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September 11

Camera Angles on Company Of Heroes

Does anyone know how to control the camera angles on Company Of Heroes (the first one)? TIA! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 00:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Dun't matter. Dunnit! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 01:19, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Win on Mac is ok, Mac on PC = lawsuit, why?

What are the legal reasons behind it being ok to run Windows on Mac hardware, but not run Apple OS on PC hardware? They seem to be the same situation to me, but Apple will slap you in the face with a lawsuit if you try it... what gives? 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The EULA for Mac OS (here, section 2, subsection A), which you must agree to to install the software, says it cannot be run on "non-Apple-labeled hardware". Meanwhile, the Windows EULA has no such clause, because it isn't tied to one specific type of hardware. So even though it's possible to install Mac OS on a non-Apple machine, it's illegal to run it, because by violating the EULA, you lose the privilege of running the software. Xenon54 / talk / 01:35, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Not "illegal". In the US, and I assume in most countries, it is not actually a violation of any law to breach a contract. (You could get sued, but not sent to prison.) Also see our EULA article for a brief list of how the different federal appeals courts have ruled different ways on how enforceable EULAs are in the first place. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The difference is because the two companies take different legal stances on the control of their intellectual property. They do so as part of different business strategies—with Apple you are roped into buying their specific hardware, which subsidizes the price of the software, while Windows primarily sells the software and allows any hardware vendor to use it, aiming for a higher overall market share. The distinction between the apparent legality is just based on the respective company policies (as expressed in their EULAs), nothing else. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It makes a big difference in development and support costs for the companies. Apple know fairly well what they are developing for and have to support. Microsoft is lumbered with weird hardware and users aren't always content with them saying it's a vendors problem. It's apples and oranges, erm no strike that, well you know what I mean. 12:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Apple makes it's money out of hardware, they don't want you to get the benefit of Mac OS without paying, microsoft makes it money out of licences, they don't really give a monkeys what you put Windows XP on as long as you have paid for a licence. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that certain Vista and Windows 7 EULAs do prevent you from running it on a virtual machine [1] [2] Nil Einne (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo homepage

The new yahoo homepage is god-awful. Is there any way for me to get the old one back? 76.211.105.155 (talk) 03:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You can switch to compact view (in the options on the right) or make your own layout using the My Yahoo option on the left. -- kainaw™ 03:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

DNS servers needed

I'm in a bind here. My ISP's DNS servers are out and I'm only connected to Wikipedia because I added WP's IP address to my hosts file (happily, I have the ShowIP extension on Firefox and was able to get it from that). Could someone possibly be kind enough to post the IPs of two public DNS servers for me? I have no clue as to when my ISP will get this fixed. Thanks in advance. howcheng {chat} 04:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a list of public DNS servers. [3] I've never used them so I don't know how well they work but it's worth a try if you're in a bind. RxS (talk) 04:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Something like OpenDNS? --Spoon! (talk) 04:35, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but the problem is because I have no DNS, I can't actually view that site because my computer can't resolve the domain name. :( I'm asking for some kind soul to look up some DNS server IP addresses and post them here... howcheng {chat} 04:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

lol....doh, of course. Glad it worked out! RxS (talk) 04:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, OpenDNS should work. Let me try that. howcheng {chat} 04:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sweet sweet DNS! Thanks so much Spoon!! (there are two exclamation points because your username already has one) howcheng {chat} 04:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like this is already resolved, but 4.2.2.1 through 4.2.2.6 are useful DNS servers and ping targets. --67.171.37.222 (talk) 03:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Mobile phone colour

How common are mobile phones that support downloaded apps but aren't capable of at least 15-bit colour? NeonMerlin[4] 05:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Um... not terribly common. In the US, PhoneScoop only lists 1 currently available phone without a color screen that also supports "games". There are more discontinued b&w/grayscale phones still in use, but their number is dwindling. Looking for something specific? Indeterminate (talk) 09:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about being without colour altogether. Haven't there been, at some point in the past, phones with 8-bit colour? NeonMerlin[5] 20:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, there are phones with 4096 colours (and probably others). Look at phones produced in the early 2000's, most of the better ones have colour screen and support Java apps. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

cmmi level 3

what are the processes we should implement to go in for cmmi level 3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radsri 2006 (talk • contribs) 06:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a useful page on Capability Maturity Model Integration that should get you started on this. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Matlab function input query

Hi there all,

I'm new to Matlab so I hope the answer isn't too complicated, but I was wondering whether it's possible to define a function within another function. I want have a function f(g,a,b) where g is something like 2*x-7*sin(x), for example, and then evaluate the given function g at various points in the code of f - for which I gather I need to use feval(~,a) to evaluate at x=a, with ~ the appropriate function. However, as far as I can surmise, ~ needs to be a function name or function handle (whatever that is) but when I input 'g' into f, it is treated as a variable. If I input g as something like 'sin' (with the apostrophes) then it works, but I want to be able to input 'unnamed' functions like the one above without having to define them separately in a new M-file every time I want to use f for a different function - so is there a way I can input a function like 2*x-7*sin(x) into another function and have it evaluated at points a, b and c, say, or alternatively define a function name for g 'within' f so it works with feval, or any workaround of somesort which isn't too complicated for a beginner?

Hopefully that makes sense, and many thanks!

Spamalert101 (talk) 06:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you want to learn about and use function handles. Function handles are used to pass a function as an argument, i.e. to dynamically switch which function is called by your code. If you are interested in background theory, function pointer is a useful article (but it is written for/by C-programmers, and much terminology will be unfamiliar to a MATLAB programmer). Fortunately, there is no shortage of MATLAB documentation. Here is the official Mathworks documentation for MATLAB Function Handles. This will give you some options; but in general, you will need to define your function somewhere (otherwise, how can you pass it as an argument?) This typically means a separate .m source file defining each function, but there are other options for defining different types of functions, including anonymous functions. You might want to really read these documentation pages very well, because different types of function declarations in MATLAB have subtle effects on behavior, variable scoping, and function handles. You may find anonymous function handles the most suitable for your needs. Nimur (talk) 11:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Excel printing problem

In Excel 2003, how do I get the text in a worksheet to print out on successive pages so that no text is suppressed and I don't have to glue extra pages to the right hand edge?

This tip from the Web turned out not to be what I was looking for. It made text so tiny even a magnifying glass would not have made it legible.

What I want is for text in each cell to be wrapped, if necessary, to show as several lines right below each other in the cell. That way the entire row would fit onto a single sheet of paper. In other words, instead of

Title	Director	Actors	Gen
1960
Los Acusados	Antonio Cunill Jr.	Mario Soffici, Silvia Legrand, Guillermo Battaglia, Alita Román, Julián Bourges , Mario Danesi ,Osvaldo Terranova	Crime REST CUT OFF

I want this

Title	Director	Actors	Genre	Notability
1960
Los Acusados	Antonio Cunill Jr.	Mario Soffici, Silvia Legrand, Guillermo Battaglia, Alita Román, Julián Bourges , Mario Danesi,Osvaldo Terranova	Crime drama	Based on Marco Denevi play, March 10

where everything fits onto the width of the page due to text in cell no. 3 being wrapped.

--Goodmorningworld (talk) 07:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Format... Cells... Alignment... Wrap Text. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It is an improvement... text is in normal size now... But the row with the most text is only a few characters wide and that makes each of its cells impossibly narrow and tall... Wish I could somehow convert the worksheet into a Word file. In Word I am comfortable fiddling with column widths and point sizes to make stuff fit and look good. However when I tried to copy the content and paste it into Word using the Office Clipboard I got only a jumbled mess. :( --Goodmorningworld (talk) 09:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Just increase the column width of that column in Excel. Then you can decrease the row size. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:08, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! --Goodmorningworld (talk) 11:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Another option you may find useful is on the page setup dialog. If you select the option "fit to 1 page(s) wide" and then blank out the "by () tall" option, Excel will fit the content to fit the available page width, but will still use whatever pages are needed to hold the length of the spreadsheet. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

MIDs, tablets, android...

