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July 31

WP:CRYSTAL

How Wiki came up with the idiom Wiki is not a crystal ball meaning Wiki does not calculate futue events. Crystal is just a gem, so what does crystal have anything to do with guestimating?--69.228.145.50 (talk) 00:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Crystal ball. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image a usb memory stick

I am looking for a program that can raw dump an entire USB memory stick to a single file - without adding any of its own crap to the image. As there any software that does it? I also want to be able to write the image back.--155.144.40.31 (talk) 01:33, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'dd if=/dev/yourusbstick of=usbimage' should do it on linux. Reverse the input file and output file to write it back, bit for bit both ways. --M^ask? 01:37, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not fortunate enough to be a linux user, this site has a long list of disk imaging tools. Most of them are bootable cds, probably not what you want, but this program sounds like it'll backup a usb drive to an image file. Indeterminate (talk) 01:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I ended up getting cygwin so I could just do "dd if=/dev/sdb of=cygdrive/c/dump.raw" Thanks anyway!--155.144.40.31 (talk) 01:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WinImage can do this // 14:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SEO Optimization: URLs

Hi All,

When it comes to optimizing urls, does it HAVE to be the page name containing the keywords, or will something in the path be just as effective? Example

www.mysite.com/somecategory/file-name-with-keywords.htm

as opposed to:

www.mysite.com/key-words-here/2.htm

Will it make a substantial difference going from one to the other?

Thanks in advance PrinzPH (talk) 03:03, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That will depend entirely on the search engine you are optimizing for. Google does not publish its indexing and ranking methodology, so it is not possible to give you a definite answer for Google's system. In general, though - it is probably safe to say that a modern web-indexing search engine will use some information from the URL to estimate search relevance. Nimur (talk) 14:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. My question really revolves around assuming that search engines do use the URL (the string itself), does really matter at what point in the string it occurs? PrinzPH (talk) 17:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC) EDIT: I just noticed my question is redundant (Search Engine Optimization Optimization? lol) :p PrinzPH (talk) 17:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned before, the answer to that question depends on which search engine you intend to optimize results for. Since no commercial search engine publishes its algorithms, it is not possible to accurately answer your question. Here is Google's SEO guidelines. Note that Google does not look too kindly on the concept of "Search Engine Optimization" - they prefer that you organize your site properly and make it easy to index and crawl; and let them decide how you rank. Ultimately, that is how search engines work - somebody else decides (or writes an algorithm to decide) how the pages rank, and they do not have to tell you why they made that ranking. This lack of openness was the primary reason that Wikimedia sought to develop Wikia Search, an open-source search engine, with published ranking methods and algorithms, and community intervention. However, the project did not perform, very well, and is no longer active. Nimur (talk) 00:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a search engine, but I would prefer the first one. It is easier to remember and gives more information about the content (unless it's page 2 of "key-words-here"). Sites optimized for users get more links from other sites, so search engines rank them better. MTM (talk) 22:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strange network behavior

So I'm visiting my parents' place for a couple of days and they had their internet cancelled for the summer. A neighbor has kindly allowed me to use their wireless next door, and the last time I used it I could access it from over half the rooms in the house.

This time around I could barely access it at all. For about 5 minutes, I could access google.com, and it was quite fast and responsive, but NO other sites would work at all. Meanwhile I could do Google searches to my heart's content, so I simply gave up.

Then I disabled 802.11n and connected with 802.11g. A little better, but most sites still don't work most of the time. google.com doesn't work anymore, so my previous success must have been a coincidence right? Well... I ssh'd into my work machine and tunneled VNC through that. The VNC is nice and responsive (as much as VNC typically is), in fact I'm typing this question into Firefox on my work computer through my VNC-over-SSH session.

I left a ping -t (in Windows) running for about 10 minutes to the machine I ssh'd into and got a 95% packet loss. Meanwhile the VNC session has been perfectly responsive the whole time, including various other things I had going on in my little Putty SSH session at the command line.

Can anyone explain this behavior, why I'm getting such a poor ping response while my VNC session remains perfectly fine (from what I can tell)? If the wireless is spotty, wouldn't that trigger wireless retransmits that are invisible to the ICMP layer? If these retransmits are taking too long and the ping is timing out anyways, why is my VNC session still so responsive? If it's a QoS thing where my SSH stuff is getting through at the expense of ICMP stuff, then why is most of my web traffic getting blocked when no VNC is running? These should hopefully give you an idea of my network knowledge--or lack thereof. Generally speaking, why is there such a huge reliability gap (perfect.....abysmal) between my VNC-over-SSH to my work computer and everything else I've tried?

I also tried OpenDNS with virtually identical results (not that that would explain the ping/VNC disparity).

Thanks. --Silvaran (talk) 03:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what is the ping response with URL vs IP? use yahoo and not google as they have blocked pinging their servers. you can also try to uninstall and reinstall the network driver for your wireless. Then check the connection. Ivtv (talk) 05:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How mysterious! Since an SSH tunnel works fine, I would also guess some kind of QoS issue. My best guess would be some kind of malfunctioning traffic control or deep packet inspection firewall on the neighbors' wireless router or broadband modem. What about HTTPS/SSL? I'd guess that it probably works fine too - it might just be unencrypted traffic that gets throttled or dropped. Could the neighbors be doing some heavy torrenting? Even combined with QoS, it seems unlikely that it could cause the problem, but hrm. As far as solutions go, my #1 suggestion would be to get the neighbors to reset their router & modem. I guess that might be a little rude to say to them...

Oh, you could also try a traceroute to a few different sites, see if it always drops out at a certain point. That way, if you can ping your neighbor's router and modem easily, you can narrow down the issue. Yeah, that's probably the best sleuthy solution. Indeterminate (talk) 11:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm grabbing nmap now, though I'm not positive what kinds of info it will give me. I can't get to the router web page very reliably (and the high SSH tunnel reliability won't help that!), so I don't think a tracepath would help, but I'll give it a shot. The neighbors are actually away on vacation for awhile, so I'm thinking what I might try and do is, if I can figure out the router web page's password and get there reliably enough for a few minutes, I'll change the WPA2 key and see if that fixes things. If so, I'll change it back, and suggest the owner change it when I get a chance to talk to him next. Thanks again! --Silvaran (talk) 14:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No go on the router web page stuff, I can't figure out the password, nmap can't even detect it (but still gives me a fingerprint so its connection attempts must have been successful), I'll see how it works for my neighbor once he gets back. Having my SSH tunnel work virtually 100% of the time and everything else work only 1% of the time is really baffling though... --Silvaran (talk) 14:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Saving response for ping command in C

I know that with system("ping machinename") I can ping a machine in C. i'd like to save that output to a char array variable if possible. How would I do that? (if you could write up/copy paste some quick code, I'd appreciate it). Also, this isn't homework :). Chris M. (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can dump the output to a log file:

system("ping machinename > pingResult.log");

FILE* f = fopen("pingResult.log", "r");

// ... read and parse log file

Thanks, that worked exactly as I hoped. Chris M. (talk) 14:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ack, no, bad idea. There are a million ways that can fail: if the current directory isn't writable, if the file isn't writable, if the user has a file by that name that they don't want to lose, if two copies of your program are running concurrently in the same directory, if your program is running with elevated privileges and someone creates a symlink or exploits the system-fopen race... just don't do it. Use popen:

          FILE* f = popen("ping machinename", "r");

          // ... read and parse output

In Visual C++ it's called _popen instead of popen. You still need to sanitize the machinename if you got it from a source you don't trust. -- BenRG (talk) 21:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. And it's also very wise to supply an absolute path for ping (e.g. /bin/ping). If you're going to be doing a lot of pinging, and need more control than the command-line ping executable can give, skipping popen and using a dedicated ICMP or ping library (or hand-writing it with SOCK_RAW/IPPROTO_ICMP, if you really must) like liboping (which Debian ships) might be for you. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:42, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or, you can set up a named pipe, if you are on Unix, and open the pipe without ever writing to disk. Nimur (talk) 14:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

vista user pic

is there a way to ged rid of that bloody pic every user gets assigned in windows since xp to vista ??? i mean that there was no pic at all —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.47.159 (talk) 14:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One easy solution is to assign all users a blank, transparent PNG file. You will never see any image logos for users; and you don't have to spend a lot of time mucking around with complicated settings. Here is a 1x1 pixel transparent PNG that will do the trick. [1], and this Microsoft page explains how to set the user's picture. Nimur (talk) 14:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

diagnosing monitor trouble

A while ago my laptop began to have a problem where after being off for a while and then turning it on, the screen image would be flickery and then often go out. Once it went out there would still be an image on the screen, but with no illumination so it was almost impossible to see. This led me to believe there was a problem with the monitor's backlight. The only way to get it to work again would be to turn the monitor off and back on (the quickest way was to put it in stand by mode). The problem seemed to go away as the monitor was on for longer, so after a few tries it would work better, and then once it was on for a few minutes straight it would be fine until the next time I turned it off. Over a few weeks this issue got worse and worse until it became unusable. I connected it to an external monitor, which worked with no problem. I've been using it like that for a few months since I've been too lazy to do anything about it. Then yesterday I suddenly started having the same issue with the external monitor. The external monitor is an LCD as well. Is this a common enough problem that it's conceivable I'm having the same issue with two different monitors in the span of 6 months or is there something with the computer that could cause this? Rckrone (talk) 17:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had an LCD monitor (Samsung) with the exact same problem. After doing some online research, I found that it was due to a capacitor overheating (it can get pretty hot in my study during summer, which explains why the monitor worked just fine in winter/early spring/late fall). After replacing the capacitor (a half an hour job) the problem went away. If your monitor/laptop is a Samsung, that's likely your problem as well, but, of course, it could be a million other things.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:03, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

External HDD question

I think I know the answer to the question I am going to ask, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, just to confirm.

What is the worst that could happen to an external HDD (or the data on it) if it is connected simultaneously to two computers? The HDD in question has two connections (USB and eSATA)—if the drive is connected to a running PC via USB and also to another running PC via eSATA, what could the consequences be? The HDD contains a repository of data both PCs need to access, and neither PC is expected to update the data (not often anyway).

And yes, I know I can just share the drive over the network, so both PCs would have access to it no problem. I am just curious about this alternative approach (if only for access speed reasons). Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:58, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... I'm not a expert in this, but I would assume it would work like a normal HDD. If a file is locked, you can't write to it, so there would be no corruption. Maybe someone else knows more? Thanks. AHRtbA== ^Talk 18:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine that the controller inside a consumer external HDD with two interfaces will only allow one or t'other to be active at a given time; that it'll ignore the other altogether. In the event that it does support both, I'd guess it would work like a multi-interface storage area network device - it deals only in reads and writes of whole blocks (LBAs), and maintains a queue for reads and writes, actioning only one at a time. Almost all filesystems expect that they're the only user of a given block level device, and two such filesystems blindly accessing the same block level storage in this way isn't something they know how to deal with, so there will be terrible corruption and total (cache-related) inconsistency. So, in short, it won't work, and if it does, don't do it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this one isn't a consumer-oriented HDD; it's industrial (and quite expensive), so it'd be silly to risk frying it with an experiment like this. The whole inquiry was just unbridled curiosity speaking. Still, if I had a cheap HDD with two interfaces, I'd try it out just for kicks, to see what happens :) Thanks anyway!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:16, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly consider it defective if simply plugging in two interface cables actually broke the thing. I should qualify my above slightly: if there were two partitions on the disk (assuming concurrent access was supported) and you arranged it for one computer to access the first, and the other the second, then that wouldn't be a logical problem. Performance-wise it would be a catastrophe, however, as the two computers disk-scheduling schemes would fight with one another, causing the drive head to perform big seeks repeatedly, dancing inefficiently to serve two selfish masters. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The matters are complicated by the fact that it's actually two (physical) drives in a RAID1 configuration (one logical drive). At any rate, I have no inclination of moving almost two terabytes of data elsewhere (in case they become corrupted) just to try out a silly experiment like this :) It would be most interesting to see how badly the performance would be hit, though. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:39, July 31, 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, there's absolutely no chance it would do anything interesting. Maybe there are external drives with multiple USB ports or multiple eSATA ports that are designed for concurrent block-level use, though I doubt it. But using two different interface standards to hook up two computers is obviously a hack, and there's no way they'd implement all the tricky arbitration logic that would be needed to support that hack, especially since in the vast majority of cases the result of all that effort would be to corrupt the file system and lose customers' data. -- BenRG (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unless this was specifically designed and advertised to be used by two computers at once, I would be very surprised if what you're looking to do actually worked. I suspect that You'll need some sort of server in the loop. Tiny File servers are (Relatively) cheap these days. I've got one of these : NSLU2, but there are others out there. APL (talk) 07:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to use MediaWiki PAGENAMEE for custom page name?

