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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)

Best way to increase your PageRank is to put links of your blog in other sites with higher page rank, this is the more efficient / fastest way to increase your page rank

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)

It might clarify to state that plain-text is the most basic representation of digital text and does not support things like pagination, styling or structure. 'Converting from' plain text to a format that does support these features will add information (like page breaks or the default formatting Yyy mentioned) that aren't in the original plain text.

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://code2code.net/ , 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)

Please read the above paragraph again. 89.240.43.72 (talk) 21:59, 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)

It works! Thanks! --72.197.202.36 (talk) 20:41, 22 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)

Indeed, reverb removal is an underdefined inversion problem. I have specifically worked on this topic for audio processing, and it is hardly a "solved problem." It is very similar to multipath interference (except that it is intentionally added because it "sounds nice"). Deconvolution, multipath detection, and nonlinear noise reduction are some keywords you might find helpful during a Google Scholar search, but I doubt there are any remotely-useful commercial or free software tools to do reverb reduction. If it is some other effect, and not reverb, your chances of removal improve significantly. If by a stroke of dumb luck or artistic creativity the original recording included the impulse-response (i.e. they have a really nice, solid, isolated snare drum beat that played through the reverb processor), you can use that to estimate the impulse response of the reverb. (This is very unlikely - reverb is not usually added to the entire composition; more likely it is added to individual instrument or vocal tracks, with different amplitudes, delays, "wet/dry" mix, etc., on each track). Also note that a sound engineer can easily change any of the reverb parameters throughout the track - so you have a nonstationary, nonlinear, underdefined multi-component inversion problem (the physicists in the audience are now cringing). Read up on reverb to get an idea of why it is complicated to remove. Nimur (talk) 15:25, 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)

Yes, jwillbur, I did exactly what 98.217.14.211 said. Once I was on the page with the Go button, I used the View Source command in my web browser, then searched for the word "Go" (match case) to find the proper form code. --Bavi H (talk) 00:55, 23 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)

There's several reasons why a projector wouldn't show red, have you tested different input ports? Has the red channel gone all black or all white? --66.195.232.121 (talk) 20:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It goes all black. The red channel simply doesn't display so the image is made up of only the B and G. The phenomenon happens at work with VGA-VGA cable as well as with the other projector with a DVI input using a VGA-DVI connector. Different user, different PCs at work, same result. It really is so common that I thought Google would bring something up, but sadly no. Zunaid 20:53, 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)

I like the free AniFX software. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know an online collection of cursors which I can use with document.body.style.cursor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.62.31 (talk) 08:02, 23 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)

Postscript is actually a fully respectable programming language - comparable in many ways to Python. It's more or less a matter of history that's relegated it to the rather odd niche of becoming a language for sending stuff to printers and such. We used to have entire windowing systems written using it (see NeWS). Sadly, I've forgotten all the Postscript I ever knew. As far as I know, if you fire up 'gs' without parameters then you can basically type Postscript programs right there at the 'gs>' prompt. But gs isn't a full development system with editing and all that good stuff. You really need to type your programs in someplace else and launch them from within gs. SteveBaker (talk) 04:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Good points. It's used today for many things, as well. PDFs, EPS files, and Type 1 fonts are written their own dialects of PostScript. But the most-recent books on PostScript are all out of print. There's a book available for download on PS, but it's from 1990 -- before PostScript Level 2 or 3. I've been reading Adobe's PostScript reference manual, and it's very dense reading. It's harder to learn than C for me, and the lack of friendly literature isn't making it any easier.--H. Gutmans (talk) 07:16, 23 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)

To capture an image of the screen that also has the mouse pointer in it, you can use IrfanView, an image viewing program for Windows. In IrfanView, you can go to the Options menu and click on Capture/Screenshot. One of the options you can check is to "Include mouse cursor". --Bavi H (talk) 00:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I thought he meant he wanted to use the cursor to do a print screen. Your way makes more sense. APL (talk) 00:51, 23 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)

A cursory Google search shows at least one entity is already doing such a thing using Google Spreadsheets. [5] . So I know it is possible. However, I am at a loss when it comes to suggesting how to do it yourself. Its a good question. Kushal (talk) 15:25, 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 (edit: I've removed the link because I've turned the server off). 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)

ok thanks for testing :) So does anyone have any advice for me in general about running a server from home? Anything I need to be aware of? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.29 (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Just be aware of the obvious: 1. you might be violating your internet service provider's terms of usage; 2. you could easily go over quota (especially if someone gets your URL who doesn't like you and just curls the larger files on your site); 3. there are far higher consequences if it turns out your scripts have exploits in them; 4. and, uh, that probably covers it. Personally I think the standard $9/mo. hosting is a lot easier to deal with than home hosting, and of course you can use it for all sorts of projects without any difficulty. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

If you have limited bandwidth - then be aware that you're now sharing it with your 20 buddies. You are somewhat more noticable to evil bad guys who are intent on hacking your system. You have to leave your computer running 24/7. Having said all that - I ran my site from home for years without significant problems. Only fairly recently did I switch over to a web hosting company...which I have to say, it well worth the $10 a month it costs me. SteveBaker (talk) 04:29, 23 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? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 15:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it will do any damage to the device itself. As for your data on the device at that time, I don't think anyone can make any promises. Kushal (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Nobody can make promises. Modern versions of operating systems (especially Windows) have been more intelligent about directly and immediatel flushing files to the stick, and avoiding spurious reads and writes to the stick, so if you are not actively engaged in a file write operation, there "should" be no problems. However, USB is a complicated protocol, and the file system interacts with a lot of interwoven systems on your operating system, so there isn't an easy way to guarantee that file corruption will not occur. (You might be engaging in a file transfer operation, or still completing an old one that you thought was already finished, and you might not even know it). It's 8:37 AM - do you know where your bits are? The flashing LED indicators are not a guarantee of anything - some USB standards exist regarding these indicators, but I don't think they are consistently applied. Nimur (talk) 15:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you running portable applications? If so, the risk of "damage" is increased, as these applications may write state information to the disk which they need to remove to shut down cleanly. — QuantumEleven 15:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Dare I just ask why you don't bother stopping the device? It takes all of one mouse click to do so. Is it just laziness? Your subject line indicates you are aware it is careless. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually if the folders are closed, and you're not watching a 'copying files' dialog (obviously obviously) there shouldn't be any problem at all. USB is designed for this type of thing - you should have no problems. Provided that you let files finish copying etc.83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem - "letting the files finish copying" is a misunderstanding. The operating system decides when the files are finished copying; you do not (even if the dialog or command terminal says the files are copied, there may be lower abstraction layers that have not finished the work). Some operating systems can have macroscopic delays (seconds, minutes, hours, or "never") after you do your "drag and drop" or complete your copy command, before the files are actually flushed to the hardware. Though modern systems try to avoid hanging open files around, you can't be very sure unless you know every minute detail of your OS file system handler. Nimur (talk) 01:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I 100% believe that, you seem to be saying that the OS would close the copying files dialog box, before it had actually copied the files, or not even copy the files at all, and what? just show a hypothetical copying dialog box with a progress baar, whilst be doing nothing? Then add the files to be copied to a list of things to do, and maybe do it later, if it feels like it?? Did you have an OS in mind? (I'm just assuming that it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that the dialog box doesn't close until the process has finished. Wouldn't the programmer have to be noticebly stupid to do something like that)

There might be an issue with cached flash though, I suppose...(I should mention that)83.100.250.79 (talk) 01:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly what I am saying, and yes, it is allowable under certain circumstances. The modern file systems in use on a modern operating system are very complicated. That is why the "Safely Remove Hardware" ever needed to exist in the first place. Yes, you are right - it would be very rare to have the copy-dialog close several hours before the file flushes, but most of the file systems I've ever worked with are designed with event-driven programming - this means that there is absolutely no time constraint, ("wall clock" time), before certain processes complete. I can think of a variety of scenarios which obfuscate the simple transactional "open file - edit file - save file" model. What if two programs are editing the same file, and they both operate an auto-save feature, and each has a modified version of the same file? When does the operating system actually write the bits to the harddisk or USB stick? What if it is the same program, with multiple lightweight threads? (... or multiple hardware threads?) ... (or system interrupts that perform file writing?) What about programs that write scratch-files to (poorly-chosen) locations on the USB stick? A file transfer may be in process at any time. All of these pathological cases do exist, and modern operating systems may choose to handle them in complicated ways. Nimur (talk) 15:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuimg there are just files on there, and not say an OS.83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

If you want to pull the usb out quick (assuming you're on windows) makes sure you have (starting by selecting the usb stick or whatever in mycomputer) : Rightclick, properties, hardware, (select the device), then properties, policies, and select "optimise for quick removal" - that way if any copies are finished, you should be able to remove the device without having to use "safely remove hardware". I should have mentioned that.83.100.250.79 (talk) 02:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

NOTE, as described above - this is only safe to do if you are only using 'it' for saving files initiated by you, if the computer has any automated backup file programs running that us the memory stick, then it's safest to use the remove hardware button.

However in windows, with "optimise for quick removal" set to on, and using the thing as a disk drive in which only you get to save files to it (manually) you are ok. But if the remove hardware button is showing - you should use it..83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

On Windows, I personally find it easier to left click and click the drive that I need to remove. But that's just me. :) Kushal (talk) 18:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[Perl] I hate this nasty animal

Perl seems to have many nasty internal inconsistencies. For example, some functions affect its own argument(s) whiles many others don't.