What I can't quite figure out is how an 'internet tablet', one with Android OS for example, connects to a 3G network? It's not a phone, does it use a simcard? Does it require a 3G modem dongle? Does it require a fee based subscription of some kind? I realise there are few of these devices out yet, but several are pending (SMiT MID-560, Archos A5S). Thanks if you can inform...

3G modems have a SIM card, just like a 3G phone. The difference between a 3G phone and a 3G internet device is rather blurry (things like the iPhone are a bit of both, as are Android tablets). How the connection is paid for just depends on the calling and data plan that you buy for (or that is packaged with) the device - you can already get unlimited-data, metered data, and pay-as-you-go data packages. The only difference between a phone and an internet device is voice calling, and it's a somewhat artificial distinction; carriers for high-end phones are trying desperately to prevent VoIP applications being run on them, but I guess sooner or later they'll fail to keep that partitioning, at which point all that's different between the devices is how big they (and their screens) are. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

All Keys

Is there any computer program for windows that has an assigned function for every key on the standard microsoft keyboard and the combinations of ctrl, alt, and shift? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No. I believe Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a secure attention key and can not be intercepted by an application. There may be other combinations that are reserved to Windows. As for the ones you can map, no practical application is likely to have that many user-oriented functions (around 800), but it would be straightforward to write a program that detects each and says "you pressed Ctrl-Alt-Q" or whatever for each one. --Sean 15:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Nethack takes a good shot at it, though: it uses the entire alphanumeric area of the keyboard both with and without "shift", and has a variety of control-key sequences. --Carnildo (talk) 22:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

about absolute decoding technique

Could you please give me the theoretical explanations regardng the interfacing of 74138 decoder with absolute decding technique —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.69.211 (talk) 14:41, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This Google search gives links to pages on Google Books where you can read about it. They're all bizarrely similar. --Sean 15:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there anyway to get Google to do a literal search?

If I search on ": IEnumerator" (with the quotes), Google strips the leading colon and space from the search string. But I want to do the colon and space as part of the search string. Is there a way to get Google to do this? If not, does anyone know of another search engine that will actually search on what you want to search. Bing and Yahoo have the same problem (at least with default settings). 204.2.252.254 (talk) 15:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Google (and I guess the other two) discard punctuation (with a couple of odd computer-guy exceptions) when they index pages. As this page notes, colons are one of those things they discard (the table on that page is slightly complicated to read, because colons have special meanings in Google's interface, but aren't recognised parts of search terms). So no. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I just tried 20 (or so) search engines listed on our Web search engine article and all behaved the same way (with default settings). However, the following will work: "Implements IEnumerator". ;) Anyway, if anyone does know of a way to do a literal search, please post a reply here. 204.2.252.254 (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

code.google.com may handle that differently--try there. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 18:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Google Code Search allows full regular expression searches on a large body of source code. It might be suitable for you. Here are the results of your query. --Sean 18:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

CAD-TV channels

I live in Carrollton, GA outside of Atlanta. Some of my digital television channels are what they should be on the RF channels. ABC is channel 39-1 and cw is 43-1. Others are way off: Fox is 103-2, NBC is 101-2, CBS is 103-1. Why do some conform and others not? Is there anyplace I can get an accurate listing on the HD broadcast channels in my area? 160.10.98.106 (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears you are receiving your digital channels via cable. The list you linked to is for over-the-air RF channels. Digital channels over the air and over cable use different sets of RF channels and different modulation types, so RF channel lists will be different. A cable company usually doesn't provide its RF channel mapping to the public, but you may find other people in your area have documented the mapping and posted it in an online forum or website. --Bavi H (talk) 03:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Intel Pentium Dual Core compared to Intel Core 2 ?

which one is the best of the Intel Pentium Dual Core and the Intel Core? If a program/game's minimum specs are a Intel Core 2 with 1,6 Ghz (or equivalent) and the recommended specs are Intel Core 2 with 2,4 Ghz (or equivalent) will my Intel Pentium Dual core 2,5 Ghz computer be good enough to run it satisfactory?

Of course, there are other deciding factors too, but if one only compares the two Intel systems how will I fare?

=)

What's the game? But since *most* games now use the graphics card to do the majority of the processing/gameplay I would think your computer would be just fine as far as raw processor goes and I'd worry more about your graphics card. ZX81 ^talk 16:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

A Core 2 Duo processor will outperform a Pentium Dual Core processor of the same clock rate. That is, a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo is faster than a 2.0GHz Pentium Dual Core. However, with many new games, the processor is used far less than the graphics card, and if you have a sufficiently powerful graphics card for the game, you should be able to get away with using a processor below the minimum requirements. Keep in mind this varies depending on the game, so if there's a demo available, try it before investing money into the game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caltsar (talk • contribs) 16:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you :) The game I'm waiting for is "Dragon Age: Origins".

VISTA MINIMUM SPECS OS: Windows Vista with SP1 CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater RAM: 1.5 GB or more VIDEO: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater DVD ROM (Physical copy) 20 GB HD space

RECOMMENDED SPECS CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP) VIDEO: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater AMD Phenom II X3 Triple-Core 2.8 GHz or greater DVD ROM (Physical copy) 20 GB HD space

What graphics card I have, I do not know... however, going to the control panel, then "system" there is something called "clasification" (at least in my language, directly translated) and there the computer have a computer-performanceindex of 5,3 which seems to be quite high from what I read and understand. The computer's game-graphics score have a 5,9 score though, even better, and the only thing that drags the score down is RAM(memory) which is 5,3. The average of all the underscores is probly around 5,75. It seems good, but I've been wondering if I need to invest further to improve my computer a little bit. But from what you tell me it is probably no need to worry because I think I have a good graphics card even though I know not the name of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.49.182.144 (talk) 17:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

If vista gives you a 5.9 score on graphics, your system should be at or above the reccomended requirements for graphics on that game. The CPU should also perform well enough to play as well. You may not be able to hit the maximum settings, but you should have no problem with that particular game, and your computer probably doesn't need an upgrade for quite a while yet.Caltsar (talk) 17:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you ! :D I'm not playing that much but when I do find a game like Dragon Age which I've been looking forward to for a long time I want my computer to be up to date so that's nice to hear. You've been very helpful :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.49.182.144 (talk) 18:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

BIOS Password

I recently read my BIOS password can be removed just by moving a jumper on the motherboard. I don't want that to be an option. Is there a way to prevent this from changing anything at the software level? Or could I just throw some solder on top of the jumper? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 17:47, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

In the old days (1990's) that trick usually worked, but I think in recent years its gotten less common. Anyway, the low tech solution is probably to put a physical lock on the computer (desktop enclosures often have little clips that you can put a padlock through), and if possible, lock up the whole computer (e.g. if it's a laptop, lock it in a desk drawer). If your security requirements are higher than that, you probably want to move to a class of hardware that's much less generic and more expensive than PC's. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 18:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Resetting the BIOS password using the jumper on the motherboard will also clear all BIOS settings. This jumper is there to "reverse" any changes you may have made that can't otherwise be reversed (overclocking the CPU far too much seems to be the most common issue I've come across for this). Clearing the BIOS password is just a side effect. If you don't want people accessing your motherboard, using tamper-resistant screws or otherwise preventing the case from being opened will do just as much as soldering the jumpers together without the risk of damage to your motherboard. This will provide the additional benefit of securing your computer physically, especially if it has no way to padlock it shut.Caltsar (talk) 18:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are worried about your privacy and not about making a thief's life harder, then imo the best way to be secure for sure is to encrypt your whole hard-drive. Unless you run a lot of both processor and hard-drive intensive programs the performance hit should be unnoticeable. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7

Is Microsoft having trouble counting or is Windows 7 supposed to be called Windows 7? The way I work it out, after Win 3, the next one was Win 95 (which would be Win 4), then Win 98 (which would be Win 5), followed by Win XP (let's call this one Win 6) and then Vista (which would be Win 7) - and all this after leaving out Millenium and NT and 2000.... How did Win 7 get to be called Win 7? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No, they have no trouble counting. The consumer versions of Windows (and Windows 2000, based on the old Windows NT versions, and upon which XP, Vista and 7.0 Windows 7 are based), have the following numbers. Windows 95, 98 and Me were very similar to each other, and all share the 4.x version numbers. It is a bit of a surprise, though, that only the minor version number is changed between 2000 and XP.

