- the first one and installed it correctly I think. I'm not really sure but when I run javafxc in cmd prompt it at least shows it's there. I'm a real beginner at programming in general so to test it I put a simple Hello World program into Notepad ++ and saved it as test.fx (for some reason unknown to me it uses Javafx, javafxc, and files at .fx not .java) and when I try to compile it I get an error me ssage. I tried copying and pasting the program from multiple sources and I get the same error every time. Heres my code:

class HelloWorldApp {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
       System.out.println("Hello World!"); // Display the string.
   }
}

and heres my error:

C:\Users\MyName\Documents>javafxc test.fx

test.fx:2: Sorry, I was trying to understand a 'class' decleration member but I got confused when I saw 'void' which is an  
identifier
  public static void main(String[] args){

test.fx:4: Sorry, I was trying to understand the script contents but I got confused when I found an extra '}' that 
shouldnot be there.

To me its inexplicable- the code is right I'm sure. Anyway, any help is greatly appreciated. 66.133.202.209 (talk) 04:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The code is right, but javafxc is used for JavaFX -- not Java. Try saving it as .java and using javac instead of javafxc. --aktsu ^(t / c) 04:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, since the class is called "HelloWorldApp" you need to save it as "HelloWorldApp.java". --aktsu ^(t / c) 04:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That is only partially correct. The file name does not need to match the class name because, in this case, the class is not public. However, the extension does need to be .java. Bendono (talk) 15:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunatly for me the download I used didn't install javac. When I try to run it, cmd propmt tells me it's not a recognized command. Anything better that I could download? I'm not sure how to install the gnu compiler. Thanks though. 66.133.202.209 (talk) 05:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you go back to the JavaSE download page and choose the "Java SE Development Kit - JDK 6 Update 14" a little further down the page (ie. not the one with JavaFX). Astronaut (talk) 15:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I ran write and run normal programs in the NetBeans ide. Regarding not finding javac its my dumbness actually. What I have to do is change my dir in the cmd prompt to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk_1.6.0_14\bin. However every time I want to compile a program I need to come back here and then whereever my file is saved I have to include that in the command (i.e javac C:\Users\...myfile.java). I tried to to -sourcepath to where I'm saving the files but it say's I'm making an error and I'm not even sure if that is the right thing to do so any help here would be appreciated66.133.202.209 (talk) 20:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you need to add javac's directory to your PATH. For XP at least, to change this you can right-click My Computer, click Properties. Go to the Advanced tab, and click the Environment Variables button at the bottom. Find the "PATH" variable in the bottom panel, and edit it to add the folder that javac is in to the list of folders. That way the cmd prompt should be able to find javac from anywhere. Indeterminate (talk) 21:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That worked for me at least. btw any particular reason that it wasn't automatically installed there when I installed the jdk? I'm thinking it normally should be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.202.209 (talk) 22:10, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a problem with the installation from what you have mentioned. Adding javac's directory to the PATH is not the installation's responsibility, but of the user who wants to use it. Jay (talk) 10:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

How can I increase My blog's Page Rank

I have a blog http://www.herbalgranny.com and it has pr 1 but I am trying to increase its pr but no results since last many days. Any Suggestion ? what to do ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonaliindore (talk • contribs) 06:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

You should read PageRank - basically, at the most fundamental level it requires that other sites, link to you, the higher the page rank of the site linking to you the better.

I removed the link from the title, as it makes this post look like spam, and also makes it difficult to create a hyperlink to this section.83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Rather than intentionally trying to manipulated the results - which is a way to ensure lng term total insignificance, I recommend trying to advertise any interesting articles you have written, try creating a list of sites that might be interested in your content, and you could e-mail them if you have an interesting story. Also may blogs link to each other - try to find blogs and sites that you like, and link to them. You could leave them a message saying that you likeed their blog, and suggest they look at yours. They might like it too, and link to you.

At the end there is no substitute for original content. And don't spam!83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Setting up DNS server to allow access of stored files

I put files in the space allocated by my webhost via FTP. When I try to access them, I get a Server not found / 404 error.