I know that in MediaWiki, they have two variable expansions, {{PAGENAME}} and {{PAGENAMEE}}, where the second one is the first one with special characters URL-encoded, and spaces turned into underscores. However, suppose I want to make a template that allows people to link to an external wiki outside of the Wikipedia family using a direct URL link (since it's a wiki using MediaWiki, I need to URL-encode page names in the URL when I link it), but I want to allow people to specify the page name as a normal page name (i.e. with spaces and special characters). So my question is: is there some special MediaWiki function that performs the exact same transformation as {{PAGENAME}} to {{PAGENAMEE}}, but on a custom string. Thanks, --71.106.173.110 (talk) 18:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile phone, voice recognition for calling

I have a Sony Ericsson W595 phone which I very often use with a bluetooth headset, and the first thing I did after buying it, was to try out the voice recognition feature for making calls. I recorded commands such as "Call Erik", "Call Ellen", etc. (I used the Norwegian word for call - Ring - and these are not the actual names). I did this for about ten or fifteen of my contacts. It worked beautifully. Beautifully, that is, in the quiet room where I was when I did the exercise. When I need the feature, however, it's a disaster. Outdoors, on the metro, when I'm running -- it hardly ever works. My question is - what should I do to make the feature usable?. My first thoughts are: don't say "Call" before the name of the contact, and keep the number of contacts that I use the feature for to a minimum. Any other suggestions? --NorwegianBlue^talk 18:45, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try recording the commands when you're in a noisy environment. --LarryMac | Talk 18:51, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've thought of that, but I haven't tried it. The trouble is — I fear — that the ambient noise when I'm running, when I'm on the metro, when I'm in my car, when I'm in a shopping mall etc., are very different. I have, too, thought of making silly noises, whistling, gargling, singing falling and rising tones etc. to maximize the difference between the audio signatures of each contact. But that would really make people think I'm a lunatic. (I'm oldish, I don't really care all that much what people think, but still, there's a limit...). I would very much like this feature to work, because I would have used it a lot, especially when running (which I do for about an hour every day, on my way to work and back home in the evening). --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My daughter just arrived when I was typing my previous entry, and asked if I had used the bluetooth headset when recording the commands, and the answer is no, I used the phone's mike. I'll re-record the entries with the bluetooth headset, and without the Ring before the names. I'd still like to hear if anyone has experience in using voice-activated calls for more than a couple of contacts, though. --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indirect sharing of contact info

On what social networking sites, if any, can I create a list of friends who can share my private profile with people I don't know, without allowing those friends to share the right to share the profile? Neon Merlin 20:37, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, what you want is something like a way to set up specific groups that have "friends of friends" access, in the Facebook parlance? --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this strategy is subject to the analog hole - (or rather, the digital hole). As soon as your data becomes viewable to others, they can copy it to some other unprotected system, and share it with others. Any copy-protection scheme is invariably prone to fail, because free information will proliferate. Such a system only functions as long as the data remains inside the closed system - which, by definition, is not closed, because you intend to allow "friends of friends" to view your data. You cannot vet these people for security clearance unless they are already in your "friends" group. Even then, you are assuming on good faith that they will not proliferate your data outside of the system you have asked them to use. I'm ranting here, but I'm still baffled how this minor bit of logic fails to register with the vast majority of Social Network users and designers. Nimur (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But what they copy and share will be a static snapshot that can't be updated unless it's copied and shared again. So if you start getting e-mail spam and can find the "friend" responsible, you can cut them off and change your address. Neon Merlin 06:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to save a video clip to hard disk

How can I save the video clip here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8173285.stm to hard disk? My normal method of finding the .flv file in the cache does not work. 89.243.180.82 (talk) 20:41, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BBC News has switched over from Realplayer to the same technology as BBC iPlayer; it uses a transport (and, it seems, encryption) mechanism that's much more sophisticated than the simple flash movie player used by, for example, YouTube. I'm not aware of any means of permanently storing iPlayer content. People in the UK can temporarily store iPlayer content with BBC iPlayer Desktop, but I don't know if that extends to video embedded in non-iPlayer pages, like BBC News. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

get_iplayer http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/ 87.194.213.98 (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I downloaded Get iplayer. But so far I have been unable to download the video clip linked to above - here's what I got:

"C:\Program Files\get_iplayer>get_iplayer --get --modes=flashhd,flashvhigh,flashh igh,iphone,flashnormal --type=tv --url='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8173 285.stm'

get_iplayer v2.14, Copyright (C) 2009 Phil Lewis This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; use --conditions for details.

INFO Trying to stream pid using type tv INFO: pid not found in tv cache ERROR: Failed to get version pid metadata from iplayer site

INFO: No versions exist for this programme"

What command should I use please? 78.146.243.101 (talk) 19:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick look at the get_iplayer website, it doesn't look like it supports the BBC news site yet. You may want to ask the author if he/she would consider supporting it Nil Einne (talk) 19:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 1

Amazon.co.uk, wish-list, Amazon's privacy policy

I just googled my own name (yeah, I'm bored, I've had a beer or three, my wife has longer holidays than I have and visits her parents, I'm alone etc.). As far as I know, I'm the only person on our planet with my exact name, and whaddayaknow: On page five or six of the search, amazon.co.uk kindly provides a wish-list for {My Name}. WTF is going on??? I've bought many books, both from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. The list was relevant, I might indeed have liked to read the books that were suggested. I hate to admit it, but I don't always read all the fine print when I register on a reputable site. Skim through it -- yes, spend half an hour reading every detail -- no. What have I missed, and is there any way I could disable this blatant breach of my privacy? --NorwegianBlue^talk 01:31, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think they make their wish lists public by default, the idea being (I guess) that you might want to send it to friends/family that don't already have amazon accounts. Still, not very friendly. They should at least ask first. I don't have an amazon.co.uk account, but on my amazon.com account, if you log in and click on the wish list in question, it should have a little box on the left-hand side of the window, with things like "This list is public. This is your default list.", etc. If you look down a little ways, there should be a button that says "Make this list private". IMO, they don't really make it easy to find. Indeterminate (talk) 01:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I found it. Personalisation → Wish list → Combo-box "This list will be viewable by:". Default is "Anyone who searches for me.". Still furious! --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On a side note as I read this...Google your email. watch what happens. That should pre occupy your paranoia :P 142.176.13.22 (talk) 02:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You certainly managed to stir my paranoia, but... you're kidding, no? Which email sevice are you referring to? Do you have a source? I just googled my previous email address, which I've used for many years, but recently abandoned because of spam. The only thing that turned up was "Do you mean" {similar-address}@{emailservice}.com. I've heard stories about very unpleasant stuff turning up when people google their own national identification number. I'm reluctant to do that experiment, however, because google stores my searches. Might do it using tor (anonymity network), though, would that be safe? --NorwegianBlue^talk 09:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think NorwegianBlue might be getting different results than me. a Google search for my designated spam email has no hits, and a search for a different email I use only returns my (old) blog posts I signed with it. Not a huge return or any sites that seemed to have leak it. Freedomlinux (talk) 14:21, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Every had to put your email to "join" a site to get access to something you needed from it? Ever did the same, to comment or answer a question on a strange forum? Ever given an answer on Yahoo Answers, good enough for some fake forum to scrape it? (the ones who scrape via RSS get the email ID, not the Nickname). In the old days you'd get one email address from your ISP, made up as some version of your real name and no choice about it. (Or you used your own, figuring it's more professional for work emails than being called fghjklj@somemail.com).

Happy hunting. Maybe get one of these useful shiny hats first. - KoolerStill (talk) 09:26, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As stated, I've had a huge spam problem which forced me to transfer all my mail from one account to another (fake emails that appeared to come from me, with autoreplies drowning my inbox). Nevertheless, there were no ghits for my old address. BTW, after the spam problem, I've taken the following strategy: I have a couple of domain names with associated email addresses that I can redirect. When I need to register somewhere, I use an address that I create for that site only. If the address is compromised, I'll know who did it, and the problem is easily corrected. --NorwegianBlue^talk 10:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it makes you feel any better, Norwegian Blue, I googled my SSN and the first thing that shows up is some person's facebook profile. Apparently they assigned the nine-digit number to someone. Meh. Well, it is kind of futile to hide your information from Google anyways. Kushal (talk) 23:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's something that might be of interest to you, Norwegian Blue. http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/jf/WPES07-Felipe.pdf Kushal (talk) 21:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Currently-working robot certificate authorities?

Hey all,

All the CAs linked from robot certificate authority seem to be down/abandoned/otherwise not working, as do all those I can find via the first few pages of a Google search. Does anyone know of any that are still active?

Thanks, --Aseld ^talk 01:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finding compatible graphics card for Acer Aspire

I have an Acer Aspire 5738Z (http://www.acer.co.uk/acer-v2/seu30e.do?kcond61e.c2att101=56845&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&link=ln400e&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&acond125e=56845&sp=page18e&ctx1g.c2att92=122&ctx2.c2att1=17&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=3755713286) which has a JV50 motherboard and is currently using integrated graphics. I would like to upgrade the graphics. How do I find which graphics cards are compatible? ----Seans Potato Business 07:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're not going to find any. Only a limited number of very premium laptops have an upgradeable videocard, due to size, heat and power issues, as well as proprietary connections and components. That said, this machine seems to have quite a powerful video system, so I'm curious why you feel the need to upgrade it. If it's performance issues, proper system maintenance would probably make the most difference. --M^ask? 09:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From Sisoft Sandra, I have deterined:

PEG Slot J6B2 (6h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J6B1 (7h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Used

PCI Express Slot J6D1 (8h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J8B3 (9h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Used

PCI Express Slot J8D1 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J7B1 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot 6 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

- doesn't this mean that I have a PCI-e slot available?

My laptop is available with at least two options with respect to graphics and I have the lesser of those two options (integrated Intel 4500M with 64 MB dedicated VRAM, as opposed to NVIDIA GeForce G105M with 512 MB dedicated DDR2). I'm guessing you thought I had the latter? ----Seans Potato Business 12:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sandra reports what the PCI bridge controller reports to it; those are logical ports, which on an integrated laptop chipset don't always correspond with physical pinouts on the southbridge (some are instead on-die pci connections to other integrated peripherals. Moreover, those ports that are pinned out of the southbridge package aren't necessary connected to any physical header, and in laptops and small form factor systems (which don't have room for the PCI headers, never mind actual PCI cards) most are just terminated by the system builder to pullups. The only way to know what is actually mapped to a physical PCI header is to check the underside. Acer laptops have all their removable components accessible via panels on the bottom, which are labeled with (moderately) clear icons. My own Acer, a travelmate, only has panels for memory and the hard disk, although I've seen others that have one for the WiFi card as well. I've personally never seen an Acer (I've only seen mid-range ones, not the Ferrari ones) that had a removable graphics adapter. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I checked the Quick Start Guide for that model laptop, from Acer's UK support site. It shows a picture of the underside panels, and it only has battery, hd, and memory. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

windows downloads

I was told to download Windows NT4.0 service pack 3 from the microsoft website, but searching the site, it seems they only have service packs 2, 4 and 6. Does anyone know where I can find this service pack 3?