Windows 1x

Windows 2x

Windows 3x

Windows 95 (4.0)

Windows 98 (4.10)

Windows Me (4.90)

Windows 2000 (5.0)

Windows XP (5.1)

Windows Vista (6.0)

Windows 7

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) It has to do with Windows' internal version number. After Windows 3.1, Windows 95 was version 4.0, 98 was 4.1, Me was 4.9, 2K was 5.0, XP was 5.1 and Vista is 6.0. As with any other software product, version 6 of Windows would naturally be followed by version 7, hence Windows 7. Xenon54 / talk / 18:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Microsoft does have trouble counting, but this isn't one of those times. 204.2.252.254 (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The list above isn't quite right. Windows 7 is descended from the NT series of Windows, so it goes as follows:

Windows 1.x

Windows 2.x

Windows 3.0

Windows 3.1

• At this point, Windows split into two versions: Windows 95 (based on Windows 3.1), and Windows NT (a new product). Vista is derived from Windows NT, while the 3.1 line ended with Windows ME.

Windows NT 3.1

Windows NT 3.5

Windows NT 4.0

Windows 2000 (5.0)

Windows XP (5.1)

Windows Vista (6.0)

Windows 7 (6.1)

So yes, Microsoft is having a bit of trouble counting. --Carnildo (talk) 22:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

My list is correct. I explicity wrote "The consumer versions of Windows (and Windows 2000, based on the old Windows NT versions, and upon which XP, Vista and 7.0 Windows 7 are based), have the following numbers.". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

But you overlooked the most important part, which is that Windows 7's internal version number is 6.1, not 7.0. -- BenRG (talk) 13:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I give you that. Indeed, it is strange to call Windows 6.1 "Windows 7". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:28, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Official counting here. NT 4.0 isn't in the list and at a guess it's because it was the "NT" version of Windows 95 (Windows 4). ZX81 ^talk 23:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, so I was right, but for the wrong reasons? Or was I not? Thanks for the clarification (and subsequent declarification), guys! I'm sure we'll come to a consensus soon. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is Windows 6.1 is a decidely unappealing name (and would also convey the association with Vista). They could call it Windows 6 I guess since Vista is not known as 6 but that has other issues including the association with Vista which MS is trying to avoid. Technically they could have made Windows 7 having the internal version of 7 but that would go against the point of the internal version numbers, since Windows 6.1 is indeed just a refined version of Windows Vista despite what MS may like to claim otherwise publicly (this isn't a bad thing BTW but it's obviously not something MS likes to acknowledge). Incidentally, it's basically the same for XP and 2k, the only major difference was the modified GUI otherwise XP was basically just an improved 2k and used the same drivers etc. The vast majority of applications designed for XP, including games, could work on 2k fine, even if it wasn't officially supported. Nil Einne (talk) 12:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Copying large files without overloading the processor

I often have to copy large files to removable flash memory. It always grabs 70-80 per cent of processor resources and brings all other running programs to a standstill. How is it possible to copy large files without overloading the processor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.8.52.98 (talk) 19:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

That should not happen in a modern OS, such as Windows Vista. What is your OS? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It's Windows XP SP2 and it's not strictly speaking my computer so I cannot change the hardware ( 213.8.52.97 (talk)

Try TeraCopy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 20:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No, unfortunately TeraCopy does nothing to unload the processor, though it does help to reduce copying time to a certain extent. Thank you anyway - TeraCopy seems to be a useful program. 213.8.52.97 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

September 12

Producing an optimal route on Google Maps

I'm planning to visit a specific group of locations in the near future, but as I've never visited most of them before, I don't know the shortest order in which to visit them. I have coordinates (all are National Register of Historic Places sites, with coordinates taken from lists such as National Register of Historic Places listings in Mercer County, Ohio), so I'm interested in a way to put coords into Google to produce a route map. I know how to put coords into Google and get a route between them, but is it possible to give it coordinates for all sites and have it give me an order in which to visit them? If not, are there any free websites that have this option? Nyttend (talk) 03:38, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

In case it's at all helpful — I've put together a list here, and Toolserver is working fast enough that the geogrouptemplate is plotting everything properly on Google Maps. Locations, but not the shortest roads between them. Nyttend (talk) 05:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

What you're asking for -- an optimal route to visit n different destinations -- is an instance of the Traveling Salesman problem, which is one of the classic examples of an NP-complete computation problem. These problems become intractable fast as n increases. However, they can frequently be approximated efficiently. I would be astounded if anyone is offering a service to find the optimal route between n points, but there may be someone out there finding reasonably-good ones. --FOo (talk) 05:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

On modern computers solving the problem for up to something like 20 points can actually be done by a relatively simple dynamic programming algorithm. As long as we're talking about actual traveling between cities, a limit of 20 cities should be enough for just about anyone. Unfortunately user-friendly implementations of optimisation algorithms are a lot more expensive and rare than many other applications of computers. 84.239.160.214 (talk) 11:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Country Specific Versions of MSN

My mate in the Gulf wants to download the Japanese version of MSN, with all of its emoticons and winks that are specific to the Japanese version. How does he do this? I already have the Japanese version, but the reason I do not know how to download it, is because I actually had no choice. I got it automatically, even though I am using a British PC, downloaded it from the UK, and used an email address that was created in the UK. Anyway, I don't mind, but my mate really wants to get it. How can he do this? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried downloading from the Japanese messenger website? --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. He just tried that (after I told him your advice), and after a successful download and installation, he can't login. Does he need to make a new account? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know but Microsoft might have a IP restriction for the Japanese Messenger. I, for example, can't use the mobile MSN available in China in NZ. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

That can't be the problem, because I am in the UK now and I am having no problem with using the Japanese version, unless the Japanese version is specifically putting restrictions on IP addresses in the Middle East. I know what you mean, though, because I had trouble at first using MSN on my mobile (as it was only available in China and Taiwan) for a while, but that mysteriously cleared itself up. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 17:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

MIDI playback in Python with real time MIDI events?

I'm trying to code a MIDI visualizer in Python (on Windows) using pygame, but I can't find anything helpful out there. There are a bunch of MIDI classes, but they're pretty damn old, very undocumented and as far as I can tell they're pretty much meant for dealing with controllers and synths. What I want is to get a local MIDI file, play it and have the means to "get" the events as they happen in sync with the music.

Am I asking for too much? I'm almost trying to code it myself using two different MIDI libraries I found, but that won't be much fun. Any light on this topic is much appreciated. Thanks! — Kieff | Talk 13:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

What does writing 'this' mean?