If you want to delete the ending \n</t> character:

• Correct: chomp($string);
• Error: $string = chomp($string);

However, if you want to reverse an array:

• Error: reverse(@array);
• Correct: @array = reverse(@array);

Why did they create this obvious bug? -- Toytoy (talk) 16:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not a bug it's a feature. I don't use perl too much. --91.145.73.217 (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I suspect is has to do with how different object types are actually handled in memory, though that is just a conjecture. Anyway, most languages I have used do something like this on a regular basis; it's not unique to Perl. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, non systematic syntax is probably the name for it, and I too have seen such annoying things in other languages (including pascal, where I didn't expect it - used for teaching and all that...)

I've you want sympathy - I've have lots for you, it's a total pain. There's no excuse for a non-orthogonalnot sure orthogonal is the right word language.

Maybe learn something else??83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess it comes from different programmers writing the extensions - one has made the 'function' as a function, the other as a proceedure - same problem I experienced - I'd guess since there are no proceedures as such in C (which perl is written in I understand), that chomp(string) returns null (someone else may be better to explain)

Alternatively it could be, as described above - a feature - based on expectations of whether the original string is expected to be wanted to be kept unharmed. Which makes vague sense in the examples, but not much.

83.100.250.79 (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I find the basic syntax of functions not quite intuitive when they are nested. For example, you may want to paint your wall, so you ...

1. Add water to your paint.
2. Dip your brush into the paint bucket.
3. Apply the paint to the wall.

$painted_wall = apply(dip($brush, mix($paint, $water)), $wall);

The whole thing is very difficult to read (i.e., the reading direction is zigzagged). You can use more intermediate variables, but they make your code longer and more difficult to remember variable names.

$painted_wall = &apply(&dip($brush, &mix($paint, $water)), $wall);

I prefer to use the old-fashioned & prefix for functions. This prefix and the use of parenthesis is against the teaching of the animal-covered book Perl: The Best Practices. There is no way to do nested functions without enclosing the arguments in parenthesis unless you want to write your program in FORTH.

Is there a systematic way to deal with these annoying things? -- Toytoy (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Did you mean in perl, or in general. Your request looks vaguely like a plea for an object orientated language, but I'm not convinced that would turn out to be a better solution (due to the same sort of niggles as before.)83.100.250.79 (talk) 02:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM) SPDIF

Forgive my ignorance and incompetence regarding this subject. I have a Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM) soundcard. According to my Control Panel, this card apparently supports SPDIF out, which would be awesome because I'd like to connect it to my receiver for at least 5.1 surround sound. I pulled out my computer and checked the soundcard jacks, but I couldn't find any digital (optical or coaxial) output jacks :(. How do I get digital sound out to my receiver? Thanks for the help!! --71.117.39.22 (talk) 16:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this an add-on card? Is this a laptop or PC; which model? If it is built into the PC, then the SPDIF connector may be an option. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay here comes the incompetence...but let me have a shot at this. It's in a desktop (the easy one). I think it's an add-on; it is in a PCI slot. I'm running a dual boot Vista/XP OS. I think SoundMAX is the integrated audio from the motherboard (it doesn't work anyway). What else do you need to know? --71.117.39.22 (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok is it a "creative audio sound blaster audigy 2" ie like these http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=Creative%20Sound%20Blaster%20Audigy%202&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi ie does the external plate connections look the same - there doesn't seem to be a standar spdif out on these..but - from here http://www.twenga.co.uk/specs-Sound-Blaster-Audigy-2-ZS-CREATIVE-LABS-Sound-card-1283 the specs mention a "1 x audio - SPDIF output - mini-phone 3.5mm" - I've come across these before - it's a 3.5mm socket (as in miniheadphone etc), but at the end there is the optical out (sony used to put these in their minidiscs) - it's a dual use socket. You need a 3.5mm optical to spdif connector - there are some here (less than £10) [6] they're actually quite common. You can even get adaptors [7]. I've assumed it's optical digital out, not electrical.

Also see Mini-TOSLINK , and the references to mini-TOSLINK in TOSLINK.

All you need to work out is which socket... Have you got the manual?83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

My sound card back doesn't look exactly like those other ones (it's way older) but close enough. Thank you so much!! I'm quite excited now, you've made my day. Thanks for the help, the 3.5mm to optical is exactly what I need. --71.117.47.195 (talk) 16:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Good! If you don't know which 3.5mm socket to choose - it's probably the "line out" socket. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I checked the back and I'm 99% positive that it is the "Digital out" jack. Thanks again! --71.117.47.195 (talk) 20:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Restoring an iPod 3G Clickwheel

I have an iPod (clickwheel) whose internal database has gotten corrupted. It shows up as a USB drive, and I was able to (in Terminal) copy all the files off of it to my computer. The problem is, it doesn't show up in iTunes at all, so I can't "Restore" it.

Is there a way to Restore an iPod that iTunes doesn't recognizes? The iPod itself seems functional except that it doesn't remember that I have any music. The internal interface works fine, though.

I'm using a MacBook with OS X 10.4.11, with the latest version of iTunes (updated just a day or so ago), if that helps. Any suggestions? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Apple has a note about how to reset a horked iPod here. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 17:52, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Err, no. It was not a problem with it freezing. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah ha! I figured it out. I used the old, now-unsupported iPod Updated 2006 which restored it even though it wouldn't work in iTunes. Hooray. Now it shows up in iTunes and will let me use it again. Yay for me. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Caches, and proxies, and cgis, oh my

OK, looks like we have a group of venerable referencedeskers, who seem to be able to answer any question one throws at them. I wonder if you folks could help me?

Here is my problem. There is a closed online system that I need to access (yeah, I have access rights, no worries there). The system is basically run via a cgi script--a user is presented with a form in a browser, fills it out, hits submit, and gets the results. Unfortunately, the system's interface gets tweaked every now and then. What this means, is that on some days some parts of the interface are different from what they used to be on the day before (and these are not visible changes; just changes to how the system works beneath). In most cases, clearing browser's cache is all that needs to be done, but on some truly sad days that does not work. The reason it does not work is because some of the js, css, and htm files get cached on the proxy server (to which I do not have access). Instead of getting these parts from the system upon request, the smart-ass proxy decides to serve the files previously cached. Yeah, the files have the same names, but the content is slightly different, which means that on my end the parts don't assemble well, which leads to all kinds of nasty errors.

So, the question--in a situation like this, is there a way to tell the proxy to go funk itself never cache anything from that website? If it were just a regular html page, one could add "?whatever=anything" at the end of the URI; unfortunately, since this is a cgi call, adding random crap like this at the end of the URI means that the request won't be processed because of "unknown parameters".

The problem appears only on the PCs which are all hooked through the same proxy. When accessing the system from home, I never have this kind of problems (which, for one, says that my ISP's proxy server is configured much better than the one at work).

I searched the web for several days now, and the closest I could find was this, which isn't exactly helping. Can this even be done (please say yes)?--Anonymous and desperate in the Midwest

Pushing ctrl-f5 on firefox (shift-reload on IE, I think) makes the browser send magic stuff in the request headers of its HTTP request, which tells the intermediate proxy to ignore its cache and go ask the real source. The way it does that is by setting a "cache-control:no-cache" line to that header. So if you were writing a program to web scrape the system, you could add that line to your own program's http request header. If you're using a browser, then I don't know of a way to force a browser to always set that header (but I'd be surprised if there isn't a Firefox plugin to to just that). You could also run another http proxy of your own (which points at the real proxy) and hard-wire it to set cache-control; or you could skip the proxy altogether and tunnel http through ssh, and so talk to the real server. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 19:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Firefox BetterCache plugin lets you control the browser's cache-control settings better; it seems to be targetted at the opposite of what you want (caching more stuff, not less) but it may also have a "don't cache site xyz.com" option too. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 19:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Good advice, thank you. Wouldn't work, though. First, I should've specified that the system only works in IE (so FF plugins are out), as it relies heavily on ActiveX. And Ctrl-F5 does not do it magic, for whatever reason (neither does nuking the browser cache). As for setting up a local proxy, it would still have to go through the company proxy (that's company's policy), so I suspect the local proxy will still be fed the exact same outdated stuff coming from the company proxy. Might be worth a try, though. Any other suggestions, anyone?--Adim

Back button was no longer blue

The details of my computer are here.[8]

I was editing an extremely long article, one that has been tagged so it can be split.

I tried to go back to what I was doing before I did that and the back button was no longer blue. I've seen this happen outside of Wikipedia with extremely long emails (that's how I stored stuff before I had a computer, and I don't risk losing the stuff even now by using the computer).Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:26, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, if the button is not BLUE, it's dark gray and clicking on it produces no action.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

unable to show hidden folders

my option to show hidden folders from the folder options isnt working. When i enable it it reverts back and hides the hidden folders. whats happening how do i enable it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.220.225.251 (talk) 21:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you get to see the hidden folders once? or does it never work? (Did you press "apply")83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

A google search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=show+hidden+folders+reverts&meta=&aq=f&oq= mentions a virus related issue, as well as issues (bug) with subfolders when the folder contains no files (or something) - do either of these two ring a bell.?83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:56, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Jailbreak

what is jailbroken cell phone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdn1 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

see Jailbreak (iPhone OS). -- Finlay McWalter Talk 21:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Linux (wasn't he from Charlie Brown?)

So my auld laptop is dying, so I reckon it may reincarnate a little if I stick Linux on it. Wubi is the only installer I've used to date, therefore giving me a way back; but due to this computer's limited HD space, I would prefer a full conversion. How should I go about this, and how can I save my documents (conveniently in opendocument format) and move them back after opensourcification? Fribbler (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I use Ubuntu linux (which may or not be a recommendation); what I'd do is the following:

• download the latest ubuntu installer, and burn it to a CD
• boot the auld laptop wi the ubuntu CD, find your files, and copy them to a USB stick. Make sure to get everything you need, as the next phase is destructive.
• once you're sure, have the ubuntu installer wipe the disk and install a fresh linux partition on it (linux will offer to be nice, to do things like dual boot and stuff, but if you're hard-disk constrained then that's not such a good idea).

