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September 26

Strange things happening to Windows XP clock.

For the last few days, maybe a week, strange things started to happen to the clock of my Windows XP. Sometimes it jumps forward or backward one hour, and sometimes it even jumps back and forth one full day. As I observed, I think it happens mostly when waking up from standby mode. Has anyone an idea what can cause this? I have firawall and antivirus, and just in case they let soemthing through, I googled a lot for malware which behaves like this, without any success. I use this system since around a year ago, and these strange things started happening only recently. --217.91.40.206 (talk) 10:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Time and date weirdness can be a result of the CMOS battery going dead, but that shouldn't happen on a year-old system... Xenon54 / talk / 13:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems too organized for that. It's not resetting to 00:00, it changes from AM to PM, increases or decreases the day or the hour by one, but the month, year, and minutes are still correct. That's why I'm still suspecting some funny malware, a bug, or other software-related issue. However, I couldn't find anyone with similar symptoms by googling. --217.91.40.206 (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could be changing to different time zones if the minutes and seconds stay the same. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with h2g2bob, it sounds (to me at least) as if it is switching the time zone. Try checking the time zone next time it happens. Thanks, gENIUS 101 20:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Two fold laptop question - struggling m9750 Alienware laptop

Hello all. My long suffering Alienware m9750 laptop ius on the fritz again. When turned on, it begins to boot up for perhaps 1.5-2.5 seconds, and the fans give a hint of whirring, and then it turns off. Long term problem that sounds most like the fans failing to initialise but, it has happened before and when I left the laptop for a couple of days then came back to it, it switched on fine. The last time it did this, I left if for about a month in my laptop case while shopping for a new one - and I randomly returned to it one day and it worked perfectly. That was July 9th, and it has worked flawlessly until the other day. I'm not sure if a fan failure can manifest like that. I have a laptop cooling pad also which produces nice cooling air for it. Blasted thing, any thoughts?

Second thought. Failure of the Power-on self-test? I don't know what system it may use to understand what error code it may be reporting to me. SGGH ^ping! 14:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Secondly, in the opinions of the informed users here, what are some good, reputable laptop producing companies that still contruct their laptops from components they manufacture themselves, rather than 3rd party imports like Alienware does? Preferably good to high-end performance laptops of the visual kind. If I need to replace el Alienwareo, I am hoping to get something whrre third party component conflict and shoddy construction principles in the mould of the new Dell-Alienware merge aren't going to crop up (also want to get away from their dodgy customer services!). Thanks guys, SGGH ^ping! 13:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have a more serious problem than the fans. If a fan fails, the most that will usually happen, with a fairly recent system, is that the BIOS screen will pause at bootup and tell you there was a fan error. As with the post from yesterday about a failing laptop, your first priority is to back up all the data when you do get a good boot and a stable system. Then it's probably time for a new laptop, unfortunately. As for components, no laptop manufacturer manufactures their own components. Tempshill (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's already all backed up - as it worked yesterday morning for a while. It is also backed up, as this is a common occurence. What are some reliable laptop makes? 90.206.202.29 (talk) 20:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry that was me above. New development: While it was going through its 2-second boot-and-fail-malarky, I managed to pop the CD drive open and took out a CD that was left in there... and it carried on booting happily and is now working... is a CD being trapped in the drive giving it too much to do on boot up? SGGH ^ping! 21:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends how it's set up. Very often a computer is set up to boot from a CD and if no bootable CD is present then to boot from the hard drive. (This presents an obvious security risk if your computer is physically accessible to others.) If a CD is present and looks bootable but has a half-baked (and in practice unbootable) OS on it, then I'd expect just what you described above. With most computers you can alter the booting sequence, etc., via a submenu of the BIOS. (If the computer is where others can play with it, you may wish to restrict the options and password-protect the BIOS. But don't then do what I once did: forget the password.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Glad it's backed up. The usual suspects are Dell and Hewlett-Packard; I like the latter, and a friend of mine likes the former. Pick something with a long warranty, and double the warranty by purchasing with a credit card that doubles warranties (i.e. most of them). For what it's worth, there was a Wall Street Journal article yesterday or the day before in which it was claimed that HP is at war with other laptop manufacturers by lowering their prices; their profit margins are supposedly around 4% to 5% currently. Tempshill (talk) 04:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Dell I am using right now is definitely not made by Dell, and it is flaky -- though its spontaneous reboots occur only (ha ha) once a day or so. My other Dell never acts up (though Gnash running on it does). My nine-year-old Toshiba laptop remains utterly reliable, but Toshiba's new products look glossy and nasty (though for all I know they're fine underneath). My office-issue Fujitsu laptop is a dog, but a friend's very different Fujitsu is fine. My Apple laptop has appalling design faults, but other models seem good (if overpriced). Perhaps the brand means very little. -- Hoary (talk) 23:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to stop OpenOffice writer from splitting words at the ends of lines?

I have OpenOffice 3.1.0 and WinXP. I've copied some text that I typed into a Notepad file and pasted it into an existing document. OpenOffice for some unknown reason is often splitting words into two with a hyphen at the ends of lines. The words are ordinary short words. How can I stop it doing this? I want justified text with whole words only. I've tried chaging the font size - does not make any difference. Thanks 89.242.92.200 (talk) 13:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is doing it I suspect because the text is running outside the print margins on the sides of the page, and when your resize the text it is retaining the hyphens because by then they were already there. Perhaps expand your print margins before typing the sentence, rather than after? SGGH ^ping! 14:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot imagine that altering the margins would make any difference. It is supposed to be able to justify the text within the margins. It has done on all previous occasions. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 14:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In that case you have auto-hyphenation switched on. Hitting F11 should open your Stylesd and Formatting box. Right click on default and select modify, then click on the text flow tab. Then deselect automatically from the top and save the new preferences. That should stop it? SGGH ^ping! 14:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your help. Before reading your second responce, I copied the text from the open office document into Notepad, un-wordwrapped it (no hyphens found) then opened another OO document and copied the un-wrapped text into it. This time there has been no hyphening. I deleted the previous document and emptied the recycle bin, so sorry I do not know if what you suggested would work. Seems to have been a problem with the formatting of the original document. Thanks. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Best way to create small simple single-user no-frills database by non-programmer?

Long long ago when I used CP/M, it was easy to find database software that would allow you to design a simple on-screen form and create a simple database. But now there seems to be nothing available that can do this - at least no free software. (Some former freeware that could do this is no longer freeware). The database I have in mind involves entering information onto an on-screen form, and then choosing the form(s) to display based on searches on the various fields on the forms.

What would be the easiest no-pay way to create a database like this please?

Side-question - I can understand the simpler commands of SQL easily enough. But I understand that SQL is normally accessed through some other language. Are there any available front ends or "GUI"s that can make use of SQL without requiring that you learn another language as well? 89.242.92.200 (talk) 13:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might try OpenOffice.org Base. I have found it a bit too slow and clunky for personal use (and I already have and know Access so there's no real motivation to learn it), but its goal is to be something like Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro, which are the pay versions of what you are looking for. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Is there any such thing as a self-contained database language now, as there used to be in the good old days? One that does not require you to learn another language as well, and that is not part of some huge multi-purpose package either? Edit: The xBase article lists two or three free database languages at the end. I'd be interested to hear of any SQL-like languages that are self-contained and can be used without another language. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 16:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to side-question: There should be plenty of sql guis out there, eg pgadmin. --91.145.72.227 (talk) 18:45, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Are there any simpler ones please - PgAdmin looks fiendishly complicated. 78.151.116.146 (talk) 19:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't that complicated, but I admit it is not exactly zero-setup as you must install postgresql first. Perhaps sqliteman which uses sqlite, so you only need to press ctrl-n to get going. Btw I'm no expert, I'm just copy-pasting debian repository contents here. --91.145.72.227 (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks pretty complicated, compared to what the OP wants. Frankly, I think what the OP really could use is FileMaker—sounds about the level of complexity. Unfortunately, it's not cheap ($300). The more lightweight Bento might actually be a good compromise if the OP has a Mac—not as feature-rich, but if it's just for a personal database, it might be worth the $50. Unfortunately all of the free programs are generally made for DB people, not general computer users. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What I want seems to be covered by no-pay clones of the Clipper (programming language). These are listed at the end of the xBase article, and include Harbour and xHarbour. They look as if they are BASIC-like with database capabilities thrown in, which suits me. Thanks. 89.241.43.172 (talk) 11:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for imageSorter2004V1.3.zip

I'm looking for a copy of this freeware program http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Others/Image-Sorter-2004.shtml Unfortunately every download link I can find simply redirects to the programmer's home page, which no longer exists. Does anyone know where I could find a copy of this file on the internet, not just a dead link please? Unfortunately Google does not allow (AFAIK) you to search for a file rather than just a link - perhaps there is some way of searching for files only? Thanks 89.242.92.200 (talk) 15:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

September 27

Emulator for running Windows Mobile apps on PC

Is there some kind of (preferably free software) emulator that will allow me to run a Windows Mobile app binary (i.e. I don't have the source code) on a desktop PC (Windows, Linux, doesn't matter)? --164.67.235.98 (talk) 00:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MIDI interface

Is MIDI hot swappable? Or do I risk causing my system to freeze? If you're wondering, it's a separate (modern) audio card.

I think it is, but I just want to be sure. --Glaesisvellir (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - the MIDI interface is okay to disconnect while software is running. Are you sure your audio card connects to the PC via MIDI interface? It's unlikely - if the card supports MIDI, it probably connects to some external device (like an electric-piano keyboard). That part is safe to hot-swap. But the audio card itself probably connects to the PC using PCIe, or something like that. Removing the audio card while the system is running is less likely to be a stable option. Some external audio cards operate over USB, and are a little more resilient to unexpected disconnects - but I wouldn't recommend it. Nimur (talk) 07:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I was wondering about an external component, not the card itself (seeing as how it's PCI). --Glaesisvellir (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google tracking my web visits

A while back I saw Google's record of the web sites I had visited. I recall there was controversy about that. Is the information still available? If so, to whom? How do I find it? --Halcatalyst (talk) 02:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! Google enables you to keep track of your entire web history in one place. Dubbed "Web History" and available at google.com/psearch

Web History (Previously Google Search History / Personalized Search)
Web page tracking, which records Google searches, Web pages, images, videos, music and more. It also includes Bookmarks, search trends and item recommendations. Google released Search History in April 2005^{"From lost to found"}, and then expanded and renamed the service to Web History in April 2007 as it started to also record browsing history.^{"Your slice of the web"}

From List of Google products. You can read the privacy policy at http://www.google.com/searchhistory/privacy.html Ciao! Kushal (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see that my history goes back to 2007, when I bought this computer. I still have some questions about how the information might be used (by others). It seems that I access the history on this computer by signing into my Google account. What if I signed into the same account on another computer (not my own)? Would I be able to see the search history on that computer? --Halcatalyst (talk) 15:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you would. Your search history is tied to your Google account, not a specific computer — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 17:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmmm. But I would be seeing that computer user's search history, no? And would that history then become "my" history? --Halcatalyst (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you go to Google, right now, and click "sign out", you will no longer be storing any search history; as soon as you "sign in", you will be storing history to whichever account you've just signed into.

If you use someone else's computer, and they've left their browser signed into their Google account (presumably they don't mind you accessing their stuff!), then as far as Google is concerned it is them doing the searching, so yes it will be stored in their history. But if you sign out, and sign in as yourself, you won't be stealing any of their history, Google will just know that it's you browsing right now.

Does that help? - IMSoP (talk) 20:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that when I sign in, Google provides a check box to "Remember me on this computer for Web History." I take it then that I have access only to my history. I think I have it now. Thanks! --Halcatalyst (talk) 21:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Resetting Defaults

A while ago I installed a program that was titled something along the lines of "Seven Transformation Package" on my windows XP operating system, which was supposedly supposed to make my computer look more like Windows 7. Unfortunately, it was poorly designed and crashed halfway through the installation. When I tried to uninstall it it also crashed halfway through, so as a result, some of the remnants of the "transformation" are still left on my computer. They're all style changes, such as icon styles, bootscreen image differences, a change in the background image for the shutdown dialog, etc. They're tiny things and don't affect the way that the computer runs as a whole, but I'd like my computer to look like it looked like before I even bothered with the "Seven Transformation Package." I know there is something called "System Restore" but I do not have any restore points before that. I have no real experience with system restore, so I don't even know if something like that would fix this but I just wanted to say that first so I don't get suggestions for that, since I know it won't work. Also, I won't use backups because this happened so long ago, the amount of files I'd lose would be more of a disadvantage than the advantage of the nice aesthetic appeal of a regular Windows XP operating system. Anyway, my question is: is there any way to restore all the defaults of windows without losing any of your computer data, installed programs, files, etc.? If anyone has an idea or a solution, please reply. Thank you! :-) Yakeyglee (talk) 02:52, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can try a Repair Windows from your XP install CD. But it can cause a lot of problems if something goes wrong, so I don't recommend it unless you're having serious problems. It might be easier if you reinstalled the Seven Transformation Package and then uninstall it again. That might clear out the extra files, but if it's poorly written then, well, no guarantees. Indeterminate (talk) 05:57, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New speakers

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a total noob, but I had to replace my computer speakers because my cat bit through the speaker cable. I had speakers which came with the PC, they just say "FLC Presario Speaker system". They came with a light green plug which plugged into the back of the PC, and a USB plug which plugged into one of the USB ports on my PC. I bought Creative Inspire 245 speakers. They come with the same light green plug which I plugged into the back of the PC, and a power cord which I plugged into the same power jack which is powering my monitor, my PC and my printer, but I don't have any sound. I went to the device manager on Control Panel and clicked on "Sound, video and game controllers", but there is nothing listed for Creative or Inspire. Do I need to download a driver? Or what do I need to do to get my new speakers to work? Yes, the power is on on the speakers, and the volume is turned all the way up. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 03:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure the green cable is plugged into the right port on the back of the PC. You'll have at least 3 ports, maybe 6, and you might have to try each one until you get sound. Usually you want to plug it into the light green port that matches the plug. If you have an mp3 player or stereo sitting around, you can also try plugging the green speaker plug into its headphone port to make sure the speakers work. You don't need any new drivers for new speakers, only if you change your sound card in the computer. Indeterminate (talk) 05:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The cables are damaged and so you replace the speakers? Talk of the effluent society! Many years ago I went on a long vacation and somehow rats got in. As well as breaking into bags of cereal, eating virtually all, and pissing copiously, they had a great time chewing through cables (including those of my speakers). Luckily no rat was electrocuted. (Given the choice, I'll take the aroma of dried rat piss over that of decomposing rat corpse.) I replaced the cables and the speakers are even now working just fine. -- Hoary (talk) 13:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is an effluent society one that generates a lot of liquid sewage ? :-) I don't think you need to be affluent to replace speakers when the wires are damaged, you just need to have cheap speakers with wires that don't unplug. True, it is possible to splice in some new wires, but the average consumer isn't able to do this. StuRat (talk) 14:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced the speakers because the cable is hard wired to the back of the speaker. If I could have just replaced the cables, I would have. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an indicator light on the speakers ? Does it turn on ? Make sure all the connections are good, you might have to wiggle them to get them to work. Check the wires between the two (or three) speakers, too. You can also verify the volume settings on the PC to make sure all are at maximum and the "mute" check box is not checked. In addition, the application you are using to make sound may have it's own volume settings and/or mute box. StuRat (talk) 14:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I got them working. I fiddled with the "audio manager" settings. They were set by default to 2CH speaker. When I changed the setting to 4CH speaker, it worked. It may have something to do with the fact that the old speakers had the USB plug, I don't know, but anyway, now that it's 4CH, it's working. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Internet

On my desktop computer, whenever I start up the internet, it becomes unresponsive for about 3 minutes. I don't know what's causing the problem. I've tried a virus scan, but there are no results. So what's causing the problem and how can I fix it? Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 05:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean "start up the internet"? What actions does that involve. Are you running windows? What version. What method do you connect to the internet? Cable modem, dsl, dial up modem, other? Do you have wireless in your home? If it is, what is the brand of router you use, and what's that router physically connected to?