Often when I make a comment in an online forum someone replies with a "this". Only "this". I don't know what it means. What does it mean? From the context it seems like a good thing but I can't be sure. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 15:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you link to an example? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I think something like

UserA: "We should all be worshipped as gods"
UserB: this

Yes they are complimenting or agreeing with you, - similar to QFR "Quoted for truth". At least that what I think it means.83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

clarify Actually I think it's used to draw attention to a post - so if you said something really stupid they might use "this" too.. 83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah OK that's probably the right explanation - I was expecting something like that. Thanks! :) ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 16:15, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I have frequently seen it used to mean "I agree", and never to mean "look at this stupid post", but usage is likely to vary between forums, what with them being worlds unto themselves. 213.122.35.3 (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

How strange and not straightforward... I haven't seen that before, though, I guess there's a lot one doesn't see... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

According to this, it means "I agree". It might come from this - is this used often as a keyword? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:51, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think javascript (the 'language of the internet') also has a 'this' word [6], so I wouldn't be suprised that that is its origin.83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Though that doesn't make much sense to me, as someone who has used it... You always do something with "this", you never use it alone. It would be one thing if they did something like this->awesome, or this.agree();, which would be dorky enough, but just "this"? Meaningless... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:24, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Haha that is dorky for sure (I've done C programming). Anyways here is the latest thread on which 'this' was used and which led me here if you are curious: "this" in use ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing this is simply an abbreviation of this is true. --70.253.156.55 (talk) 22:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Disc CleanUp

Disc clean up in windows XP 'compresses old files'.What does this mean ? and does this in any way harm or remove the said file? Shraktu (talk) 20:24, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

It finds files that it thinks you don't access often and uses data compression on them to make them smaller. This has the downside of making accessing them slower and requiring more CPU activity than otherwise. Disk space is very cheap, so I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you're really short of space. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:27, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

As a sidenote, compression doesn't always make access slower because it might be the hd and not the cpu that is the bottleneck. Anyway in a general case like this it probably will. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 21:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

September 13

Combat Flight Simulator

Is there any 3D combat flight simulator with modern airplanes and high-end graphics? --81.227.70.149 (talk) 00:09, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of examples in combat flight simulator. Take your pick. Intelligentsium 00:22, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want realism, I'm going to suggest Allied Force. - Akamad (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Make a sound play every time a key is pressed.

Is there any programs that can play a sound every time a key on the keyboard is pressed? Until It Sleeps 01:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably quite a few. Here's one that might work. (I assume you're using Windows.) There might also be some way to set this sort of thing up through the Windows Accessibility settings. Indeterminate (talk) 04:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Easy Itertive Fractals For Windows

Is there any easy to use fractal software that can be used to demonstrate iterative as well as the usual madelbrot fractals with 9 & 10 year old children? I am especially looking for something that can demonstrate fractal forms in nature; snowflakes, fern leaves, coast lines etc. If it is freeware, even better. Looked at Chaoscope, Apophysis and ultrafractal. They all have their strengths but are not the most straightforward to use. Kirk UK —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.82.79.175 (talk) 09:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried ChaosPro? It's my personal favorite from the free ones. — Kieff | Talk 10:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

MacBook Pro Charging

Hi. When I connect my MacBook Pro to the power adapter, often this just has the effect of keeping the remaining battery life constant rather than actually charging it (I have been on 38% for nearly a day now). Does anyone know how to sort this out? Thanks 92.4.190.210 (talk) 13:09, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Unless this is typical for macbooks (idk), it sounds like you have a failing battery. If warranty hasn't yet expired it's time to use it. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 13:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a bad battery. Take it to an Apple store and they should be able to diagnose, potentially replace. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

MyWebSearch - how to get rid of it?

Recently, Firefox on my Vista machine has been redirecting to search.mywebsearch.com whenever it doesn't recognize a search in my address bar. I have set Firefox to be able to search from the address bar (like in Chrome), but I'm just getting this site. Ad-Aware reported to me yesterday that I had a bunch of files associated with this thing and it removed them for me, but it's still happening. I have looked on some websites to find out how to remove it completely, but they all tell me to remove it from Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. However, when I try to do that, I can't find the software listed there (nor any of its aliases). Is there any other way to do it? (A bit more info: my machine is a HP, and I just read the wikipedia article about this issue and it says that it is very often bundled in with the preinstalled software - whether this is the case with my machine or not, I cannot be sure, but what I can say is that I have only noticed this recently, say, over the past few months). TIA. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It is part of MyWay Searchbar. Try Superantispyware and Spybot - Search & Destroy. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! Spybot seems to have worked. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Displaying sound

I want to display the sound on my computer like the old stereos used to with an LED display. But not a real one, a virtual one. That lights up at all sounds on my computer., suggestion program for this. many thank yous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.46 (talk) 17:00, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

That thing is called a VU meter, incidentally. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

And so searching for "windows vm meter" or something similar will find any number of programs that do this. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Many media players have a 'VU meter' in their 'visualisations' settings - go to help (in your media player) and search for that.

Windows media player, real player definately have them, I imagine most others do too.77.86.47.174 (talk) 18:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I tied searching but i can't find anything. media plaer not good because i need all computer sounds to work not only just the mediua being played —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.46 (talk) 20:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Name of PCB material?

I'm trying to remember the name of a possible future material for PCBs but my mind has gone blank. I know it started with either H or Hex? Can someone help me out here? I know it's still in development. --Glaesisvellir (talk) 17:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You definately mean Printed_circuit_board#Materials and not part of the chip itself - eg "Hi-K dielectric"?77.86.47.174 (talk) 18:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Could it be HF - meaning halogen free - this are not in developement though - they exist.77.86.47.174 (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

How about "Hi modulus carbon fibre"?77.86.47.174 (talk) 18:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'm sorry, it didn't start with H. It didn't even really have to do with PCBs. Turns out I was looking for Graphene. Again, very sorry. --Glaesisvellir (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Financial functions in excel

In Excel, how would you find the present value of principal payments of a bond and the present value of interest payments if you know the rate, the loan amount remaining and the principal payment? 71.229.144.57 (talk) 20:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you will have to manually set up some of the equations. There are some built-in functions to help you, such as PMT (payment) calculation, PPMT (principle payment), and others linked on these documentation pages. Depending on your needs, they may be exactly suitable for your calculations. Nimur (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a built in function PV, about which the help file says: Returns the present value of an investment. The present value is the total amount that a series of future payments is worth now. For example, when you borrow money, the loan amount is the present value to the lender. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

CSS Image Fade

(I don't have Windows - so no IE) Does any IE version support CSS image fading in any way? I want to load two images, one over the other, and decrease the opacity of the top one until it is 0% and only the bottom one is visible. I would like this to work in Windows. I know it works on my Linux versions of Firefox and Konqueror (and supposedly, the Konqueror support is already in Safari). -- kainaw™ 23:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Quirksmode discusses opacity, including the support in different versions of IE. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:59, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I found this set of scripts to be pretty easy and designed with multiple browsers in mind (including IE). You might give it a spin. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 11:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Rather than wasting your beautiful mind on browser incompatibilities, consider getting a toolkit that will handle them for you. The following, which uses Prototype and Scriptaculous, works on both IE and standards-based browsers

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" >
        <title>Fader</title>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="/javascript/prototype.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="/javascript/scriptaculous/scriptaculous.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="/javascript/scriptaculous/effects.js"></script>
        <style type="text/css">
            #pics img { position: absolute; left: 10px; top 100px; }
            div#ctrl { position: absolute;  top: 450px; }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="pics">
            <img src="http://theinternetisterrible.com/wp-content/things/happycat.jpg" alt="meow">
            <img id="fade_demo" src="http://www.killsometime.com/Pictures/images/Tired-Dog.jpg" alt="snore">
        </div>

        <div id="ctrl">
            <a href="#" onclick="$('fade_demo').fade(); return false;">Click here for a demo!</a><br>
            <a href="#" onclick="$('fade_demo').show(); return false;">Reset</a>
        </div>
    </body>
</html>

--Sean 18:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Before posting HTML code please make sure you are posting the WHOLE code so other people can try out the code and see if it works. Second if you look online you can get free programs to help you fade the images without the use of CSS. The problem with CSS is browser compatibility. If you have one user running IE and another running Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and some other no name browser then you have problems... it's called "Cross-browser compatibility". I would suggest using Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop Flash will do the same thing.