88.108.248.67 (talk) 10:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Later Service Packs will include SP3 as well as other cumulative fixes. Is there a reason you specifically need NT4.0 SP3? That's almost a fifteen year old operating system; are you having some type of compatibility problem? Nimur (talk) 13:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

bash scripting - testing if wget succeeds

I am writing a bash script that uses wget to download some files. I'd like my script to behave differently if wget fails (specifically, if it gets a 404). Other than testing if the file exists after wget terminates, is there a way to do this? I tried the wget manpage but didn't see anything. Also: is there a good scripting tutorial out there? 87.194.213.98 (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try:

wget http://foo.com/blah
if [ $? == 0 ]; then
  echo WGET succeeded
else
  echo WGET failed
fi

This works because wget sets a 0 result code (that's $?) if it "succeeds", and 1 if it "fails". For the couple of sites I tested, a 404 does count as failure, but that may not be the case for every one. wget doesn't return more detailed information - this post explains why. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:15, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's brilliant, thanks very much. 87.194.213.98 (talk) 14:40, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, you can also use the command itself in the if statement:

if wget http://foo.com/blah; then
  echo WGET succeeded
else
  echo WGET failed
fi

--Sean 16:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Garageband for Windows

Is there anything that comes close to rivaling Apple's Garageband on a Windows platform? I sat down for 15 minutes at an Apple store with a mac hooked up to a USB piano keyboard and I composed a version of Pachelbel's Canon with 7 layers of instruments that took me completely by surprise. I couldn't believe that it was also notating each part on a score. It was so shockingly easy that it was an eerie experience. I'd considering jumping platforms to an Apple just for that piece of software. Is there a Windows equivalent? Sappysap (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While I have never used the program, I think Adobe Audition could come close to what you want. Maybe you could get a trial version and see for yourself (and let us know what you think of it)? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These [2] [3] may be of interest. There are of course a lot of professional apps for Windows, which may be harder to use but have existed for a long while [4] Nil Einne (talk) 19:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like Mixcraft might be what you are looking for. Give it a shot -- there's a seven day demo. The beauty of Garageband is it is quick, easy, and lets you come up with nice sounding stuff easily. Most of the other MIDI/sample based programs on all systems are tremendously complicated and designed for use by people who spend their entire job using such programs. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wheeled mouse moves cursor extremely slowly

I have a wheel mouse I would like to use. When I plug it in it works OK, but the cursor requires about ten times or more as much movement on the mouse mat to move the cursor the same distance on the screen as my other non-wheel mice do. And yes, I have tried increasing the speed of the cursor in the mouse settings. I use Windows XP. The brand name of the mouse is Serif. 78.146.251.127 (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean a scroll wheel mouse?

Have you checked the sensitivity - maybe it's a very insensitive mouse.

Did changing the mouse sensitivity settings have any effect?83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Analog stick bearing

Eh...this only fits under computing tangentially, but it still deals with hardware. Kind of.

Anyway, a heavy console video game player should know this problem well, especially since the release of the fifth-generation consoles. This problem has to do with analog sticks. As you probably know, the analog stick is centered in a neutral position, and by applying some pressure you move it to trigger a response from the video game. A new analog stick is perfectly centered, but after several years of use (or a couple years of heavy use), the bearings (I guess) on the analog stick start to wear out, and the neutral position of the stick expands. For example, the GameCube is nearly 8 years old. My first two controllers, both bought at the same time I got it, are now nigh-unusable. As the bearings have worn out, the analog stick can be moved around quite a bit without actually triggering...whatever the stick triggers to register movement. Thus, when the stick is pushed as far left as possible, the video game will only register a slight left (i.e., only getting a walk from the game when you're trying to run). Buying a new controller is a bit of a kludge, and really can't effectively be done anymore to alleviate this problem with older consoles (Nintendo 64, PlayStation, etc.).

So, finally to the point: surely there must be a way to repair the bearings (or whatever) of analog sticks. Is there?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 22:40, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of two problems that an analog joystick much have:

The springs that push the stick back to the neutral position are, through wear, losing their resilience. The symptom of this is that the joystick doesn't settle at quite the correct centre, but at some centre-ish place instead. The fix is to replace the springs with new ones.
The potentiometer has developed wear which affects its operation in its central area. The symptom of this is that small motions from zero aren't noticed, meaning that fine control is lost. The fix is to replace the potentiometer.

Either way, it's a component swap-out, with the associated desolder and resolder. Whether either procedure is cost-effective, when compared with replacing the whole controller, is doubtful. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Augh! Then it seems there's never a simple way. Is there any sort of service that can do this for hardware noobs like me?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 00:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your local TV or radio repair place could certainly do it, but it's maybe 30 minutes of labour (including opening and closing the thing, ordering the part if they don't have it, and writing the bill out for you), so I'd be surprised if it is cost-effective (in places where labour is cheap and electrical components relatively expensive, this might not be true). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then I must certainly ask about this at RadioShack or the like next time I'm at the mall. Thank you!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 20:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 2

Porting programs between architectures and operating systems

I've been thinking about this for a long time.. ..how difficult is it porting programs from, say, Windows to GNU/Linux and from Intel to PPC? Of course they have to change all the directories since the filesystems are differ between Windows and Linux but what else is there (let's say you have the source code)? I'm pretty sure porting between OS's a big task but it doesn't seem like porting between architectures is as difficult (Ubuntu e.g. supports a lot of architectures that have a small user-base and I doubt they'd go through immense trouble for the few PPC users that want to try Ubuntu) --BiT (talk) 00:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the program. If you were just changing architecture (e.g. Linux Intel to Linux PPC) most programs will work just with a simple recompile; a small number that make assumptions about how structure and memory is laid out will need those assumptions readjusting. The same is true for moving Windows apps from IA32 to x8x-64 or IA64 (and formerly to Windows-Alpha). Moving between Window and Linux is orders of magnitude more work, because they don't share the same application programming interfaces; the extent to which a given program uses a platform's API defines how much effort it will take to move. Some APIs are fairly isomorphic between the two: network, process, thread, and filesystem stuff is a fairly obvious mapping. Some are conceptually similar but require a major overhall - e.g. changing from a Windows GUI interface to GTK, or from DirectX to OpenGL is a lot of work. And some technologies don't have easy analogs on the other platform - if you were translating a windows DCOM program to Linux, you'd probably rip out all the DCOM and write that part from scratch. But there are shortcuts: Linux programs written with GTK/GlibC can be moved to Windows, as those libraries are available there. And some Windows apps can run fine on Linux using Wine, or can be recompiled for Linux with Wine's "winelib" (that's how Google's Picasa works on Linux). So, in short, it depends very heavily on the program. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 01:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok so porting programs between architectures is not that difficult. But why does it take so long e.g. for Google to release a version of Chrome for Linux and OS X, since Chrome only has some minor GUI changes to GTK (which they actually fixed ages ago with both Chromium and the dev build of Chrome) and although being little-of-programming I believe Chrome includes minimal, if not no amount of DirectX. Where does the complexity lie there? Has it got something to do with the javascript..? bah, I dunno --BiT (talk) 01:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the specifics, but Chrome has worked fine for me on Linux for several months. I think their ports have lagged Windows because they don't send that much effort on them. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 02:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I'm using the dev version of Chrome atm and it's working great except for lack of Flash and other minor issues. I was just wondering why it has taken this long to get Chrome working on other OS's than Windows when almost a year has passed since it's initial release. You're probably partially correct in assuming that they aren't spending that much effort on non-Windows versions but they do want their browser to become wide-spread and Unix-based OS's constitute for almost 10% of the entire world's computer usage. Why didn't they simultaneously release it on all OS's- or would that be too difficult? --BiT (talk) 02:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a discussion about porting the UI to Linux/OS X featuring some of the Chromium developers here which you might find interesting. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 10:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now that is interesting, thanks for posting that! It's helpful reading a conversation between professional programmers and trying to follow their train of thought. On a side note, is there any word on when the Mac/Linux version of Chrome is going to be completed? I've heard the Mac version is almost ready and the dev version for Linux seems very close to completion. --BiT (talk) 14:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that wasn't been mentioned is whether the code contains any assembly. It's not uncommon for highly optimised code, e.g. codecs, to use assembly. Frequently these will be in addition to more normal code, e.g. Xvid [5] but if it not, porting between architectures is likely to be significantly more difficult. Of course if assembly is used, even if porting is not that hard, the actual code may perform significantly worse. This is particularly relevant when it comes to x86-64 vs x86-32 since there the user often has a choice. Nil Einne (talk) 19:22, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Porting can be rather easy if you intentionally design your software to use APIs and libraries that work on both systems. On the other hand, if you design your system to depend on DirectX you're going to have a headache if you try to move it off of Microsoft platforms.

So why don't all software developers instantly release ported versions of their software? Well, for one thing, even if it's easy, they've still got to do it, and they may be busy with the deployment and support of the Windows version. But I think that the main hold-up is that they've got to restart their whole testing procedure to make sure that their newly ported version is robust. For a web browser, testing can be rather extensive. APL (talk) 07:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I get your point, of course the Windows version of almost every software is the first version that needs to be completed since Windows users are more than 90% of all users. --BiT (talk) 14:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

x86 instructions atomic?

I know that you can use the lock prefix to produce a multi-processor-safe instruction on x86, but are normal instructions somewhat atomic? That is, is there any chance of me using the add or mov instruction and another processor reading half of the new value? --wj32 ^t/c 08:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With read modify-write instructions like ADD mem,reg you have the following race: both processors read, then processor A writes, then processor B writes, with the result that only processor B's change takes effect. That's not equivalent to A-then-B or B-then-A order, so the instructions aren't atomic. This can't happen with MOV.

Unaligned operands can generate more than one memory access for each read or write and I think that can lead to getting part of a value that another processor was in the process of updating. According to the docs, LOCK ADD mem,reg is atomic even when misaligned, but LOCK ADD reg,mem and LOCK MOV are illegal, even though they could potentially benefit from this aspect of locking. -- BenRG (talk) 08:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I get it now :) --wj32 ^t/c 06:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't get rid of Norton AntiVirus

For months now, I've been struggling to expunge this stupid program from my system. It no longer appears in Add/Remove Programs, but every now and then, MS Word crashes, and the error-report blames Norton. Sure enough, when I run the Norton Removal Tool, downloadble from the Symantec website, the problem stays fixed for a couple of weeks. Then the same thing happens again. Any tips? Thanks. ╟─Treasury Tag►stannator─╢ 15:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Run msconfig and look for any services/startup items referencing Norton. Rjwilmsi 15:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't immediately see any under "Services" or "Startup" – any idea of what they might look like specifically? ╟─Treasury Tag►constabulary─╢ 16:03, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Following that, I found one "Synaptics" entry in regedit (HK_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Windows > Run) and deleted that, I assume that will help somewhat? ╟─Treasury Tag►assemblyman─╢ 16:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Synaptics the manufacturer of laptop touchpads, and most Windows machines with such a laptop run a synaptics driver (which implements some features over the basic mouse functionality, such as tap-to-click). I don't think "synaptics" and "symantec" have anything to do with one another. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry, my mistake. I meant "Symantec", it was that that I deleted. :P I hope... ╟─Treasury Tag►Captain-Regent─╢ 16:27, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't Windows Defender help detect (and delete) unwanted start-up and network programs. (I seem to remember discovering a quicktime network program using it long after I'd uninstalled quicktime) If so it might be worth running (or downloading) to check for any more programs left behind/ possibly that it's just a prettified version of regedit in that respect/83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You could also search the file system and registry for anything starting "nav...". I've noticed that Symantec products also use a "common files" folder (either c:\program files\common files\symantec\ or c:\program files\symantec\common files\) ... or maybe it's "common tools". Of course, be careful deleting stuff and keep a backup incase you delete someting critical. Astronaut (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Times where working in a computer shop have been helpful. Symantec/Norton builds their own separate removal tool because some of the AV products lock down a Windows OS so hard, even after being 'uninstalled,' that no other product really runs

G norton removal tool Make sure you get it from the Symantec website. The tools occasionally time-expire. Washii (talk) 22:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

haven't you just described the exact original problem - namely that the removal tool acts like a Time bomb (software).83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No...the tool itself will just not run after it's built-in expiration has passed (this is mostly applicable to Norton 360, since they change so much with updates). It removes the NAV stuff perfectly fine. I have customers that were humming along just fine months later. It isn't any type of time bomb, and I don't see where you got the idea it was. Washii (talk) 07:17, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Create a windows 7/Vista restore disk.