My DNS records are:

NS ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ns3.firstfind.nl

NS ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ns4.firstfind.nl

A *.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> 85.158.203.157

A ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> 85.158.203.157

A localhost.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> 127.0.0.1

CNAME pop3.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME mail.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME www.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME smtp.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME ftp.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME pop.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ganymedes-lgbt.nl

CNAME en.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ghs.google.com

CNAME nl.ganymedes-lgbt.nl -> ghs.google.com

I'm trying to access the files in question via http://www.ganymedes-lgbt.nl/filepath - shouldn't this be possible with the present DNS settings? My webhost is starthosting.nl and I have temporary websites set up at Google but hope to change that soon to a set set up at my webhost. ----Seans Potato Business 08:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

"Server not found" and 404 are different errors - HTTP 404 means the HTTP server exists but the resource you requested doesn't exist. You have the latter error (the server address is fine]). It depends on the setup, but probably the filepath you specify when uploading the content by FTP isn't the same as what you access it by in HTTP. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, often there's a subdirectory that you'll be looking for. The folder might be named http_docs or yourdomain.com or something similar. Look for an index.php file - wherever it is will be your base web directory. Indeterminate (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Free domain names

Probably a long shot, but is there any ways to get a free domain name? It doesn't have to be anything specific, just has to be a real domain name and not one given by the isp or a subdomain of another website. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

.co.nr is one. http://freedomain.co.nr/ —SpaceFlight89 10:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the OP asked for "real" domain names, and freedomain.co.nr gives away subdomains of co.nr:

CO.NR provides free domain names like user.co.nr that are free subdomains of .co.nr free web domain name ...

--wj32 ^t/c 11:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Besides, CO.NR only seems to offer HTTP redirection, not true domains that could be configured with IP addresses and such. --grawity 08:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't know if this is what you're asking, but the majority of web hosting providers offer a free domain name registration with the purchase of a hosting package. Domain names are pretty cheap though, you know? They're like $10/year or less. :) Indeterminate (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Anything that was truly free would be a paradise for domain squatters. There needs to be some sort of price just to stop people from registering everything from AAAAAAAAA to ZZZZZZZZZ. APL (talk) 12:55, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Just as e-mail is currently a paradise for spammers. Tempshill (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Ebook readers

What is the most popular free ebook reader on the web? 94.7.166.22 (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Notepad, I should think. Our article Comparison of e-book formats has some more information. Algebraist 22:36, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Can people convert notepad ebooks to any form of ebook viewer? 94.7.166.22 (talk) 22:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

A "Notepad e-book" means nothing but a plain-text file. You can convert it to any format, if you only have the means of converting to that particular format. There really is no such thing as "converting from plain-text". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh? So, like, what happens when I save a plain-text file as, say, a rich text file? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 05:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Rich text differs from plain text by possibility to add formatting. If there were no formatting in first place (as in plain text file), result will be a big heap of plain text (it might have some sort of default font and similar default formatting applied to whole text). -Yyy (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Telnet over OpenVPN

I have an Ubuntu Server that I don't have space to set up on a desk, so I'm trying to set it up for remote administration (both LAN and Internet) with a VPN. The server has the fixed IP address 192.168.xxx.xxx. I've set up OpenVPN and had the router firewall configured to make 192.168.xxx.xxx a virtual server with public and private port 1194. I've set up telnetd on the server.

Although I can make the VPN connection just fine from my desktop computer on the LAN, I get "telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused" whenever I try to telnet in from the same desktop, whether I type "telnet 192.168.xxx.xxx 1194" or just "telnet 192.168.xxx.xxx". I suspect the reason is that telnetd is listening on its default port 23. How can I set it to listen on port 1194?

If it makes a difference, the OpenVPN is using TCP instead of the usual UDP. NeonMerlin 20:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Telnetd is set up by default with inetd. To change the port telnet listens on, edit /etc/inetd.conf as root. On the telnet line, the first word (probably "telnet") is actually a name corresponding to a port number in /etc/services. Just change "telnet" to the port number you want (1194). Then run /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart.

If you're just using telnet to login remotely, though, ssh is a bit more standard these days. It's superior in almost every way. sudo apt-get install openssh-server to install it on the server. Indeterminate (talk) 21:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Are u attempting to connect to openvpn port by telnet application? Although, this is weird, telnet should have been able to connect to TCP port (if as u say, openvpn goes over TCP)(telnet session wont open, but connection should be establishable). Other services over vpn link works? (openvpn implements a set of network interfaces, which has different IP adresses than main interface).

There are ssh clients for windows (or so they says (i have never used one)), but if vpn is used for other things as well, telnet might be good enough, because it is secured by vpn. -Yyy (talk) 18:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Is perfect character encoding possible?