--Jdswebservice (talk) 16:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Hrm. So when I post C code, I should include all of stdio.h? --Sean 20:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

...except there are probably a lot of situations where Photoshop and Flash are way more trouble that they are worth. Anyway, the scripts above (the one I posted, or the one TotoBaggins refers to), work on the major browsers. It's not perfect, but nothing is (Flash certainly doesn't work on all of them). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 11:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes you should... smart ass... reason being is because for the people that have this same problem don't know what your javascript files link to. so why don't you post your javascript files as well... you know, it could be a problem with the onclick or the function you are calling. so please feel free next time to sodimize yourself before posting smart ass comments like that.

peace and love!

JD's Web Service... yes i'm not signed in. sue me

I am currently using flash (see). I want to change it to CSS because it is getting too big and will get bigger and bigger and bigger... -- kainaw™ 13:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

i don't see how you are going to get around this... you currently can't use css to fade two images together. HOWEVER, what you can do is set the alpha transparency of the WHOLE image. as you can see here. CSS Made Easy Your problem CAN NOT and WILL NOT be solved by using CSS. I would suggest learning some type of prgram LIKE Flash or Photoshop. If you're worried about image size just make the image smaller. It's your choice. You want to do something fancy like this and keep your file size to a minimum then you're going to have to sacrifice size and or quality.

OK! SO NOW I GE IT! after looking at you site i understand what you want to do. give me until the weekend and i'll post some javascript code and my html code with inline CSS style sheet. I thought you meant you wanted to have two images overlap as in half and half... if you just want to FADE between two images all you have to do it slowly set a fade of alpha transparency in javascript using the document.get built into javascript. I'll work on it over the weekend.

Thanks,

JD's Web Service

September 14

FRACTALS

210.212.239.181 (talk) 04:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC)harshagg

I am a begginer and know only few things on fractals.How can i know about them including how to programme.I tried on wiki itself but i am unable to understand that.

I assume that you have seen our article on fractal software. If you are a competent mathematician, artist and programmer, I suppose you could "re-invent the wheel". Dbfirs 11:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

To get you started, the "Escape time algorithm" is probably the easiest to code. Dbfirs 06:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Is a really old Webroot Spy Sweeper of any use?

i still the above and Trend Micro Anti-Virus on my Windows XP machine, though the subscriptions for each ended last summer. (Can't afford to purchase updates) I'm using free AVG and also McAfee from AOL, which update regularly, and seem to be getting pretty good results. McAfee seems able to catch any programt hat want to get into my system. I surf the Web little, except for half a dozen familiar places, and almost never watch anything on YouTube, though I will very rarely. Is my spyware protection too redundant?209.244.187.155 (talk) 15:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It is usually a bad idea to have more than one antivirus program installed. My advice is to uninstall all of the antivirus programs that are no longer valid as well as AVG (it has a pretty poor detection rate). McAfee isn't bad, but there are several good and free anti-virus programs out there for you to consider if McAfee runs out. I know Microsoft has a new program coming out soon that is getting good reviews.Caltsar (talk) 17:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Printing Hotmail emails: tiny text, no word wrapping

When I want to print a Hotmail email a bare window appears with tiny text and no word wrapping. How can I increase the text size and get the text to wrap please? 78.146.163.118 (talk) 16:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

What browser and operating system are you using? — QuantumEleven 18:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 8, Windows XP Sp3. 89.243.184.30 (talk) 19:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Single character key doesn't work

Hello! I have a really strange PC problem, for which I have no idea how to start diagnosing it. My closing-parenthese symbol (shift-0) doesn't work. 0 works fine, as do all the other capital keys (shift-someotherkey), so it's not a hardware problem with either the 0 key or the shift key. I have checked, my keyboard layout is set correctly (English-UK). The behaviour is identical in all programs and doesn't go away after a reboot. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might narrow down the culprit? Thanks in advance! — QuantumEleven 18:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a different keyboard you could try? Perhaps you could borrow a friend's keyboard to see if the problem is on the keyboard or on your computer (either hardware or the OS). That would help to diagnose the problem. Caltsar (talk) 19:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are using windows, go to start, run, and type charmap.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 19:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a background program is "trapping" the keystroke. For example, I often have XNote Stopwatch running in the background while I'm working. Although it's a great program, it has one flaw - if you happen to press one of its keys (S, N, or R) while the stopwatch is running, the action assigned to those keys happens whether the stopwatch window is active or not. It was quite annoying, until I found out how to disable keyboard shortcuts. If you use Windows, you might want to check if this is the case. If all else fails, you can always try reinstalling the driver (KB258826, step 3). Basically it's going into Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), uninstalling the keyboard, rebooting, then letting Windows automatically detect and reinstall. Xenon54 / talk / 19:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Caltsar is correct; it is probably a hardware problem with that one key on your keyboard, and the way to diagnose this is to try a different keyboard for a few seconds. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Or as Xenon54 suggested, it might be a software problem trapping the Shift+0 combination. You could try the keyboard at another computer and see if works or not. If possible, both tests (try a new keyboard at the computer with the problem; try the keyboard with the problem at another computer) should help you narrow the problem down and decide how to further investigate. --Bavi H (talk) 23:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Cursor turns into spinning circle on top of Geejo's name

I'm not sure whether this goes on the village pump or not. Here [7] I was moving the cursor across Geejo's name and it turned into a spinning circle. I was dealing with a slow web site on another screen, but the problem continued even after that site came up there--though that site's URL was on the top of the screen where I was on Wikipedia!Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It does that on my computer too. (Ubuntu 9.04, Firefox 3.5.2) GeeJo is still around, so it might be interesting to ask him how and why it does that (if he did it deliberately). Xenon54 / talk / 20:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

He has CSS style that read "cursor: wait;" which does that (on modern browsers). 87.113.10.108 (talk) 20:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have Explorer 8 and Vista. I can never remember where all this information is to say what my computer is, but that's probably enough in these cases.

I've asked this person to respond.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Surely his CSS style has nothing to do with the symptoms you see on other web pages. I recommend getting more RAM for the computer, and you should close Adobe's PDF reader whenever possible. I regularly see annoying slowdowns when PDF files are open (whether in the reader or in the browser). Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes,I had that effect (changing cursor style while hovering over my name) on my signature for a while for a laugh. The effect is only a mouseover, it shouldn't change how the cursor works when it's not pointed at the word GeeJo on some of my old comments. It wasn't long before I decided that the effect was fairly annoying, and I switched to my current signature. I'm not planning on going back through every archived talk page to retrofit my old comments, though. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 07:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Java References

Basically, I am trying to program something like this...

private Object[] myArray;

public E get(int i)
{
return((E) myArray[i]);
}

public T next(int i)
{
return((T) get(i));
}

...and I expect next(int i) to return a reference to the original Object, but it doesn't. It just gives me a copy. Is there anyway that I can make it pass me a reference? Furthermore, I am perplexed why this is happening in the first place. I am pretty sure I have passed references to class objects before. Does the array or casts have something to do with it? By the way, this isn't a homework assignment or anything; I'm just trying to familiarize myself with the language. 199.111.182.231 (talk) 23:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... I think I may have answered my own question. In my implementation, I was using Integers, which do not have the mutator methods necessary to adjust the original value. 199.111.182.231 (talk) 00:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

September 15

Scalability of two-tier versus three-tier architectures

I'd be grateful for insight into the relative merits of a two-tier versus a three-tier architecture, from the point of view of the scalability of an IT application. Why might one approach be superior to the other? Consider, for instance, an Oracle Application Express (two-tier) versus J2EE or .Net three-tier architectures, for an application which might today serve 1,000 concurrent users, but next year 2,000 or 10,000.