I want to create a boot disk for windows 7 or Vista that will restore my computer to the state it is currently in from a disk but don't know exactly how to do this. I know it can be done with norton ghost but I'd like to use completely free software altogether if possible. If someone could help I'd appreciate it. Thanks! 65.184.21.210 (talk) 16:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Norton Ghost won't (or didn't i should say, its been a decade since i've used it) create a boot disk, but a disk image, a byte-for-byte copy of the drive, which you would then back up and write over the disk with when needed/written to other machines to clone system settings across an enterprise. Using free software to do this is pretty similiar to the usb image question up the page- just use dd with the drives dev path as input file and get a raw image. If you mean more the boot disk phrasing, i believe finding a web guide on slipstreaming windows install discs to add software, files and other such into the base system, and see if those methods apply to win7. --M^ask? 12:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might be surprised at how complicated disk imaging can be... but for a free, relatively easy one, I recommend Clonezilla. Indeterminate (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unmount USB drive on unplug

In Kubuntu, how do I set my external USB hard drive to automatically unmount when I unplug it? If it makes any difference, I'll usually be unplugging the power cable first or only. Neon Merlin 19:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, things don't work that way. The drive needs to have power for a few moments to actually do the unmount sequence. By removing the power there is no way to "inform" the drive and the computer that you want to unmount it, hence it's impossible. The only way this could be done is through a sensor/button that tells the OS to unmount the hd/ssd. The moment when you remove the power/data connection it's too late to unmount. Mile92 (talk) 03:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to do a lazy unmount (umount -l), but if the file system on the drive was mounted read-write, removing it without correctly unmounting it first can cause data loss or corruption. If your drive is only ever mounted read-only, or if you make absolutely sure to do a proper, manual unmount whenever it's mounted RW, then the lazy unmount is a viable option. In this case I'd say the easiest way to do it is to write a udev rule for it. You'll have to google for that or ask someone else, because I know very little about it. I do believe it to be the way to go for this, though. --Link ^(t•c•m) 09:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MS Access Help

I have 3 Tables in Microsoft Access.

1st Table has a list of nursing homes. (Field 1 - names of Nursing Homes - Facilites)

2nd Table has a list of Patients names. (Field 1 - names of Patients - Names)

3rd Table has a list of treatments in Field 1 - Treatments, and the Associated Costs in Field 2 - Costs.

What would be the best way for me to go about making a database?

What I have done is this:

I made Field 2 in the 2nd Table and I used "Add Existing Field" function under the Datasheet tab and added the Facilities field from Table 1.

So now, after adding the patient name in the 2nd table, I can select which nursing home the patient resides in using the drop down function.

Now in field 3 and field 4 inside Table 2 I am trying to add Treatment and the associated costs. However, I cannot make it such that when Field 3 = Field 1 of table 3 then automatically Field 4 = Field 2 of table 2

--33rogers (talk) 23:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have to admit, I read your post a few times but I'm not quite following you, so forgive me if this is wide of the mark. It sounds as if you're trying put data from one table into another, based on a relationship between them. The concept I think you're missing is that you don't do that with tables; rather, the tables stand alone, and you join them up by using queries. Try creating a new query in Access and putting your relationship joins in there. --Rixxin (talk) 15:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I get it (I think). Each patient has a treatment, and for each type of treatment the associated cost is the same.

Technically I think you're trying to do it wrong - all you need is 'treatment' field in table 2, and a association between the 'treatment field' and 'associated costs' in a 3rd table. In openoffice these are called "relationships" but in MS access they are called something else.

If you do this you only have to enter the treatment for each patient - and the "associated costs" are automatically connected from the table of treatment/costs ... did that make sense.

I think they call them relations

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304466 (you want a 1 to many relationship - 1 treatment type in the treatment/costs table can link to many instances of a treatment in the patient table.

There will be lots of tutorials on this if you need it (search "microsoft access relations tutorial" or similar) - though the article I linked above is a good explanation.

Basically you shouldn't need field4 - but a relational link to a new table. I'm fairly certain that this is the thing you want to do - please say if you need more.

When creating queries you can include both tables.83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way if you do a query on table2 and 3 - outputing all the fields (with no exclusions) the result will be the table you desire - with "costs" as an additional field tacked onto the end of table2 automatically83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do I use the query function MS Access 2007? --33rogers (talk) 22:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://databases.about.com/od/tutorials/l/aaquery1.htm

or search for "query microsoft access" for more, or use the help button on access which should give more details.

Also please start a new question when the original question is beginning to enter the archives.83.100.250.79 (talk) 11:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nasty vicious virus: "System Security 4.52", help!

Hello. My computer has been infected with "System Security 4.52", a very annoying virus. It won't allow me to open up most applications, won't allow me to access add remove programs, and won't allow me to run system restore. I have looked up various ways to get rid of it using google searches (safari and firefox wouldn't access the Internet but I was able to get on with IE and am clicking off bullshit popups from the virus as we speak). The two programs that came up in searches frr removing it, one was free but the download site was down, and the other was Spyware Doctor. I tried to download it but the virus wouldn't let me, Anyway, I logged on in safe mode after looking up how to do so, and tried to do a system retore but for some reason it wouldn't let me (I tried multiple times—it gets to the screen to choose a retsote point, I click next and nothing happens). Okay, so then I couldn't access the internet to do the download so then I figured out how to log on in safe mode with networking allowed. Long story short (I've been trying to remove this thing for many hours) I was able to dowload Spyware Doctor )I paid $30 to do so!) and run it in safe mode (the virus stops it from running otherwise). Spyware Doctor found the virus by name and removed "261 infected files". I then restarted and the virus was still on my computer, full blown. I restarted again in safe mode, ran the program again, and it found 89 files infected and supposedly fixed them. I restarted again and, you guessed it, it's still on my computer full blown. I tried again with a full scan and this is driving me crazy: it found something like "system security downloder codec" on the full scan, but, unlike the prior scans, it didn't say "do you want to fix this"; instead it just gave me a summary "1 threat detected" 0 threats removed", I guess meaning it couldn't remove it. I rebooted again and here I am with the Virus still making me its bitch. Any advice would be much appreciated.--70.23.79.67 (talk) 23:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Upload the infected files to Virus Total. Virus Total will then use 40+ different products to scan your file. I personally would suggest for you to download a free trial of Avira AntiVir to remove the malware, you can download it here [6] --33rogers (talk) 00:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Souns like Malware, fake AV crap. Try Malware Bytes, it's very effective. [7]. If it won't install read the 3rd post here: [8] RxS (talk) 00:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I second using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I also like to use SuperAntiSpyware for the first or second scan (in my experience, Malwarebytes will go a bit faster). Washii (talk) 22:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 3

Use one MySQL view column to calculate another

What's the most elegant workaround to the restriction that no column in a MySQL view can refer to another column's output from the same row of the same view? Neon Merlin 01:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know there is no such built in feature in MySQL. You could either have a program updating the dynamic column every so often, or implement that in the program that reads your database(when you read the db, you could just have a "virtual" column, in a variable and pretend like it came from the db) Mile92 (talk) 03:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that I have a view that contains the following two columns:

CREATE VIEW ... AS SELECT ..., least(max(copylimit.max_copies), maxdesiredcopies()) as desired_copies,
greatest(least(max(copylimit.max_copies), maxdesiredcopies()) - total_copies, 0) as lacking_copies
FROM ...

and I'd like to eliminate the redundant least(max(copylimit.max_copies), maxdesiredcopies()) if it's possible. Neon Merlin 18:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Downloading ALL attached pictures of a forum?

I need help Downloading ALL attached pictures of a forum, the pictures are posted on the website under \attachments. I have tried using Extremepicturefinder and picture ripper, but both programs have trouble following the links and threads. All of the pics are posted under a single category but in different threads. The only way I've found is downthemall but thats a grueling process of going through hundreds of threads! anyone have any ideas? --Gary123 (talk) 02:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You could use the UNIX tool called wget. It is made for this kind of stuff. Here's a tutorial on how to download a whole site and the files on it using wget: [9]. Just read the documentation for wget and you can eventually filter all that to output just images and just from one category. And yes, you can run wget on windows, just search it on google. Mile92 (talk) 03:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've used neodownloader for something similar and it's awesome. It's not a free program though, but *ahem* there are some cracked versions floating about the net which work a treat // 20:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resetting a LayoutManager in Java

Resolved

Hi, Java programmers! I'm writing a Swing program that has my subclasses of JComponents that resize themselves after the main frame is resized (i.e. fires ComponentEvent.COMPONENT_RESIZED). The hierarchy is JFrame >> JLayeredPane >> JPanel, and I'm using a GridBagLayout. When the event is fired, all my JComponents resize themselves correctly, but they stay in the same position in the JFrame and overlap each other (when they resize larger). The problem seems to be with the LayoutManager, which isn't laying out my JLayeredPanes to give them the new space they need. I have overridden getPreferredSize() to indicate the amount of space needed after resizing events. What else do I need to do to get the GridBagLayout to space out my JLayeredPanes? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GridBagLayout disregards the preferred size of components (on most implementations, anyway). You need to specify the grid sizes using the GridBagConstraints object. Nimur (talk) 05:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I had a look at my code for creating the GridBagConstraints and fixed the problem, but now something else has cone up. When the user resizes the JFrame, the contents all resize themselves in response, but the LayoutManager doesn't re-lay them until the next resize (which can be as simple as clicking to drag the JFrame but not making it any bigger). I suspect that the LayoutManager is re-laying the contents before the resize each time. How can I make the LayoutManager not do its job until after my code resizes the contents? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, just found the doLayout() method in java.awt.Container and think that solved my second problem. I try to look at all my possiblilities and be really stumped before I post, but sometimes I just for get to try one more thing.... Thanks again, Nimur, for your response to this and my previous questions. I appreciate your help and support despite my Java ineptness.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Blogging

Hello. I have no experience in blogging, but want to start a blog. Is it possible to earn money through blogging, i.e. through advertisement in blogs? Does wordpress allow advertisement in personal blogs? How to find/contact an advertiser? And which is the best weblog hostingprovider? --GeneticRobot (talk) 08:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible, sure, but it's not probable. If you're really funny, or knowledgeable about your topic, or famous, or otherwise interesting, you may attract advertisers that are actually willing to pay decent money, but chances of this happening aren't too good. Merchandising is probably going to be a lot more profitable than advertising, but again, you need to have a loyal (and large) reader base for that to be an option. You should understand that first you need to make a name for yourself as someone worth reading, and then you can start think about making money -- and for that to really work, you need to do it in a way that doesn't alienate those people who're reading you. It's not an easy trick to pull off, and you should understand that the odds aren't on your side. Making a living -- or any kind of income, really -- from blogging is the exception, not the rule. Still, if you're a good writer, you have a shot.

As for your other questions, I believe the free blogs you can get at WordPress.com allow advertising, but I'm not sure. You find advertisers the way anyone finds them: you find someone you think might want to reach your audience, and you ask them if they would be interested. That, of course, can take a lot of time and effort, and you need to have a product -- that is to say, your blog -- that they think is interesting and popular enough to be worth their dime. This means you already need to have a lot of popularity before you start talking to anyone. Some people are in a position where advertisers approach them, but you really can't count on that. I couldn't tell you which provider is the best. It largely depends on what your requirements are.