This should be enough. If your laptop is guy auld then full Ubuntu might be a bit heavy for it, so Xbuntu or even Puppy Linux would be a better fit. Once you've installed, plug the usb disk in again, and copy the saved files to your "Documents" folder. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 23:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Finlay. The laptop should survive full-linux-install. It's still got a 120GB HD (but would struggle with dual-boot), but those are the instructions I needed, thanks! Fribbler (talk) 23:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course, you could try out various linuxes on Live CDs first. It'll save a lot of hassle installing one, then finding you don't like it and having to install another, and so on. Astronaut (talk) 20:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I had done that part, and setlled on Ubuntu a while ago. Now I'm writing this on a Linux-only system! Much faster. Fribbler (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

When choosing Linux, many will get into a debate about Ubuntu vs. Fedora (or something similar). These are distributions that differ mainly in how you install/update all the programs. The linux will be the 2.6 kernel regardless of your choice. What actually affects your usage is the desktop environment. There are two main choices: GNOME and KDE. Both Ubuntu and Fedora (and all other distributions that I've used) have GNOME or KDE options. I suggest using a live CD (Ubuntu is GNOME and Kubuntu is KDE .. or get Fedora Live for GNOME and Fedora KDE Live for KDE). You can mess around with the two desktops and decide which one you like. Once you get hooked on one, switching to another is like switching from Windows to Linux. I've been using KDE for about 10 years. When I use GNOME I spend most of my time trying to figure out where they hid the button or menu item that I need. -- kainaw™ 21:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

July 23

How to create a PDF file for free?

I placed this at the Wikipedia:Help desk and Steve was so nice to refer me to this board which I wasn't aware of:

I need to scan in and send some papers in PDF format (ASAP), but I don't want to buy the quite expensive software since I never needed it before and I'm sure I won't need it again in the near future. I wrongly thought [wishful thinking] Adope Photoshop (which I have) would work to convert my files. Is there a simple way out of this? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks,--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

PS:"I already checked our articles about PDF's but couldn't find anything helpful for my case.The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe Open Office has the option to save as PDF. There may be something more lightweight...or appropriate for scanned materialsFribbler (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I would like to be (at least pretty) sure before I download some major program as there are several which might or might not do what I need. But thanks for you trying to help me. Best, --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ is a good piece of software. Install it and you can print to a PDF. So you can scan to an image file, then print the image file to PDF. - Akamad (talk) 00:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

My mistake. I wasn't clear in my initial question. I need to send these papers per e-mail so printing is not my problem. :( --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The software that Akamad linked is a fake printer. It shows up in the Windows printer list, but when you "print" to it, instead of producing a physical piece of paper, it produces a PDF file. APL (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I just tried it. It works great. I now have a PDF of today's Computing reference desk. Easy. Thank you User:Akamad, this is a handy program. APL (talk) 00:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• Hey, that sounds like good news. I'll try this (and maybe other recommendations) tomorrow. Big thanks to all of you guys and girl from by now more relaxed The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

What type of computer are you using? That will help us a bit in recommending the software (there are many choices). Also, when Akamad says "print the image file to PDF," what he means is that most PDF creators (other than Adobe Acrobat) are printer drivers: you "print" to the PDF software, and it grabs the "printed" data (which would normally be sent to your printer), and turns that into a PDF.

Incidentally, if you have a scanner, check that it doesn't already have a "document" mode for scanning. Most do, these days, and they will automatically turn documents into PDFs. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm running a PC with XP and since my good scanner has problems I'm stuck with like a "first generation" scanner. Can't expect much out of it.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 00:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe not, but you might check if the company has updated scanner software that is compatible with it. Making it into a PDF is a software-side thing, so that can be updated, even with an old scanner, much of the time. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 02:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• Guess my problem is solved. I'll "bother" you tomorrow if not :) . Thanks to everyone.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 01:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• • Update: Unfortunately I'm back and unfortunately I don't think there is a way out. I could scan and save my files as PDF with Adobe Photoshop (even so it didn't work before; Don't know why). Now the only probably unsolvable problem [w/o Adobe reader pro] is to make a single file out of them. This has some importance in my case. Does someone has an idea how to do this without the Adobe software? I tried several things inclusive promising free programs but nothing works. Also Openoffice doesn't do the job as someone recommended to give it a try (yet I'll keep it on my PC as it seems to be a quite good program. Anyways, if I don't find a solution I'll have to send the PDF's as single files [one file per page]which hopefully will be accepted from the receiving party.

Appreciated for some new possitive input as far as it is possible, --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 21:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This google search seems to point to freeware which combines multiple PDFs into a single PDF. However I can vouch for none of it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tagishsimon (talk • contribs) 22:04, 23 July, 2009 (UTC)

Gosh. I was so fixated on Wiki that I've not even thought about doing a google search. Shame on me! I'll check out what google has to offer and hope I won't need to bother again. Thank you Tagishsimon.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• Done. The first google entry did the trick. Thank you sooooooo much.--The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 22:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

LaTex and “smart quotes”

In LaTex, it appears that the default output for the command " is ”, the closing "smart quote" - whether or not the quote is an opening quote or closing quote. Is there a command to make it output “ instead? --72.197.202.36 (talk) 03:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I use two backquotes (``) for the opening quote, and two single quotes (apostrophes) ('') for the closing quote. --Spoon! (talk) 06:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

And that's in fact the LaTeX-approved way to do it. Best not to have any " characters at all in your input file. rspεεr (talk) 06:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Hypercam

HyperCam used to be able to record sound for me, but now, it can't. Why? How can I fix this? 121.220.109.214 (talk) 09:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Running a server from within Virtualbox

So I've set up windows xp in virtualbox and got a simple webserver running on it. All works good from the VMs localhost, but how do I direct outside connections to the server running in virtualbox?

You're looking for port forwarding. Since you're using Windows, you'll probably need to set it up through VirtualBox, since afaik Windows doesn't offer any tools for port forwarding. Here's two guides to setting up VirtualBox to forward ports. 1 2 You'll also need to make sure that your firewall has those ports open. Also keep in mind that if your windows xp computer is behind a home router, it's probably already using NAT and the virtualbox server will be double-NATed, which often causes problems. Plus you'll need to forward the port from your router to your windows xp computer, then from there to the virtual server. Indeterminate (talk) 21:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Books

On social networking sites, why do many people claim they hate books? 121.220.109.214 (talk) 10:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Whatever reason it is, I think it has more to do with the people themselves than the fact they are on social networking sites, ie they'd say they hate books irl too —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because they like things that only require a brief attention span - hence the success of Twitter which I think is limited to 40 characters - and do not like the much longer attention span required to read a book? 78.147.241.234 (talk) 11:23, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

My theory is that it's because a tremendous number of people are poor readers. I would hate books too if I couldn't read them fast enough to hold my interest. (Might cause a bit of sour grapes too. )

I'm sure there's some antiintellectualism mixed in there too.

And, as with all things "Social", some people say it because the cool people are saying it. APL (talk) 12:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

(I assume they mean novels and not cookbooks and the like.) APL (talk) 12:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Auto script

Is it possible to write a script that would automatically make a post on the internet, for example a blog or open forum? How would I write such a script? What language? Would .bat do? This is on a windows computer btw and I have zero previous programming knowledge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Lots of blogging (and the like) systems have Application Programming Interfaces which allow entries to be made programatically - Twitter and Blogger, for example. Windows batch files are not appropriate for this; a proper programming language like Python, Perl, Java, or C# is necessary. Posting to a forum that doesn't have an API is possible, but would require a more sophisticated screen scraping system. All of this will require some modicum of programming. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 11:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and forums that want to discourage spammers using automated scripts often employ a CAPTCHA; getting around that is very difficult. Unfortunately such countermeasures also thwart legitimate uses as well as spam. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 11:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply :) I've used iMacros a few times but it's very buggy, but I guess I'll have to stick with it unless I want to learn programming languages! Thanks anyway —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Learn python; it's dead easy, and you'll never again be the prisoner of a bunch of weird buggy programs that won't work together. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 12:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Best quality way to edit Flashvideo .flv files, for free?

There seem to be two routes: 1) directly editing with a .flv editor, although the only free one I'm aware of so far is VideoThang, or 2) translate the .flv format into another format and edit that. Does anyone know what the best route would be to preserve the best picture quality, using what software? Edit: another FLV editor I've found is Avidemux (Have edited Flash Video article accordingly). Are there any more please? 78.147.241.234 (talk) 11:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, when you convert FLV to another format, you almost always lose picture quality by definition (see transcoding). That's not good with FLVs, where the quality is usually low to begin with (low resolution and high compression). So anything you can do that involves not transcoding (editing it with something that understands FLV natively) is a good idea. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:50, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Flash video isn't an encoding format, it's a container format. So it's perfectly simple to transfer it to another container format without any transcoding or any loss of quality (it's the same stuff in a different wrapper). I use mencoder: mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o outputfile.avi inputfile.flv . This should open up more video editing programs (ones that understand .avi or .mpg wrappers, but not .flv); you might still run into a codec incompatibility (as FLVs can be encoded with a variety of codecs), however. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 13:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Are YouTube videos encoded in this way? I'm rather surprised that FLV is simply wrapped-up AVI - really? Are there any converters with a less intimidating GUI please? 89.240.217.9 (talk) 19:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Mediacoder is free, works great, and has a GUI, although it can be a bit intimidating. Videora has a friendlier GUI, but it only converts into MPEG-4 H.264 (used by iPods, but also a common video standard). There are probably many others. Indeterminate (talk) 21:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 IE Europe How?