Let us know the answers to these questions and we might be able to provide some more specific advice. Shadowjams (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WinXP, and by start up the Internet, I mean double-clicking the Internet Explorer icon to have Internet Explorer come up. I don't know what metohd I use to connect to the Internet - I think it's cable modem. And no, I don't use wireless - at least not for my desktop computer. I do use it for my laptop - but I'm not talking about my laptop here. Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 05:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So your desktop is connected by an ethernet cord to something.... what is it connected to? I assume by unresponsive you mean it hangs. Or does it say "page cannot be displayed" (or something like that), and then if you refersh it a little bit later it works. Are you on a university network of some kind, or at a residential connection? Shadowjams (talk) 05:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By unresponsive, it freezes for about 3 minutes, then works again. If, by resedential connection, you mean at home, then yes. And my desktop is connected by an ethernet cord to a wall plug. Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 06:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is hard to diagnose without more information. Here's what I'd do for diagnostics: Try to use another program to connect to the internet while IE is failing. So maybe an instant messaging app, or even something as simple as ping (go to Start>Run>type in "cmd" hit enter, in the black window try "ping www.microsoft.com"). See if you get any internet connectivity while you're sure IE is down. If you do then I would suspect you have some sort of spyware or proxy setup in IE that's causing you problems. If you don't have a connection then you need to do more testing. The first question is if you have an IP address, and if you do, what is it (only post the first 2 sets of numbers, like 192.168.x.x if you want to preserve your anonymity). If your IP comes out to 169.x.x.x (with x being numbers) then you have a connectivity problem. Why that's resolving only after 3 minutes probably involves the network you're connected to, so you'll need to know through what method you're connected. Shadowjams (talk) 06:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Home PC connected directly to a wall plug? Sounds like dial-up to me. The delay could be the dialing to connect to the ISP. -- kainaw ™ 12:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of houses have ethernet jacks in the walls. APL (talk) 18:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Has the computer always had this problem or is it something that just recently developed? If it's recent, did you make any changes to any part of your system at around the same time? Install any new programs? Have you tried connecting the internet with any other programs besides Internet Explorer? For example, if you use Outlook Express or something similar to check your email, does it experience any problems? Does all of Internet Explorer seem to freeze up or just the page being loaded? For example, while it's frozen, can you still access the menus and buttons? If not, it could simply be a bad install of IE. Re-installing might help, as might switching to another browser, like Mozilla Firefox. We're asking a lot of questions here because there are literally dozens of different things that might be responsible. Matt Deres (talk) 23:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be suprised if it were some sort of spyware that was screwing up your system. Try scanning with something like Adaware. APL (talk) 18:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bridge connection question

So, I am runnining Ubuntu jaunty. It turns out that to connect to the machines at work I need to have XP. So, I installed a copy of XP on a virtual box. I was able to connect to the internet via NAT, but NAT is not good for VPN, since the virtual box does not have its own IP address. I tried port forwarding and that did not work. So, I tried bridging my ethernet connection so that both operating systems (host,ubuntu ; geust,XP) would receive an IP. I have, after many late nights, nothing to show for it. I manage to get br0 to work, but then network capability become non-existent in the virtual environment. Furthermore, when I have br0 working, my connection is not detected in Ubuntu, firestarter (firewall) complaints that there is no active connection, yet, I can browse the internet and "shields UP" (website where they test your firewall) shows my firewall as working... Has anyone succeeded in doing this? If so, what type of configuration worked out? Thanks in advance, Brusegadi (talk) 08:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vista sidebar gadget

On my Dell laptop, I run the Windows Vista (home premium edition) that came preinstalled. Soon after I got it,I made a minor modification to the default weather gadget on the sidebar, so that it would always start with my hometown rather than Redmond - in C:\Program Files\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\Weather.Gadget\en-US\js\localizedStrings.js I changed these 3 lines: L_localizedStrings_Text['DefaultCity'] = 'Redmond, WA'; L_localizedStrings_Text['DefaultLocationCode'] = 'wc:USWA0367'; L_localizedStrings_Text['DefaultUnit'] = 'Fahrenheit'; Everything was fine for a year or more. However, the other day, I noticed that the little "spanner" icon which enables me to change the weather location had disappeared (it was definitely there for a long while after my edit). If I close the weather gadget and then restart it, it still comes up with the weather for my hometown, but the spanner icon is still missing and I now cannot change the location when I am travelling. Any ideas how I might fix this, preferably without reinstalling Vista? Astronaut (talk) 10:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Wirelessness" with Dell Inspiron 1545

Hi, i recently had to reset my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1545) to its 'factory settings' and then reinstall Windows Vista, as you do. I have also been able to re setup my Belkin Wireless G Router and can now use the internet. However i have not been able to get my laptop to work wirelessly with the built in wirless 'thing' with the router, as i was able to do before. I have assumed i need what i believe to be called a 'driver' for the built in wireless thing, bu i dont know how to get it. A quick look on the Dell website has given me numerous options for download but i dont know what i want, can anyone help? :)

--84.66.153.11 (talk) 12:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please go into Device Manager (Start -> Control Panel -> System & Maintenance -> Device Manager, curse Vista!), find the model of your wireless card, and then come back here and tell us. If you know that information, here are all the network drivers (expand the "Network (6)" group) for your laptop. Xenon54 / talk / 13:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Im not really sure how to find the model of my wireless card. Under the 'network adapters' bit it says 'Marvel Yukon 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller' if that is it? --84.66.153.11 (talk) 13:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, Ethernet is a wired connection. Check in the other categories for something that says "WLAN" or "Wireless" or "Wi-Fi". Also, some laptops have a switch to turn Wi-Fi on or off...please check if that switch is on. Xenon54 / talk / 13:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There doesn't seem to be anything of that description. I do have a button that 'previously' did turn the wireless on and off, but that doesn't work or seem to make any difference anymore. In the part 'Other Devices' there is a 'network controller' which has a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it next to it. Is that anything. Also would it be worthwhile downloading all the Dell drivers in the 'network' section and see if that works? --84.66.153.11 (talk) 14:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "network controller" might be it. The yellow triangle indicates a problem - it doesn't necessarily have to be the driver, though. Since we can't determine which card you have, I would say to download all the drivers and see which one works. Xenon54 / talk / 14:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might check in the BIOS -- the computer's firmware, reached by hitting a key or combination of keys very quickly as you're invited to do immediately after the computer is reset -- to see whether wireless (or near-synonym) has been turned off. ¶ i recently had to reset my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1545) to its 'factory settings' and then reinstall Windows Vista, as you do Actually, no we don't. My own Dell 15-something had Windows for only a matter of minutes, till I zapped it in favor of Kubuntu (which has since worked perfectly well with the computer's wireless connector). No, don't worry, I'm not about to suggest that you dispense with Windows (an idea guaranteed to make some regulars on this page see red). However, this is one of the times when a bootable Linux CD could be handy. If you boot off, say, antiX and can get problematic hardware to work, then you know that you've had a software rather than a hardware problem. -- Hoary (talk) 21:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To narrow down the choices, you could visit the Dell support site for your country, then enter the Service Tag for your particular laptop (it is usually printed on a label attached on the bottom of the laptop, and contains 6 or 7 alphanumeric characters). Dell's support site should then let you download all the correct drivers for your particular laptop )assuming of course, you haven't upgraded something). Astronaut (talk) 08:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Using Internet Explorer, head to http://support.dell.com/, from there click System Configuration from the left menu under Product Support. Click on the Current System Configuration tab, then accept the terms of use. Once you have accepted, it will prompt you to install the an ActiveX control. Continue and allow it. Once it has installed and completed it's scan, you will be presented with a full list of hardware/software/etc that is currently installed in your computer. Terrapisces —Preceding undated comment added 15:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Basic Java Question

Could someone explain the difference between a local class and an non-static inner class? 66.133.196.152 (talk) 14:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the official documentation from Sun: Nested Classes. I think the word "local class" is being used generically to refer to all types of non-public classes - those which are defined in the same .java file. It's possible that it is also referring to in-line definitions - those which are defined "nested" inside another class or function definition. These Non-static inner-classes specifically refer to those which can be instantiated. Really, there's two questions here - what's the definition of "non-static"; and what's the difference between "local" and "nested inner class"?

To really get going, you need to thoroughly understand instances and the "static" keyword. In Java, "static" means that a variable or function can be used even without instantiating a particular object of the class. The values of static variables are the same across all members of the same class. Anything can be static or non-static - variables, functions, and even inner classes.

Now that you get "static" - on to "local" vs. "nested" classes. Inner classes can be defined and used conventionally (with instances; or statically - which means you access it with the class-name, but never instantiate it; or anonymously, which means that you can have and use instances of classes which have no names. Here's some pseudo-code to demonstrate the difference:

Source code example

public class OuterClass{
  /* I can define an inner class  inside the outer class */
  class InnerClass {
    private int counter;

    public static int computeSomething()          { return 2 + 2;     }
    public        int computeSomethingNonStatic() { return counter++; }
    }  // End of Inner Class definition 
   

  // Code for Outer Class ...
  public someFunction() {
     /* First I will use a Local Inner Class */
     OuterClass.InnerClass inst = new OuterClass.InnerClass(); // instantiate a local class
     OuterClass.InnerClass.computeSomething();                 // I can use static functions
     inst.computeSomethingNonStatic();                         // ...and non-static functions

     /* Now I will define a nested class, anonymously */
     JButton j = new JButton();
     j.addActionListener(    new ActionListener(){ // This is the start of a class definition - inside a function call!
             // Here I'm defining a nested inner class (and an anonymous one, too)
             // (I should make this a valid ActionListener or this code won't compile)
           });
     }
}

I think my local class is pretty straightforward - it's just like a regular class, except that it's intended for use that's compartmentalized inside the OuterClass. You can see how static or non-static features of such a class might be used.

The nested class is a bit trickier. I instantiated it anonymously (without a handle) and then defined it during instantiation - creating a new, anonynmous, nested local class. We now have neither a handle to the instance, nor any way of naming the class definition, of this new ActionListener. Its definition is intended for this local usage only - so I nested it inside my function. The actual definitions of its functions are floating around in memory somewhere though - so when the JButton I assigned it to needs to call its methods, it knows how to find their definitions. Also note that this class, even though it has no name, is still non-static - I needed to instantiate one with a "new" keyword.

Hopefully this has helped clarify. In practice, nested classes almost always implement some standard interface - so other code can use them. There isn't much use for a nested class without an interface - because nobody can see its methods (the definition is locally scoped)! Again, the official Java tutorials might be very handy; and playing around with a few examples is a good idea too. Nimur (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adobe Flash Player/Firefox timeout setting

I'm using FireFox 2.0.0.20 (yes, I know it's out of date) and I allowed Adobe Flash Player to upgrade itself to Version 9 the other day. Since then, I've been frequently getting an error box "A script on this page is causing Adobe Flash Player to run slowly. Do you want to abort it?" (or words to that effect). Is it possible to increase the delay before this message is displayed (it seems to be about 20 seconds at the moment)? Tevildo (talk) 16:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article, "The timeout of this alert cannot be altered, however, 15 seconds is about as long as one might want to wait for an application to become responsive." Basically the article says that this can't be modified, and recommends that Flash programmers themselves optimize their code to avoid it.

Is it all Flash files that do it, or just one page? There's a question as to whether it's one bad SWF or if it's all of them.

In any case, using an outdated browser with a new plug-in is a recipe for trouble... --Mr.98 (talk) 17:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It happens with most of the embedded videos on the BBC website. If it's not variable, then I'll just have to live with it until my normal machine is feeling a bit healthier. You'd have thought that a simple "Show this message again?" checkbox would be an option, but - these are the breaks. Thanks anyway. Tevildo (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you have AdBlock, you may be blocking advertisements from their media server. Some (but not all) BBC News videos require the advertisement to be viewed, or the main video will not play. Nimur (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The videos are _playing_ OK, I'm just getting the timeout message while they start. It's not a critical issue. Tevildo (talk) 19:28, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update script

Would it be possible to write a script in greasemonkey that would automatically update a web page every 5 minuets and load any changes to the page (text, images etc), and automatically stop updating if the script detected the page no longer existed (404 error)?