I use Firefox 3.0.10 set with Unicode (UTF-8) as character encoding. I thought every possible character on earth would work with Unicode, but still some pages have strange characters formed lika boxes with numbers in them. This List of Wikipedias is a good example. Chinese, Japanese and Arabic characters looks fine there, but some other characters don't work. Here's a screenshot of how it looks like on my screen. Is it possible to make all the different character encodings work at the same time? Mårten Berglund (talk) 23:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you simply do not have a font with all these characters? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:04, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

That's right — encoding a character and having the right font are two separate matters. Tempshill (talk) 04:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

These might help: [2] [3] Indeterminate (talk) 07:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Using the Code2000, Code2001, and the GNU Unifont fonts helped a bit. All these three fonts were needed to display all the characters appearing at [4]. I guess hardly noone displays that page without flaws. Still, many of the unusual characters there from the fonts I'm using now, are pretty dim, not so sharp. Another thing, is that Firefox cannot handle most Unicode, non-ASCII characters in the title bar of the browser window (or maybe that's a constraint in my Windows 2000?). Mårten Berglund (talk) 18:06, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd guess the title bar is fixed to a system font - probably Tahoma (typeface) as default - you can change the font for the title bar in windows under appearance/themes if you want. I don't think it changes font when a character is not in the font set - which is a missing feature. The title bar might be a firefox problem - IE7 seems to cope.

Code 2000 catches most, though I seem to remember that it doesn't do something fairly obvious (burmese or something) - curiously I too used to have the 'box' problem, but I notice that all the characters on the above page are displaying fine now - I wonder if this is anything to do with me installing open office (more fonts) - the output looks fine to (unlike code2000 which looks awful isn't the best looking font - don't want to critcise such a gargantuan effort) Question - maybe you could install open office - copy the fonts, and then dump it - I'm not sure if any of the fonts have licensing issues - but I doubt it.83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC) Correction - still haven't got Khmer/Singalese - about 97% are ok)83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the hints. I'll maybe try to install Open Office then some time. I was able to change to Code2000 in Windows -> Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance, and then Firefox' titlebar managed to show some of the unusual WP language pages. But as mentionend, Code2000 is too blurry, so I switched back to Tahoma. Try Unifont, to fix those last 3 % - worked for me (oops, think I needed Code2001 also to show gothic though). Mårten Berglund (talk) 11:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

July 20

IT certifications

I am looking for a somewhat complete list of certification courses that one can take in the IT field. Is there such a list? Cutno (talk) 00:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's an article to get you started: Professional_certification_(Computer_technology). Taggart.BBS (talk) 08:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

How to merge or update two large folders

I have a Documents folder copied from my previous "old" computer that I want to merge with the Documents folder on my current "new" computer. Both folders are large and complex, with many sub-folders, some nested three or four folders deep, and many files within the folders.

The proceedure I want to follow is: if the old folder has the same name as a new folder then copy the contents of the old folder into the new folder. If the folder names are different then simply copy the old folder. If file names are the same then append "old" to the old file name when copying. This needs to apply to sub-fiolders as well. Ideally I'd also like to be able to check somehow that everything has been copied, with nothing left out.

What would be the best way to do this please? Is there some script language I could use, or a program? I am not very familiar with scripting, and perhaps it needs some sort of "stack" to cope with the sub-folders. I'm using Windows XP. Thanks. 78.146.249.124 (talk) 10:22, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Any scripting language should be able to handle this. The logic of the function needs to be such that it can call itself (it needs to be recursive). That way, each iteration of the function will look for more folders to run itself on. It's a good programming task if you want to get to know a new language (filesystem routines and recursiveness are both nice things to play with); just make sure you make a backup first when testing out new things that involve copying files! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a list anywhere of recursive languages please? Are for example Python, Autoit, or Basic4GL recursive? 78.149.162.38 (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Stick with Visual Basic since you already know Basic - yes it's 'recursive' - any language worth its salt has recursion capabilities; this is something natural to the workings of a computer along with stacks, registers and linked lists. BTW you should investigate a copy tool called TeraCopy - this might be powerful enough to do your merge with all your rules. Sandman30s (talk) 18:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Any language that lets you call a function with the same function is recursive. So what you want is a function with a name like SearchAndCopy() that, if it finds a subfolder, runs SearchAndCopy() on it. It'll drill down to every possible subfolder that way. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Here, I wrote it for you. It's in C++, but it would be roughly the same in any common language. I added some logic to use "_old2", "_old3" etc if "_old" exists so that the merge can never fail (unless your pathnames exceed MAX_PATH = 260 characters or you have more than 2³² similarly-named files in the same directory, in which case the program will hang forever trying filenames). It will never overwrite a file. You'll have to run it from the command prompt and specify the directories as arguments (old first, new second), unless someone feels like adding a directory chooser to it. No warranty. -- BenRG (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I've never used C, let alone C++. Do I just find a C++ compiler and compile it, or is there more to it than that? 89.240.51.22 (talk) 08:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried translating it into VB here http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://code2code.net/&sa=U&start=1&ei=wodlSpipOY2NjAeT6_1S&usg=AFQjCNF6bQ5WBLByDQbIOMJbX5BNzp1JgQ , which may be more basic-like, but it does not like the include string part at the begining. When I edited out the include lines, it gave about a fourteen line response which seems suspiciously brief. 89.240.51.22 (talk) 09:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think all I want to do is to use the normal Windows XP copying thing, which merges same-name folders for you as standard, *except* that instead of the two options offered when the file names are the same, of either over-writing or not copying, I want to rename. Does anyone have any ideas how this could be done? Perhaps I should move instead of copy, rename everything that was not moved, and then move these. Thanks 78.146.215.136 (talk) 12:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Source code