According to Windows_7#E_editions there won't be internet explorer on some version - so how does one get any browser at all?83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

One downloads the browser one likes the most. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Sarari, and Google Chrome can be downloaded by anyone in just a few minutes, completely free of charge. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, one downloads those other browsers using a browser (downloading Firefox is the only thing I ever seem to use IE for). How to get IE, or any other browser, onto an IE-free machine will pose something of a delicate challenge for them. They'd probably have an "add optional components" program, which would fetch the IE interface over the internet. But if they just offer IE, then they may be in the same problematic anti-trust position as they are trying to avoid. Technically the fix is simple: an app that lets you pick from one of several browsers (IE, FF, Opera, Safari) and install the one(s) you want, but I can hear Balmer's teeth grind over that from here. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 13:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a simple FTP client in Windows: just run "ftp". Probably there are many FTP servers that offer web browsers. But it is not nearly as convenient as going to e.g. firefox.com and download it. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

"going to e.g. firefox.com" with what? -- 87.114.144.52 (talk) 00:15, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that was a comment.83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, those E-editions may only be offered to OEMs - so Dell or whoever would be able to ship with Firefox preinstalled but not IE (clearly Trident will still be installed regardless). The technicalities of all this are simple, but what the EU and MS are willing to put up with from the other is the hard part; it's in MS's interest to offer an IE-free version (as they offer a WMP-free version), but have in practice OEMs and users pick the with-IE version. Right now this is as much as we know - I don't believe MS have formally announced the actualities about how the IE-free E-versions will actually work. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 13:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

There could be a specialty FTP client included with an icon on the desktop whose only task, when launched, would be to go and fetch Internet Explorer, and place its installer icon on the desktop. Or the user could be told the arcane set of steps needed to run cmd and then go and FTP it. Unlikely, the latter, these days. Tempshill (talk) 15:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Officially you need to download whatever browser you want in advance BEFORE you do the installation and save it to USB/CD etc and then install that after Windows 7 has been installed (or use another computer to download the installer and transfer it the Windows 7 machine). Of course unofficially you'll be likely be able to get whatever browser you want via scripting or FTP etc, but there's no "menu" or installer provided with Windows 7 to do so. ZX81 ^talk 16:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Well done, you found it. So no special dialog box then..

Incidentally does anyone know if the 'browser' that can be obtained via windows help is IE independent - does anyone know what I'm talking about.83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It's Trident (layout engine), which is the real core of IE. I rather suspect that when they say "we're not shipping IE" they mean "we're shipping Trident, just not the IE application that makes it a general purpose browser". If they didn't ship Trident, then all kinds of things (windows update, steam, windows help, and encarta) wouldn't work. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 18:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The parts that do the networking are something else as well (I guess) eg whatever ftp.exe uses. Do those components have a name? Is it part of winsock? (networking leaves me totally blank)83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Hot off the presses- Users get the choice at first boot after install 161.222.160.8 (talk) 19:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

DHCP problem

Hi,

i have configured the DHCP in VMware, its assiging the IP but not assiging the defualt gateway but i have setted the gateway also..what could be the reaseon or any setting problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anand.khani (talk • contribs) 13:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Is DNS getting set? -- kainaw™ 14:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Firefox equivalent of Safari's .webarchive?

I've been using Safari since it was released. One feature I like is the ability to save webpages to self-contained .webarchive files. I've been using Firefox 3.6 more and more. But when I go to save a webpage I can either save it as a bare HTML file, which strips off all the graphics. Or a "complete" webpage that saves the HTML page plus a folder of graphics -- which is kind of a hassle to deal with. Is there a way for Firefox to save a complete page in one file (and not use PDF)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.167.58.6 (talk) 14:23, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Unofficially yes, but it's not especially practical. You save the files off as normal, zip them up, rename the zip file to being a .JAR, and then use the JAR url scheme to access the files within it. I've got a note written about how to do that last bit, I'll look it out for you. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 14:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's the syntax - if the JAR is at /home/fin/foo.jar you'd tell Firefox to go to the following url jar:file:///home/fin/foo.jar!/index.html -- Finlay McWalter Talk 14:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

You shouldn't need to rename it to .jar, it should work fine with a .zip extension. Under Windows the syntax is jar:file:///c:/path/foo.zip!/index.html. -- BenRG (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

There are plugins that let you mirror sites with Firefox and probably ones that let you save them into single files. I've used a plugin called Scrapbook to save "whole" webpages (it downloads all the little images and etc., though it buries them into your Firefox profile directory) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This is what you're looking for 8I.24.07.715 (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I T knowledge.

I have very less knowledge on os,recent developments in hardware, softwares,..in general stuff related to IT and computers.Which is the best website that gives me all the updates??pl help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.139.41 (talk) 16:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I recommend you start reading an IT news site every day (pick a sensible one not slashdot, or the register, or the inquirer).

I can only think of Ars Technica which covers both PC, entertainment electronics, and business IT. Hopefully someone else can suggest others.

As you come accross terms and concepts you don't understand, look them up (maybe on wikipedia)

I wouldn't expect to be able to follow everything, so it might be a good idea to concentrate on building up your knowledge in a selection of areas at first, and relying on other people for other topics.83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

You probably already know this, but I always thought the most valuable IT education was by doing it yourself; download Debian and use it to set up an e-mail server, a web server, a Mediawiki server; do the same with another couple of popular Linux distros; do the same with a version of Windows Server, etc. Tempshill (talk) 17:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Wii OS

What programming language would you suppose the Wii's operating system is written in? -- penubag  (talk) 18:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The official devtree for Wii is Freescale's Codewarrior C++ tree (ref); there's no reason to suppose that system (wii-IOS) development would be done with a substantively different toolchain. So "C or C++" is the answer, although when C++ is used for systems programming the system programmers often dictate a lengthy list of thou-shalt-nots which preclude a bunch of standard C++ features (rtti, pure-virtual, templates, exceptions) that reduce C++ to being a C-with-classes subset some call C++-- 87.114.144.52 (talk) 19:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In addition a tiny amount of assembly is usually required, but these days that's usually limited to a few instructions on startup (setup the CPU and a stack for C to run in), wrappers around interrupt handling (push and pull registers, maybe weird stuff like branch-delay slot recalc) and a very few pieces of hand-optimised sections like filter kernels, the data pump of media codecs, and texture scalers. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 19:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the thorough answer. I appreciate it. -- penubag  (talk) 22:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Minus everything else, how long do you suppose it took to make the OS? -- penubag  (talk) 08:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

What are the most active discussion forums on the web?

What are the most active discussion forums on the web? --Gary123 (talk) 18:58, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's a site that tracks members and posts. [[9]] 24.6.46.177 (talk) 19:50, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Quality control with AdSense Competitive Ad Filter

On my new blog, I'd like to perform some quality control on the AdSense ads. I'm particularly concerned with eliminating the following:

• Health care products and advice that is contrary to medical consensus or sold without a license.
• Malware.
• Products and services based on pseudoscience or claims of the paranormal.
• Religions and cults.
• Conspiracy theories.
• Political conservatism.
• Get-rich-quick schemes.
• Unaccredited colleges.
• Tools for speculating on commodities and foreign currencies.

Are there any sites that can provide black lists or other tools to help do this with AdSense's Competitive Ad Filter? NeonMerlin 22:18, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Disable Firefox 3.5's top bar slide effect?

Whenever Firefox 3.5 blocks a popup or asks you to save a password, the top bar slides down, moving the page with it.Same thing happens when you close a page. is there anyway to disable it? 24.6.46.177 (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

You might find the option to disable it entirely in about:config but I'm not sure. Until someone who knows better can say, I might have an indirect solution. If you add Adblock Plus you will no longer get popups from advertisers (if that's what's causing the problem) and if you navigate to Tools>options>security>passwords>... you can tweak some settings so it doesn't ask you. Again, I know this doesn't answer your question but maybe someone else knows the answer. -- penubag  (talk) 06:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I recommend AdBlock Plus regardless. It's great.

There are two settings in the about:config screen. (Put about:config in the URL bar and hit enter.) Search for "alerts". There's two variables having to do with "SlideInterval". I haven't figured out how these work, but I'll bet some experimentation could stop it from sliding. APL (talk) 13:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not in about:config sadly. There might be a userchrome.css tweak for it but I haven't found one. The alerts configs refer to the alert boxes in the lower right of the screen, like the download alert. I already have adblock plus, and I would rather have the annoyance of the sliding than disabling it altogether. 24.6.46.177 (talk) 16:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You should probably ask your question here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=38 I'm sure they know more than us. -- penubag  (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Already did, but I'll just live with it since a) it doesn't come up too often b) I'd rather see it and be annoyed than not see it at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.46.177 (talk) 02:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You can totally disable the notification bar for popups with privacy.popups.showBrowserMessage, but you'll still get it for "remember this password?" dialogs.Indeterminate (talk) 00:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Painting in Java

Hello! I haven't done very much with the java.awt package or anything with graphics other than Swing, and I have a question. I'm trying to paint (i.e. fill()) an Ellipse2D on a JLabel in a JLayeredPane (the JLabel is on the top Layer above everything else, so it's not covered up). These are the snippets of code that I have that I've used for this purpose:

Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) myJLabel.getGraphics();
g2.setPaint(Color.WHITE);
Ellipse2D.Float point = new Ellipse2D.Float(200, 200, 100, 100);
g2.fill(point);