I can (at least intuitively) understand the benefits of logical separation of elements of the application, per Multitier architecture, both in terms of modularisation of code and in the ability to provide distinct platforms for each of the tiers. And so I can see that there is some benefit, from the scalability perspective, in being able to ramp up the hardware provided to a distinct layer, based on an understanding of the pinch points in the system. But as a general proposition, can one approach be thought to be better than the other in its ability to scale, measured, I guess, in terms of cost of hardware deployed?

And - whilst we're on the subject - would I be right or wrong in postulating that a three-tier architecture will tend to need more tin than a two-tier architecture, all other things being equal?

I assure you this is not a homework question: I'm struggling to get an insight into what are for me rather abstract concepts, and I have an obscure interest which needs to be satisfied. thanks. --62.49.21.172 (talk) 00:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It's really going to vary based on the application and the use-case. The real benefits of a three-tiered architecture come more from a project-management and logistics standpoint, rather than a purely hardware/software consideration. By separating the different predicted bottlenecks, it's possible to assign teams to work on independently optimizing those cases. However, the actual bottleneck in a given application is going to depend on the precise interplay of each transaction with each tier of the software architecture. And, it's possible to measure the cost per unit of hardware in each sub-area, which can be evaluated by the budgeting people as a tradeoff against end-user experience and overall system performance. As far as the "most tin", it's again going to be a case-by-case situation; but the system which uses the least number of nodes is also going to be the most tightly-knit, hardest to maintain, and least redundant system. Modularity is useful in these deployed platforms for maintainability, more than performance; in truth, if it were possible, the entire system could be most efficient as a single layer application. (The challenges of scaling then strictly rely on whether a single node can clone all the required data, and whether data hazards result from this). But, the single standalone-node is the penultimate in pure parallelization - every single unit of the deployed system is a miniature, exact replica of the rest of the system. "Scaling" simply means duplicating these units. Upgrading or modifying, however, becomes a near-impossible task, propagating changes dynamically to n independent nodes. Nimur (talk) 02:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Installing Pygame on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Hi,

I've been given a laptop with a fresh install of Ubuntu (8.04, Hardy Heron) I'm a total linux newbie, but have spent a few days getting a feel for Ubuntu (and liking it a lot, I might add), and wanted to try doing some game dev on it. Python + pygame seems like a good way to go, and the system came with Python 2.5.2 installed. I've been reading through the docs on the pygame site on how to install it, and mostly it seems to come down to doing a "sudo apt-get install python-pygame", but whenever I do that I just get 'package not found'

As I said, I'm very new to the whole Linux thing, so I might be looking in the wrong repositories or something (I don't really know how to change that yet, but I get that you can) I tried using Ubuntu's add/remove software manager, and searching the 'all apps' category, but nothing came up for pygame.

Any help would be appreciated!

--67.171.37.222 (talk) 03:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You're probably not going to like this answer, but one friend of mine tried getting started with Pygame, struggled for a day, switched to XNA Game Studio with Windows, and was immediately far happier. Tempshill (talk) 04:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Is this a new install? The package is in fact called python-pygame (at least in 9.04) so the problem probably that you don't have the repository (universe) enabled. Open System/Admin/Software Sources and tick the first 4 checkboxes in the dialog, then press close and then reload. It should find the python-pygame package now. BTW, Synaptics (System/Admin) is a lot better at searching for packages than Add/Remove software. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You, sir or madam, as the case may be, are a genius. Thank you! Worked like a charm, and pointed me to a great package manager I wasn't even aware of --67.171.37.222 (talk) 07:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Escrow for virtual items either items from games or computer code?

I have been searching for days and google only turns up garbage. Does anyone know or know how to find escrow systems that would be good for selling virtual items over the internet such as item from games or source code for freelance coding? Normal escrow sites only deal with physical items or domain names and have $25 minimum escrow fees, and then source code escrow sites charge about $1000 minimum fees and are designed for only working with large companies and enslaving them with long-term contracts. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 05:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Converting between SVY21 and WGS84 Coordination system

hello. Im on this project currently. To convert between the 2 coordinate system (SVY21 and WGS84) i found quite a bit of information. But just cant figure out how does SVY21 work. Any kind soul can help me with that? your aid will be greatly appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Razorsaber (talk • contribs) 05:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

SVY21 is a transverse Mercator projection. Our article on the subject may be of help. decltype (talk) 06:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

SVY21 is a geodetic datum (EPSG 6757), a geographic coordinate system (EPSG 4757) and SVY21 / Singapore TM (EPSG 3414) is the projected coordinate system decltype mentioned. The EPSG registry seems to be down at the moment, but here are the well-known text representations for the geographic and projected systems. What is it that you can't figure out? If you'd just like an introduction to coordinate systems, i'd recommend EPSG's Geodetic awareness guidance note.—eric 18:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, sorry for giving an inaccurate answer. decltype (talk) 19:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

db2 and sql

is there any difference between db2 and sql?if its there then please help me.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kc28kc (talk • contribs) 10:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

IBM DB2 is a Relational DataBase Management System (DBMS, a software package to handle databases) whereas SQL is a query language (a set of comands for extracting and manipulating data through a DBMS, unless you are talking about the Microsoft SQL Server - which is another DBMS). I know that's not very helpful but I don't know much more --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 13:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

"SQL was developed at IBM by Andrew Richardson, Donald C. Messerly and Raymond F. Boyce in the early 1970s" from Structured Query Language. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean mysql? Rbmj (talk) 19:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The history and architecture of the ARM microprocessors

I would like learn about the ARM processors, how and when they began, including the architecture of the processor. A lengthy and detailed response will do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.2.2.228 (talk) 15:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you read ARM Holdings and ARM architecture? You can then start on some of thge people mentioned like Furber and Wilson. Dmcq (talk)

History glitch in Internet Explorer 8?

I have the problem at home, and apparently it's here at the library too.

I figure this computer must have the new version because the URL is gray except "wikipedia.org" is black.

I use the back button a lot but it seems that history repeats itself. Instead of going back, the back button seems to go forward before going back. I'm pretty sure I'm not clicking on the forward button by mistake.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Does this happen with one particular URL, or every URL you have seen? Do you end up, in fact, at the same page you started with, or do you end up one page back in the history? Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

JAVA repaint problem

This JAVA program works fine, except that the repaint() method doesn't work. Why is this and how can I fix it?