#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <string>
using namespace std;


wstring add_old_extension(wstring s, int n)
{
	if (n != 0) {
		WCHAR suffix[30];
		wsprintfW(suffix, (n == 1) ? L"_old" : L"_old%d", n);
		size_t pos = s.rfind('.');
		if (pos == wstring::npos)
			s.append(suffix);
		else
			s.insert(pos, suffix);
	}
	return s;
}


void copy_file(wstring from, wstring to)
{
	for (int n = 0; ; ++n) {
		if (CopyFileW(from.c_str(), add_old_extension(to, n).c_str(), TRUE))
			break;
	}
}


void copy_dir(wstring from, wstring to)
{
	CreateDirectoryW(to.c_str(), NULL);
	WIN32_FIND_DATAW wfd;
	HANDLE h = FindFirstFileW((from + L"\\*").c_str(), &wfd);
	if (h != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
		do {
			wstring name = wfd.cFileName;
			if (name == L"." || name == L"..")
				continue;

			wstring from_name = from + L'\\' + name;
			wstring to_name   = to   + L'\\' + name;

			DWORD to_attr = GetFileAttributesW(to_name.c_str());
			bool from_file = !(wfd.dwFileAttributes & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY);
			bool to_file   = !(to_attr & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY);
			bool to_exists = to_attr != INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES;

			if (to_exists && from_file != to_file) {
				// one is a file, the other is a directory
				for (int n = 1; ; ++n) {
					wstring to_name_old = add_old_extension(to_name, n);
					if (GetFileAttributesW(to_name_old.c_str()) == INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES) {
						to_name = to_name_old;
						break;
					}
				}
			}

			if (from_file) {
				copy_file(from_name, to_name);
			} else {
				copy_dir(from_name, to_name);
			}
		} while (FindNextFileW(h, &wfd));
		FindClose(h);
	}
}


int main() {
	int argc = 0;
	WCHAR** argv = CommandLineToArgvW(GetCommandLineW(), &argc);
	if (argc != 3) {
		printf("usage: %S <old-directory> <new-directory>\n", argv[0]);
	} else {
		copy_dir(argv[1], argv[2]);
	}
}

Indexing and Dictionary based compression

Is it possible to combine "Dictionary based compression" and "Indexing", so that indexing algorithm can use dictionary (hash table) created by compression algorithm ? Is it possible to combine indexing and compression this way ? are there any system already doing like this? is it possible to do it in apache lucene? -V4vijayakumar (talk) 11:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

See Lempel–Ziv–Welch for instance where a dictionary is built up automatically and the text is encoded using it. The usual compression for http is gzip and I'd stick with that though some others are allowed. I've never looked at lucene. Dmcq (talk) 15:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Which easy-to-use languages allow file copying, folder creation, and altering file names?

Further to my question above about merging two Documents folders, what easy-to-use languages would allow these? I'm most familiar with GWBasic, so I'm looking for Basic like languages or scripts, or perhaps I now have a reason to learn Python if it can do these things. Thanks. 78.146.249.124 (talk) 11:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Any (real) language can do that. Also, if you only need to cop files, create folders and rename files, you could do with a simple .bat file. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

mmm, the specific operations desired above requires a bit more logical handling than a "simple" .bat file, and even an expert .bat file writer might find it to be something of a chore to write (if it can be done at all). But yes, any language should be able to do this... hopefully one will pick something a bit more flexible than the batch scripting, though! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Another thing it would need to do would be to read a file directory. 78.149.162.38 (talk) 17:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I personally would stick with a scripting language (Python or others like PHP, Perl, or Ruby). It doesn't seem like you need to compile an executable. -- kainaw™ 18:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