Yes, that would be possible. --Sean 15:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! How exactly would I do it, I've looked at userscripts.com and I can't find any so I assumed it couldn't be done

Well, that's a very specific request, so you're unlikely to find it pre-canned. You'll probably either have to code it yourself or convince someone else to do so. If you want to try doing it yourself there are many free Javascript tutorials on the web, and you can always come back here if you get stuck. --Sean 19:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Study Question

Dear, am an IT student from london and I need your advices ,I would like to know the best to study at moment between lunx (red hat)certificate and Mcse (microsoft certify system engeneer) Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skyese55 (talk • contribs)

First, define "best". Until we know what you mean by "best", we can't give you any references on the matter. -- kainaw ™ 21:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before you certify, you might want to check the proper spelling of linux and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. We also have an article on the Red Hat Certification Program. These articles might point you in the right direction. Nimur (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

indenting on word 2002

How do I Make it where the first line of each entry is at the left margin: extra lines are indented 0.5Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 22:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You go to Format --> Paragraph and click on the drop-down box under Special. Then, you select Hanging and enter 0.5 to the right of it.--Drknkn (talk) 22:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ctrl-T is your friend --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

September 28

Safari vs. Google Chrome

Is Apple's claim that Safari is the fastest web browser true? Is it faster than Google Chrome, which claims to be faster than Safari? Intelligentsium 00:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On my system (Vista Home Premium), Chrome is by far faster than Safari. Having said that, K-Meleon is way faster than both of them. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The tests I've seen online put Safari and Chrome neck-and-neck. Of course, mileage will vary from system to system. On mine, Safari 4 is way, way slower at rendering than Safari 3, which is sad. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm under the impression that the most recent Google announcement about the speed of Chrome was mostly or entirely based on JavaScript performance rather than whole-browser benchmarks. Tempshill (talk) 03:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are very many variables. Yes, on my sole surviving Windows antique, K-meleon runs a lot faster than Safari (though the latter is burdened with a couple of plug-ins) and about as fast as an old version of Opera. -- Hoary (talk) 03:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

google rulez!

by: Mc.X.man

Window/ Dialog box cut off at right side and bottom

The windows/dialog boxes of some programs get cut off at their right sides and bottoms on my computer. The windows/dialog boxes (sorry, not sure which is the correct term here) are displayed relatively small. They don't allow scrolling (as if that were cut off as well) nor resizing. As a result, the program becomes impossible to use because I can't access some of the buttons, menus, etc.

Most recently, it happened when I installed HotRecorder (window/dialog box in the size of the typical small Windows boxes "Do you really want to... - Yes / Cancel"), but I had experienced it before with another program (probably some media player like QuickTime... the window/dialog box was larger, but other than that same story).

I'm using Dell's Windows XP version. I've tried different dpi settings, but at least with Hotrecorder there was no change.

Thanks so much for all recommendations!! --Thanks for answering (talk) 01:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you take a screenshot (hit the Print Screen button on your keyboard, then run the Paint program in the Start menu's "Accessories" folder, then Paste, then save) and upload it to Flickr for us to look at? It vaguely sounds like you have some sort of Theme installed that's operating badly. Tempshill (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recording Yahoo Messenger Voice calls / conversations

Which program allows me to record a phone call via Yahoo Messenger (i.e. my voice and the other party's voice) for free and even if I call a landline? I wanted to try HotRecorder, but don't get it working so far (see post above). I haven't yet seen another free program, but I'm sure there must be one?! [BTW, I'd prefer mp3 or wav files... but I'll rather have any program... :o)] --Thanks for answering (talk) 01:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YMMV but Audacity (software) could be just the thing for you. Kushal (talk) 09:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is any web search engine that let me search more than 32 words??

I was trying to search this: site:pandora.com "Features Of This" -"extensive vamping" -"minor key tonality" -"age influences" -"ambient soundscapes" -"instrumental arrangement" -"wet recording sound" -"major key tonality" -"repetitive melodic phrasing" -"unsyncopated ensemble rhythms" -"slow moving bass" -"mellow sounds" -"mild rhythmic syncopation" -"vocal-centric aesthetic" -"gravelly male vocalist" -"light synth fx" -"prominent use of synth" -"affected synths" on google, but google dont let me search more than 32 words.

There is any web search engine that let me seach more than 32 words???
PS: as you saw in the search, the web search engine needs to be able to have something like the -InsertWordHere syntax on google, something like the "insert word here" syntax on google, and the site:InsertWebSiteHere syntax.
PS: This search is not complete and i will add more words to the search when doing the search on the web search engine.

If no one comes along and answers your question you might consider just downloading all of the site you're interested in (see wget) and do the searching locally, where you could do whatever you want. --Sean 15:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Software for side notes

How can I write side notes on pdf docs and similar stuff. Of course, I could always tell people to go to page x and look at the end of third line of the second paragraph. But this is kind of clumsy, isn't it?--Quest09 (talk) 16:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adobe Acrobat allows revision, review, and change tracking, but it is not free software. Nimur (talk) 17:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft Word 2007 does, too, for its .doc and .docx files. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

... but you need to convert .pdf to .doc first. For some pdf files, the only way is to print, then scan with OCR. Dbfirs 20:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Preview for OS X allows limited annotation ability. See List of PDF software. Unfortunately we don't have one of those big "comparison" tables for PDF readers that specify which ones allow you to annotate. Unfortunately, the whole PDF reader field is one of fairly slim pickings, with the stuff you'd really like them to be able to do usually bundled in either for-pay suites (like Acrobat) or as a bunch of cryptic command-line programs. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For windows PDF X-Change viewer has a very usable free version (I use it as my primary PDF viewer) which supports annotation.194.164.140.216 (talk) 12:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Turing test for virtual reality

Is it possible to make a picture so realistic that it will convince a human that it is real? For example, showing him a picture of a landscape and telling him it is a window.--Quest09 (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sticking a picture or CGI image on the wall would never work, because we can tell the difference between photos (perfectly realistic images) and windows. To do this, a computer program would have to take account of exactly where a person was relative to the picture, and update the position, lighting etc. of the image, as well as activity so the picture doesn't appear static and so on. It would be extremely difficult, but it's possible, yeah. Give it a few (lots of) years, and who knows? Ale_Jrb ^talk 16:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perspective could be dynamically adjusted to account for the viewer's position - Head-related transfer function describes this for sound, and it has been experimented with for video. But - if you have a room with multiple people in it - a 2D display cannot correctly model the 3D perspective for each person (who has a different view angle and position). Nimur (talk) 17:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly possible to add head-tracking to a computer screen and make it "window-like" in the sense that if you move your head to one side you get a slightly different perception.

But it's not really possible to create one that would fool a person (With reasonable eyesight). The technology just isn't there and the difference would be obvious for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that he would probably be wearing some sort of headgear to create the needed stereo effect. 72.10.110.109 (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover, when you move your eyeballs, you see from a slightly different angle; I expect that it would be significantly harder for the computer to adjust for eyeball movement than for head movement. Nyttend (talk) 19:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(What does this have to do with a Turing test?) The biggest problem here is less the rendering of the scene (which could be done with enough hardware and good choices over what to render), but the fact that monitors aren't anything so powerful and detailed as a real simulation of reality would need. They just don't have the necessary density or brightness to really look like even indoor lighting (much less outdoor). I don't think it's just something you can "scale up" from existing technologies, either—putting a more powerful backlight would probably still not make things look realistic, and would potentially introduce new problems as well (e.g., you'd probably start to cut into how "dark" your darknesses could be). Monitors and screens just don't have anything like the color and brightness depths of reality; you would have to have pretty poor vision to be fooled easily.

That being said, with controlled conditions, you can make a pretty convincing illusion. I'm thinking of simulator rides. When I was a kid, I was totally blown away by the "Star Tours" ride at Disneyland, and was thoroughly convinced that somehow it was actually blasting around different environments. (Granted, I was a young kid, and wanted to believe. But you didn't discount either!) That was accomplished by playing a movie in an environment meant to make you feel it was a window; with the right coordination of movement and sound effects and things of that nature, it can be a compelling effect. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a real Turing test, but it is analogous to a it. In a Turing test, the machine passes if the human is not able to tell the difference between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence. In my speculative version, the picture passes, if the human is not able to tell the difference between artificial pictures and natural pictures. 80.58.205.37 (talk) 14:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have worked on laser-rendered graphics systems for flight simulation that had more resolution than the human eye - so much brightness that staring into the simulated sun hurt your eyes. For that system we projected the image onto the inside of a 30 foot 360 degree dome - which is far enough away that the usual problems of depth perception and field of view were a non-issue. However, our graphics weren't (then) good enough to have people confuse our images with reality for anything but the most simple scene (eg, we could paste a satellite photo onto the ground - a photo of real clouds onto the sky - and put the simulated viewpoint so high in the air in the virtual world that you couldn't see that things like buildings were not truly 3-dimensional). That's about as close to "real" as I've seen from a display system. For the actual graphics themselves, I think there are plenty of games out there that are hard to distinguish from reality in still images - many car racing and sport simulations have such constrained environments that the graphics system has plenty of horsepower to make it look real. Some of the publicity shots for the Crysis game engine showed side-by-side still images of scenes from a real pacific island and the one in the game - and in many cases, it would take a trained eye to pick the real from the simulated. The graphics in many movies are similarly impossible to distinguish from reality - but they can't produce their pictures in 'realtime'. Even the best 'real-time' graphics tend to give themselves away when things start moving. Every year we get closer though...I think that if someone wanted to pass a graphical 'Turing test' - it could be done. SteveBaker (talk) 03:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is not possible, but then again, some real visual fields of view don't seem real. You have to compare visual perception that contains all the cues of stark reality to anything created as mimicry of that to find the shortcomings of the imitation. Bus stop (talk) 04:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Search term request

I'm looking for search terms to help locate papers on a new topic that I want to learn more about. The best I can explain it is with a pathetic example. You run an online movie rental service. You have the basic "if you like A, you may like B, C, or D" based on actions of other users. You want to take it one step further. "After you watch A, you probably want to watch B, C, or D". The new version simply adds an ordering to it. That is my interest. I want to read about adding an ordering to the common "you may like" search heuristic. -- kainaw ™ 17:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article may help as it seems to be about what you mean http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8268287.stm 89.242.159.115 (talk) 21:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Automated recommendation"? This phrase has taken off with startup companies and has been featured on StackOverflow and Wired Magazine. Nimur (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I've been looking through a lot of papers on automated recommendation. I've found a few (very few) mentions of placing the recommendations in a sequential order. For example, if you select A, you may want B. However, if you select B, you may not want A. That is because the algorithm understands that B follows A, but A does not follow B. -- kainaw ™ 00:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History glitch in Internet Explorer 8?

More detail is here.[1] and [2]

In summary, I tried to go back, while on Wikipedia, and ended up where I had already been, again and again.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another example: I saw some information about WGTM on a message board. I went to that station's article from a Help Desk archive page. I edited the article based just on what was already there, mainly adding links, and making inconsistent details consistent. I checked Hurricane Hazel to make sure that was the name of the article. When I went back to where I was, I went to WGTM first, then Hurricane Hazel, then the Help Desk archive page. That's backwards.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Purchasing an Ethernet cable

I live in an apartment, and I have my PC set up on a desk in my bedroom. There is no way to connect to the Internet in my bedroom, so I would like to purchase an Ethernet cable to connect the PC to the router. (No wireless capability, and not that interested in pursuing it.) Where is the best place to buy an Ethernet cable that would be between 25 feet and 50 feet long? I'm wary of electronics stores that may gouge me. I searched on Newegg, but I could not seem to find what I wanted there. Any suggestions? (I'm in the US.) 129.42.208.178 (talk) 18:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You could try Best buy.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 19:03, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised Newegg didn't have anything. I share your concerns of gouging (and Best Buy will certainly do that), but I figure that shipping will eat up most of the savings you'd have made online. My advice would be to check for an independent computer parts store in your area. My local place, for instance, charges $10-$15 for a 50-foot ethernet cable, as contrasted with $40 at Best Buy. — Lomn 19:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, Newegg does have such cables. They're under "Networking" instead of "Computer hardware", which may be why you didn't spot them. 50 foot cables appear to be in the $7 to $10 range. Throw in $7 for shipping and the price is on par with my local place, except I don't have to wait three days on the local place. — Lomn 19:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Best Buy's components are all very overpriced in my experience. Use Newegg as a price guide and then call around to your local electronics stores. The first question they will ask is the length of cable, and the second question is: Cat5, Cat5e, or Cat6? (Cat6 is overdoing it for you.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend Monoprice for all sorts of cables. Cat 5e cable will set you back $2.55 for 25 feet, or $4.33 for 50 feet, plus shipping. I just ordered a batch of assorted AV & network cables from them, and the build quality is uniformly good. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Making a video

I have some sets of 24-bit bitmaps that I wish to concatenate into a video. Some sets are 800x600 pixels, others are 770x700 pixels. The sets range in size from 500 bitmaps to 7500. The bitmaps are labeled "frame####.bmp", with #### being an integer ranging continuously from 0001 to the end of the set of bitmaps. These labels are in the order I wish to concatenate them (i.e., I want frame0001.bmp to come first, then frame0002.bmp, etc.) The output video should retain the 24-bit colorspace and be in the .mov, .qt, .wmv, .mpg, or .mpeg format. Considering that I run Windows XP, are there any freely-available programs I can use to do this? --Lucas Brown 42 19:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

FFMpeg can do this:

ffmpeg -f image2 -i frame%04d.bmp my-movie.mpg

--Sean 19:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Umm... Is it possible to download a binary file? I'm not that adept with this stuff yet. --72.197.202.36 (talk) 20:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Googling "ffmpeg binary" suggests this unofficial builds page. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try here for some unofficial builds (binaries). But yeah, it's a pain you can't just download pre-compiled binaries a little easier! Most of the free-software types have a pretty limited view of who will use their software... even if you do know how to compile things from scratch, it's a terrible pain to get everything working right that way. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, look at the diffs on our edits. Somehow, neither of us got an edit conflict. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is not that the authors refuse to make binaries. They just don't have the need to do so. There are a lot of open source projects that have a lot of Linux users and very few Windows users. The Linux package managers handle the binaries, not the authors of the project. Since Windows is not package-based, there is no package manager to make binaries for it. That is why I've argued for many years that someone needs to make a Windows package system (like APT or YUM) for Windows users. Then, Windows users can open it, search for ffmpeg, locate the package, and click "install". When the package is updated, they get a systray notice and easily upgrade the binary. -- kainaw ™ 03:23, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can also do this with the inbuilt Windows Movie Maker, albeit with restrictions about how long each image is displayed. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Studies of WP vandalism

I'm aware that studies have been done to check the percentage of articles that are in a vandalised state at any given period of time, the frequency of vandalism, etc. However, has anyone (whether Wikipedians or academics) tried to determine the longest that an article has remained in a vandalised state? I've just discovered that an article on my watchlist for two years was vandalised five years ago, and I only discovered it because someone else finally detected the vandalism today. Nyttend (talk) 19:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The signpost did a feature on vandalism survival times, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-06-22/Vandalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 12:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My Yahoo email nightmare continues

Of course, no one has bothered to respond. They didn't respond quickly when it was an emergency, meaning a password problem.

For this, they are just showing they don't care and they'll be lucky if I ever decide to use the service again.

More about this is here.[3]

What just happened was that I went to Yahoo email while working on something else, then tried to go back to what I was doing--which I couldn't! When I tried I got a big yellow error message.

Then the folders disappeared.

The yellow triangle appeared in the lower left corner. Line 10, char. 17037.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was finally successful in clicking on the "Error Code 21" message. Which normally disappears as whatever's on the screen is replaced by something that shouldn't be there. This gave me the screen for Error Codes 14 through 17, NOT 21. This is to be expected from people this incompetent.