The fill() method is part of an actionListener, and when I run my program and trigger the action, I see a white ellipse for a very, very brief moment, and then it goes away (i.e. I see the layer below). I want the ellipse to remain there. What am I doing wrong? I have a felling it has something to do with the concurrency of Swing. (I'm running NetBeans, if that makes any difference.) Any help much appreciated. Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In general it's better to paint on a canvas or jcanvas rather than a specific widget like a Label or JLabel, as you're not fighting with the control's own draw code; so if you want to change the appearance of a JLabel, the safest idea is to subclass the look and feel and do it there. But it is generally safe to do, if you implement both the paint() and update() methods of your own subclass of JLabel and do all the painting there. You're doing something else - you're getting the graphics context from another place, and painting on it - that works, but your work gets undone as soon as something makes the JLabel draw itself. So instead add your paint code to a subclass of JLabel, implement paint() and update(), and in your other code just throw a damage at the widget by calling its repaint() method. Repaint just adds a "repaint me" event to that component's queue, so this makes sure that all the repainting happens in the appropriate eventqueue thread, and so swing takes care of the threading problem for you. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 23:11, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually when I say "that works", I'm wrong. That works for java.awt (which relies on the native code for thread safety), but not for swing (which explicitly and deliberately isn't threadsafe). 87.114.144.52 (talk) 23:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Repaint() has another nice feature (in addition to not breaking everything); swing implements damage event ellision, so if multiple repaint events are adjacent in the queue (some thrown by you, some by the window manager, some by other bits of the system like the LnF) it will join them together into one big fat repaint event. If there are lots of paints going on, this makes for a significant performance enhancement. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 23:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Bah, I'm wrong again. Override paintComponent(), not paint() 87.114.144.52 (talk) 23:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

July 24

Wireless G & N

Hi, I'm trying to advise my folks on wireless routers despite being fairly ignorant myself. They have DSL, not sure which plan, but definitely not FiOS. My understanding now is that their download speeds are well below the maximum throughput of Wireless-G of 54 Mbit/s, much less N, so they don't need to buy a more expensive Wireless-N router. Is there any strong reason to recommend the N-types? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.119.192 (talk) 03:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

N has a greater range as well as speed. Though that may not make a difference to you! Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 04:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks, might make a difference to my folks. 141.154.119.192 (talk) 11:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

How do I remove colored backgrounds when viewing websites? On Firefox

How do I remove colored backgrounds when viewing websites? Dark background make the text hard to read. --Gary123 (talk) 04:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I usually just select the text I'm trying to read (either with the mouse or Ctrl-A to select all). Another option is to go to Tools, Options, Content, Colors, uncheck "Allow pages to use their own colors". But that'll apply to all pages. You can also try View, Page Style, No Style. But for most sites, it'll break the design. You could also try looking for add-ons that let you change background colors easily. Indeterminate (talk) 05:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If you use the web developer toolbar in Firefox, in its images menu there is a "hide background images" checkbox, which hides background images set both in html and by css, while leaving the rest of the page's layout and style alone. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 12:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

MS Vista's compatibility

When I run old outdated software, Vista says that the software has known compatibility problems. How does it know that? I know it doesn't check the web because I'm not at a hotspot, but does it have an on-board list of incompatible software? I would guess not. Theories I've come up with so far are that it looks at the date of the software and just assumes that it will have compatibility problems and by looking at the way the program is written. The latter seems like it might take some time to analyze but the notice appears instantly. What's your take? -- penubag  (talk) 06:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully someone who knows about this specific error message will answer you but here's what I know :

What I learned from the book "The Old New Thing" (Written by an MS employee on the Windows back compatibility team) is that Windows does keep a built-in list of incompatible software. In fact, sometimes there is a built-in solution to the problem. APL (talk) 13:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting but I still find it unlikely. I was running an outdated version of Adobe Acrobat and that message came up. Does that mean it even has a list of 3rd party programs? I wonder if this list can be salvaged be looking at the innards of Vista. -- penubag  (talk) 22:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they definitely have that list (I believe it's a hashtable correlating binaries' checksums with a compatibility setting). The blog of Raymond Chen, the author of the book APL, describes the sometimes Byzantine lengths to which MS goes to get specific badly-written programs to run on later versions of Windows. Sure, you could reverse engineer this info out of Windows, but the subtext of Raymond's blog is generally "rely on undocumented stuff now, repent at leisure". -- Finlay McWalter Talk 22:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow that's interesting, thanks -- penubag  (talk) 23:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It's probably also a good indicator of compatibility issues if a program calls a deprecated system call or library function. Indeterminate (talk) 00:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the compiled binary program will indicate which versions of the Windows and MFC APIs it intends to use. If the current version of Windows cannot provide that API (or must provide a different version), the operating system can warn the user. "Possible compatibility issue" is more user friendly than "COM+ library version 2.3.1 requested, substituting 2.3.3" (or whatever). Unfortunately, the user-friendly message makes it difficult for even a technically proficient user to diagnose exactly what compatibility is needed to find a fix. Nimur (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Mathematical equations in a document

The story so far: I have to display mathematical stuff such as matrices , logarithms etc in a word document. Initially I made them in mspaint and inserted these images in word. It is too time consuming and changes cannot be made easily so I googled for a tool for working with matrices and found http://math.exeter.edu/rparris/winmat.html. This tool has an option of creating .tex document, which I found out to be latex format. The trouble is iam not able to view the matrices with this tool http://www.exomatik.net/LaTeX/USBTeXEnglish#toc3 . --- Nothing has worked yet as I have not found a way to easily create mathematical formulas and equations that can be displayed in a word document. Please say how it is done with free tools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 11:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

All versions of Microsoft Word (at least since Word 97) have included a very easy-to-use formula editor named "Microsoft Equation", commonly "Microsoft Equation 3.0". To use this, choose Insert/Object/"Microsoft Equation". Then you get professional-looking (far superior to MS Paint drawing!) formulas, that can be edited at any time. In addition, the new Microsoft Office Word 2007 has a much improved formula editor, now as integrated into Word as options such as "bold", "italic" etc. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

In Word 2007 just go to Insert > equation on the ribbon (click the "pi" symbol rather than the word or arrow underneath or you get a rather unhelpful list of "standard" equations). I've checked and matrices and logarithms are both covered. If you prefer OpenOffice this can also handle mathematical equations using insert > object > formula. See here for more info. 194.164.140.216 (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You might need to "activate" Microsoft Equation Editor on some computers, (it may not be installed as standard) - ask if this is the case.

If you haven't got it (ie if you're using XP home + one of the lesser or older versions of word you could look at Category:Formula editors which gives a short list of programs, the majority of which are free.

To display in a MS Word document, you could either - export as a image (eg .bmp , .jpg , .png) which is easy. Or export as an 'object' - I think MS Word accepts OLE objects, which is probably what you need. Why not try one that looks ok and see how you get on (they're mostly small downloads). Or wait for more advice..83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

And supposedly faster and smoother than using Equation Editor is the Rapid Pi add-on. - KoolerStill (talk) 14:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Click to expand

I've just been trying a few out, and I found Formulator MathML Weaver to work, and be relatively easy to use (ie instructions probably not needed), (everything seems to be selected through drop down boxes), I got a nice matrix image and integral made in minutes (with no prior experience), and it exports as .BMP which you can use anywhere.(See image converted to .jpg of example made up formula)

It's free too. In the absense of other solutions I'd try this, - if you do, ask if you get stuck..83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Running a perl script on a web server

Resolved

Hi I'm trying to set up this perl script but I keep running into the following error "500 Internal Server Error, The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request." From the apache error log here's the following:

[Fri Jul 24 14:06:50 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?) [Fri Jul 24 14:06:50 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!? httpd.exe: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 82.43.91.128 for ServerName [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?) [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!? [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.11 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8k PHP/5.2.10 configured -- resuming normal operations [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [notice] Server built: Dec 10 2008 00:10:06 [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 4628 httpd.exe: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 82.43.91.128 for ServerName [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?) [Fri Jul 24 14:06:51 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!? httpd.exe: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 82.43.91.128 for ServerName [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?) [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `localhost' does NOT match server name!? [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [notice] Child 4628: Child process is running [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [notice] Child 4628: Acquired the start mutex. [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [notice] Child 4628: Starting 150 worker threads. [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [notice] Child 4628: Starting thread to listen on port 443. [Fri Jul 24 14:06:52 2009] [notice] Child 4628: Starting thread to listen on port 80. [Fri Jul 24 14:06:53 2009] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] (OS 3)The system cannot find the path specified.  : couldn't create child process: 720003: wakaba.pl [Fri Jul 24 14:06:53 2009] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] (OS 3)The system cannot find the path specified.  : couldn't spawn child process: C:/TWAMP/htdocs/wakaba/wakaba.pl

Anyone able to tell me what I need to do? Thanks :)

The last 2 lines are the problem; it's trying to run a script called C:/TWAMP/htdocs/wakaba/wakaba.pl and it says it can't find that file. So you either need to supply that file in that location or remove mention of it from the apache config files. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If that files does exist, at that location, then the server (which runs as another user) can't open the file, so make sure the file permissions allow the web server to access the file. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

"500 internal server error" unfortunately can mean a million little things, ranging from missing files, bad permissions, or even wrong encoding. Try fiddling with all of these things. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The problem is that C:/TWAMP/htdocs/wakaba/wakaba.pl is right there, and is in fact the file I'm entering in the address bar of my browser with localhost/wakaba/wakaba.pl

I'm really at a loss what to do. The server runs php scrips just fine in exactly the same directory. I've installed ActivePerl and everything

No worries everyone, I found out what the problem was I had the incorrect hash bang in the .pl file. Thanks everyone!

How to find out duplicate lines?

There is a plain text file and contains thousands of lines in it. It looks like:

frkookoww
fdewkoofow
koroorg
fwkoofw
gktoot
gogoldds
fdewkoofow
koroorg
kofroroooooa
.
.
.