I don't mean to rain on your parade here, but if you're thinking this is an easy way to get some money, you really need to reconsider. I'm not saying it's impossible, but chances are it's not going to happen, and it's certainly not going to happen without a great deal of work. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Sorry - experience and opinion alert!) - Google is purported to send you checks for ads put on your blog on Google's Blogger, but I've been blogging for years and have never once received a check, because, basically anyone who visits my blogs does so because they want to read my blog, not run around clicking on advertisements (and you have to agree to not clicking on them yourself). In my experience, it's not a good way to make cash, but you can try it. As said above, if you a good at writing about your topic, you will certainly attract a lot of readers, and companies may pay you to host their ads, but I doubt you'd get much cash (if you a good at writing about your topic, you'd be better off writing a book) - good luck, anyway, though. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are a LOT of articles online about how hard it is to make money while blogging. Some people pull it off spectacularly well (and get book deals, etc.) but they are actually quite rare. If you want to blog, definitely give it a shot! But I wouldn't quit your day job unless substantial income is coming in. As for ad revenue, most people use Google Ads at least in the beginning, because anyone can sign up for those easily. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do the clock and viruses have in common?

I work in a school in Korea and recently there was an announcement that government institutions were hit by a virus (three times), and we were advised that the best way to combat the virus was to reset the time on the clocks on all the computers to an earlier time. We did this, and luckily none of our computers were affected, but I am wondering why this advice was issued. What does resetting the time on the clock have to do with the viruses? Oh, and it wasn't a system restore, it was a case changing the time. This confused me, and nobody could tell me the answer. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(My guess)I guess that the virus was set to activate after a certain time, so setting the clocks before then eg 1 year back or something.? would prevent the virus from activating. I'd assume this was a temporary measure whilst they worked out how to remove the virus. 83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See logic bomb — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 15:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting strings in Python

I'm programming in Python and this trying to format strings with a code taken directly from the Python tutorial found here. This is the code I tried: print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni') and this is the outcome:

Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Oct  5 2008, 19:24:49) 
[GCC 4.3.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'format'

Why doesn't it work? Is it because I'm using an old version of Python, because I tried a lot of examples from the Python tutorial and they all failed. --BiT (talk) 12:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

str.format is new in Python 2.6 (ref), and you're running 2.5.2. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the shame. I'm at my girlfriend's place using her computer and decided to finally start learning programming but apparently she hasn't upgraded Python to 3.1. Bad thing is that I don't have root access so there isn't much I can do about it until she gets back from work =) thank you --BiT (talk) 12:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's unlikely you need Python3, and I wouldn't recommend updating, as too many tutorials will contain code that won't work (that'll be easy to fix, but that will confuse you as a beginner). You can do that same print with print 'We are the %s who say "%s!"' % ('knights', 'Ni') -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I was just about to ask whether using "%" to format strings is exactly the same as using {}? Is one better than the other? Also, is it bad upgrading to the third Python version? I've heard about some changes like the print command being a function in Python 3.. but that's about all I know. Should I maybe upgrade to 2.6? --BiT (talk) 14:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd stick with % to begin with, again because most code you'll see and most tutorials will be written that way. Incidentally, % has a nice feature where you can print named elements from a dictionary, and locals() is a dictionary containing the list of local variables. So you can print local variables like this:

      name="john"
      age=23
      # then, some time later...
      print "my name is %(name)s and I am %(age)d years old" % locals()

which can be handy when you've got a large print with many fields, and you want to move things around without having to reorder the data tuple. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see (I compiled Python3.1 so now I can use both the old version and new). Nevertheless the official Python page does say "Since str.format() is quite new, a lot of Python code still uses the % operator. However, because this old style of formatting will eventually removed from the language str.format() should generally be used.". Shouldn't I rather use str.format() then? --BiT (talk) 15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem... I tried compiling Python 3.1 and then downloaded Python 3 using apt-get but it worked on neither one! What's going on here? This is the result for Python 3.1:

 Python 3.1 (r31:73572, Aug  3 2009, 20:24:49) 
 [GCC 4.3.2] on linux2
 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 >>> print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')
   File "<stdin>", line 1
     print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')
                                         ^
 SyntaxError: invalid syntax

And this is the result for Python 3.0:

 Python 3.0rc1+ (py3k, Oct 28 2008, 09:23:29) 
 [GCC 4.3.2] on linux2
 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 >>> print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')
   File "<stdin>", line 1
     print 'We are the {0} who say "{1}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')
                                         ^
 SyntaxError: invalid syntax

It's the same Monty Python reference as I used first time (boy there sure are a lot of them in Python tutorials), taken directly from the official documentation- on a Python version I downloaded from the official Python webpage, and compiled from source and on another version downloaded directly from the Ubuntu repositories but it still doesn't work! What is going on?! --BiT (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, phew =) I managed to solve my own problem. By using dir(str) I saw that format was included in the list of operations for strings.. so I tried formatting my strings without the print function and it worked!

"Thank you {0} for helping me!".format('Finlay')

=)

Resolved

Audio Streaming

Is it possible to stream voice quality audio files over a LAN with a delay of less than a second? Is it possbile on a thin client system like citrix?--202.164.141.164 (talk) 12:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On a good LAN, with "residential"-style traffic, you can expect network latency lower than 1 millisecond on average. However, audio acquisition, (from the microphone to the sound-card to the operating system) is always the bottleneck that I find - with latencies ranging anywhere from <1ms to 500 ms (totally unsuitable for "real-time" processing). Also, if you intend to encode, downsample, or otherwise operate on the signal, you can expect a delay equal to the computation time. Your best bet is to invest in a high quality sound-card which specifically advertises low-latency on linux. Nimur (talk) 16:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Volume Header needs minor repair"—2006 Intel MacBook 10.4.11

This is about my flash drive that seems to have some issues. Whenever I use Disk Utility to repair it, it says it repaired it successfully but it finds the error again when I "repair" the flash drive with the disk utility again. Could someone tell me what is wrong with my flash drive? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the log of a typical event.

Disk Utility log snippet

|headerstyle=background:#ccccff}}

**********
Aug  3 08:12:14: Disk Utility started.

Verify and Repair disk “Mac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair�
Repairing volume.
Rechecking volume.
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Mac was repaired successfully.
Mounting Disk

1 HFS volume checked
Repair attempted on 1 volume
	1 HFS volume repaired


Eject of “Generic USB Flash Drive Media” succeeded

**********
Aug  3 08:18:58: Disk Utility started.

Verify and Repair disk “Mac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair�
Repairing volume.
Rechecking volume.
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Mac was repaired successfully.
Mounting Disk

1 HFS volume checked
Repair attempted on 1 volume
	1 HFS volume repaired


Verifying volume “Mac”
The disk “Mac” could not be unmounted


Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk




Verify and Repair disk “Mac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair�
Repairing volume.
Rechecking volume.
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Mac was repaired successfully.
Mounting Disk

1 HFS volume checked
Repair attempted on 1 volume
	1 HFS volume repaired



**********
Aug  3 08:19:32: Disk Utility started.

Verify and Repair disk “Mac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair�
Repairing volume.
Rechecking volume.
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Mac was repaired successfully.
Mounting Disk

1 HFS volume checked
Repair attempted on 1 volume
	1 HFS volume repaired

Kushal (talk) 13:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When you say it "finds the error again", do you mean if you run Disk Utility again right away, or the next time you insert the flash drive? If the first one, then it sounds like Disk Utility isn't actually fixing the error, and if the second one, it means the disk probably isn't being removed/unmounted safely. Another alternative is that the drive is starting to physically fail, but I'd only consider this option if you've had the flash drive for a year or more, or if all else fails.

If Disk Utility isn't fixing the error, you can use fsck. First, open a command prompt, either with Terminal or single-user mode. Typing "diskutil list" should show you the device name for your flash drive if it's currently mounted. Then type "fsck -f flash drive device name". If it finds errors, it'll ask if you want to repair them. It should give you more information than Disk Utility, so if it still fails, hopefully you'll have more information for us. Indeterminate (talk) 20:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply, Indeterminate. I did what you asked me to do and here's the result for fdisk:

fsck -f /dev/disk1

- /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)

BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG

LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? no

Is that giving any indication to what we need? When I said it finds errors again, I mean both. It does it if I run disk utility right away and when I eject and reinsert the drive (I usually eject drives safely). The flash drive is almost two years old but I am not sure if it is physically failing yet. Anything else that I could do to give you more information? Thanks, Kushal (talk) 22:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is quiet in here. Please help? :( Kushal (talk) 23:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you've just got some corruption, and it's tricky for the automated tools to handle. Do you have an option to say "yes" to looking for alternate superblocks? If so, I'd try that. Hopefully it'll tell you that you have a backup superblock at (for example) address 32. Then you can run fsck -b 32 -f /dev/disk1, which will tell it to restore from the alternate superblock 32. If you're very lucky, it'll automatically fix it for you. Another way to try finding the backup superblocks on the drive is to enter newfs -N /dev/disk1, but you'll still need to do fsck -b to tell it to use the backup. If you don't care about the data currently on the drive (or if there aren't any backup superblocks), reformatting the drive might also fix the problem. Indeterminate (talk) 01:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, you might also want to see this discussion. It looks like this could be an indication of hardware failure. No guarantees, though. Indeterminate (talk) 02:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is the "this discussion" supposed to link to the same about page? Just wondering. Thanks. Kushal (talk) 14:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. I found a bunch of backups with newfs but none of them seem to work. Is it possible to salvage this flash drive? I can still use it to carry data around (although it acts strangely sometimes) but my priority right now is getting a Mac installer on it so that if (or should I say when) the hard disk on my computer crashes, I can replace it with the 320 GB WD I bought recently. (No, the DVD drive just spits the disc out and I don't trust slot-loading on anything unless its a Wii anymore... long story.)

What should be the next step to take? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 13:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Terminal log snippet

Last login: Thu Aug  6 07:03:53 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
Spiderman:~ kush$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                   type name               size      identifier
   0:  GUID_partition_scheme                    *55.9 GB  disk0
   1:                    EFI                    200.0 MB  disk0s1
   2:              Apple_HFS Macintosh HD       55.6 GB   disk0s2
/dev/disk1
   #:                   type name               size      identifier
   0:  GUID_partition_scheme                    *3.9 GB   disk1
   1:                    EFI                    200.0 MB  disk1s1
   2:              Apple_HFS Boot               3.6 GB    disk1s2
Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck -f /dev/disk1
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG

LOOK FOR ALTERNATE SUPERBLOCKS? no

Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck-b 32 -f /dev/disk1
-bash: fsck-b: command not found
Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck -b 32 -f /dev/disk1
Alternate super block location: 32
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Spiderman:~ kush$ newfs -N /dev/disk1
Warning: Block size and bytes per inode restrict cylinders per group to 4.
Warning: 2688 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated
disk1:  8189952 sectors in 1004 cylinders of 255 tracks, 32 sectors
        3999.0MB in 251 cyl groups (4 c/g, 15.94MB/g, 3968 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 32704, 65376, 98048, 130720, 163392, 196064, 228736,
 261408, 294080, 326752, 359424, 392096, 424768, 457440, 490112,
 522784, 555456, 588128, 620800, 653472, 686144, 718816, 751488,
 784160, 816832, 849504, 882176, 914848, 947520, 980192, 1012864,
 1045536, 1078208, 1110880, 1143552, 1176224, 1208896, 1241568, 1274240,
 1306912, 1339584, 1372256, 1404928, 1437600, 1470272, 1502944, 1535616,
 1568288, 1600960, 1633632, 1666304, 1698976, 1731648, 1764320, 1796992,
 1829664, 1862336, 1895008, 1927680, 1960352, 1993024, 2025696, 2058368,
 2091040, 2123712, 2156384, 2189056, 2221728, 2254400, 2287072, 2319744,
 2352416, 2385088, 2417760, 2450432, 2483104, 2515776, 2548448, 2581120,
 2613792, 2646464, 2679136, 2711808, 2744480, 2777152, 2809824, 2842496,
 2875168, 2907840, 2940512, 2973184, 3005856, 3038528, 3071200, 3103872,
 3136544, 3169216, 3201888, 3234560, 3267232, 3299904, 3332576, 3365248,
 3397920, 3430592, 3463264, 3495936, 3528608, 3561280, 3593952, 3626624,
 3659296, 3691968, 3724640, 3757312, 3789984, 3822656, 3855328, 3888000,
 3920672, 3953344, 3986016, 4018688, 4051360, 4084032, 4116704, 4149376,
 4182048, 4214720, 4247392, 4280064, 4312736, 4345408, 4378080, 4410752,
 4443424, 4476096, 4508768, 4541440, 4574112, 4606784, 4639456, 4672128,
 4704800, 4737472, 4770144, 4802816, 4835488, 4868160, 4900832, 4933504,
 4966176, 4998848, 5031520, 5064192, 5096864, 5129536, 5162208, 5194880,
 5227552, 5260224, 5292896, 5325568, 5358240, 5390912, 5423584, 5456256,
 5488928, 5521600, 5554272, 5586944, 5619616, 5652288, 5684960, 5717632,
 5750304, 5782976, 5815648, 5848320, 5880992, 5913664, 5946336, 5979008,
 6011680, 6044352, 6077024, 6109696, 6142368, 6175040, 6207712, 6240384,
 6273056, 6305728, 6338400, 6371072, 6403744, 6436416, 6469088, 6501760,
 6534432, 6567104, 6599776, 6632448, 6665120, 6697792, 6730464, 6763136,
 6795808, 6828480, 6861152, 6893824, 6926496, 6959168, 6991840, 7024512,
 7057184, 7089856, 7122528, 7155200, 7187872, 7220544, 7253216, 7285888,
 7318560, 7351232, 7383904, 7416576, 7449248, 7481920, 7514592, 7547264,
 7579936, 7612608, 7645280, 7677952, 7710624, 7743296, 7775968, 7808640,
 7841312, 7873984, 7906656, 7939328, 7972000, 8004672, 8037344, 8070016,
 8102688, 8135360, 8168032,
Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck -b 32704 -f /dev/disk1
Alternate super block location: 32704
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck -b 65376 -f /dev/disk1
Alternate super block location: 65376
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Spiderman:~ kush$ fsck -b 8135360 -f /dev/disk1
Alternate super block location: 8135360
** /dev/rdisk1 (NO WRITE)
BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG
Spiderman:~ kush$

Flash player is sometimes slow

Everything that runs flash such as Browser's Flash player , vlc player's flash video player etc runs (at times) slow for no apparent reason. Only cure is restarting the machine. Once it runs at normal speed, no problems until I shut down the machine. It does not matter even if I restart the browser or vlc player. I use flash player 10 on windows and the machine its self is fast enough- well over 2GHZ and hundreds of RAM. Please say how to fix flash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 13:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What browser are you using? Also does the flash player stutter, or play like a slideshow missing frames.?83.100.250.79 (talk) 13:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When it is slow, it is slow on both browsers ( IE and firefox). In both browsers, it would play like a slideshow when it is slow, after the movie is over (sound is track is finished and youtube shows play again icon) it would play the remaining video at slightly higher speed than slideshow. This lag between audio and video exists only in big ( greater than 10 minutes and better quality videos). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 08:09, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried using something other that vlc for flash video to see if the problem is still there?83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also are flash video files slow when played as outside the browser.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cpmputer is freezing after 6 to 9 hours of use and dvd drive problem

Recently, I am having bitter experience with my newly upgraded hardware. If I run my system for 6 to 9 hours it gets freeze. The symptoms are: mouse pointer stops for a while then I can move it and again it stops, music gets crashed if I play. Same thing happens with keyboard. My usb modem also gets disconnected at that time. I tried to run my system with case cover open and blow a fan into inside (My pc case contains 4 cooler fan inside though). But nothing happens. It gets frozen (until I press power button to shut it off). I am using vista 64 bit ultimate. My mobo is 750i SLI Nvidia Geforce, Graphics card ATI Radeon 4890 1 GB (GPU Clock 850 MHz). All are 64 bit supported.

Another problem I have just faced is my dvd rom icon suddenly disappear from "my computer" and system gets frozen. The above mentioned symptoms were also happening. It happened when I inserted a dvd.

I checked system with diagnostics tools (prime95) and no errors. My all drivers are up to date.

Is overheating causing all these problems? Should I reduce my GPU Clock from 850MHz to 750MHz (ATI Radeon 4870 1 GB) or 625 MHz (ATI Radeon 4850 1 GB)?--119.30.36.54 (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Download and run PC Wizard, which has a temperature sensor button. Here are my temperatures: CPU=35C, mainboard=21C, GPU=47C, Hard Disk=30C. Also check that all your voltages are correct. If the figures you get are close to these, then you do NOT have a heating problem. If your GPU is for example 70C, then it IS overheating and it needs to be cooled OR replaced. Now if you do NOT have a heating problem, here is where things get difficult. First - go into your BIOS and select 'fail safe defaults'. Then, if you can, try different components one at a time. Disable your sound card and see if that makes a difference. Disable your network card. Try a different graphics card. Try a different power supply. Etc. If you're still not coming right, please don't post another plea here. Try techsupportforum.com, or go and support your local computer shop. Yes, sometimes you have to pay to fix problems, such as when you pay a mechanic to fix your car. Sandman30s (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Ive downloaded its exe file and run it. It shows my CPU=27C, Mainboard=40C. But I could not find GPU and Harddisk temprature option. where are they? Thank you--119.30.36.33 (talk) 22:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They should be right there, below CPU. Maybe your motherboard doesn't have sensors for these other things, maybe the sensors are broken, etc. Mainboard=40C could signify that something else, like the GPU or HD is causing it to overheat. I'm not sure if your ATI card comes with a temperature sensor - I'm curious to know how hot it is. Overheating can cause things to freeze... but funny that your dvd icon disappears?! Weird. You can also try backing up your data, formatting your drive and reinstalling windows... but I suspect either a hardware or heating problem. In my experience when I've had problems like these, it was the hardware that was at fault. We should stop blaming poor windows for everything :) Sandman30s (talk) 13:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mainboard hotter than CPU sounds odd - I assume that the motherboard contains the chips that cover serial devices and sound - so it might be that. Have you checked all the fans, and the heatsinking on the motherboard. Also what was the upgrade.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you overclocking - if so stop - that could cause problems even if it is not overheating. Also is it a new problem - have you added any new devices - sounds similar to problems caused by having an underspecified power supply (amongst a 1000 other things). It's good that it runs for over 6hrs before problems - suggests the computer is not borked. 83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually all those problems (DVD, mouse, keyboard) are serial devices - you might want to focus on that area eg troubleshoot drivers etc.83.100.250.79 (talk) 00:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have reinstalled windows again from vista to XP. But same thing is happening. I have checked all the fans. They are running properly. I am not overclocking but thinking to under clocking. My PSU is Thermaltake 750W. Is there any way to cooling down mainboard? Should I reduce GPU Clock of Graphics Card to avoid overheating?

Update: I have Just checked Graphics card temperature with CPUID Hardware Monitor software. It showed GPU Core temperature is 61*C (Value), 61*C (Min) 62*C (Max) and HDD temperature is 29*C (Value, Min and Max). One more thing I want to know is how in BIOS "fail safe defaults" option works. If I choose it will all drivers work properly?Thank you. --119.30.36.42 (talk) 17:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

61C is pretty hot if you haven't just run a game or something graphically intense. If you choose fail safe defaults everything will still work - the advantage of choosing this will be if you overclocked by mistake, everything will default back to how the manufacturer set it... most machines run off these defaults so unless you had a reason to change anything, you should be safe. I would take that graphics card back and get it tested or swapped - 61C is too hot for just running windows. Sandman30s (talk) 19:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, some people argue that 60C is OK and over 70C is too hot for ordinary windows operations. It's up to you. If those fail safe defaults don't work, then get the graphics card tested or swapped if you can. Sandman30s (talk) 19:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YES [10] these got 58C on idle for a 4890 - I don't think it's the graphics card. It sounds like some serial chip is going on the blink to me.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Potentially you should close the case, and let the convection design work properly. Power supply sounds big enough, there shouldn't be a need to underclock. As mentioned above the machine should detect overheating and take action, (eg shut down or throttling).

Question what are the temperatures when it starts to go wrong.?83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

also does this apply to you? [11]<quote>So for you buyers of a 4890 card out there - be aware that your regular run of the mill ATX midtower case may be overwhelmed by the amount of heat this card puts out</quote> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

eBooks

Can all PCs display all eBooks? • S • C • A • R • C • E • 18:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. A lot of eBooks are distributed only for hardware readers (chiefly Amazon's Kindle and Sony's reader) can only be read on those devices, not on PCs. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any free way to split PDF pages down the middle?

I have a scanned PDF book with 2 pages on each page. Is there any way I could split the whole doc down the middle so there is 1 book page per page. --Gary123 (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Gimp will import PDFs and then you can manipulate them as you want.--80.176.225.249 (talk) 21:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...which is exceptionally cumbersome for more than just one page. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not easy to do, unfortunately. I've long struggled with the same problem. You can chain a number of free command-line programs (e.g. ImageMagick, pdftk) to do the actions for you, but it is slow and takes a LOT of fiddling. I had some success with using OS X's Automator to effectively just double the pages (so that the output PDF was 1,1, 2,2), and then use Acrobat (not free) to crop "even only" and "odd only", but this is also cumbersome. So far I don't think there's an easy solution to this even though it is a common-enough activity if you scan books or articles on a regular basis (which a lot of people do).

And just to reiterate, so that others are sure what you mean: if you scan a book on a flatbed scanner, you get one page of PDF that has two pages of book on it. The ideal program would create a new PDF where the left and right pages were separated. Effecting this manually is extraordinarily time consuming. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know it is not what the OP asked, but would you normally want such software to take the original pdf file, and create two consecutive pages from each source page;thereby recreating the original book in page-by-page order? I would be surprised if software for that task doesn't exist. Astronaut (talk) 04:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly what we are talking about. And yeah, it seems like something that would be easily handled, but alas, it is not. (Why not? Because there is actually precious little software that can actually read—not just make—PDFs. PDF is a tough format and there are only a couple open codebases around that do anything with it, and the number of programs that give you content-level control over them is pretty small. Programs like ImageMagick can let you render individual pages into raster images, while programs like pdftk let you manipulate the internal structure of PDFs, when what we need here is something that easily lets you do both at the same time.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be ... because PDF is an antiquated, proprietary format held over from the days when every brand of printer needed its own programming language, and foisted upon an unsuspecting public who doesn't understand the technical details, via an aggressive marketing campaign, unethical business collusion, and vendor lock-in? Nimur (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The PDF is the best cross-platform document format I know of. It offers several advantages over other formats such as DJVU. These include lossless JPEG2000 compression and vector objects. Bookmarks make it ideal for books. I have tried distributing read-me files in RTF, but Linux systems render them inaccurately. So, I now distribute all read-me files as PDFs. They not only display consistently across platforms, but print consistently from printer to printer. A PDF is a faithful print preview. Publishers also like them because they are hard to edit. So, they are able to protect their intellectual property more easily. The success of the PDF has little to do with the factors you just mentioned.--WinRAR anodeeven (talk) 04:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. But if programmers would take the existing PDF reading code out there, like Xpdf and turn it into a free, easy-to-use API, then it would be a lot easier for others to exploit. As it is, most of the people who have bothered to use the xPDF code have either turned it into vanilla readers or tools that are meant to compete with Acrobat and sell for hundreds of dollars. So we're left in the cold. The code is out there... but nobody has bothered to make it very easy to use. Port xpdf to something easier to script with than Java and we'll be in business, I'll write the dang app myself. Baaaaddd programmers. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, 98. I mucked with some PDFTK code a while back, and it's no fun at all. I don't know what the prospects are for making this tenable, but I'm hoping that the slew of new open document formats will simply replace PDF. Nimur (talk) 04:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Portable Document Format documents PDF as an open standard. Is the article wrong, or are you spreading FUD, or am I presenting a false dichotomy in suggesting those are the choices? The reference desk is not a soap box, even if you use <small> to advance your views. 62.78.198.48 (talk) 18:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and what exactly is the "unethical business collusion" refering to. Yours sincerely, adobe lawyer.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I was on the edge of soap-boxing, but I am not the first to use these terms to describe the unethical (and in some cases, illegal) marketing of PDF and other Adobe technologies practices:

So, it may have been soap-boxing, or it may not have been - that is for you to decide - but these are hardly fringe ideas. You can easily investigate these topics for yourself and form your own opinion. Perhaps it's FUD, or maybe I'm just a concerned computer-user. Nimur (talk) 04:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would still be cumbersome because you would have have to interlineate after, but if you have adobe professional you can just take the document and duplicate it. Then take the first document entire and crop all the pages from the left edge in one function so that one side of the document i.e. one page width is cropped away. Then take the duplicated document and crop all the pages from the right edge edge in the same manner. Then you'd have two documents, one with all the odd pages and one with all the even pages. Then you'd have to interlineate back to order. The first part would take moments but the second would be a pain.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 4

web host

If I created a website with a database and all, where would I find a server to host it? 202.124.189.196 (talk) 11:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just Google web host and you'll find literally thousands of companies that will do this. You just need to know what features/space/traffic you'll need (or a rough idea) and how much you're willing to pay per month. ZX81 ^talk 13:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to ensure that the web host supports whatever script you used for your website and the database platform you used. In general, the extremely cheap (even free) ones will not support anything useful. Like everything else in the world, you get what you pay for. -- kainaw ™ 15:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Though the $9/mo. range (e.g. dreamhost, bluehost, etc.) should support any of the really common open source ones (like MySQL or postgresql). If you need something proprietary (like MS SQL Server) that will probably cost more. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be many free web hosts out there. I found that many offer PHP and MySQL support, but very few indeed offer .NET and MS SQL Server. If you are willing to pay, then the situation is much easier. Astronaut (talk) 10:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Passing all ascii characters as a parameter

Hi. I'm debugging a program and I've found that it passes the whole ASCII character string, that is "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/-" as a parameter to some function. Why would a program do that? --Georgeascii (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We'd have to see the program to know, really. Maybe it's a lookup table to translate from ASCII to some other format (such as the ROM character table of a digital character display). While you can (and often should) to this with character arithmetic (if x>='A' && x <='Z', etc.) some high-performance uses may benefit from a lookup table (which, for example is often how ctype.h macros are implemented). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, changing a table like "ABC...123..." when you want to modify the (say) valid characters for a name is a lot easier than changing logic like

if (x>='A' &&... || x>='0' &&...)

195.35.160.133 (talk) 15:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC) Martin.[reply]

Do you have the source code for that function? Maybe the best way to find out is to read the source code. (Better yet, if there's documentation for that function...). As you have phrased the question, there is no way we can possibly know what this function does - it could disregard the input, for all we know. It seems likely that it is setting up a list of "acceptable" characters for either display or input, and the programmer chose to manually configure which characters were active with this string. Nimur (talk) 15:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a Google Code Search for that string turns up many results, such as this function:

char *
basic_strip (char *s)
     /* Returns a pointer to the first character in s that is not
        a special character, or NULL if no such character exists.
        Cf, man strpbrk(). */
{
  return ((char*) strpbrk
          (s,
           "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"));
}

--Sean 17:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In standard C and C++ the values of the members of the character set are implementation-defined, and not necessarily corresponding to ASCII, provided that all of the above-mentioned characters (and a few more) have distinct, positive values, and the values of the characters 0-9 are consecutive and ascending. Code such as

void f(char c) {
  if(c > 'a' && c < 'z') 
    ; /* ... */
  
  /* or even */
  c -= 'a'; 
}

is therefore not strictly portable. For this reason it may be desirable to maintain such a string literal to perform some kind of character aritmetic with predictable results across platforms. But note that the following is guaranteed to be correct, given a character from '0' to '9' as input:

int char2int(char c) {
  return c - '0';  
}

Regards, decltype (talk) 22:34, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, what I find odd is the "+-/" at the end of the string - out of curiosity - does this match anything anyone recognises as say 'valid names for variables or files' or something else in a given language?83.100.250.79 (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, without the "-", it would be the normal characters used in Base64. But with that, iono. --131.179.160.144 (talk) 02:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks must include negative numbers then - I had no idea there was a standard for base64 input. Cheers83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of one place I've done exactly this before - setting up a font in some kind of non-standard character rendering situation (eg drawing text using 3D a object for each letter in a game or something). You might "register" the font with a function by passing the graphics for the font in one parameter - and the list of characters contained in that font in the other. If the program that's using it is (say) displaying someone's name and their current score - then letters, numbers, plus and minus would be the only characters you'd need. But, frankly, this is an impossible question...it could be anything. SteveBaker (talk) 01:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a link to MSDN's online help page for strpbrk, and the associated wcspbrk and _mbspbrk, functions. Astronaut (talk) 10:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shocking stuff...

My Dell XPS laptop was purchased by myself this time last year and the warranty has just recently ran out(coincidence or not). It now is making electric zap noises, though the screen does not flicker nor any processes stop. However im rather frightened it will set on fire. I removed and then placed the battery back in but tis had no affect. Any help would be appreciated as everytime it does the electric zap, i am rather worried! Thanks 15:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Faulty electronics can be dangerous - if you really have an arcing power supply, you should stop using the system and have it checked out by a repair shop. Even after warranty, you can still arrange for repair (for a fee). At the very least, you might prevent further catastrophic damage to the system. Dell offers out-of-warranty service starting at $49. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, best advice is to take it in for repair. One thing to note before you rush off to pay $49 to dell, is that some credit cards (American Express I believe is one), offer an extension of original manufacturers warranty for free. Might want to check on that before paying cash. --Zarfol (talk) 16:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(after edit conflict) If its the manufacturer's fault, they might service it free of cost to you even after your warranty is over. If I were you, I would investigate further on the issue. Talk to the place who sold you the computer and also look for further information on Dell's website. If it is not an isolated incident, Dell may call it back. I would say that backing up your most valuable data (only if possible) and talking to your manufacturer are the first two things to do. Kushal (talk) 17:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WoW addons -- can a malicious one cause your account to get "hacked"?

I'm curious about how the World of Warcraft addons work ...

I believe the official line from Blizzard is that it is impossible for an addon to cause your account to get hacked, simply because the addons are not executable files; they're all .lua scripts (I believe) that just modify the interface of the game. However, a guildie whose account was hacked recently claimed that a GM told him that an addon might've been responsible for it. This struck me as being flat-out wrong based on my previous assumption on how they work. So, for you more Computer Sciencey-minded folks out there: is it possible that a World of Warcraft addon could cause one's account to be hacked (that is, compromised by, say, logging the username and password used to login and sending that data to someone)? Again, pretty sure the answer is no, but I'd like to get validation from someone who understands how these things work from a technical side.

Thanks. Dgcopter (talk) 21:28, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, lua scripts are only executed when the user interface is started (that is when the world is loaded). However, a malicious "script updater" that executes outside World of Warcraft might be responsible. As an addon developper myself, I can assure you that lua scripts have no access to that sort of data. -- Luk ^talk 22:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is, unless there was a buffer overflow exploit or similar in the WoW application that allowed a malicious addon to execute arbitrary code. A similar exploit in Warcraft III was recently patched.^[12] decltype (talk) 22:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 5

Adobe Flash

I use Firefox, and whenever I go to a page with Flash material (Youtube, Facebook, [13], etc.), that material does not show up, instead displaying a Lego-like brick with "Click here to download plugin." A toolbar also appears at the top saying "Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page" with an "Install missing plugins..." link. Clicking on either brings up an "Available Plugin Downloads" window displaying Adobe Flash Player. I click Next, and it tells me nothing was installed, but I can manually install, which takes me to the Adobe Flash Player download page [14]. Nothing I do there works. When clicking to download and install it brings up "install_flash_player.exe", which I can save but nothing happens. According to the directions a window should ask me where to have it to.

The odd thing is that I also have Internet Explorer and all of these websites and their media using Flash work perfectly fine. This leads me to assume I already have Flash, but then why would everything on Firefox say I don't? Might it be because it isn't the most recent version? Why then can I still not even re-download it? Thanks!! Reywas92^Talk 01:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The trick may be as easy as to find the downloaded install_flash_player.exe somewhere on your machine, and run it. Double-clicking it when it is in the download window is one way of doing this. Let us know how you get on. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But I can't find it. It did not create a desktop shortcut, and using the search function doesn't yield it. The funny thing it that when I click "save file" for that, the box just closes. It doesn't take any time to download or ask me where it goes at all. The troubleshooting doesn't help. But I know I do have Flash already, it just won't work on Firefox.

So I went back to IE and downloaded it, and it worked fine. Until it automatically opened this page on Firefox. "When you see the installation completion movie above and text below, your installation was successful." I can't see the movie. I copied the url back to IE, and it works! I'm completely lost. Thanks. Reywas92^Talk 01:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IE plugins (which I believe are ActiveX plugins) are completely separate from plugins for other browsers. You have the Flash for IE plugin, but not the Flash for Firefox plugin. You need to run the installer for the Flash plugin for non-IE browsers to install it. You say you have trouble finding the file you downloaded. Well what happens when you usually download things? In Firefox, there is a setting for where things are downloaded to (Tools -> Options -> Main -> Downloads: Save files to...); maybe you should check there first. --131.179.160.144 (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or just double click the file from the Downloads window. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Go here http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ make sure you select the right browser and os. Click download. Yoy should then be here http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/?installer=Flash_Player_10_for_Windows_-_Other_Browsers

Ignore the save dialog box (close it). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Find the part that says "Your download will start automatically. If it does not start, click here to download"

Right click on the part "click here to download" and select "save as" - save it somewhere you can easily find it, eg the desktop. (ie click on desktop in the save dialog box).

Once it has downloaded, look on the desktop for a red box. Double click , and install.

Hopefully nothing can go wrong.83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Importing fonts

Once you have a TrueType font file saved to your Fonts folder, can you get GIMP or Paint to interact with them, do they need to be imported? etc. • S • C • A • R • C • E • 02:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "interact"? Do you want to edit a font? That requires a different program, like FontForge. I don't know about GIMP, but you can also type some text into Adobe Illustrator (even a single character), convert that text into vector shapes (Type --> Create Outlines), and then modify the shapes of the letters. If you just want to type text in the font without modification, then why don't you try it yourself? What a strange choice of words.--WinRAR anodeeven (talk) 05:15, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's generally not a good idea on here to get on people's cases about incorrect technical language — the reason that many are asking here is because they don't know the proper name of what they are inquiring about, and thus can't Google it or do other obvious modes of investigation. It's also not a great idea to compare apples-and-oranges programs (Illustrator is a vector graphics program; GIMP and Paint are bitmap graphic programs, and they don't have a whole lot to do with one another). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I know the difference between vectors and bitmaps. We still don't know whether he wants to edit a font or type some text. And that's why I mentioned Illustrator.--WinRAR anodeeven (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gimp automatically imports any new fonts during start-up, if this is what you are asking. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you put it in the Fonts folder, it should show up in the programs once you restart them. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! Look what I created! Thank you everyone • S • C • A • R • C • E • 20:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

which filter

hi friends, i am using image processing in matlab for analyzing flames(flickering study).i would be goin for some further processing.kindly let me know which matlab filter to use for the data obtained.for your information ,no filters were used(in front of camera) for taking images. SCI-hunter (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

avg 8.5

how do I go about putting avg 8.5 on my computer, when it does nothing whenever I try to download it, and the one I already have refuses to work either or to uninstal from my computer?