I was successful also in getting back to the "beginning", thogh it skipped over what I've been working on all afternoon. More here. [4]Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:56, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Time to switch to GMail instead. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep I'm sorry too, but I'm not sure there is much we can actually do when the program supplied is screwing up - from your previous problems I'd suggest trying Safari web broswer, and maybe getting your mail through windows live mail which seems fairly stable. Both are free. Sometimes a change is the best solution.83.100.251.196 (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm NOT changing browsers.

And I don't like certain things about Gmail either. I've had Windows Live Mail the longest and thanks to recent changes I try not to use it. Furthermore, the computer came with a Yahoo toolbar.

I have actually told the Yahoo people to read what is here.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Signing off Wikipedia until Wednesday. Internet Explorer and this computer seem to have done very well for me. When it works, Yahoo does pretty much everything I want except for the text being too narrow when I print or try to copy and paste. This wastes space on printouts and causes other problems. Other than that, I have been happy until recently.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't resist the temptation to come back when I didn't really have the time. Okay, one thing I forgot to mention yesterday. It's only the back button that's a problem now. I had no problems with composing an email that I started at 1:00 and sent to myself four hours later. The problem was going to Yahoo from another window and not being able to back out. Maybe Yahoo will respond to that issue.

Of all the services I've tried, only Fastmail seems close to perfect, but my storage has about filled up.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I was told Java might be the problem. I installed the Java update that I've been nagged to install for at least a week. I am always reluctant to install anything since I've had to do system restore twice. I don't recall anything messing up the coimputer in a way that didn't require that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm NOT changing browsers.' Why not? It's not as they cost anything. I have about five browsers on this one computer, a similarly wide set on others. -- Hoary (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like the new and strange. I like the comfortable and familiar. For years that's what Yahoo was. Things seem to have improved and I can probably adapt to the rest, thought they really should fix the last problem.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's little that's strange about other browsers, and what little there is that is strange is usually the result of cosmetic options that can be turned off. -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

String as linked list in .NET

In the .NET Framework, what classes if any implement a text string as a linked list of characters? Neon Merlin [5] 20:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't worked with the .NET Framework much recently, but I don't think that such a class exists. If you need an efficient dynamically-expandable string, use a StringBuilder, which implements a string as an array list. If you just need a linked list of characters, use... a linked list of characters. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:03, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're describing a kind of trie, which is pretty esoteric and unlikely to be built in. Googling for "c# trie" gives some implementations. --Sean 01:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends how exactly you mean "a linked list of characters". If you just mean a set of characters, one after the other, then this accurately describes a string, from the System.String class. If you really mean a linked list, then the most recent version of .Net includes a generic collection called LinkedList<T> which you could instantiate with chars. It wouldn't really be worth doing, but it would be possible. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A good web-application builder?

Can anyone recommend a good online app-builder for a beginner-to-moderately-experienced developer?

I have been looking for an application for some time that combines some of the features of a task manager, a time-tracker, and a motivator. I can see in my mind exactly what I want this site to look like, but none of the applications I've seen online fit the bill. So I figured I'd write my own. However, my knowledge of data-base-backed web programming with nice UI is limited (I know some php, some ruby, less rails), and I'm looking for a good product that can use to get some demo-ware out quickly. I heard that Coghead was a good app-building application, but it's dead now.

Any thoughts? Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

computer -- suggestion

It would be useful to have somewhere (if it is, sorry that I didn't find it) a TABLE. Link to which I come when I look i.e. for Megabytes / gigabytes. I.e. to find out 4.38GB CD is space for how many and how long songs ? [As a USEFUL tool for the people who are still not so squilled about making the operations themselves :-) ]. thank you very much. jsyh

This is difficult. Not only are songs of different lengths, but there are different encodings. You could have a dozen different two minutes mp3s and each of them could have a different file-size.

Furthermore, not all songs are stored in MP3s. You might have them in OGG or FLAC format, or some proprietary Microsoft or Apple format.

All that said, If you count on 16hours per GB, you're probably safe, and will probably have space left over. APL (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes for numbers - mp3 songs vary from 64kbps to 320kbps a difference of 5 times.83.100.251.196 (talk) 22:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Look for a FIRST-GLANCE CLEAR SET bytes CONVERTING TABLE KB-MB-GB-TB [computer -- suggestion]

Multiple-byte units

Decimal
Value		Metric
1000	kB	kilobyte
1000²	MB	megabyte
1000³	GB	gigabyte
1000⁴	TB	terabyte
1000⁵	PB	petabyte
1000⁶	EB	exabyte
1000⁷	ZB	zettabyte
1000⁸	YB	yottabyte
1000⁹	RB	ronnabyte
1000¹⁰	QB	quettabyte

Binary
Value		IEC		Memory
1024	KiB	kibibyte	KB	kilobyte
1024²	MiB	mebibyte	MB	megabyte
1024³	GiB	gibibyte	GB	gigabyte
1024⁴	TiB	tebibyte	TB	terabyte
1024⁵	PiB	pebibyte	–
1024⁶	EiB	exbibyte	–
1024⁷	ZiB	zebibyte	–
1024⁸	YiB	yobibyte	–
1024⁹	–		–
1024¹⁰	–		–

Orders of magnitude of data

It would be useful to have somewhere (if it is, sorry that I didn't find it) >> a TABLE as a USEFUL tool :-) -- Even to which one is led by any Link from Google-search: "Megabytes", or so typed, leading to that Table which is built/looks like "a chess-board" where one can find all necessary information/conversions even though he has not the technical and mathematical know-how --> for Megabytes / Gigabytes/&co. I.e. to find out 4.38GB CD is space for how many and how long songs ? Thank you very much. jsyh

The problem you will run into is that a song is not a measurement of disk space. The length of a song (in minutes) is not a measurement of disk space. So, you cannot convert disk space to time. You cannot convert disk space to number of songs. This is similar to me asking you to tell me how many boxes I can put in my car. All you can do is make a guess at the average size of a box to try and make a guess at the answer. Then, since your answer won't be exact, I'll complain. If I were to make a guess at how much disk space each and every one of your songs requires, and then guess at which ones you want to put on a disk, and then guess at how many will fit, I will end up with nothing more than a wild guess. It won't be accurate. You will complain. -- kainaw ™ 03:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Kainaw. My MP3 music files vary from just over 1MB to nearly 9MB. MP3 is compressed data, and you can choose your compression (sacrificing quality). Normal HiFi CD format takes up much more space (perhaps 40 or 50MB per 3-minute track, but it varies). As an average for MP3 files, you could reckon on 1MB per minute (compared with 10MB per minute for full CD quality), but it varies. By the way, my CDs are only 700MB. Perhaps you meant DVD? (4380MB) Dbfirs 03:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The OP just wants to convert between bytes and megabytes, they might find this table useful. Nimur (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

share of CMOS in computer booting119.152.28.135 (talk) 22:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

what kind of information a CMOS(used in computers)stores? forexample there is port for keyboard,and there is a keyboard atatched already to it.now i reboot my pc,as pc wakes up ,does this cmos will have information about new pc keyboard,its model ,(posibly)its driver,OR it simply will have just a mere info that "there is port for keyboard at this location go and detect it"?

In theory it could, but in most operating systems, information on drivers to be loaded is stored in initialisation files (the registry in windows) stored on the bootable hard drive. The CMOS often contains information on which drive to go to for boot files. See our article on Bootstrap loader. Systems with fixed keyboards can store the driver in ROM. (My knowledge of operating systems is out of date, so perhaps an expert can tell us if some modern sytems store keyboard information in CMOS? ) Dbfirs 02:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most modern BIOSes have support for USB HID devices - meaning mouses and keyboards. In theory, they can query the manufacturer's ID and model numbers with this protocol; but the USB HID standard provides a standard, reduced set of features that is independent of any manufacturer's specific implementation - so it should never be necessary. For mouse or keyboard connected over PS/2 port, it is fairly unlikely that there is any metadata about the keyboard model provided to either CMOS or even the full-blown operating-system driver. A proprietary driver might be able to override this limitation. Nimur (talk) 11:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can Python do database things easily?

I'm considering learning a free clone of Clipper (programming language). But a Python tutorial I looked at suggests that Python is easier to learn than I thought. Would Python be able to do database things easily? Can it do old fashioned database things like searching or sorting records? 89.242.159.115 (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it can do string-processing very well, which is worth a lot in data processing applications. Here's a nice reference on Writing MySQL Scripts with Python. In some incarnations, the database access is nothing but a wrapper for SQL statements; but there are other features as well. Nimur (talk) 23:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which mainstream languages are the most compact?

Looking at this comparison of computer languages, http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/abc.html it seems that BASIC is much more compact (ie requires the least amount of code) than the other languages I looked at. I like compact languages. Which mainstream computer languages are the most compact? 89.242.159.115 (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on the application. I'm a fan of Python (programming language) myself but if you did lots of matrix work you might like APL (programming language) and you might like something completely different for analyzing natural language or for producing diagrams or interrogating a database. Dmcq (talk) 23:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends highly on your application. For example, MATLAB can very succinctly represent a matrix inverse calculation; but it is very verbose at string concatenation, compared to, say, php. Nimur (talk) 23:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Twenty-five years ago I used a sophisticated timetabling programme written in abbreviated BBC Basic (mixed with machine code) and it all fitted into 32KB of memory (Yes, I do mean 32 x 1024 bytes). It was the most condensed coding I have ever seen, fitting many commands into each line. (called "T-squared" if anyone recalls it) Is Cobol at the other extreme? Dbfirs 01:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For languages that actually use words rather than just symbols (sorry, APL fans), I'd suggest that the stack-based or concatenative languages, such as Forth and Factor, are some of the most concise. This is because they strongly encourage turning any repeated code into its own function. Stack-based languages aren't so widely used for applications programming, but your office printer probably uses one (PostScript), as do Sun SPARC, Mac PowerPC, and OLPC XO-1 computers in their boot firmware (Open Firmware). --FOo (talk) 09:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is some confusion in the definition of "compactness" that respondants are assuming here. Compactness of source code - and compactness of run-time representation are not the same thing at all. BASIC can be a very compact run-time language because it's interpreted and most implementations 'tokenize' the input stream to get rid of spaces and to squish reserved words down to a single byte. I suspect that Forth (programming language) could come close.

But the source code of BASIC is only small for the crudest of applications - it's a very crude/simple language with very little 'power'. Almost any C-like language will annihilate BASIC in a contest of source-code size (before anyone thinks to object to that statement - I recommend they look at the IOCCC entries (The rules require programs to have at most 2048 characters of source code in the C language. In the 2007 contest, one of the winners was a chess playing program! You couldn't come close to programming Chess in 2k characters in BASIC!!).

I agree that APL (which is indistinguishable from transmission-line noise to most people) is amazingly compact - you can say a lot with a very small number of source code characters - but the trouble with APL is that it's rather specialised for mathematical operations. For 'general-purpose' languages - I'd probably guess Python or maybe Perl would win the competition.

However, any experienced programmer worth a damn in the business will tell you that source-code compactness is quite utterly irrelevent - the more compact it is - the more incomprehensible it'll be when you come back to it months or years later. APL has been justifiably described as a "Write-only language"...Perl has been accused of the same thing. I've been a programmer for close to 40 years now - I earn a small fortune doing it (I'm a game programmer) - and I like my programs to be verbose and clear...CRYSTAL clear. Clarity and legibility are by far the most important thing if you want code that actually works - and stays working.

Compact source code only ever mattered for those few years when teeny-tiny microcomputers had less than 4k bytes of memory - that was the last time when BASIC was a good choice for ANYTHING! So - forget BASIC - pick a language with the power to do what you need - and, if possible, pick one with lots of runtime efficiency.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in principle with everything - especially the parts about verbose and clear code. I deal with a lot of "numerical kernel" code - written by physicists and applied-math types - and they love single-letter variables, function-pointers, and GOTOs - things that should have died two generations ago. It's impossible to read - regardless of how compact it is. I believe it stems from a misconception that long variable-names somehow generate less-efficient compiled code. This is categorically not true. Variable name lengths (and in many cases, compactness of source-code) are not related to efficiency of code in either the size of the binary or the execution time. In fact, more verbose code styles can often be optimized by intelligent compilers better than hand-tweaked stuff (depending on a lot of confounding factors). Finally, I would just note that (although I am not a VB programmer), Visual Basic is a very modernized version of BASIC; and it is used by a huge number of applications-programmers. I don't think it's any less efficient than, say, Visual C++ or Visual C#; (nowadays they all use the same back-end compiler and runtime environment). Personally, I espouse Java for as much as possible; and pure C whenever real speed or hardware access is needed; but these are more for reasons of readability, maintainability, simplicity, and portability. Code compactness (either measured by source-code size or binary size) is about as low on my list of priorities as you can get when choosing a project implementation language. Nimur (talk) 04:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're incorrect about variable name lengths not affecting binary sizes, at least with all the ABIs I've ever worked with. External variables have their names stored in the binary (as-is for C, mangled for C++ and others). I do agree that variable name length has no meaningful effect on efficiency, but it's not zero. --Sean 14:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Er, unless you strip them. --Sean 21:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of people's opinions of whether they like compactness or not, the OP said he likes it, and some of the reasons for writing compact code are steeped in pride and pleasure. Many moons ago I created a .COM program in DOS (ah the good old days when dot-coms meant something else) to generate prime numbers - and the entire program fitted into 38 bytes, something which I was proud of at the time. Then I fiddled around with writing efficient sprite handlers in assembly and found that there was an entire community that thought in the same way - the cult-like demo community that has its roots in the good old days of the home computer back in the early eighties. Demo writing is still strong and people pride themselves in writing compact code to do as much as possible, and they come together at parties to showcase their talents and hard work. The OP can check some of these efforts at pouet.net. Look at some of the 1K entries; lots of them have code included. You won't find BASIC here though; it will be mainly assembly and some C code. It's pretty amazing what can be done in 1K or 4K; there are even some brilliant demos that fit into 64 bytes! Sandman30s (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no time for "demo" writers. They are generally hopeless practical programmers and produce nothing of any real value. It's an exercise in egotism that doesn't impress "real" programmers in the slightest. Sure, you can build some horrible piece of code that does something fancy - but what they produce is completely and utterly useless. It can't even generally be re-used for something important. The big difference with producing a "demo" and writing real code is that you are under no constraints in writing your demo. If something is too difficult - you don't have to do it. When writing real code - if some particular effect has to be produced - you have to find a way to do it - period. With demo writing, you can change what you produce to fit your ability to do it - that removes all of the sources of difficulty - and actually eliminates the real challenge. Demo's - however superficially clever - are deeply unimpressive to most professional programmers. Produce (for example) a playable game - that's fun, bug-free, looks good and runs fast with clear, readable code - and THEN you've actually achieved something. Produce that same thing with code that can be re-used to produce your next game - or handed off to someone else to maintain and expand upon - and you can consider yourself to have done a good job. I can't count the number of people who send these silly "demo" programs in with their resume's when applying for programming jobs in the games industry...we don't run them - we don't even look at them - they tell us nothing about how good a practical programmer this person is. It's about as relevant as whether they are good at doing crosswords. Being a habitual "demo" programmer is a negative when seeking a paying job because it implies that kind of hackish mentality that makes the person produce really crap code that nobody else can work with - and the last thing you want when you're down to the wire, finding the last bugs as shipping deadlines loom - is to discover that someone wrote something in the "demo" style - and it's quicker to toss it out and rewrite it clearly than it is to fix it. That's not to say that you shouldn't try to write compact code - but compact-when-compiled, not compact in terms of source code size.