If you're most familar with GWBasic, why not just stick with Visual Basic or VB scripting at least? Sandman30s (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I used VB Scripting once and it was very difficult - perhaps because it is object orientated which I am not comfortable with. And I understand that Visual Basic has little in common with the old-fashioned basics such as GWBasic. 78.149.162.38 (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to be a master in object orientation to learn VB. When you create a new form, VB generates the OO structures for you, and within these structures you can insert all your 'old school' variables and procedures etc. Then when you create new forms that interact with each other and the main form, then you can define objects as global or local to forms. Eventually the OO aspect is almost non-noticeable unless you delve into advanced programming. With simple folder/file programming that you want to achieve, this won't be the case. You can get by with just one form and a few buttons/procedures. With the form designer, you drag a button onto the form and it generates the OO structure for you. This is the same with any other windows component. All visual/GUI languages work like this, including Delphi which is my favourite. I can't speak for web development but I know java is not quite as straight-forward in terms of code generation, without loading third party frameworks. Sandman30s (talk) 14:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd say learn python - it should be a doddle to learn if you already know basic (more so than perl or horrible PHP), though ruby might be a good choice - it has/that flexibility/ease of entry feel that a lot of BASIC old timers like. Ruby should also have a low barrier to entry for basic programmers. (Python and Ruby are easy and 'fun' - I think that's the case)

There are some basic programs out there - as I remember freeBASIC is supposed to be Qbasic like - so you might want to look at it, it has an IDE, though I never got round to actually trying it.83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:58, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually I too can recommend the .bat file method - as I've done it myself - using a very simple basic you can create and write out text files to be your bat files, then run them from the basic using a sys command or whatever. All the basic is for is to automate the production of text files - you can write basic programs to analsys the output of commands eg "dir > aaa.txt" - it's all simple string manipulation, and you don't need to learn a new language (though obviously you need to know the commandline commands) - for a really simple implementation yabasic on windows does it, there probably are other basics outthere.83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:56, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

(Oh almost forgot - on windows you could consider Powershell which is like the commnand line (cmd.exe) but with scripting stuff. Unfortunately to use it you have to download the .NET framework, which is like 100GB or something.. Still it is supposed to be quite good ie as good as UNIX)83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been looking at various languages and scripts. Python it seems requires several lines of code to copy a file, as does Basic4GL, wheres a .bat file just uses a command like "copy pathA pathB". Autoit also has a simple file copy command. I would use a bat file, but I have to parse a file list. These scripts http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/storage/files/default.mspx?mfr=true appear concise, but the object-orientation is confusing to me. Although I very much appreciate the effort above, I have never used C or C++ before. So AutoIt it is. 89.240.51.22 (talk) 09:12, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

If you've used C/C++, why not look at PHP? It is very close to a C syntax. You can use object orientation or ignore object orientation as much as you like. Copying a file is: copy("source.file", "copy.file"); -- kainaw™ 13:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

2-way merging of music libraries?

Hi all,

I have two computers that between them hold all my music in iTunes directories. They share about 90% of the same files, and then there are a few hundred songs on each computer which are not shared with the other computer.

What program would you recommend for merging the two libraries together?

There were a few programs I looked at that we essentially for doing backups onto different computers. The biggest problem with these is that they try to move over the newest versions of files if both computers share the same files. The problem with this is that iTunes updates the file every time it is played in order to change the "last played" field. So the programs want to move over a bunch of songs that are on both computers but look a little different.

Can anyone recommend any good (free) software? Thanks! — Sam 15:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

iTunes allows you to input all songs - it will happily allow duplicates, and then you choose an option to 'show duplicates'. You can then delete the half you don't require. (Last version I tried this on rather unhelpfully shows both duplicates in the list so you had to painstakingly select every-other song to delete the duplicates). Have you tried that way? ny156uk (talk) 17:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

If the files are actually the same - if they have the same filenames and folder structure on both computers - then you can just try copying the contents of one folder over into the other. In Vista at least, it'll ask if you want to Merge or Skip. Say Merge whenever possible, but say "Skip" and check the box for All whenever it asks about overwriting specific files. In XP the process is similar. Say yes to copying the folders, but skip overwriting files. That way it'll just copy files that don't already exist.

Once that's finished, you can turn around and copy the contents of the second directory back to the first, again telling it to skip overwriting any files. When it's done the two folders will be sync'ed. Indeterminate (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

TI-Nspire and Mirage OS

I have loaded Mirage OS onto my TI-Nspire (non-CAS) under the TI-84 keypad. When I tried to run it, the calculator crashed. Why did this happen? Is there any way around this? --72.197.202.36 (talk) 17:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There's a bit of a bug in the TI-Nspire's TI-84 Plus emulation. You can try this fix to try and solve the problem. Vic93 (t/c) 15:15, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