I've tried deleting all of it and putting it back, but then I searched for avg and there are thousands of programs with those letters in and I don't know which ones to remove.

88.108.18.179 (talk) 09:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 8.5 installation removes all prior versions, so you should concentrate on understanding either why the download of 8.5 is failing, or why you are unable to run the downloaded installer. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Avg8 is one of an increasing number of anti-virus programs (following on from Norton and McAfee) which need a separate removal tool for successful removal. This is because uninstalling them does not remove Registry entries, which will interfere with later versions and/or other brands of AV programs. So first use this free uninstaller. - KoolerStill (talk) 14:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Half the programs on my Mac can't seem to find the web

Hi All,

I have a Mac OS X 10.5.6. My browser (Firefox) and my email clients (Thunderbird and FirstClass) all work fine.

However, several programs have trouble either accessing the web or authenticating or something. If I run my Software Update, I get the message "Software Update can’t connect to the update server. Make sure you’re connected to the Internet, then try again. Software Update can't check for updates because of a network problem." I then click the Network Diagnostics button and the Network Diagnostics report nothing wrong -- it says I can connect to the web (which I can). Further, my RSS reader, Vienna, doesn't work, my Twitter application, Nambu, doesn't work, my new social application, EventBox, can't log into any of my services or read RSS, and every website that allows you to upload photos (Facebook, Flickr) fails when I try to do so.

This has been happening for about two weeks. Prior to this everything worked.

The fact that all these programs that fails seem to require some kind of authentication (except I guess the RSS readers...) makes me wonder if that could be the problem, but I really don't know.

Anyone have any clues as to what the problem could be?

Thanks! — Sam 76.24.222.22 (talk) 15:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do you access the web? Is there any settings in the router you use that may be causing a conflict? If the router you have has a built in firewall it may be a setting in the firewall that is prevent the apps connecting. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try checking out your OS X firewall settings. System Preferences > Sharing > Firewall. You may want to try toggling it off temporarily to see if that changes anything. If it does, it may mean making some kind of exceptions for those programs. Though it is still very odd. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing: you say these issues began happening about two weeks ago. Did you install a new program then? Make a change in your system or program preferences? Install a new router? Install a VOIP system (such a Vonage device) between the internet and your router/computer? ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Browser plug-ins and HTTP referrer

Under what circumstances, if any, will a link opened from within a browser plugin (e.g. Flash, Java, Adobe Reader, word processor) generate an HTTP referrer? Neon Merlin 19:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Referrer headers are optional, so it's up to the browser and/or plugin. For what it's worth, I just tried it with a Java applet, and it did indeed send the referrer header. --Sean 20:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can also disable referrer headers in Firefox: instructions here. Nimur (talk) 20:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't get on the Internet

My computer information is here:[15]

It may have been a problem so minor I didn't need to call tech support.

I couldn't get a straight answer on whether this was connected, but I'll ask anyway.

Instead of a dial tone, I heard the sound I get when I misdial and get a fax machine number. I hung up and there was a dial tone. So I was all right.

Three hours later I turned on the computer and clicked on the blue E. The screen was blank and the circle kept rotating. I tried clicking on the Yahoo button. Same thing. I just got Internet Explorer 8 and I couldn't figute out how to diagnose connection problems. It won't let me click there. At one point there was a screen with the number of emails I have (I must not have deleted that Monday, but there waa no history showing that it should be there). I clicked and was told I needed to be on the Internet so I clicked where it said to. Still nothing. I kept going back and forth from online to offline. At one point I unplugged the modem and plugged it back in, but that didn't seem to change anything. The modem lights were normal, and the light on the back of the computer was normal.

I finally made the phone call. I never really did anything different that I know of, but it finally just came up.

When I asked about the noise that I heard instead of the dial tone, the girl said something about changing something in my computer. But despite the box that comes up saying I am using dial-up, it is actually not. There is a splitter at each phone jack.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:22, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a permanent problem. You appear to have an excellent computer, and I believe you do use dial-up Internet service, which just means you use a modem to connect to the Internet over a phone line. The "fax machine sound" you heard is called a carrier tone and it's just the sound of the computer on the other end of the phone line, picking up the phone and starting to communicate with your computer. (If you want to hear this ruckus "live", connect to the Internet, start downloading a Wikipedia page, pick up the phone, and enjoy the computers' screaming at each other. Picking up the phone, by the way, will disrupt your connection and you'll have to make the computer hang up and call again.) That time you heard it, your computer for some reason did not start doing any communicating. Nothing is broken in your computer; this happens occasionally. By the way, if you frequently get connection problems, I would recommend finding out about getting "always-on" broadband service, either via a cable modem from your cable TV company, via DSL from your phone company, or via FiOS if Verizon services your neighborhood with it. It's faster, and problems with disconnected signals are much rarer when connecting via broadband. Tempshill (talk) 21:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you change your modem or its drivers recently? Try going to modem settings, and where it says "listen for dial tone" or similar, untick it. That way it will try to put your request onto the line whether it recognises a dial tone or not. If the line is available, the number will go through. But if it's available, but for some reason making unusual sounds, it won't refuse to try on the grounds that it's "not a dial tone". (This was always necessary with cheap imported modems that were set up for the dial tones of some other country). Of course it the line is truly occupied, you still won't get a connection. So make sure the splitters are properly tightly plugged in and no real phone is off the hook. -KoolerStill (talk) 07:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do have DSL. I haven't had a problem in months. The last time the modem lights even blinked was during a thunderstorm. My last call to tech support was in January.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 6

seeking identification of an icon

Previously on WP:RDC....

Does anyone know what program this icon is from?—msh210℠ 17:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know but maybe if you crop it you can run it through tineye-- penubag (talk) 18:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What happens if you hover the mouse over it, or click on it (left or right)? Astronaut (talk) 23:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the image is too small. You could try interpolating/scaling it but I don't know if that will help, I suspect TinEye just doesn't do that sort of thing Nil Einne (talk) 23:50, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

End of quotation from the archives.

I missed Astronaut's reply at the time, so am starting the conversation again. Clicking (single, double, right, left) does nothing, but hovering over it yields the tooltip "Managed by sk2000 at [IP address of a nearby machine, but not this one]:1347".—msh210℠ 23:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition's client. We used to use it and I think that's version 8.0, but not sure on the exact version number. ZX81 ^talk 23:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much!—msh210℠ 15:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations, OP. Maybe we could rename the image if we have positively identified what it is. :) Kushal (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Rhemetic

What is today?

See our article today for a complete list. Tempshill (talk) 03:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thursday (which isn't on that list). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copying iTunes playlists

I've just recently got a new external hard drive for my computer and copied my iTunes' stuff over to it but the playlists haven't been copied. How would I go about copying them over as well? Thanks for any help 83.37.186.149 (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you copy all of your iTunes folder and all of its contents and selected the new location as your iTunes folder in the iTunes preferences? More details please. Kushal (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft SQL Server 2011 & Compatibility level 80

Our application is heavily dependent on legacy outer joins (the *= syntax) for which Microsoft dropped support with SQL Server 2005, requiring developers to use the ANSI standard "LEFT OUTER JOIN" syntax. They provided a compatibility switch, level 80, which we have been using since then. I have heard that support for this compatibility level will be dropped with the next release. I am looking for suggestions as to how I can get a definite answer. (I am not looking at this time for suggestions on how to port our code.) Ma^t_chups 15:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a program that gives convienent sort of bar charts analysing the size of each folder/subfolder?

I need a program that easily shows how much space is being used per folder, and Windows isn't good at doing that without having to look individually, it's too much hassle. any program that can do something like this?--IHABihat (talk) 16:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try windirstat, which shows a treemap; that turns out to be much more useful than a simple barchart at answering the question I guess you care about, "why is folder X so darn big?" -- Finlay McWalter • Talk

See also SequoiaView and Disk space analyzer for more options. Hope that helps. Kushal (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give my standard answer to this question: screw WinDirStat, SequoiaView etc. If you really want to see your folder sizes directly in the Windows Explorer interface, install FolderSize for Windows, change your Explorer view to "details" view, and enable the "Folder Size" column (and disable the "Size" column since you won't need it any more). Job done! No need to stuff around with 3rd party applications just to check your folder sizes, it's right in front of your eyes every time you open up My Computer and start browsing. Zunaid 18:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

css / xml / word processing question

(Warning - fuzzy question - user may be the problem)

Is there a word processor that allows the user to define headins/sub-headings/other styles as indirect labels, and then apply an external style sheet to the document.

eg At the level of understanding I'm at now I can create formatting styles for each heading, sub head heading etc. , but if I want to change the whole look (ie everything font, spacing, etc) it seems I need to either totally reformat the whole document, or change all the formatting styles to suit. (I'm aware that sub-headings can inherit properties from their parent headings).

I'm thinking of something like css for word processing. Please de-ignorantify me. Thanks! 83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TeXmacs probably can do it, although I don't use it myself. It's worth a look while waiting for better informed answers. --91.145.88.63 (talk) 19:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It possibly does, yes, from a brief read of the manual.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't you asking about CSS? It seems like you already know what this is. There's no reason you can't use CSS and HTML; there are plenty of word-processing softwares that can save to HTML format. Nimur (talk) 20:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No I'm not asking about css, I'm asking about word processing software that supports the equivalent (or the same as) style sheets (out of the box). You're aware that a web page can be created with tags such as <myheading1> etc, and that the basic body can be used with different style sheets for a different look. I'm asking about the equivalent in a word processor.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A word processor that instrinscially works in html would/might make an obvious solution though...83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify - I'm not really asking about a complex workaround/solution where I have to type complex markup into notepad etc. More so I was asking about such a thing as a supported feature for end users.83.100.250.79 (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I think I've worked out that I can already do this.. (still experimenting) - please continue to answer if you have any hints...83.100.250.79 (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adobe InDesign supports style sheets. They aren't written in CSS, though. Nor are they stored outside of the document. It also supports master pages. By the way, you can actually open HTML pages in Microsoft Word and save them back to HTML. It is not recommended, but it can be done without any tricks. Also, you can specify the type of heading in Word 2003 by going to Format --> Paragraph and clicking on "Outline Level." Upon styling, similar outline levels update.

XML in general can be styled with CSS. So, theoretically, you could save your document as XML from MS Word or Adobe Framemaker, create a CSS, apply the CSS to the XML, and open the XML in a web browser. It should display fine.--IndexOutOfBounds (talk) 21:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Blackberry Storm camera problems

I am having trouble with my Blackberry phone. When I click the side button to take a picture, it does not consistently work. It will focus and center the picture, but it will not take the snap shot. Instead, I have to use the center touch screen button to take the picture. Is this a common problem? How can it be resolved??--98.109.60.26 (talk) 18:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC) _{Moved from Misc desk. Fribbler (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)}[reply]

php flat files

I've written a very simple php guestbook script (when I say written, I've mean stolen bits of code from all over the place and hacked them together) which uses one txt file to store all the comments. What are the possible problems with using a flat file system like this? If there are a lot of people posting comments at the same time could there be corruption of the files contents? Or does php have a built in safeguard for this? Many thanks // 19:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Primarily the issues are maintenance and performance once the single flat file becomes very large. If you don't care about this, it's not a really major issue. You can always manually archive the system, if you so desire. Nimur (talk) 20:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If PHP does automatically lock the file (which I don't believe it does), two users at the same time wouldn't be able to save the content. If at all possible, you should use a database software like SQL (MySql is pretty good) for multiple entries at the same time. Thanks. AHRtbA== ^Talk 20:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Use flock. You need a strategy of what to do if getting the lock fails - whether sleep-and-retry or report-error is best for you depends on your application - the "tinymountain" commenter at that page has a sleep-and-retry script. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]