The game I'm working on right now contains a little over a million lines of code. There are about a dozen programmers working on it - so we each have to work with a good 100,000 lines of code. If it's not clearly written, that's a nightmare.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a huge community of demo writers who would take offense at this. You make it seem that writing a game is about the only 'professional' thing that can be done; a case of blowing your own trumpet it seems. Lots of demo writers are students who do this in their spare time while studying to do the more commercial stuff like write commercial games and applications and any number of more 'useful' things. That doesn't mean to say that demo writing is not useful; 3dmark is a commercial demo that comes to mind. They've worked in collaboration with demo writers to create efficient code in awesome demos over the years. These demos are used in shop windows for example to showcase the power of that spanking new graphics card, or used to benchmark and compare PC's around the world, with graphics companies buying advertising space in the setup screens. Remember also that it takes a talented team to make a really great demo, such as the unreal series. Some of the musicians have gone on to successful music careers just by advertising their talents in widely spread demos. Some demo groups have been supported by graphics and sound card companies over the years, and even attend the bigger parties held by them. These companies have even sponsored equipment at parties and as such created successful relationships with the most talented individuals, some of them going on to work for these companies. Now you call them 'hackish' - it's a bit unfair for someone with 40 years experience to compare against people who are inexperienced but in some cases hugely talented and have no other way to express themselves to people like you who don't believe in them. Sandman30s (talk) 13:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if you're still paying attention to this thread, but those 99 Bottles examples are all sorts of apples and oranges. For instance, the BASIC example just prints out the words. In the Java example, however, someone went to town with creating classes for walls and bottles and methods for actually drinking beer at a certain speed and stuff. I think the Java example is someone having a laugh, actually. As for the C++ example, the person seems to have deliberately found the longest way to get the desired effect. Looking at the comments, it seems to me like everyone's in on the joke. Don't use this site as an example of actual length of code of a sample program. — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To echo what Steve said above, take a look at the Perl example from the same site. It is all very clever and the author is complimented on his cleverness by no end of people. But can you imagine being given this code and told to change the word "Beer" to "Coke" wherever it appears in the song. Suddenly, the code is not clever at all but a bloody nightmare you have to fix before you get to go home for the evening. Clear, easily understandable code wins every time. Astronaut (talk) 00:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

September 29

Cannot edit in K-Meleon?

I was browsing with K-Meleon, and I found that I could not edit the text in the edit window. I could edit the edit summary, Subject/headline, and search window, but not the text. At first I thought the page was protected, but the logs indicate that it was not. I cannot edit sometimes, but at other times I can. This is very annoying, as I'd like to use K-Meleon to browse Wikipedia, as it has features I like that are similar to Google Chrome, but it is much faster than Chrome and a bit faster (and a lot easier to use) than Safari. Any idea why I cannot edit? Intelligentsium 02:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried both while logged-in to Wikipedia, and while not logged-in? Do you have any extensions enabled on K-Meleon? Which version of K-Meleon are you using? Have you noticed any similarities between the pages you are able (or unable) to edit? For example, are all the pages which you cannot edit very large?–RHolton ≡– 18:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be it resolved...

I have an LG monitor and Vista Home Premium SP2. When I leave the PC unattended for a while, the screen resolution changes. LG technical support was unhelpful. Is there a way to lock the resolution? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you have a screensaver which is changing the resolution? Nimur (talk) 09:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like the issue. One circuituous way to lock the resolution would be to use an account on your computer without admin privileges (which hopefully you are doing anyway). I believe that Vista requires admin rights for a screen resolution change. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! I don't seem to be the only one having the problem.[6] The recommended solution seems to be to disable Transient Multi-Monitor, which I'm going to try. Odd that it didn't happen on my defunct Philips or a new Samsung I tried though. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How To Get Google Search Results To Only Show Results Which Include Every Word In The Search Terms....

....rather than lots of links with only one or two words from the search included? Interestingly enough, I wanted to get an example to illustrate my problem, but googling 'Paris Hilton' didn't give me loads of links to the city of Paris or the Hilton hotel chain. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 10:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Use " " or click on the advanced search button and narrow that way. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) By default, Google searches for pages that contain all words in your query. To find pages that contain your query in the exact same order, which is useful for longer queries, use quotes (e.g. "Paris Hilton"). You only get what you describe when you type "Paris OR Hilton". Xenon54 / talk / 10:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google will often use synonyms for some of your search terms, for example expanding US state abbreviations like NY to New York. You can use the + operator to force it to only use the term you entered. You can also use the "allintext:" operator at the start of your query to eliminate "these terms only appear in links pointing to this page". More nifty tips here. --LarryMac | Talk 11:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flaming

When I say flaming, what comes to mind?Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My first thought is "why do you ask?" Vimescarrot (talk) 13:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A friend of mine, dosnt think it means attaking an internet user.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 13:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tell him to see Homonym and Flaming. Vimescarrot (talk) 14:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While we're at it, see Context (language use). In other contexts, there are a lot of possible interpretations. Nimur (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The act of writing intentionally inflammatory emails or web posts, specifically to belittle someone you disagree with. APL (talk) 15:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I've ever seen "flaming" in this sense. I've seen "flamed" and "to flame". Perhaps it is simply because it is rare that anyone would write about the act of flaming while it occurs. They write about it before or after it happens, as in "He is going to flame..." or "He flamed...". -- kainaw ™ 15:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Bob has a lot of posts in the beginner's forum, is he helping those newbies?" "No, he's just flaming them." APL (talk) 15:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively : "If you'd spend less time flaming people, and more time listening to what they say [...]" APL (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Forum rules section: 'No flaming other users'. I would think this one would be flaming obvious! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 03:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming". Oh wait, that's not the same .... --LarryMac | Talk 18:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I must say that the Reference Desk is not for polls like this; you should go to a discussion board for that. Now that I have said this, I'm going to be your enabler by answering for myself: "Inflammatory posts criticizing a user of the Internet". Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:02, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was once a time when "to flame" meant to talk (or post) excessively about a topic that fascinates that person - but is generally boring to everyone else. However, that's not a particularly modern usage - and for at least the last 10 years, it has come to mean something like "Being overly critical or insulting to another user". But I think some sense of the original meaning is still there. The simple statement "Joe is an idiot" isn't really a flame. You've got to go on for several paragraphs, going into every detail of WHY Joe is an idiot before you could truly say that Joe was flamed. SteveBaker (talk) 04:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Video of computer monitor

I'm looking for a school project. I thought I could make a program that reconstructs the original video from a video of a computer display or tv (as often seen on the internet). Unfortunately my English is quite limited, so I need a little help to find any existing studies on this (google tells me 'hand-captured video' isn't canonical English). If anyone can hint where to find lots of suitable videos or has anything else to say they would also be welcome. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 17:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to capturing the video directly from the computer, or clearifying the picture and eliminating scan lines and other artifacts that come from taking video of a CRT? The most common way of acomplishing a clear picture of a computer monitor or TV (especially when CRTs were more common to see in movies) is to either use bluescreen techniques or to otherwise overlay the screen's video on top of the "real" monitor. If this is not the answer you are looking for, you might be talking about eliminating scan lines and other artifacts from existing video that contains TV screens. This seems to me to be incredibly difficult to accomplish as the "interlacing" that you'd be reversing can be anything from an annoying flickering effect to a large black bar movnig slowly from bottom to top (or top to bottom) of the screen... even potentially a stationary black bar in the middle of the screen if the framerate and refresh rate match up. You could probably get a pretty decent reconstruction of the video on the screen in the event of a flickering type effect as you are getting full frames at roughly half the framerate as normal, but for a slow crawling scan bar you would need to reconstruct the missing portions of the image which in many cases would be next to impossible to do as the black bar moves too slowly to fill in the missing information from other frames. Caltsar (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm referring to the existing video case. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to capture the screen, then I would recommend using Camtasia. It's a program. If you use a camera, it will look horrible and take up un-necessary disk space.--Drknkn (talk) 20:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Memtest working too fast

Hello there, I have just burn memtest86 3.5 on CD and boot system from it. I noticed that it was testing the ram too fast (without any error) and soon after that it was booting constantly. Most of the time percentage reaches to 48. During booting interval I rejected CD from cd rom. Is it normal? How many times should I test?

I have 4 gb transcend ddr2 800 MHz ram. Thank you--119.30.36.42 (talk) 19:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen this occur personally, but would suspect that memtest86 is hitting some bad memory at the 48% point; so bad that the CPU resets. Try unplugging your memory DIMMs and rearranging them (while the computer is off! And be sure they are all well-seated after you move them!), and seeing if memtest still chokes. If this behavior keeps occurring, I would get new RAM and see if that fixes the problem. Are you experiencing crashes or sudden restarts when you use the computer normally? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I am not experiencing any crashes or sudden restarts right now, just testing this software. Is there any problem with memtest86 3.5 version? or what else?--119.30.36.49 (talk) 13:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Ok, I have figured out problem from here.It was because of the version. Thanks--119.30.36.49 (talk) 13:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other messengers?

Can anyone give me any other programs that access the same function that AIM does? IE, a friend of mine is stubborn and won't install AIM. What other programs can I use to communicate with him using my AIM account? --76.120.179.184 (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If he uses GMail, the Google Talk client built into the GMail interface can talk to AIM. The Comparison of instant messaging clients article lists several other programs that operate with AIM. --LarryMac | Talk 20:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is Pidgin. (Formerly "Gaim") This is an opensource client that'll connect to the AIM network. No reason to ever install any software created AOL. (Pidgin is better, anyway.) APL (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the Pidgin article, you will see versions of Pidgin and programs that use its libpurple library to get the same functionality. In my opinion, these are better than AIM because they designed to be useful. They are not designed as a marketing tool to track and harass the user. -- kainaw ™ 21:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing what you learn on the refdesk - I hadn't even heard of this AIM program before reading this, seems to be loved in the US though. Nanonic (talk) 22:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC) [reply]

It makes sense that AIM is only widely known in USA. It's an offshoot of the America Online service, which is primarily a USA-only service. APL (talk) 17:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

iPod Touch Current Location Malfunction

Alright, I've had my iPod touch for a few months, and the current location device has worked perfectly. However two weeks ago I spent 3 days in Sumter, South Carolina, and used my iPod (and apps requiring current location) there. I get back to Banner Elk, North Carolina, and now any app that requires my current location puts me as still in Sumter, South Carolina. How can I change this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 23:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What puzzles me is how it knew your location in the first place! The iPod touch has no GPS and no cell-phone capability to fall back on. I can't imagine how it could possibly know it's location. SteveBaker (talk) 02:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the programs use the wifi's ip address? But that would mean it would automatically change when I came back to Banner Elk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hubydane (talk • contribs) 02:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But your WiFi's "address" is just an internet address - you can't get any kind of precise location from that. Your ISP must work over thousands of square miles and (assuming you have a dynamic IP), it'll allocate specific addresses to individual customers at random. I don't see how the iPod could use that productively. Anyway - the online iPod touch manual says:

iPod touch uses Location Services to determine your location. Location Services uses available information from local Wi-Fi networks (if you have Wi-Fi turned on). This feature isn’t available in all areas. If Location Services is turned off, you’ll be prompted to turn it on. You can’t find your current location if Location Services is turned off. See “Location Services” on page 118. To conserve battery life, turn Location Services off when you’re not using it. In Settings, choose General > Location Services.

So I think it's relying on the WiFi provider giving your location. That might work in commercial places like coffee shops and airports that offer free WiFi - but WiFi access points in general don't have to do that. My WiFi gizmo in my house certainly doesn't know where it is any more than the iPod does...unless I tell it. So anyway - it looks like you need to go to "Settings" choose "General > Location Services" and turn it back on (presuming that it's somehow gotten turned off) - and perhaps you're locking on to a different WiFi system than you used to pick up...perhaps you're getting a stronger signal from some new WiFi node that doesn't offer this service?? SteveBaker (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

September 30

Mindspark search engine

There is a search engine called Mindspark that, uninvited, got onto the toolbar of our computer. We thought we got rid of it but it's back again.(But not on the toolbar.) Has anyone heard of this thing? Thanks.Rich (talk) 04:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This suggests you run Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

thanks. 04:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)Rich (talk) 04:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick C question

/* Convert Fahrenheit to Celsius*/
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{
        double fahrenheit;
        double celsius;
        scanf("%lf", &fahrenheit);
        printf("The temperature in Fahrenheit is %.2f.\n",  fahrenheit);

        /* convert */
        celsius = 5 / 9 (fahrenheit - 32);