Massive amount of code collapsed. Tim Song (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

package towerdefense; import java.io.*; import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import javax.swing.*; public class TowerDefense extends JFrame implements ActionListener { public static void main(String[] args) { new TowerDefense(); } JFrame game; JPanel panel; Image dbImage; Graphics dbg; Timer timer = new Timer(1, this); JFileChooser openDialog; int boardWidth; int boardHeight; int tileSize; int pathLength; int[][] coordinates; int[][] directions; boolean[][] board; int maxHealth = 20; int health = maxHealth; Enemy enemy; public TowerDefense() { openDialog = new JFileChooser(); openDialog.addChoosableFileFilter(new MapFilter()); try { int returnVal = openDialog.showOpenDialog(null); if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) { String filename = openDialog.getSelectedFile().toString(); FileReader reader = new FileReader(filename); String text = ""; boolean keepGoing = true; while (keepGoing) { int character = reader.read(); if (character == -1) { keepGoing = false; } else { text += (char) character; } } String[] array = text.split("x"); String[] coordinateArray = array[2].split(";"); pathLength = coordinateArray.length; coordinates = new int[pathLength][2]; directions = new int[pathLength][2]; for (int i = 0; i < pathLength; i++) { coordinates[i][0] = Integer.parseInt(coordinateArray[i].split(",")[0]); coordinates[i][1] = Integer.parseInt(coordinateArray[i].split(",")[1]); directions[i][0] = Integer.parseInt(coordinateArray[i].split(",")[2]); directions[i][1] = Integer.parseInt(coordinateArray[i].split(",")[3]); } boardWidth = Integer.parseInt(array[0]); boardHeight = Integer.parseInt(array[1]); tileSize = Math.min(getToolkit().getScreenSize().height / boardHeight, (getToolkit().getScreenSize().width - 300) / boardWidth); board = new boolean[boardWidth][boardHeight]; for (int i = 0; i < boardWidth; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < boardHeight; j++) { board[i][j] = false; } } for (int i = 0; i < pathLength; i++) { board[coordinates[i][0]][coordinates[i][1]] = true; } enemy = new Enemy(coordinates[0][0], coordinates[0][1], 100, 0, directions, -tileSize / 2, 0, tileSize / 2); } } catch (Exception e) { showErrorMessage(e); } game = new JFrame("Tower Defense"); panel = new JPanel(); game.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(getToolkit().getScreenSize().width, getToolkit().getScreenSize().height)); game.add(panel); game.setExtendedState(MAXIMIZED_BOTH); game.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE); game.setVisible(true); game.add(new JCanvas()); timer.start(); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { if(enemy.move()) { health--; } repaint(); } public void showErrorMessage(Exception e) { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "An error has occurred.\n\nDescription:\n" + e.toString(), "Error!", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); System.exit(0); } class JCanvas extends Canvas { public void paint(Graphics g) { for (int i = 0; i < boardWidth; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < boardHeight; j++) { if (board[i][j]) { g.setColor(Color.orange); } else { g.setColor(Color.black); } g.fillRect(i * tileSize, j * tileSize, tileSize, tileSize); } } g.setColor(Color.blue); if (enemy.isAlive) { g.fillOval(enemy.x * tileSize + enemy.xOffset + tileSize / 2, enemy.y * tileSize + enemy.yOffset + tileSize / 2, tileSize / 4, tileSize / 4); } g.setColor(Color.black); g.setFont(new Font("Courier", Font.BOLD, 50)); g.drawString("HP", getToolkit().getScreenSize().width - 300, 50); if (health > maxHealth / 2) { g.setColor(Color.green); } else if (health > maxHealth / 4) { g.setColor(Color.yellow); } else { g.setColor(Color.red); } g.fillRect(getToolkit().getScreenSize().width - 240, 0, health * 240 / maxHealth, 50); if (health > maxHealth / 2) { g.setColor(Color.magenta); } else if (health > maxHealth / 4) { g.setColor(Color.blue); } else { g.setColor(Color.cyan); } g.setFont(new Font("Helvetica", Font.PLAIN, 25)); g.drawString(health + "/" + maxHealth, getToolkit().getScreenSize().width - 240, 50); } } }

--204.184.214.2 (talk) 19:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

While you're waiting, you might like to take a peek at Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask a software question. --Sean 20:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely - I agree with Sean's comment above. Fortunately, I managed to track down your bug (I think). First of all, you extend JFrame, but you also initialize a new JFrame, "game". Instead, your class should call the super() method, and you do not need a "game" instance variable. (See how to use super() to extend classes). Also, you add your JCanvas to the JFrame; but (surprisingly) this is not correct. In Java Swing, (unlike AWT), always add to contentpanes - not to JFrames. (See why). Read about Swing top-level containers here - in your code, you want to add to the JFrame "game" (or the JPanel "panel")'s content pane. I've also boiled down some code for you to see how to do this properly. Nimur (talk) 23:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Nimur's example of "proper" JFrame and ContentPane usage.

package test; import java.awt.Canvas; import java.awt.Color; import java.awt.Container; import java.awt.Graphics; import javax.swing.JFrame; public class TowerDefense extends JFrame { public static void main(String[] args) { new TowerDefense(); } public TowerDefense() { super("Window Title"); this.setSize(640,480); Container c = this.getContentPane(); c.add(new JCanvas()); this.repaint(); this.setVisible(true); } class JCanvas extends Canvas { public void paint(Graphics g) { g.setColor(Color.BLACK); g.drawRect(50,50,50,50); } } }

.

Hopefully you will understand this simple code, and see the changes you need to make to your own class. Primarily, you want to use the Container object, obtained by the getContentPane() method of the JFrame (or JPanel) that you plan to hold the drawable Canvas area. Watch out; you're secondary issue is that you're mixing up a JFrame instance called "game" with a TowerDefense object ("this"), which is also a JFrame. Nimur (talk) 23:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec)If i remember correctly (and that pretty iffy for Java) JFrame.repaint() does not actually repaint its contents. You do something like frame.getContentPane().repaint() or declare a member variable for your canvas object and use canvas.repaint().—eric 23:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The above depends on whether the JFrame's child(ren) are lightweight or heavyweight objects. There's more details here: Mixing Heavy and Light Components. Repaint() on the JFrame should cascade to the OP's JFrame content pane and its child JCanvas object, in this case - if the JCanvas resides on the Content Pane (but if the JCanvas resides on the JFrame, all bets are off). Nimur (talk) 23:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Websites That Will Translate Letters -- Not Just Text From The Internet

Hello,

I've recently come across a few letters in a family archive that are in Dutch, Polish and Italian. Are there any places I can post scans of these to have them translated?

Thanks in advance for any help,

--Grey1618 (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

If they're not too long, you might find people on the Language Reference Desk who will do it. Otherwise, you'll probably have to type in the text. --Sean 00:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean places where you can hire human translators? Yes, a web search should find tons of them instantly. You could also try something like craigslist to find someplace local. There is no Babelfish for handwritten texts, and anyway if these are family letters that might contain private info, you are better off hiring someone under terms of confidentiality, than posting scans on the internet to be spread all over. 67.122.211.205 (talk) 07:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

September 16

Quick Java question

Hello! Just a quick couple of questions I've been wondering: Is there a memory disadvantage to importing an entire package (e.g. import java.io.*) instead of individual classes? My guess is no, because I learned that Java loads classes lazily. My second question is regarding the finally{} block. Does it really serve a purpose? Once an exception is caught, as long as the catch{} block does not call java.lang.System.exit(int), the following code is executed, whether it's in a finally block or not. Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 02:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Import has no effect on the compiled bytecode. Only the compiler sees the import statements, the JVM that executes the code (or compiles it into machine code) doesn't know what you imported.

Often the code after the try/catch/finally structure is not executed. The catch block might not be present, or it might log the exception and re-throw it. Or the catch might catch something like IOException, but if there is a programming error and a NullPointerException is thrown, the catch won't handle that. So finally becomes the right place to close file handles and such. 62.78.198.48 (talk) 04:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's been a while since I wrote Java code, but I think that if it didn't have the finally feature you would have to change code like this:

try {
    somethingThatMightThrow();
} catch (SomeException e) {
    // handle SomeException
} finally {
    // clean up stuff from the try block
}
...

to this:

try {
    somethingThatMightThrow();
} catch (SomeException e) {
    // handle SomeException
} catch (Throwable t) {
    // clean up stuff from the try block
    // and then rethrow t
    throw t;
}   
// clean up stuff from the try block
...