Some lines are the same. I want to find duplicate lines out and delete them. Do you know any softwares for this job? By the way, supporting Unicode is better. --百楽兎 (talk) 13:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd use sort and uniq. Assume my file is called "lines.txt", I would run: "sort lines.txt | uniq > newlines.txt". If you don't have Linux/Unix, you can get Windows versions of sort and uniq. -- kainaw™ 13:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If it's not acceptable to re-order the file, the following Perl command will do the job:

perl -ne 'print unless $seen{$_}++' lines.txt > newlines.txt

--Sean 14:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I think sort and uniq for windows seems easier to me. But I just want to uniq it without sorting, what should I do? --百楽兎 (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The uniq function requires a sorted list. It simply will not work on an unsorted list. If you want to get real technical, uniq requires duplicate lines to be grouped together - and sort groups them. The other option is to write a script (like the perl script above). Some are one-liners (like perl) and some will be multiple lines. If you are looking for efficiency, this is a semi-common computer science homework problem. It has a recursive solution. Cut the file in half. Remove duplicates in each half. Compare both halves to see of they have any lines in common and remove them from one half or the other. The first step (remove duplicates in each half) is the recursion. You cut that half in half and remove duplicates in each half... On a single computer it isn't very efficient. If you are running on a parallel system, you can farm out the work to many other computers. -- kainaw™ 15:33, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You could load the file in your browser, paste the following:

javascript:c=s=""; h={}; a=document.firstChild.innerHTML.split(/\n/g); for (v in a) if (!h[a[v]]){h[a[v]]=true; s += a[v] + "\n"}; s

into the location bar, and then save the file as text. It worked for me in Firefox, but your mileage will certainly vary. --Sean 16:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not as nifty as the other options given above, but you could also do this in Excel fairly easily. Copy and paste the list into Sheet1 and again into Sheet2. Assuming your lists start in cell A1, type the following in cell B1 of Sheet1: =countif(Sheet2!a:a,a1) and then double click the box in the bottom right corner of the cell to auto-fill in the formula - the results will be the number of iterations of each term in the list. In column C, put a 1 in cell C1 and a 2 in cell C2 and use the same double-click trick to auto-fill column C with numbers (to preserve the original order). Sort by column B to find and delete the duplicates, then sort by column C to restore the original order. Matt Deres (talk) 19:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all friends! I learned very much from your wise solutions. All are cool. --百楽兎 (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

A PROGRAM NEEDED

hello, give me a good C program to print the following pattern using both (i) arrays and structures (ii) array pointers and structure pointers note: the * symbol must be printed using a function and not directly using printf statement PATTERN:

*************************************************** 
         ANNA UNIVERSITY, TRICHY
***************************************************
Roll.No:
Name:
***************************************************
Subject    Subject    Maximum    Minimum   Marks
Code       Name       Marks      Marks     Obtained

***************************************************

thank u —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srividhyaathreya (talk • contribs) 13:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

We're not going to do your homework for you. If you write a program and it doesn't work, or if you have some specific questions, then someone might answer them. But we don't do all the work for you. 87.114.144.52 (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You might also spend some time rereading the instructions, as printf() is a function, not a statement. --Sean 14:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like they want you to use a for loop instead of printing the correct number of asterisks with a fixed-format. If you really must avoid printing the '*' symbol, you could putchar and do some ASCII math to calculate a value of '*':

// ...

int meaningOfLife() {
 int whatIsIt;
 whatIsIt = 6*9;
 return whatIsIt;
 }


int main() {
int i;


for (i=0;i<80;i++) {
 putchar(meaningOfLife() - 12);
 }
putchar('\n');
}

This is dramatically unnecessary, but it will get the point asterisk across. Nimur (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Linux chmod, chown, chgrp

I need to do the following, recursively in a directory tree:

1. chmod 755 for all subdirectories
2. chmod 644 for all files
3. chown www-data both for files and directories
4. chgrp www-data both for files and directories

Could someone please suggest how to to this from the command line, in an easy-to-remember way? Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:27, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

1. find -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
2. find -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
3. chown -R norwegianblue www-data
4. chgrp -R somegroup www-data

87.114.144.52 (talk) 14:34, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! find was what I was looking for. The chown and chgrp syntax doesn't seem to be right, though. Didn't work, and the manpage says nothing about specifying the original owner/group name. But

find -exec chown www-data:www-data {} \;

appears to work, and changes both user and group. Btw, why the need for a backslash before the semicolon? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

sh uses semicolon for syntactic purposes, so it needs to be escaped to make it unsyntactic or whatever. Unescaped it separates commands without a linebreak, eg 'rm ~/.bash_history; history -c; exit'. --91.145.89.22 (talk) 19:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I usually just use chown -R username:groupname directory. Never needed chgrp. Indeterminate (talk) 00:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing from all these answers is the elegant answer chmod -R a+rX. This is not the same as a+rx which would add x permission for everybody on everything. The capital X adds x permission for everybody on those things that are already executable for somebody. In other words it's probably exactly what you're looking for. The creators of unix knew you'd want it so they added it for you, around 25 years ago. 69.245.227.37 (talk) 11:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant! Thank you. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Extending wireless range

At my sister's house they have a single wireless modem/router. The signal is pretty good downstairs and in the garden, but the signal is pretty weak everywhere upstairs; and in a couple of bedrooms the signal is so weak that a reliable connection cannot be maintained. The wirless point is located in a single storey extension towards the rear of the house, and I believe the quantity of pipes, wires and other stuff in the space between the ceiling and the floor upstairs is partially shielding the upstairs. We have already tried a wireless range extender but it wouldn't communicate with the modem/router - according to Linksys technical support, the range extender is only compatible with a limited number of their products and my sister's modem/router is not one of them. We could run wires to the upstairs, but doing so would require extensive drilling, disturbing newly laid hard floors, and the kids would all have to connect to the wired connection.

In a couple of weeks (while they are all away on holiday and I'm looking after their large number of pets), I will be doing some experiments, placing the wireless/modem in various locations to see if I can improve the situation upstairs. One alternative though is to replace the current wireless-G modem/router with a newer wireless-N product. My question is: if the receiving equipment (ie. laptops and various wireless cards) is still only compatible with the wireless-G standard, will we actually get any increase in the effective signal strength upstairs? In other words, would I be better off saving my sister the £80 that it would cost to get a new modem/router, and instead get a long drill to pass the cables upstairs? Astronaut (talk) 18:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't put to much into upgrading to an N standard only, partly as it requires any visitors to be bang up to date with technology. Do they really need the reception in the garden? One solution (which has worked for me) is just to put the whole router into a metal saucepan (literally), which would point the beam to the front and upstairs of the house, away from the garden. It may not penetrate whatever is blocking it already. Like pipes, as you suggest.

The Linksys WRT54G series is famous for being one of the most hacked devices of all time, and is popular as a repeater. As the firmware is GPL replaceable, you can strengthen the signal, and repeat things which Linksys really would rather you didn't. US$26.00 (including shipping) gets you a used one in the USA [10]. The Apple Airport Express is an expensive, although no-nonsense solution. Which unfortunately only works with its own stuff.

You are absolutely right not to start making any modifications to the house - which may well be redundant in five years' time anyway, as 3G and WiMax take over.78.149.86.100 (talk) 11:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Internet on two computers

I have two computers, both with ethernet ports. My internet connection comes directly from the router via an ethernet cable, but there is only one port on the router so only one cable can be connected to it. How can I get internet on both computers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 18:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure, but maybe something like this? Reading the product description I wonder if it is not more complicated than that though. Mike R (talk) 18:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You need an Ethernet hub, or (better) a network switch. You plug the cable from the router into the hub/switch, and connect your PCs to the hub/switch. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If what you have is really a router, and since a router creates a local network and gives out many IPs on the local network, then all you need is an Ethernet switch on your local network, that connects the router and the computers. However, it is highly unusual for a gateway router that is produced in the last 10/20 years to not have multiple ports on the local side (i.e. a built-in switch). It is also possible that what you actually have is a DSL modem or cable modem that does not include a router or includes a "fake" router (some DSL/cable modems do include a real router, but I would imagine that those would usually include multiple ports on the local side), which only gives you 1 IP. In that case, you would need to put get an actual router and put it between the modem and your computers. --Spoon! (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Spoon! is correct. Another solution might be to turn on "network sharing" if the PC plugged into the router is a Windows PC, but you would need a second Ethernet port on that PC (perhaps via a PCI Ethernet card) in order to connect your 2nd PC to the first PC. I'd recommend a router with 4 ports on it, myself. Tempshill (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

The best way is to get yourself a new modem/router, making sure it is compatible with your connection to the internet (ie. phone or cable) and has sufficient ethernet ports for your needs. Stores like PC World have a selection from £30+. Astronaut (talk) 05:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The idea about connecting the second computer to the first sounds good! Both computers have two ethernet ports themselves. How would I go about sharing the connection between them? And would the second computer act as if it was connected to the internet directly (ie would incoming connections like for gaming and stuff go to the second computer, or the first computer only?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 06:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you running windows, if so this is easy - the first step is to connect the two computers using an ethernet cable plugged into the ethernet ports.

Instead of telling you myself try this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306126

Additionally you might want to set up a 'home network' which allows you to share files (and printers and stuff) between the two computers using the "shared documents" folders. If you want to try that search for "microsoft support home network"

If you are running vista the instructions may be slightly different - http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/0c0f5981-6e3e-4912-a8d2-afc462b83d8c1033.mspx

It does work, though if you have any problems such as "limited or no connectivity" or "cannot obtain IP address" ask again.

If you don't have a windows OS then please say which type you are using.83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks I'll give it a go. Will the second computer be able to receive incoming connections (like a game or web server)? Or will those connections only go to the first computer (the one directly connected to the internet)?