        /* display celsius */
        printf("The temperature in celsius is %.2f degrees.\n", celsius);

        return (0);
}

Why doesn't this work? My compiler says:
FtoC.c: In function âmainâ: FtoC.c:13: error: called object â9â is not a function

which makes little since to me. What can be done to make this work? (I am an extreme newb at C) -- penubag (talk) 06:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have to have an operator between the 9 and the parenthesis. Try "celsius = (5 / 9)*(fahrenheit - 32); and see if that works for you. Dismas|^(talk) 07:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Thanks it now compiles correctly! But unfortunately, when I execute it and input any number for Fahrenheit, the program always returns 0.00 degrees. What has to be done to fix this? -- penubag (talk) 07:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] (5. / 9) *(fahrenheit - 32);. Because 5 and 9 both have type int, the result of 5/9 will always be zero (see integer division). Adding a "." will cause one of the literals to have type double, and the other will be implicitly converted to that type. decltype (talk) 07:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Thank you very much, it works now! But one more question, why are Fahrenheit and Celsius ints? I told them to be doubles at the top? -- penubag (talk) 07:43, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] They're not. But 5 and 9 are ints. --Spoon! (talk) 07:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Yes. It is the types of the operands that determine the type of the result. Consider the expression: double d = 1 / 2; Because 1 and 2 both have type int, the result of the division will also have type int. The result is the algebraic quotient with any fractional part discarded, yielding 0. Then, d is initialized with the value 0 converted to double. That is, the conversion to double happens after the expression (1/2) has been evaluated. decltype (talk) 08:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] I always teach first year C/C++ students that math expressions are right-to-left and boolean expressions are left-to-right. So, the example of double d=1/2; makes sense if you realize it goes right to left. You get a ;, so you know it is a statement. You get a 2. That's an int. You get a /. Division. Cool. You get a 1. You can do the division now. That is 1/2, which is zero (int division). You get a =. You need to assign the zero to something. You get a d. It is a variable. You get the double. You need to turn the int 0 into a double. No problem. You put 0.0 in d. So, while this "right-to-left" rule is not exactly true, you can (hopefully) see why it is beneficial for first year programmers who are trying to understand how things work. In the next year, I divulge more about how things really work because they should be past parsing math and boolean expressions. -- kainaw™ 12:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Ohhhhh, I get it now! The compiler reads right to left. That makes much more since to me now. Thanks kainaw -- penubag (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] YIKES!!! No, no, no! The compiler does not read from right to left - or left to right for that matter. (Sheesh! Baaad advice, Kainaw!) It uses the rules of precedence - just like in regular math. So divisions and multiplications happen before additions and subtractions - which happen before assignment. Somewhere in that book of yours, there is almost certainly a table listing the order that things happen in. The compiler actually says something like (at the beginning of the line) "I expect to see either a statement or a close bracket ('}') next...which is it? Well, no bracket - so it's a statement. Does the statement start with a name (in which case this is an assignment statement or a function call) or is it a reserved word of the language? Yep - it's the reserved word "double". Is that a type description or something like 'for', 'switch', 'while', 'do' or 'if' ? No - it's a type description. OK - so this is a declaration. What is being declared? Well, that's "d" and now we know it's a 'double'. OK - so now, we could either have a comma and another declaration - or a square bracket indicating that this is some kind of array - or an equals sign meaning that this is an initialised variable...and it's an '=' so this is an initialised variable. OK - so what is the initial value? It has to be an expression - so let's fire up the expression parser. The expression parser, figures out the math of an expression - then we look for either a comma (indicating that another variable is being declared - or a semicolon. It's a semicolon - so the statement is complete and we can go back to the beginning again."...Expression handling is hard to explain in words - but it does things in the order that they are done in elementary algebra or arithmetic. It's easy to find cases where it most certainly doesn't think right-to-left (eg x = 1 / 2 + 3 ;) and cases when it does (eg x = 1 + 2 / 3 ;) - as well as cases where it starts in the middle (eg x = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 * 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 ;)...it's just not as simple as Kainaw says. SteveBaker (talk) 04:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Then, what does x=y=z=5; produce? Order of precedence is only half of parsing mathematical equations. By telling someone that that is ALL there is to it, you are short-changing them. They'll hit this example and no clue what to do. If they were taught that math is right-to-left, they will understand this easily. Teaching is based on what confuses students. You start out with a simple foundation and build upon it. I find that many (if not most) programmers feel that the best way to teach is to cram as much complicated garbage down the throats of the students as possible and then laugh at them when they get confused. -- kainaw™ 17:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] In C, if you write a number without a decimal point, the compiler treats it as an integer. While it's evaluating math, it's lazy. If it sees an integer divided by another integer - it does integer math. So 5/9 is zero. When you subtract 32 from the Fahrenheit number, the compiler sees that although 32 is an integer, 'fahrenheit' is a double - so it knows to do that using double precision math - so it converts 32 to 32.0 and does the subtraction. Finally, it has to multply the result of 5/9 (which is the integer: zero) by the result of (fahrenheit-32.0). It sees that because one of the numbers is a double that it has to do the math in double precision - so it converts the zero to 0.0 and does the sum. Putting the decimal point in there tells the compiler that these are double-precision numbers - so it's forced to do all of the math in double precision. In nicely written C code, all of the numbers in that expression ought to have decimal points because it's quite a lot of work for the computer to convert an integer into a double - so all of the constants (including 32) should be given as double's - even when (as in the case of the 32) it would have come out right. In general, it's awfully easy to screw up when you mix integers with floats or doubles - so it's safest to always use '.0' on the end of numbers used in expressions where you expect to get a float or double as a result. Also, it's bad form to write 5./9. (even though that's perfectly legal) because the '.' is kinda invisible to people reading your code - so to be super-professional, you should write 5.0/9.0 which really emphasises that you remembered to put that decimal point in there.The art of good programming is not only to keep the computer and the compiler happy - but also to make things super-clear to other people who have to read your code. (And 'other people' includes you - a couple of weeks into the future when you have to read and re-understand your own software!)SteveBaker (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Thanks for further explaining the point, my C book did not mention this process at all. I'll be sure to do this in the future. -- penubag (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] That's good advice for another reason too, you'll avoid having to convince your co-worker / instructor that (5./9) really is correct, portable, and guaranteed to produce the "right" result (although that may have a net positive effect in the long run). Regards, decltype (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Not to veer into style and "best practices" too much, but ... in my experience 5.0, 9.0 (or maybe 5.0/9.0) and 32.0 should all be constants. If you declare them as const doubles, then there's less confusion about what decision the compiler is making for you. Constants also can make life simpler when programs have to be changed - suppose this was a larger program with calculations like this scattered throughout and that the value at which water freezes on the Fahrenheit scale changes in the future (not likely, but bear with me); you could search for every occurence of "32" in your source code and hope you change all the right ones, or you could change the declaration of "FahrenheitFreezingPoint" once. --LarryMac | Talk 13:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Writing clear code is an art. Hard-and-fast rules are usually a bad idea. What we must strive for is a mind-set where readability is on the top of everyone's minds. So, in general, I agree that obscure constants should be named (either with a 'const' or a '#define' or whatever your programming language allows). However, in this specific case, I think that would do more harm than good. What could you possibly name them that would carry more meaning? Almost everyone knows that 5/9 x F - 32 is the equation to convert F to C. And replacing those numbers with names like 'const double five = 5.0 ;' doesn't add anything. You could perhaps name (5.0/9.0) as "FahrenheitToCentigradeMultiplier" and 32.0 as "FahrenheitToCentigradeOffset" or something - but if I'm trying to find a bug in this code, that's only going to annoy the heck out of me because now I have to hunt back up the source code - possibly through a bunch of header files in order to convince myself that you really gave those constants the correct value. Imagine how much harder this problem would have been for us to debug for our OP if (s)he had followed your advice! We might never have bothered to go find the definition of "FahrenheitToCentigradeMultiplier" - and just naturally assumed it was 5.0/9.0. As you explain - there is no way on earth those values will ever change! So in this specific case - I'd advise not moving the numbers off into 'const' variables or anything. Now - let's be really careful about that - I don't want to see 3.14159 written in there for 'pi' because the precise value has to be set up very carefully to get the best precision for float and double math - so you should be using something like 'M_PI' (the machine-specific value of PI for this hardware). Also, if you see the constant 16239 - you would doubtless prefer to see "STEVES_AGE_IN_DAYS_ON_JAN_1ST_2000". But in this case - I think the code is clearer with the numbers left precisely where they are. But better than that - in this case - I'd have liked to have seen:inline double FahrenheitToCentigrade ( double fahrenheit ) { return fahrenheit * 5.0 / 9.0 - 32.0 ; }...and placed into "UnitConversions.h" someplace. SteveBaker (talk) 03:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Converting integer literals to doubles is not expensive, it's free, because it happens at compile time (even when optimizations are disabled). There's no reason to write them as doubles unless you think it helps clarity. Integer division doesn't happen because of laziness, but because it's a useful operation that's often what you want when you're dividing integers. (5.0 / 9.0) * x or x * (5.0 / 9.0) will compute 5.0/9.0 at compile time and do just a single multiplication at runtime. In contrast, x * 5.0 / 9.0 parenthesizes as (x * 5.0) / 9.0 and will most likely do a multiplication and a division at run time. There are circumstances where that might actually be better, because 5.0/9.0 is not exactly representable as a double while 5.0 and 9.0 both are. -- BenRG (talk) 00:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] You see - that's where things go off the rails. Where does it say in the C/C++ specification that this happens? It doesn't - you can't guarantee that. When you start writing sloppy code and saying "Oh - that's OK, the compiler will fix that." you're running into a slippery slope where you'll start to assume things that aren't true. There may well be some strange reason why the compiler can't - or doesn't fix it - and then you're screwed. Right now - you're code is being compiled - but who knows whether in 10 years time, there isn't some "just in time" compiler that has to compile your code at runtime or something? You can't know that - and you shouldn't assume it when it's just as easy to make your code "right by design". SteveBaker (talk) 03:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] On the other hand, your time is probably better spent making your code efficient on an algorithmic level, instead of this kind of micro-optimization. decltype (talk) 11:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Finally, you can get rid of the weird characters in the error message by doing an "unset LC_CTYPE". --Sean 15:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] That did not seem to work. -- penubag (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Hrm. Try doing an "env | grep -i utf" and do an unset on anything mentioning utf8. This will probably make your greps and such 10 times faster, at the cost of not handling non-ASCII correctly. --Sean 21:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Sorry I'm pretty much illiterate here. I tried typing "env | grep -i utf" and my compiler says "LANG=en_US.UTF-8". It still does not fix the issue but am I forgetting a step? -- penubag (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] "unset LANG" might fix the messages. --Sean 16:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Yup, it did. Thanks sean! Now my adventures in C should be a little easier. :)-- penubag (talk) 00:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] OK, great. Just add that command to the bottom of ~/.bashrc or whatever to make it be in effect the next time you log in. --Sean 14:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]One last question:#include <stdio.h> int main(void) { char color, O, o, B, b, Y, y, G, g; printf("Input the first letter of the color: \n"); scanf("%c", &color); if (color = O || o ) { printf("The content is ammonia\n"); } if (color = B || b ) { printf("The content is carbon monoxide\n"); } if (color = Y || y) { printf("The content is hydrogen\n"); } if (color = G || g) { printf("The content is oxygen\n"); } else { printf("Invalid color type\n"); } return (0); }This simple program is supposed to return chemical names for the first letter of its color. When given a letter, the program says all of them are the chemicals. How can I make it skip each if statement if it is not true?-- penubag (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Your if statements are saying something like "if (color = O)" or "if o". "if o" will always be true (as will "if b", etc). You need to have the complete comparison on each side of the ||. A couple other things to conside would be using either toupper() or tolower() on your input, and/or using a switch statement instead of the ifs. --LarryMac | Talk 17:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] I haven't read that far into my book yet and don't know the syntax for any advanced commands (or basic ones for that matter). The first 130 pages do not mention switches yet. -- penubag (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Also if(color = O) {foo;} doesn't compare color to O, it assigns color to the value of O. And the if statement gets the value of that assignment operation, which IIRC is equal to the value of O. You should use if(color==O) instead. Finaly at no point do you initialize the characters you are comparing with. So even the above whould compare color to a variable with random content. Taemyr (talk) 18:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Ahh, thanks, that makes since. -- penubag (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] dammit. i've always had a mental block on = vs ==; reason 489 why I'm a system designer not a developer --LarryMac | Talk 18:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] About that, some coding guidelines recommend placing the constant-expression (if there is one) at the left hand side, so that the compiler will catch those errors. For example: if('O' = color) return 0; /* ill-formed */ I don't like it one bit, but I can understand the arguments in favor of it. decltype (talk) 18:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] I've heard that said - and I agree that the compiler can help out - but it makes reading the code really tough. I don't do that. SteveBaker (talk) 03:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Others have pointed out your grave errors (your program has undefined behaviour, and is likely to make demons fly out of your nose^[7]). When you've fixed those, you should prefix all your ifs, except for the first, with "else" or use a switch. That way, your program won't test your color against "B", when it's already determined that the color is "O". decltype (talk) 18:48, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Basically you should be writingif ( (color == O) || (color == o) { etc...This was mentioned above but no-one seemed to say it explicitly. The reasons are given above. It's also explained here [8] 83.100.251.196 (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] That did the trick! Thanks very much! I'm still having a little issue with the "else": even if I define a valid letter, the program reads the else statement and prints the invalid chemical message.-- penubag (talk) 00:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] The "else" block is only paired with the previous "if" block. So in this case it fires when the color isn't 'G' or 'g'. If you want it to go off only when none of the previous conditionals are true then use "if", "else if", "else if", ... , "else". Rckrone (talk) 01:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] That worked! My book didn't seem to mention this at all. Thanks !-- penubag (talk) 01:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Some final advice: Nobody can teach anything more than the bare rudiments of programming. The only way to get good at it is to write LOTS of code. Do it all the time - not just for class assignments - make up your own problems. You have to love doing programming for it's own sake. Most really good programmers come home from a day of programming at work - and think "Wow - now I can get to work on my home project!"