That's not great, since you have to duplicate the cleanup code, and the rethrow will mess up your stack trace (I think). Exception handling is an area where C++'s RAII idiom is a lot easier to work with than languages like Java where you have no idea when/if destructors will run. --Sean 14:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Except of course, when the cleanup itself can fail. As we know, destructors must not throw. Thus, you end up having to use the second alternative above anyway, even in the presence of deterministic destruction. Still, RAII is great for many common cases. decltype (talk) 14:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

C++ Destructors may throw as they wish. The danger is that a throwing destructor, might throw during stack unwinding too, confusing the environment as we suddenly have two exceptions to deal with at the same time. I would expect Java to get equally confused if, while executing a finally() block due to an as-of-yet unhandled exception, the finally block causes another exception to be thrown. Unilynx (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

That is why exceptions are scoped in Java. The compiler will require a unique name for each exception, including those in the finally{} block. Another try/catch/finally or throws clause must exist for an exception thrown in a finally block. There can be no ambiguity about which exception is being processed by a given catch block. Nimur (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You are neglecting to consider try-finally blocks. You should only catch the exceptions that you can appropriately handle. Anything else should not be caught. This scenario introduces a common pattern: try-finally blocks without any exception catches. In this case, a finally block is the only way to guarantee a chance for cleanup. Another common pattern is to return values from within a try block. Again, a finally block is the only structured way to allow for any necessary cleanup. try-catch-finally may not technically be necessary, but, just as in a try-finally, putting any cleanup code in a finally block is best practice, regardless of the possibility of exceptions. It also promotes clearer and more maintainable code. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 15:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Google Chrome: Recent Bookmarks bar

Yesterday, Google updated Google Chrome, but I didn't see any changes until this morning (even though I had the computer downloading all night). The New Tab page now holds 8 instead of 9 most visited pages and the blue bar with recent bookmarks has completely disappeared. Has anyone got an idea how to restore this, or at least get the recent bookmarks feature back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.211.211.117 (talk) 08:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Do a system restore, or, there are some previous builds here http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp/

77.86.47.174 (talk) 10:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You could tell them you don't like the new one via http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome?hl=en 77.86.47.174 (talk) 12:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a far better way below, ask if you get stuck implementing it.87.102.94.154 (talk) 19:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

See http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=0fca9ffc66018150&hl=en 77.86.47.174 (talk) 12:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

But thank God (or, more, appropriately, the Google Chrome developers) that HTML accesskeys are working again. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Remote Desktop Server

I've come across references to this but the remote desktop article doesn't say what it is or what functionality it provides... FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You are probably looking for Remote Desktop Services, which specifically describes the Microsoft implementation. The main remote desktop article is only a general overview of this type of software. Nimur (talk) 14:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Close, but still lacks basic information. There are several terms (or systems) used in the Microsoft world - Remote desktop connection, Remote Desktop Services, Windows Desktop Sharing, and Remote Desktop Server. I can't find a side-by-side explanation of what they each mean or the differences between them. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Terminal Server is the server. It typically runs on Windows Server, but can run on the professional desktop versions such as Windows Vista Business. Remote Desktop Client is the client. It is available on all Windows platforms since Windows 2000 (I think). Remote Desktop Protocol is the technical description of the connection scheme between client and server. Windows Desktop Sharing is a new technology which changes the login-session paradigm (i.e. you can connect to a "desktop" of an already-logged-in-user). Previously, Terminal Services created a new login session for each connected instance. What information are you seeking that was not already in the Remote Desktop Services article? "Side-by-side comparison" is not really suitable, because these are individual components of the Remote Desktop Services system, not interchangeable tools with comparable feature sets. Maybe the official Getting Started guide from Microsoft is the best place to start, if you don't know the terminology. Nimur (talk) 17:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

norton vs avast

Hi, I am running XP on a PC and Vista basic on my new laptop.

On my PC I use the free version of Avast which does fine. On my laptop I have 40 days left of Norton which runs very smoothly...

What do you recommend? Should I get a cheap 2009 version of Norton from Amazon or ditch it completely and use Avast free version on my laptop?

cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.127.92 (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered alternatives like Comodo AV, Avira, NOD32, Kaspersky, or the upcoming Microsoft Security Essentials? (2 out of 5 are free, and I reccomend all over Avast and Norton). Btween Avast and Norton, I reccomend Avast though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caltsar (talk • contribs) 16:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Which of the two free ones is best? Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 17:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I just recently dumped norton, which has annoying pop-ups every time you try to download or save something, and replaced it with avast, so far I've been very happy with it--Jac16888^Talk 17:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I personally like MSE, but it's still in a limited beta. Before that, I was using Comodo, but I only like their AV product and not their firewall. Avast is definately good, but the interface and the general "speed" of it puts it just out of my top 5. Both Comodo and MSE are free. Avira has a free version, but it nags you to upgrade once a day/week or something. The most expensive on my list is NOD32, but it makes up for the price in having a very light footprint.Caltsar (talk) 18:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

When I first moved to China I picked up a worm from my company's network that absolutely no virus scan could get rid of. I couldn't even google it because it was some domestic Chinese virus that just made a few hidden folders and tried to propogate via autorun. Chinese virusscan software was useless. I ended up getting Kaspersky, which was able to notice the virus' activity but wouldn't kill it because it didn't know what it was. Using their in-program instructions, I submitted the virus to them for analysis and they deconstructed and added it to the virus database within 48 hours. After my next update I was finally rid of a bug that's basically on every computer in NE China. I can't afford Kaspersky these days, but I'll never forget how satisfied I was with their service. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Learning the R statistical language - any statistical textbooks that use R?

I would like to become proficient in R (programming language), and my statitical knowledge is a little rusty. Are there any statistical textbooks that use or teach R at the same time, especially with regard to time series? I am aware of R Commander. The online introductory material I've seen for either R or R Commander are just bare-bones listings of what they do. I'd like to be set for example exercises that start me using the language. I am not a programmer so need more than just a list of commands. Thanks 89.243.195.226 (talk) 19:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

"Introductory Statistics with R" sounds promising. Also check out the "similar titles" section. --Sean 20:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

System freezing because of RAM ?

Hello there, Can a RAM Cause system to freeze (both randomly or running system for several hours)? (Screen or game freezes on desktop) Thank you--119.30.36.39 (talk) 20:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. Searching for "Template:Websearch" shows that random lockups are a common symptom. --Sean 20:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There's freeware programs that can test your RAM to see if it's bad. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

RAM can cause it, a bad HD can cause that, even overheating can cause that... test the RAM and see if it's really the problem before you replace it. You can test it with memtest86. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Editing MIMEs in Firefox 3.5?

Just curious how to edit MIME mapping in Firefox 3.5. There was an add-on called MIME Edit, but it doesn't work with v3.5. I'm trying to get Firefox to properly send .7z and .XAR files to the correct decompression utility. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 00:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Mouse Focus & Installing Software Under Security Measures

Alright, I'm on a Windows XP, Version 5.1.2600, and I have two questions.

1. When I open the start menu using the Windows logo button on my keyboard, and my mouse happens to be in the same place that the start menu appears, the mouse takes focus, and possibly opens a side-menu that I don't want to open. Is there any way to get it to listen to the keyboard by default, and to the mouse only if I jiggle the mouse?

2. I am on a non-admin account, to prevent software getting installed that I don't want installed. Ideally, when I download an installation program from my non-admin account, I should then be able to switch user and install from the admin account. For some reason, however, my computer decides to do two (possibly related?) things when it downloads the installation program: it makes the file read-only (is this because it's large, and making it read-only saves memory?), and it locks the file from other users. I am explicitly putting the file into shared documents, which I think would make it clear that I want it to be shared, but my computer wants to make it inaccessible for my admin account. How do I prevent this from happening?

thanks, --129.116.47.61 (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Firefox Plug to Download Every Web Page Visited?

I'm trying to find if there is a firefox plug-in that will automatically save a local copy of every page I visit on my hard drive. Anyone know if it exists?

--Grey1618 (talk) 04:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)