CD Key in old Setup

When I was ~13 years, I wrote my first software application, called Easy Writer. A few days ago, I bought an external USB 3.5" FDD and found the installation files for the application. However, I am unable to install it, because I was childish enough to protect the setup with a CD key! (I guess that I wanted to mimic the security features of the "big" applications.) I guess that it is not too hard to crack the installer, for it is old, and the setup utility was not very professional (SamLogic Visual Installer 3.06). The setup is not a single-file executable, but a setup.exe executable and a set of data files and settings for the installer. I have tried to change CDKeyDlg=1 to CDKeyDlg=0 under [DialogBoxes] in visetup.inf, and indeed, the installer didn't show any CD key dialog, but the app would not install anyway. I guess that one could extract the correct CD key from the line

CorrectCDKey=ECx00-7KNpSnKYNI=!hR&?O3UgQz95;294Ec]H8Ni%Y(6jMuD+

in the very same file, if one only knows the decoding algorithm used by the software. Unfortunately, I do remember that I did not use a (e.g. English) word as password, but a set of numbers, possible using the prefix "ew". How can I install my old app (or even extract the main executable from the installer's data files)? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I more or less accidentally stumbled upon the CD key... ew-6483-2651. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You accidentally typed the correct 8 numbers? Sir, I have a lottery I need to play today and I need you to pick the numbers for me. Tempshill (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I found an old readme.txt file with the key... :) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Duplicate Network Connection

I have a problem with my LAN internet connection. I have 2 networks on there. My first network is my default and trusted network on my account and is a private network. There is however a second network called network 2 that is on there as well. Every time i log in the set up internet connection page comes up and asks weather its a home work or public location. I cancel that out but network 2 is still on there even resetting the router does nothing. I have a fear that this may be a spy network of some sort because even after using the merge or delete networks box on windows vista the network automatically comes right back up after its deleted. I could use some tips on how to fix this up or temporarily be able to block networks. This is a linksys router.--logger (talk) 22:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

July 21

Unfreeze KDE

When KDE freezes, my Kubuntu system often takes too long to respond to Ctrl-Alt-Esc, Ctrl-Alt-Del and Ctrl-Alt-F1, and I have to hard-reboot the computer. Is there any way to forcibly interrupt KDE and its apps, and get a console shell without the delay of Ctrl-Alt-F1? Once that's done, are there tools other than htop that can help me find and kill the process responsible for the freeze? NeonMerlin 00:33, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace kills X server and either leaves console or attempts to restart X. -Yyy (talk) 05:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Also check out the Magic SysRq key. I've never had a lot of success with it, but it's supposed to work quite well for crash recovery. Indeterminate (talk) 00:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Internet causing computer crashes.

Kinda long question-if this isn't the place could you recommend me a good forum at least?

I was cleaning a computer for virus and such (its pretty old and hasn't been running with any anti vir besides Windows defender). I ran Avira, Super Anti-Spyware, and A-2 Squared. Combined they found 5 virus (I don't have the computer in front of me so I can't say names). That solved one of the problems with the computer- that every time explorer.exe was opened the computer would crash and need to be restarted w/ power button.

However the internet still crashes randomly sometimes (regardless of browser) on random webpages. I can see the whole screen but it is completely frozen, so I need to restart it with the power button. Any ideas as to what could be causing it? Any way I could get the error report from my computer of the incident (I can't find Dr. Watson and I'm not sure how to use HijackThis! because it causes the computer to crash so I have to restart it). The problem is sporadic which really confuses me. I can't guarantee but I think it sometimes appears on sites with only text.

Secondly (not so important): what would you recommend as a good anti virus (pay or free-either way)? Out of Avira, Avast, AVG, Norton, McAffee, or anything else what would you recommend. I don't want it to be to hard on resources so I don't mind compromising some detections because I can run on-demand scanner (Super Anti-Spyware, A-2 Squared).

Thanks in advance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.202.209 (talk) 00:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd try Spybot and Ad-Aware on this - they may pick up spyware/malware infections missed by the other programs. Exxolon (talk) 01:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is pretty much a standard part of any anti-malware clean-up job. An additional tool that may be of use is Dr.Web CureIt! Ideally, when dealing with unstable, infected systems, critical files should be backed up and then bootable CDs used to remove malware without the hassle of active malware in memory causing problems with removal or system stability. Here's a good list of bootable anti-virus bootable CDs provided by various anti-virus vendors; most are free. As for an effective but light anti-virus, I find NOD32 fulfills that criteria rather well. I'd still recommend trying out the trials of various different anti-viruses, however. Hope this helps! :)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 04:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Limit the servers upload speed to ips

Is there a way to limit the download speed of people connecting to a web server, based on their ip address? Say for example the server has a poor upload speed, if one person downloads a lot of images at once they can make the entire site unreachable to others. Is there a way to do this? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk • contribs) 06:13, July 21, 2009 (UTC)