Yes is should/will do all that. (Each computer gets a different address - like a telephone number and the signals always go to the computer that sent it)

Though if it doesn't work straight away you might need to adjust the settings -- specifically when you activate the "share this internet connection" there's a button "settings" on the same form. Once you've set sharing to on, you might (or probably will need to go to that box - usually the DHCP box needs to be ticked. It's simple to do. But see how you get on first. It may work straight away.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

My question wasn't answered

[11]Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

If the back button is grey and not blue that means that there is nothing to go back to - ie no previous pages etc. This should only happen when the window has been opened for a new page, and the page has not been navigated away from eg no clicks on hyperlinks etc.

If you are getting a grey button, when their should be a blue one, then this is obviously a bug. If so can you replicate when the bug happens (technically you should probably contact MS support about this) - but first - can you describe how (exactly) you get to this situation - if you can I will try it, and see if the same thing happens.83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Also can you link to a long file that this has happened in when editing.83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. The library computers had this problem too. Then again, the gigantic emails sometimes wouldn't show up. That was on computers that I believe have been replaced. Let me try right now to duplicate what I did.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I did it. I should mention that my computer recently told me to get Internet Explorer 8, so I did.

The sequence was originally to go to [12] because I had seen his name somewhere in an article related to 9-11. I just wanted to see if he had a separate article, and boy, did he. I noticed his name had a hyphen in one place but not in another, so I decided both of those should match. Today I edited to suggest a split, because when I edited, it said the page was 159 KB at the top. I had read 35 KB was the recommended maximum. Today, I previewed, the template looked right, and I submitted. Then I tried to go back and this [13] was as far as I got. It said at the top of the page "Remember that this is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved!"

If I can remember I'll try to document the sequence of actions with email. I'm very reluctant to do anything like that while I'm on my own computer.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

As I sat and waited and waited, I remembered I'm using the second slowest speed available. The only speed slower is dial-up, and no one wants that because it ties up the phone and has other problems besides just being slow. The web sites show up faster on screen once I've gone to each one for the first time.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

That effect is called caching - the pages show up faster because you are not downloading them; instead, your browser is showing you the copy you downloaded last time. Nimur (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, they're new pages from the same sites, but they do show up faster later.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Computer sputters and dies

My brother's computer, which generally has an issue with accumulating malware, is deciding to be a pillock. He can boot it up and log in A-OK, but the computer suddenly restarts within three minutes after doing so, regardless of the account he logs onto. He's certain there's no bugs on the rig because he ran MalwareBytes last night before he went to bed. He is running Windows XP. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 21:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Sudden restarts suck. Does this occur when you boot Windows XP up in safe mode? If so, and if I were in this situation, my next exercise to try to narrow down the problem would be to make a memtest86 startup disc, boot from it and run memtest86, eject the disc, and let it run its memory tests overnight. (Eject the disc so that if there's a restart, you'll know in the morning.) If it restarts during this overnight session, then you know that it's probably a hardware problem and not a software issue. Tempshill (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

He hasn't used safe mode yet, to my knowledge. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 00:38, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The computer's not rebooting in safe mode; just outside of it. He's told me he believes the problem stems from his McAfee install (courtesy of our Comcast internet setup), but that theory got killed when it rebooted again - and now it's being stubborn about the boot menu! SysRestore's also borked. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 06:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

For a hoarder of malware, running just one scanner is nowhere near enough. He'd need to run at least Spybot and Ad-Aware as well, and any one of numerous good free anti-virus programs that are available. These between them will cover most of the spectrum of possible nasties. Then run RootRepeal to get any root kit virus, which is the second likeliest to cause unwanted restarting (after dial-home trojans which can't find their home planet).

Meanwhile, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery, and turn off System Failure > automatic restart. This will let you see an error message, if any, about what is causing the restarts. - KoolerStill (talk) 13:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

July 25

Internet causing computer crashes 2

Posted this earlier (just search for a question without the 2 at the end of title--) and someone suggested using Malware Anti-Malware so I finally got around to doing that (the computer I'm trying to fix isn't mine...) and it hasn't resolved my problem. Here's the original problem:

My computer crashes sometimes when I use the internet- completly crashes. Whatever site I'm on is open, nothing looks different, except everything is frozen and must turn off power using power button. It happens when I use Firefox, IE, on different websites (some don't even have flash or anything- last time I used the computer it crashed on espn.go.com)

I've ran Malware and it found a RougeDriveCleaner which I doubt caused the problem. Before Malware I ran I ran A-2 (free) squared and it found 2 viruses (Riskware.gen.Nero!IK, Trojan.BAT.Delfiles). After running A-squared I could use explorer.exe; before it would give me DEP and explorer would die everytime I tried to open it (even to view a folder.) Not sure if any of those are really problems but I deleted them anyway since they were in files and programs I didn't need. Ran some others-Avira(free), SuperAnti-Spyware (free) (it found 2 virus and about 300 tracing cookies also but unfortunatly its log somehow got erased..) I could post the HijackThis! log but I'm not so sure it would help. Given that it's sporadic I'm guessing that the actually virus (assuming its a virus) isn't always running. When it does run my computer crashes so I need to restart. Could there be a reason outside a virus? Computeridiot34 (talk) 00:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I would run MalwareBytes AntiMalware and Spybot Search and Destroy (both free) and a free online antivirus scan such as Trend Micro HouseCall. This will least rule out the possibility of a virus or malware problem. Next I would then look at what programs are set to run on start-up using msconfig and services.msc (just use start --> run to execute these) as you may find there are some junk applications such as free screensavers etc that are causing the crash. Also, use Crap cleaner (free) to clear out all temporary files too. Rjwilmsi 09:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

transferring files - tricky

What would be the easiest way to transfer a ~7 GB dmg file from a PC (Windows XP, desktop) to a Macbook (Tiger)? I have a 4 GB flash drive and a 2 GB SD card (which fits in a camera, conveniently).

I am assuming that splitting the file using 7-Zip and then transferring it would be the straight-forward solution. However, I was wondering if there is an "easier" way out. Is it possible to "open" the dmg on a PC as on a mac? I mean reveal the contents of the package so that I know what I need and what I don't ... thanks. Kushal (talk) 02:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

How about connecting them to the same network, and then transferring the files over AIM or something like that? Our Apple Disk Image article talks about the .dmg file format; in particular, you might be interested in the Apple Disk Image#Non-Macintosh section. --Spoon! (talk) 04:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas. I got the ISO using the article you showed me (the Java program is awesome). I was wondering if I could change contents of the package and repackage it so I can run the dmg off of a 4 GB flash drive. Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 19:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Jobs-for-life in the computer industry

Let's say you are a top-dog 3D CG programmer. To keep you from getting a pink slip, you have to learn lots of things during your career (i.e., new hardware, new instructions, advanced algorithms, improved software languages/architecture ...). Most abilities in the computer industry are becoming obsolete or inadequate in a few years thanks to the progress. What are the kinds of knowledge/expertise that have withstood the changes for the longest period of time?

I went to a public library last night. I noticed that some Z-80/8080 books published in the late 1970s and early 1980s are still being borrowed by people (due dates!). I think they are useful because many 8-bit processors are used in today's embedded systems. People are making honest money coding these 30-, 40-year-old things for a very large number of diversified employees.

Let's say you're a computer technician driving a time-machine to 2009 from the 1960s or 1970s. If you rule out those single-employee, limited-demand repairing jobs, are there any today's hard- software jobs that may demand your input? -- Toytoy (talk) 05:33, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Many major organisations still use legacy systems developed in the late 1970s. They might have been ported to newer equipment or even newer operating systems, but if the program code is stable and it still does what is required then it could easily still be in operation. Those organisation are reluctant to lose their investment in years of development, for something new which might be years before it is as stable. Therefore you will still find organisations using a program written in COBOL and running on IBM mainframe systems; and they will have one or two people already on staff who are probably the only ones who know anything about how it works. Astronaut (talk) 09:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Another thing to consider is to position yourself as the only one who knows how a particularly critical system works. For example, I used to know the guy who developed part of the communications system that is used in around 60% of the world's lotteries. It is a small role, but he is needed whenever a new lottery system is setup or an existing system undergoes a major upgrade. Astronaut (talk) 09:35, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I think Z-80 programming is unlike COBOL. Being a COBOL programmer today is like working for a museum -- generally you don't make new things. In contrast, a new model of microwave oven may require new functions written in Z-80 assembly language from scratch. You probably can change your job because many industries still use these 8-bit chips. You job is not repairing a particular legacy system. -- Toytoy (talk) 15:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You should think about computer theory (properly, "computer science", but that has become a loaded term). Programming has changed very significantly, and will continue to do so, but the structure and methodology of computer system design has actually not changed very much since its first incarnations. From the standpoint of hardware, the things which used to be reserved for very expensive mainframe computers are now available on every desktop, so this has enabled designers to rearrange the way they do computing; but overall, the same basic concepts of system analysis are the same. Being a critical thinker is more important than knowing the ins and outs of this week's latest fad scripting language. Nimur (talk) 16:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Tracing of an email address

In the recent case of Darryn Walker, who was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the UK for writing an "obscene" story on a text-based story website, how was the author traced? The article says that he was "reportedly traced" through his email address, but I believe this was an anonymous Yahoo or Hotmail address. There was no IP address visible on the site. So how is it possible to trace an individual through their use of an anonymous email address? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:06, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Even if the user has an anonymous e-mail address in which they provide no personal details when they sign up, if they access that e-mail address from their home computer the e-mail provider can log the IP address of their home computer, and the ISP that provides their Internet service can link that IP back to the bank account that pays for their Internet connection. In that way the user could be traced. Rjwilmsi 09:50, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. So what are the privacy policies of email providers and ISPs in this regard? Do email providers log the IP addresses of their users, and if so, do they pass on those details to ISPs? And, to add the final link in the chain, do ISPs pass on those details to the police when they are asked to do so? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

They all do log the IPs and they pass them on to law enforcement agencies with subpoenas, usually. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Man day in software

If a software project is said to be completed in 20 man days, does it mean the entire project was completed by 1 person in 20 days? Or is it that x number of people worked on this project for 20 days? I would appreciate a quick reply. Thanks!--117.196.133.19 (talk) 09:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It means the equivalent 20 days of work, if carried out by one person. Whether it was in fact 1 person for 20 days, 2 for 10, or 40 people for half a day is not specified. See man-hour for more. Rjwilmsi 09:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

In project planning, a man-day is the amount of work done by one person in one day (I'm surprised we don't have an article about that). The day is usually defined as 6 - 7.5 man-hours depending on the hours of work and the length of the lunch break. A man-year is typically 240 man-days (ie. it excludes weekends, vacations, sickday). In your example above, it means 1 person worked alone for 20 days, or 2 people worked together for 10 days, or 4 people worked together for 5 days, or 20 people worked together for 1 day. Astronaut (talk) 09:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

We have man-hour, and man-week and man-month redirects to it (it's more generally written). So I've redirected man-day to man-hour; that article could do with a more generic name, but hypothetical worker abstract work units doesn't trip off the tongue. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 13:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I vote for hypothetical worker abstract work units to be made an article, or at least redirect to the other one.