If you are using Apache, try mod_bandwidth - manya (talk) 10:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I am but on a windows pc, and mod_bandwidth appears to only work for Unix

The term you want to search for is Traffic shaping or Bandwidth throttling, basically not so simple or cheap on windows. Use a separate linux box or possibly run a very small virtual linux instance on the same PC using Virtual PC, set it upo as the gateway and use traffic shaping on that. I also think there are new firmware for your router that might be able to help. --Stefan ^talk 03:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

DOS

hey can some one tell me how to make a batch file to del a particular FOLDER on computer.

is this correct

@echo off
C:XYZ/ABC/ del CDF
y
exit

(where ABC, XYZ, CDF are folders and i want to delete CDF...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sushil shenoy (talk • contribs) 14:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

• Try this

@echo off         (Causes batch file to run silently)
c:                (Change to drive C)
cd \xyz\abc       (On current drive (now C:) move to folder \xyz\abc. Note \ not /)
del cdf /q        (delete files in folder cdf. Not all DOSes have /q (quiet))
rmdir cdf         (remove folder)
                  (batch file exits when it falls off the bottom.)

Make the batch file without @echo off. Make a folder, copy some files into it and try it. Alter to suit. -- SGBailey (talk) 14:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Be very careful with deleting stuff via batch files; if one of the cd's doesn't execute correctly (due to typo or running the batch file from the wrong directory or whatever) you can easily inadvertently delete things. Many years ago I had a very bad accident with a batch file that regularly cleared out my IE caches (back when those needed to be manually cleared out!). SGBailey's looks fine of course but as you modify things, beware...! --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:04, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, SGBailey's batch file is pretty unsafe because the "del" command will execute whether or not the "c:" and "cd" commands succeed. (Success might not occur if there was indeed a typo in either of the two lines, or if you simply forgot an intervening directory, or if for some reason your main drive mounted as the F: drive instead of C ... so it might not do what you want, which in this case would be bad if there happens to be a "cdf" subdirectory in the current directory.) A safer substitute would be

@echo off
del c:\xyz\abc\cdf /q
rmdir c:\xyz\abc\cdf

Tempshill (talk) 15:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Removing or reducing reverberation

Is there a way using a currently available audio software package of removing or reducing the reverberation on a recording I have on cd? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.44.241 (talk) 16:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of a package that does that - but it's certainly possible in principle. There is an analogous problem in computer graphics where you need to remove 'ringing' artifacts from lossily-compressed images. That problem is pretty much solved...so it must be possible in audio also. SteveBaker (talk) 02:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

What algorithm could in principle be used steve?--79.75.44.241 (talk) 13:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The general class of algorithms you're looking for is probably Deconvolution algorithms. I'm not aware of specific ones used to reduce audio reverb. I suspect that this is not something you could do easily or with little artifacts, but It's entirely possible that I'm completely wrong. Artificial reverb (created in a computer) could probably be removed a lot cleaner than real, natural echos. APL (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Direct weblink

Is there a way to create a direct link to search results from this page? When I do a search for "keathley george", the results show up at http://www.abmc.gov/search/detailwwnew.php, but if you go to that URL directly, the information is blank. I'd like a direct link to the search results to use as a reference for an article. Thanks. — jwillbur 23:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

'Fraid not. They have opted for using a way of sending HTML variables that doesn't let you put them in a URL in any way. It's kind of unnecessary -- they would literally have to change one word in their code (albeit maybe a few times) to have it set up the other, more useful way. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm afraid there's no way to create a URL that goes directly to the search result. However, if your article is on a website, you can create a button that goes directly to the search result using the following HTML code

<form method="post" action="http://www.abmc.gov/search/detailwwnew.php">
<input type="hidden" name="ID" value="21473">
<input type="submit" value="Go">
</form>

Otherwise, it looks like you'll have to give the URL of the search page and explain what to search for to get the search result. --Bavi H (talk) 01:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Bavi. It's actually for a Wikipedia article, so a button won't work, unfortunately. But I am curious, how did you find the correct ID value? — jwillbur 05:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Last time I checked WP:EL expressly discourages linking to search results. If you're trying to provide sources for others to expand the article you are better off pasting te URL onto the talk page with instructions as mentioned above. Zunaid 07:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't want to link to a search results page—the site is a database, he wants to link to the actual entries. They don't let you do that. It's dumb. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

You can find the ID value by viewing the source of the page that has the "GO" buttons on it. Each of those is a little INPUT with an ID value. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

July 22

Red channel on data projectors broken?