Nobody has linked to the Mythical Man-Month yet? This famous book, written by an IBM software project manager, blasted the idea that (1 person x 20 days) = (20 people x 1 day), or that software projects can even be measured in these terms at all. Nimur (talk) 16:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The classic rebuttal is the case of pregnancy. Technically it might be ~9 man-months of effort, but 10 men (or even 10 women ;-) are not going to be able to produce a baby in under a month, no matter how hard they try. -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 18:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Hooking speakers up to laptop

I just got a set of 5.1 speakers, because I had "points" to redeem through Westlaw and it seemed like the best thing of all the crap in their little online store. I don't particularly need 5.1 sound, just basic stereo with the sub would be fine with me. The speakers have three different colored male cords to hook into your computer/TV, but my laptop has only one output thing for speakers/headset. Can I just plug the black cord into my laptop or could that cause problems somehow? I don't want to buy an external sound card or anything fancy. If these speakers won't work I'll just sell them or give them away. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:16, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The "Green" is color code for primary (stereo) speaker. Plug that into the "headphone jack" for the standard sound experience. You can also buy external stuff (for example, a USB attachment) which will have a breakout for each speaker. Remember always, though - the sound quality is dictated by the weakest link on your audio chain - your source material, your laptop's audio card, your cable, your speakers, etc. If you're watching web TV, there's only stereo sound anyway, so you aren't missing anything. Nimur (talk) 16:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

None of those plugs should cause problems, but you probably want to plug in the primary speakers, not the side-speakers. Nimur (talk) 16:15, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks! 209.6.22.105 (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

server blocked by nat

How can I access a web server on a computer which is connected to my local network via NAT? Is there like a free program which you could run on both computers to let them speak to each other?

Do you have administrative access on the NAT? It sounds like you need port forwarding. Otherwise, you could try setting up a VPN and tunneling connections, but this is not easy. (My lousy experience with OpenVPN last summer led me to conclude that commercial VPN software is worth the exorbitant costs that they charge large organizations). Nimur (talk) 16:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Wait, now I'm confused - you are already on your local network? Is the computer already running web server software, like Apache (server)? Then, you should be able to use the local IP address or DNS name of that computer directly. The NAT should only matter if your client is outside the local network. Nimur (talk) 16:19, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried entering "localhost" into the browser on the computer without the server but it didn't work. The other computer with the server has the same ip address as this one, I checked on http://showip.net Reg556 (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You should read Network address translation. Because of the NAT, your computers appear to have the same IP address, but they actually have two separate, local addresses. If you are using a home router, these will usually be something like "192.168.1.100" (but it depends on your DHCP settings and the type of NAT/router/DHCP server you have). You need to find the actual, local IP addresses. If the systems are running windows, you can check your ip settings from the command line: Start Menu > Run > cmd, and type ipconfig /all, which will list your local IPs. On Linux/Unix, you can type ifconfig in a terminal. "localhost" will not work - it always refers to the current machine, and does not perform any transactions over the network. Nimur (talk) 17:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

What kind of "access" do you require? Can't you just point your browser to the address you get from your showip.net or whatever? --Spoon! (talk) 18:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

No because I get the same ip address from showip.net for both computers. I've tried all these suggestions. Is there not a simple program I could install on both computers that would talk to each other and make the link for me?

What is this system called?

[14] Under "Customize results". In Firefox 3, you can adjust the properties of the address bar in an about:config setting. It is only one value but that one value can be used to make many different combinations of properties. The system (the blog author calls it a bitmap, but I can't find any other references to it) uses numbers which are powers of 2 to represent the options. Once you choose which options you want, you add up the values to get your combination. 24.6.46.177 (talk) 16:42, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Or, even better, you "or" them together (so that noting bad happens if you "add" an option already "on"). This technique is very common in programming. But I do not know of any name for it... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:01, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's either called a bitmap or a bit field. It's an extremely common pattern in systems programming and computer-hardware, where one bit (or several adjacent bits) represents a single value, and so a given byte or word compactly stores a bunch of values. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 17:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes also see Flag word - "word" here means a collection of bits (0 or 1), and flag - see Flag (computing) - presumably from the ability of a flag (realworld) to be either up or down. (Potentially "flag word" and "bit field" should be merged - if anyone want to tag them?)83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, flag word is better, although it seems to talk only about cases where each logical unit is a single bit. It's common to find cases like:

              bit0   - output enable/disable
              bit1-3 - output gain (0..7)
              bit4   - output buffer interrupt enable  
              bit5-6 - output buffer interrupt threshold (0..3)
              bit7   - reserved

... and we don't really have an article that matches this (very common) pattern. I don't think bitfield and flag word should me merged. Flag word is the hardware thing, bitfield a software construct. While you'd often use a bitfield to address a flag word, you could also do it just with masks and shifts, and equally a bitfield can be used as a purely software construct (as in the case the OP is talking about). -- Finlay McWalter Talk 17:39, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't find the article either, I've added each to the 'see also' section of the other and left it at that.83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:39, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Subscriptions to a blog

Is there a way to set up a Blogger blog so that people can just click a link to be notified of new posts to the blog via email? I see that a reader/subscriber can do this if they use Google Reader but that may not be what everyone uses for their email. And it means that everyone has to go through the trouble of signing up with a special service just to find out about updates to the blog when they could just visit the blog and find out. Alternatively, is there a blogging service that does allow users to subscribe in a way like what I want? Dismas|^(talk) 17:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine a practical implementation of that that wouldn't require a bunch of steps from the user, which would amount to a signup. First they have to type in their email address, then probably fill out a CAPTCHA (to avoid the system from being used to mailbomb people), and then reply to a confirmatory email (again to avoid the system from being abused to sign up unwitting third parties to huge lists of unwanted chatter). That's pretty much the same sign-up process for a regular RSS aggregator like Bloglines or Google Reader, so they might as well just use one of those and get all the associated flexibility. Now you could do this as a client side feature (with an RSS reader program or a firefox plugin), but that's obviously not a zero-install-zero-setup option either. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 18:02, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so submitting, going through CAPTCHA, and confirming is fine. If the instructions included going through a signup or download of an aggregator, then I see that as too much complication that people may not be willing to go through for a single blog. Dismas|^(talk) 20:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

converting raw fils

So I've got a dslr and am shooting in RAW (good), and am taking pictures of steam engines. I'm having a problem with the exposure - or rather converting the RAW file to jpeg. The problem is that the subject is pretty dark, but the sky is full of nice fluffy clouds. By moving the exposure slider up and down I can either get picture of black engine with completely washed out sky, or a nice picture of the clouds but an underexposed subject. I can try hdr, but that seems to produce dramatic images rather than realistic looking images. Ideally I want to open the raw file, select different areas of the and apply different exposure values to those areas only but ensure that the joins between areas are smooth. I only have ZoomBrowser EX and Digital Photo Professional. But do I need Photoshop Elements to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.124.80 (talk) 19:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The HDR images you see online are mostly gaudy examples where they've taken things to an extreme - it is possible to use the technique with a degree if subtlety (e.g. some of the photos in this set - http://www.flickr.com/photos/phototoasty/sets/72157594225970774/) and it seems almost everyone oversaturates their HDR photos (all the better to emphasise their bad trip appearance). Anyway, if you want to be editing the files yourself, you'll find that The Gimp and dcraw will read the various RAW formats for many popular cameras (RAW isn't a format per se, just whatever data comes out of a particular camera's sensor, so you need software that knows about your camera). More stuff is listed at raw image format#Software support; with those you should be able to convert your camera's RAW (assuming it's supported) into TIFF or PNG and you can edit that in whatever you're comfortable with. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 20:50, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Broken link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoran_Desert - this page was accessible up until about a week ago. Now it just generates page load errors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clhowson (talk • contribs) 20:14, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Works for me. Try clearing your browser cache. -- Finlay McWalter Talk 20:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Core 2 Quade 9400 and Vista 64 SP 1

Recently, I have upgraded my hardware. My new processor Core 2 Quad 9400 requires Vista 64 bit SP1. I found this info from its official. Right now I'm using XP SP 2. Should I install Vista 64 bit SP1 for better CPU Performance or stick with current XP SP 2. I have not used Vista before. My motherboard is 750i SLI Nvidia Geforce and Graphics card is Sapphire ATI 4890. Any suggestion?