I've come across many many projectors in our (national) company that don't display colours correctly. Without exception it is the red channel that seems to be broken. On Saturday I picked up the same phenomenon on another projector (different brand, different organisation completely). My google-fu is not strong enough to find a discussion about this on the web. What could be happening? Is it a known problem with the red channel on data projectors? AFAIK they are all DLP projectors rather than LCD. They are basically now unusable for movies or photos, only presentations. Even then you have to choose your colours carefully. The problem is so bad that we've been instructed to differentiate our graphs by some mean other than purely colour. The projectors are generally older than 1 year but <3 years. What the hell is going on? Zunaid 07:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Need help with document.body.style.cursor!

document.body.style.cursor = 'crosshair' (or one of the common cursors, like "hand" or "help") works, but changing "crosshair" to an image URL to get a custom cursor does not work! I also tried document.body.style.cursor = 'url(the_image_URL_here)'. I have checked many times and the image URL is correct. How do I get it to work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.59.132 (talk) 10:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Quirksmode says IE needs a .cur image, rather than taking an jpeg or png. I think a .cur is a .ico. 87.113.21.118 (talk) 10:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!!! How do I convert a bmp, jpeg or gif image to a cur image? Any other stumbling blocks to note?

Cur is an ICO that has a hotspot, I believe. You need specialized software for it. Google "create windows cursor." --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Where can I find a good Ghostscript tutorial?

Hello. I'm looking for a tutorial on how to use the Ghostscript interpreter interactively. The only information I've been able to find is on how to run the gs command in batch mode. But I want to enter in PostScript one line at a time. I can't find a list of commands supported by Ghostscript and what the prompts mean (e.g., I often see a <1> or something similar after gs>). I found a very basic introduction with a hello-world example, but that's it so far. It just seems that no one is interested in PostScript any more. I don't understand why. Sigh.--H. Gutmans (talk) 11:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps the Ghostscript User Manual might be helpful? (Just search for it.) I found that the real important trick is remembering to "showpage"... --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 13:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not that no one is interested in post script, it's that there are libraries that vastly, vastly simplify things, so you don't have to muck around at such a low level. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:37, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

print screen

how do i print screen WITH THE CURSOR?

To strictly answer your question, I was just able to do it by Clicking on 'START/All Programs/Accessories/Accessability/Onscreen Keyboard' and then slicking on the "psc" button on the onscreen keyboard.

However, when I personally need a screen shot, I tend to use the "Create/Screenshot" feature of The Gimp. (The screenshot feature is called slightly different things in different versions, but it's always easy to find.) Hope this helps. APL (talk) 13:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Computer shutting down

Hello. I've had my laptop for two years and it's always worked fine. Recently though, every time I try to 'wake up' the computer from standby, I get a brief flash of blue screen of death, then the computer restarts. Otherwise, the computer is fine. I've checke dm power options, and they are set to default (I.e the power button is not set to instantly shutdown). Is there any way I can fix this problem? Many thanks in advance =) Cuban Cigar (talk) 12:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Check that the battery isn't running out. This can cause the "blue screen of death". Also, check when the computer is due to sleep in power options. 90.194.115.243 (talk) 13:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok my battery is always charged and is def not running out. In power options, system standby is set at 'never'.114.77.68.9 (talk) 13:53, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Try turning off automatic restarts after the blue screen of death (it's somewhere in Control Panel -> Systems if I remember correctly) - the exact error message may give you a clue as to what is going wrong. — QuantumEleven 14:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Calender files

Is there an easier way to create a series of calender events than just creating them one by one using sunbird, windows calender or outlook? For example, could the events be created in an excel document and then converted to a .isc file and then imported? I know calenders can be exported into a .csv file from sunbird but I cant seem to import it back the way. I am using windows vista. 90.194.115.243 (talk) 13:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Running a site from my home computer

Hey everyone! I'm thinking about running a small website from my home computer. A few people, maybe about 20 or so in total, will connect to my server and view pages just like any other website. The problem is I have an awfully slow upload speed, approximately 40KB/s at best. Will this cause a big problem for people trying to use my site? Will it be too slow?

As a test I've set up an example of what my site will be like. If it's not too much to ask, could somebody test the features, like loading a few images, and report back on if it's too slow to be usable? I'm also interested in any advice, experience or really anything you can share with me about running a home server as I'm very new to this.

Thanks so much for your help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.29 (talk) 13:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

not too bad for speed, at least when I tried.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It worked reasonably well from here as well. You might as well give it a try. If it starts giving you problems you can switch to the cheapest hosting service you can find. APL (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

carelessly using an USB stick

whenever I pull out a USB stick, I do not stop the device. Sometimes, I close the explorer windows showing folders inside the USB stick. I only see to it that the lights are not blinking or that I don't save or run anything from it when iam pulling it out. Will this damage the USB stick?