...and think of that as a way to unwind and relax. You have to arrive at a point where you're no longer thinking about the programming language details - but at the algorithmic level. That probably seems tough now that you're still being mystified about why putting a '.0' after a nice round number should matter - or when to use '==' instead of '=' - but that phase goes away after not too many weeks of working at it. Eventually, you should be able to trot off dozens to hundreds of simple code snippets without your conscious mind having to think about it. You shouldn't have to think through things like: "How do I make a hash-table of these objects so I can look them up quickly using their ASCII names - yet still be able to loop through them all quickly with a simple 'for' loop?" - that level of coding should be almost automatic - so it comes out right every time. That leaves your mind free to examine 'the big picture' - to think at the level of an algorithm designer rather than a coder. This takes years to achieve - but you can tell when people reach that level of zen-like comfort with the art because the rate at which they create bugs drops off dramatically and their productivity can easily be 50 times that of a person who is still wondering whether to use a 'while' loop or a 'for' loop or a 'do...while' each time they need to loop. So: practice, practice, practice - and if you find yourself hating it - find a job in a different industry. SteveBaker (talk) 03:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Why is license agreement popping up every time I start Photoshop or other adobe programs???I got Adobe Web Premium CS4 Student Edition. I used to serial I got from Adobe. Everytime I start Photoshop, dreamwaver or another adobe program I have to accept the license agreement. Why does it do that?? And how do I make it stop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.74.217.62 (talk) 09:26, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]It seems like you may already have a solution, or at least the start of one. The Adobe forums are probably the best place to get advice on a problem like this; they have the highest concentration of experienced users and Adobe "pros". The corrupt/incomplete installation already mentioned there does seem the most likely solution. Having said that, searching adobe photoshop "license agreement" "every time" gives some promising results which might offer alternative fixes. --☇Kateshortforbob _talk☄ 13:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Update script, part 2Continuing from my previous question, I'm trying to write a greasemonkey script that will refresh a page and load any new changes, but will automatically stop refreshing if it detects a 404 error (I don't want it to keep refreshing because then all I'll have is the 404 error). So far I've managed to come up with thisvar numMinutes = 5;window.setTimeout("document.location.reload();", numMinutes*60*1000);That refreshes the page. Now all I need is a way to automatically stop the script when it detects 404. Any suggestions on how to do this? Many thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 11:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]How about something like this (not tested)?function my_reload() { GM_xmlhttpRequest({ method: 'GET', url: window.location.href, onload: function(responseDetails) { if (responseDetails.status != 200) { alert("request failed"); return; } document.innerHTML = responseDetails.responseText; // Wrong: see note below } }); }Here are the AJAX details for GM. --Sean 15:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Oh, I see you can't use document.innerHTML. Perhaps add an iframe, and replace its HTML with the new document. You could also just refresh the iframe or current page if the AJAX call works, of course, but that leaves a small race condition where the first call works and the second one doesn't, which might be acceptable for your application. --Sean 15:51, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]ln -s not supportedAssume you have a program that requires ln -s. However, your Linux box mounts from a Windows NFS. Windows doesn't support symbolic links. Is there a common solution or do you have to fiddle around with tricking the system into thinking a local Linux drive is somehow mounted under the Windows drive to trick the program into running ln -s on the local Linux drive? -- kainaw™ 16:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]A Windows... NFS? Do you mean a Windows Shared Folder using Samba? or Do you mean NTFS? Can you clarify the following: What file-system is the symbolic link target on? How is that file-system seen or mounted by the local linux environment? What file system is the symbolic link intended to be on? Nimur (talk) 17:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]The system between the local Linux machine and the remote Windows machine is unknown. /home on the Linux is NFS mounted (not Samba) in some way to the Windows machine /nethome (or should that be N:\\). The goal is to place a symbolic link in home (which is technically on the Windows machine) to the local Linux drive in /tmp. The error is a simple "Operation is not supported". I suspected Samba, but sambaclient is not running and I can see the entry for the Windows drive in /etc/mtab. Is it possible to use mtab to mount through Samba without having a sambaclient running? If so, then my suspicion that the problem is with Samba would be verified. -- kainaw™ 17:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX has a Windows hosted NFS server; this was more necessary in the past, when Samba's netbios/smb client wasn't so hot, than it is now. Perhaps this is what Kainaw's windows machine is running. Incidentally NTFS does support symlinks (well, kinda) - NTFS junction points - I'd guess it was the WS4U-NFSd that doesn't (junction points are a tad esoteric, really). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]The only way I can think to do something like this is with a UnionFS overlay. Do the following sudo /bin/mount -t unionfs -o dirs=/tmp/kainaw:/home/kainaw none /home/kainaw2 (where /tmp/kainaw and /home/kainaw2 are intially empty directories). Now you can create symlinks in /home/kainaw2 (including ones that overlay stuff already there) and the changes are infact stored in /tmp/kainaw and leave /home/kainaw untouched, but /home/kainaw2 looks like your homedir, but with the symlinks you wanted. If you really need the symlinks to be in /home/kainaw then you'll have to figure out how to make the automounter mount that directory somewhere else. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Parallel ports and Linux kernel driversThe first part of my Commodore 64 games restoration project - install a PCI parallel port replicator - is now completed, and so far works without problems. Still waiting for the next two phases - attach the 1541 disk drive, and install the necessary driver software. So therefore I have questions:How "hot-pluggable" are parallel port devices? Am I in danger of damaging the adapter, or my computer, if I plug/unplug the 1541 while the computer is on? What if I keep it plugged in, but power it up/down while the computer is on? I have only seen OpenCBM being mentioned as a 32-bit Linux kernel driver. My computer has a 64-bit processor and 64-bit Fedora Linux. Will the driver still work? JIP | Talk 16:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]In general, the IEEE 1284 compliant devices are very hot-pluggable - though watch out for devices that use a common ground / common live voltage in "unconventional" ways (other than setting a reference - in theory, there should be buffer amplifiers if the 5-volt is used for anything, but some creative hardware designers might be drawing power over the interface!). On the PC side, as long as the driver is properly written, the worst that should happen is a data timeout or error; but I assume that you know this, since you are writing the driver. (Avoid blocking I/O calls in the hardware access code - Whatever you do, don't hang the whole computer on bad/missing data! ). Are you writing the C64 emulator driver or just planning to use the OpenCBM driver? Nimur (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Commodore serial-488 ports are very sensitive to being connected when powered - I once blew two 1541s when daisy-chaining them with the power on; the PC's parallel port is fairly robust by comparison. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Like many parallel-port devices, that hardware is probably not standards-compliant. Technically the hardware must accept any voltage between -15 and +15 volts relative to the common ground - and I doubt the PC was even supplying this. It sounds like something was leaking power onto the parallel port unintentionally - maybe daisy-chaining shorted a pin which was otherwise assumed to be floating, etc. Again, well-designed hardware should never explode when you plug it in backwards (etc). Nimur (talk) 17:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] Thanks for the reply. I should therefore be safe with keeping the 1541 plugged in but only powering it up when I'm using it. (The 1541 is notorious for getting quite warm when powered up, so I wouldn't want to leave it on all the time, as I do with modern hardware.) I'm going to use the OpenCBM driver, which I'll compile from the sources. I don't know nearly enough about Linux kernel programming to write my own driver. JIP | Talk 17:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]It's been a quarter of a century since I last had to do this, but if memory serves one always turned the 1541 on before the c=64, and off after it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] With me, I usually did it the opposite way, and never had any problems. We'll have to see if the 1541 still works after nearly two decades of inactivity. JIP | Talk 17:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Software To Find Out What's Hogging All The Space On My Disk.Is there anything for Windows Vista that does this (preferably free)? I'm noticing that my disk space is getting noticeably smaller each time more or less every day (60GB disappeared over the weekend!) and I'd like to find out what's going on. TIA! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 19:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]I can't say for sure, but I'd assume at least one of the programs in this archived section should work with Vista. --LarryMac | Talk 19:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] OverDisk makes nice pie-charts. Nimur (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]As per LarryMac's archive link, let me re-iterate: forget every other suggestion you might get here about SequoiaView and WinDirStat etc. Just get FolderSize for Windows. It adds a "folder size" column straight into Windows Explorer so you never have to run a separate application just to check out your folder sizes. I'm using it on XP but I'm sure it works on Vista too. It just WORKS. You'll easily be able to see and clear out your space-hogging files in no time. Check it out. Zunaid 23:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Personally, I find the SequoiaView-like applications much better. The problem isn't just listing folder sizes, it's being able to really see where the memory is being taken up. With a graphical display, you instantly know, "oh, crap, I have a much of MPEGs I forgot about." With FolderSize, you see that a folder (probably WINDOWS) is huge, and have to drill down a few more times to figure out what's going wrong. Anyway, different strokes, different folks, but I do think we can say that these two programs provide different functionality. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] I disagree with Zunaid, I recommend using a graphical tool. The best part of SequoiaViewe and WinderStat is that it allows you to see INSIDE your folders at a glance. Sure, I know my "Downloads" folder is large, It always is. But with SequoiaView or WinderStat, I can see that inside my downloads folder I have one huge folder that's substantially larger than all the others, and so I check it out. With Zunaid's method I probably wouldn't have even bothered investigating my "downloads" folder because would have expected to see a large number of moderate sized files that would have been a pain to search through. With a graphical tool unusually large files and folders jump out at you, even if they're several layers deep and mixed in with a whole bunch of moderately sized files. (Of course, FolderSize is a neat tool, too. But in my mind it is not a valid replacement for a disk visualization tool. ) APL (talk) 13:39, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]WinDirStat, ftw!!! --98.108.37.202 (talk) 00:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]memorex mini traveldrive MS-DOS boot problemDear Wikipedians: I have a 512 MB memorex mini traveldrive USB keydrive that I got from a friend ~2007. I used HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to format it as an MS-DOS 6.22 bootable drive using the MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS found in the first partition of my hard drive. However, when I reboot into the USB key, the message "Starting MS-DOS..." is displayed, but then the system hangs. However it is still responsive to the Vulcan nerve pinch. Note that I have previously used this USB key successfully as the boot-stick for my Slackware Linux. I also have a Kingston DataTraveler 1GB USB keydrive that boots up MS-DOS perfectly. I also got the Kingston one in 2007. So I am greatly bewildered as to why one USB key can do it and the other one can't? Thanks for your help. 70.52.150.94 (talk) 19:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Blackberry Daylight Saving Time problemI'm in a country which is in the same time zone as a large US city, but is not in the US. The Blackberry Time Zone options list the US city only, so that is what it is set to. However, there's one big difference - the country I'm in does not use DST (Daylight Saving Time). The BB software does not seem to have any options for turning off DST. When I sync it to my computer it takes the time from the computer, but touching the Date?Time applet on the device causes it to revert to DST, meaning that it sets the clock forward by an hour. Does anyone know of a setting on the device I can use to turn off DST permanently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.183.8.194 (talk) 19:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]Are you far enough west to be in the US's Mountain Time Zone? If so, try telling BB you're in Phoenix -- Arizona doesn't use DST. If you're in (or "below") the Caribbean, that won't help much :-) --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]XFX or Gigabyte (motherboard)I am looking for a motherboard for gaming. Which brand is better? I don't want SLI or Crossfire. Thank you --119.30.36.40 (talk) 21:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply] P.S. I have heard number of freezing issue with XFX boardHave you gone to Newegg and browsed the Motherboard section to read the user comments? I have found the user comments very useful. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]My second Gigabyte mobo just failed. I sent the first one back, and they sent me a new one after two weeks. It won't post. I think I'll order an Asus. After a few months with the first Gigabyte mobo, I smelled something burning, then the ethernet stopped working, and it wouldn't POST most of the time.--Drknkn (talk) 22:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]I have changed my mind. Both of them have lock up or freezing issue. I am thinking to get Asus board (ASUS P5Q-EM LGA 775 Intel G45 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard). Any suggestion? --119.30.36.40 (talk) 22:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]October 1The wireless chargerDell has a new high-end laptop that charges wirelessly. I haven't seen this computer yet, but it comes to me that this design may have some serious inherent problems. How do they solve them? If you have to install an induction coil in the bottom of a laptop, how do you:Keep the coil in the same place for the next generation's product?Since laptop computers are compact, they may require rearrangement of parts from model to model.If the coil is very large in size (certainly much larger than the coils for electric toothbrushes), how do you use the bottom of computer for heat dissipation?Many laptop computers use the bottom to dissipate heat. However, wireless charging requires touching of two parts to maximize efficiency. Certainly I can make a bottom that sits 1/8" apart from the charging stand. This shall enable the air to flow freely to remove the heat. It just renders the charger much less useful. If your computer has a large footprint (this one has a 16" monitor), you probably have the land area to install the coil. What if you want to install it on a much smaller computer?Can the charging stand be used internationally? I mean voltage.Many years ago I have seen a creative use of inductive charging on a Japanese-made PHS phone. The charging stand makes half of a transformer and the handset makes its another half. When the handset sits in the charging socket, this hard-wired transformer lowers the AC voltage for recharging (you need additional circuits in the handset). Since PHS is mainly used in Japan, they may afford to build hard-wired circuits for 100 VAC. Most GSM phones may need extra circuits to handle international variable voltages for their roaming users. To me, this design trick seems to have a business sense. They are for the high-end markets. A rich user may just buy several charging stands for the home study, living room, office, and elsewhere. The charging stands cost very little to build (possibly nothing but a coil). They shall be very profitable. -- Toytoy (talk) 01:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I must be missing something here. If you have to sit the laptop on the charging stand to charge it, and you have to plug in the charging stand - how is this any more convenient than a conventional charger ? I can't see how it makes the laptop smaller or lighter, because you still have the same laptop battery ? Is the charging stand supposed to lighter than a conventional charger ? Gandalf61 (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]It does eliminate the power connector as a point of failure. I have seen a number of laptops with mangled power connectors on the laptop or charger end. Throw in the wireless docking station and you eliminate the need to plug in any cables. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]There is any program that randomize a song??There is any program that randomize a song?? An example: The program get the sound, split in many parts with 0,001 second and then put those parts together in a random order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.0.212.236 (talk) 01:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Such a program would be trivial to write (e.g. about five or ten lines of code) in GNU Octave. (Have a look at audio processing tools). Because it's not a very commonly-needed utility, I doubt it has been written and widely distributed. Nimur (talk) 05:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] If you split a song in 0,001 second chunks, and then join them in a random order, I'm certain that the result would bear no resemblance whatsoever to the original. I'm also pretty sure that what you would hear is a a 1000 Hz tone with some background noise. If you want to get a result that would be even remotely pleasing to the ear, your chunks would have to be a lot longer, and your program would have to choose the splice points carefully. At the very least, the signal at the end of the first chunk needs to have about the same amplitude as the signal at the beginning of the chunk you are joining it to. Otherwise there will be a very audible "pop". (And it is the playing of 1000 pops per second that would create the 1000 Hz tone that I referred to). Writing such a program is not trivial. --NorwegianBlue^talk 10:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] It would be an example of Granular synthesis applied to a soundfile. With the grain size around a millisecond you would no longer be dealing with the original song so much as synthesizes wholly new sounds out of semi-random waveform bits and pieces. There are lots of granular synthesis tools, as listed on the page about it. Also, taking care of the "pops" is integral to granular synthesis. Pfly (talk) 07:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]gdb, C++ classes, and "incomplete type"Consider a user-defined type class Quantity and a variable of that type declared asQuantity q;Under certain circumstances (I know not what) gdb can not print this variable. If I sayprint qgdb says$1 = <incomplete type>And if I typewhatis qgdb saystype = struct Quantity(By comparison, under the circumstance where gdb can properly print the value of a Quantity, the whatis command prints "type = class Quantity".) I know what "incomplete type" means in C (a struct whose name is known but whose internal details are not, and which is being used to declare a pointer such that those internal details don't matter), but that's not the case here; the definition of the internal details of class Quantity is amply in scope. I've learned that templated types cannot always have their type info reliably stored by gcc and read by gdb (there's this bizarre situation called "vague linkage"). I have eliminated templates from the inheritance hierarchy of class Quantity, and this has helped somewhat, but not entirely. Does anyone know of any other reasons why gdb would be unable to print the value of a (reasonably) ordinarily user-defined type, or to misprint its type as struct rather than class? There might be some perturbations going on due to namespaces, but I've tried to rule those out, too. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]This seems to be a common problem in gdb. You wuld not happen to have a complete compilable example, would you? decltype (talk) 08:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I agree it seems common, which is why it's odd that solution(s) aren't better known. No, I don't have a complete example (or at least, not one small enough for this margin to contain :-) ). (That's why I asked "does anyone know of?", not, "Can someone look at this code for me?".) —Steve Summit (talk) 15:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Here's an example:$ cat foo.cpp #include <iostream> int main() { std::cout << "hi\n"; } $ g++ -g foo.cpp $ gdb a.out (gdb) b main Breakpoint 1 at 0x8048615: file foo.cpp, line 3. (gdb) r Breakpoint 1, main () at foo.cpp:3 3 std::cout << "hi\n"; (gdb) p std::cout $1 = <incomplete type> (gdb) quit $ g++ -v g++-4.3_proper (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) 4.3.3 $ gdb -v GNU gdb 6.8-debian--Sean 20:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Have you instantiated the class variable q? - e.g. q = new Quantity(); --Phil Holmes (talk) 14:19, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Yes. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] The declaration of q above requires a complete type (since it needs to know how big it is on the stack), so it's likely a GDB bug. This thread discusses such a thing, so you might try upgrading your GDB. On a side note, near-future versions of GDB are going to be very much nicer for C++ debuggery (printing types as you wrote them, not with template argument hell; default STL pretty-printing; embedded Python scripting; proper exception handling support; etc.). --Sean 17:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Mac ComputersIs it true that the Mac computers are not infected by any virus and other worms and trojans etc.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.142.244 (talk) 03:07, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply][9], [10], [11], [12], etc.--Drknkn (talk) 03:24, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Were you trying to answer the question "yes" or "no"? * A virus that you'll only catch if you run a pirated version of some software (iWork, in this case) -- which is always a ridiculously risky thing to do, because it'll always be coming from some dark, sleazy underbelly of the net that you can't trust. * This doesn't appear to be a virus per se; it appears to describe a technique by which a malicious program (once running on your computer) can infect another program on your computer. The report is from three years ago. Symantec gives it its lowest-possible threat rating. * A report claiming that Mac vulnerabilities are "on the rise". The report mentions "37 high-vulnerabilities", but without any details. The report is four and a half years old. * Another report about the same pirated iWork virus. I'm not shakin' in my boots, here. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Yes, it is currently true that Macs are vastly less vulnerable to viruses than Windows machines. There are no circulating Mac viruses that will infect your computer unless you are already doing something terribly unsafe and inadvisable (such as installing pirated software that you found on the net). You can run an unprotected Mac connected to the open Internet with virtual impunity. The contrast with Windows (where putting an unprotected machine on the 'net is sheer folly, where the mean time to infection if you do so has been measured in minutes, and where even if you do install decent antivirus protection, you are still advised to be careful in what you do while online) is stunning. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] "There are no circulating Mac viruses that will infect your computer unless you are already doing something terribly unsafe and inadvisable (such as installing pirated software that you found on the net)." And that's how most Windows users get viruses, too. I've been seeing a lot of users infected with a fake anti-virus program called "Personal Anti-Virus." The user visits a page with a fake virus scan that says that they're infected. Even though the "scan" is just an animation on a web page, they assume that they are infected and click through several windows, download the program, and execute it. How can you protect against a virus a user downloads and runs on purpose? Did Apple program their OS to prevent that? Another common vector are keygens coming with pirated software. It's my opinion that mac users are actually more vulnerable because they're so cocky (like you, frankly). Apple markets their products as being easy to use, so computer newbies tend to gravitate to them and then they take no precautions. I tried to cite articles above from a wide range of time periods to illustrate that Macs have always had viruses. In fact, the first computer virus was written for the Macintosh in the 1980s. Apple spends much less money on developing protection against viruses than Microsoft. Users complained that Windows Vista was too secure, with its myriad of confirmation dialogs. Try to be honest with other users, because Mac users need to make their computers more secure for the upcoming deluge of Mac viruses. They are already appearing, as a quick Google search will show you.--Drknkn (talk) 05:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]What you're doing is called fearmongering. It's not that I'm cocky; it's that I prefer a computer that tries to be secure from the get-go, as opposed to one that has to be propped up by third-party antivirus software. You said, "Mac users need to make their computers more secure", but my attitude is, why should *I* have to make my computer more secure? That's like saying I have to make my car more crashworthy. It's not my job, and I'm not in a position to do it properly anyway. I'd very much prefer the original manufacturer did it in a proper, integrated way. There's nothing I can do to make my Mac more secure that Apple can't do for me, beforehand, and better.I said "...unless you are already doing something terribly unsafe and inadvisable", and you said, "And that's how most Windows users get viruses, too." But most Windows users get viruses by clocking "OK" between one and three times. Is clicking "OK" an action that's terribly unsafe and inadvisable? There's a huge difference, I think, between clicking "OK" a few times after visiting a random web page, versus deliberately seeking out, downloading, and installing a pirated copy of a major application suite.You said, "How can you protect against a virus a user downloads and runs on purpose?" Well, part of a computer's security depends on its ecosystem, and as far as I know Mac users simply do not download and run programs (on purpose or otherwise) nearly as often as Windows users do. Mac users tend to rely more (as they should) on the software that was originally installed by the manufacturer. Installing new programs on a Mac is a relatively rare and deliberate act, and typically requires typing a password. Windows users, on the other hand, evidently download and run new programs all the time, and doing so is typically one-click easy, because Microsoft has gone out of its way to make the process easy (and, thus, greatly enabled the malware distributors). The proliferating "Are you sure?" screens don't tend to help, because on Windows, users are conditioned to click "OK" dozens of times per hour, without thinking. On the Mac, on the other hand, the OS doesn't even let you try to do dangerous things, so it doesn't have to pop up dialogs nearly as often, so when it does pop one up, it's a significant event, and users are inclined to pay more attention, and not just click "OK" by reflex.I am being honest when I say Macs are more secure. What's dishonest (or, at least, misguided) is to assert that computers are inherently woefully insecure, and that malware is omnipresent and inexorably invasive, and that end users have to worry about this and be careful all the time. By so generously enabling the malware authors for so many years, Microsoft has unfortunately bred an ecosystem in which such paranoia is all too necessary, but it needn't have been, and there are other ecosystems where the realities are quite different. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Sigh, let me try to nip this in the bud before a flame war gets started. OP - no, it's not true that "the Mac computers are not infected by any virus". There are plenty of viruses which could potentially infect a Mac. If you don't want to get a virus, it doesn't matter what platform you use - install some antivirus, and make sure to update your OS and antivirus frequently. Also don't install random internet trash. If you did nothing to protect yourself, you'd probably be somewhat safer with a Mac than a PC. But you'd be asking for trouble either way. Indeterminate (talk) 05:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]As a Mac user with a sense of history, allow me to introduce you to the late 1980s: nVIR (computer virus) (spread all over the place around 1988-89) and Scores (computer virus) (I never saw it, but it was supposed to be maliciouser). Disinfectant, which was free, was the antivirus software of choice at the time. Tempshill (talk) 05:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Indeterminate: If you're worried about merely potential threats, there are plenty of objects in your kitchen which could potentially kill you. There are thousands of worms and viruses which will infect an unprotected Windows machine. Can anyone name one currently-circulating actual Mac virus or worm?Things are finally changing as Vista and Windows 7 gain some significant elements of inherent security, but today I think the average Mac user is still a lot safer, not just somewhat safer. —Steve Summit (talk) 06:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I like to think different OSes like different neighbourhoods - some might be safer than others, but you can never be perfectly safe; and if you're gonna be stupid you will get into trouble no matter what. With some sensible precautions though, it's quite unlikely to get infected either way. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]You can be pretty stupid and not get a virus on a Mac. You can have other security problems, but you're not going to pick up a virus, or spyware. You can be pretty smart and still get a virus and malware on a Windows machine. It's sort of disingenuous to imply that they're all the same odds—they're not. To stay "clean" on a PC requires a constant effort. On a Mac, you don't have to do a thing. Literally. Nothing. I agree with Steve Summit's take on the problem with Windows and the "patch as you go" model. I have encouraged all of my relatives to buy Macs—it's just not worth their time to try and learn all of what goes into good security. Their machines should be basically secure from the beginning, because they are just unable to learn how to flush out their HOSTS file or repair their registry. As Bruce Schneier puts it, to those who say "educate the users," have you actually met the users? Most of them definitely don't care enough to patch their own machines on a daily basis, and that's bad for all of us. I'm aware that much of the Mac's "inherent" security comes through the fact that nobody bothers to write viruses for it. But it's been that way for years and I haven't seen any evidence of that changing soon. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:05, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]It helps to try to imagine yourself as a malware writer. Are you after fun, or money? Whichever, there are hugely more Windows computers connected to the web than there are Mac OS X (or other) computers. You're likely to want to go after the greatest number of patsies, and as long as malware has to be OS specific, that means you'll want to go after Windows computers. So quite aside from the alleged relative strengths of the OSes (or their users), Windows has a certain disadvantage here. Note that this does not mean that OS X (or GNU/Linux) malware doesn't exist; and even if it doesn't exist now this doesn't mean that it couldn't exist next week. -- Hoary (talk) 07:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]From our Microsoft Windows page: "As of July 2009, Windows had approximately 93% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet." Just to echo the sentiments above, why would anyone want to write a virus to infect the vast minority of users? Livewireo (talk) 13:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]If I had the motivation, skill, or desire to write this kind of malicious software, I'd try to write something for a Mac just to be the first to write a self-propegating worm. Everything I've seen (For OS X at least) is user installed and requires an admin password. None of the malicious software I've seen reported is self-propegating and none of it installs automatically. I can see people writing this kind of software just as a proof of concept, and it still hasn't come that far. Macs are more secure from self-propegating malware for two main reasons: obscurity and a system of handling files that is more secure than on windows. While you can account for the very small amount of existing malware by obscurity, it's hard to account for the complete lack of self-propegating malware using that particular arguement. That said, don't be stupid no matter what system you're on. P2P file sharing is risky, and visiting shady sites and downloading "gimmicks" is what will be the most likely cause of getting infected. Caltsar (talk) 15:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Why write a Mac virus? Well, for the bragging rights, and to wipe the smug, cocky grins off the faces of all those vainglorious, self-satisfied Macheads. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Caltsar: See Safari_(web_browser)#Browser exploits. There are vulnerabilities in Safari that take control of a Mac without user input. And Apple took quite a while to fix those vulnerabilities. They took long not because of corporate culture, but because Apple spends only 3.5% of their revenue on R&D (c.f. 15% for MS!). As for the password dialog, you can also make Windows ask users for a password to perform administrative tasks. This does little to prevent malware from infecting those machines, as I can attest from experience. The user may have limited privileges, but the malware will simply take control of system memory via a buffer overflow. Or, the program will make itself run at startup with administrative privileges. Macs are not immune to either of these techniques. But Windows Vista introduced a feature to combat buffer overflows called Address space layout randomization.--Drknkn (talk) 21:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] I never claimed that OS X had no vulerabilities. I claimed that no self-propegating malware has been documented on OS X. Additionally, OS X Leopard has a feature similar to address space randomization. No OS is completely secure, but OS X seems to protect against auto-execution and self-propegation better than windows. While every OS has security vulnerabilities, and while Apple didn't patch Safari fast enough, there are far fewer vulnerabilities reported and "open" on OS X. On the other hand, with Windows Vista and Windows 7, the OS is becomming increasingly more secure, and in my use I have yet to have a virus detected this year on vista/7, but even on a patched XP system, I still occasionally get hits on the anti-virus software. The relatively low adoption rate of Windows Vista may account partly for the amount of malware out there as (in my experience), the newer versions of windows are significantly better at detecting these threats. It is still easier to make malware self propegating on a Windows system as UAC and other security features are often turned off by users (this isn't an option in OS X for most things). Once again, this doesn't mean Windows is completely insecure, and for the massive userbase of the OS, I'm impressed at how well Malware can be kept off the machine. Caltsar (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]This is a general followup to several posts in this thread. This article mentions that there's now an OS X botnet. Botnet software normally spreads using vulnerabilities that have already been patched by the vendors; it targets uneducated users who don't update their machines and never notice the malware is running. Therefore, please don't advise people to buy a Mac and then do nothing to keep it secure. For everyone's sake it's important that they at least install security updates (which mainly just means keeping auto-update enabled and rebooting when it tells you to). I've been using Windows machines for nearly two decades and in that time I've never had a malware infection. I don't mean antivirus software stopped the malware, I mean the antivirus software never had to do anything. I attribute my longevity to two things: installing security patches as they become available, and not running software supplied by someone I wouldn't buy a used car from. It's not intrinsically safe to run untrusted software on OS X either, but in practice right now it may be safe. But even if that's so you still should install those security patches. Patch-as-you-go is the approach taken by all the major vendors, it has nothing to do with Microsoft especially. Even OpenBSD has had a few major vulnerabilities slip by. The security model on all of the major OSes sucks. Any program I run, even as an unprivileged user, has permission to read, write or delete all of that user's personal files. That's crazy. Software should have no filesystem access unless I grant it. The security of Java applets has nothing to do with bytecode or bytecode verification or type safety; those are needed to enforce security boundaries in-process, but OSes can accomplish the same thing with separate address spaces. No, Java applets are safe because Java has a security model that fits what people actually need in this age of networked PCs. NT, OS X and Linux don't. So I don't want to hear people claiming that Linux and OS X are secure by design. If they were, ActiveX-style native code applets would be as safe as Java. Finally, I would like to ask people here not to exaggerate the malware problem by saying things like "thousands of viruses will infect an unprotected Windows machine". Fear of malware is itself a big problem; in fact, I think it's a bigger problem than the actual malware. Politicians exploit fear of "cyberterrorism" to justify infringing our civil liberties, and so does Microsoft. -- BenRG (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Database typeHi :) What is known as a "multiple-entry fixed-format database"? I came across this in a website (which doesn't really explain what it is, so I'm asking here). I'm trying to learn programming and databases, but as you can see, I'm still learning the basics. 122.255.2.163 (talk) 03:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I have never heard it described in that way, but I assume the person is referring to a database that has multiple entries, each entry in the same format. That, basically, is just about any popular database that exists. -- kainaw™ 03:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I've also not heard it described so. I can only imagine it refers to the character fields which are fixed sizes and don't grow or shrink as needed, such as varchars in oracle. For example, if you define a character field as size 10, it will always use 10 bytes of fixed storage even if you're inserting 1 byte at a time. I would imagine the database being referred to stores numbers and dates etc. in the same way? What database is that? Sandman30s (talk) 09:39, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I Want to Convert my Tiff Images to Text files,Is it possible?i want to convert my Tiff Image file to text file for editing and make some correction on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.125.175.163 (talk) 07:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]You could possibly do this with an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program, if the text is relatively clear. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Windows Movie MakerI have created a movie with Windows Movie Maker, but when I save it as a video file, it becomes miscoloured. How can I fix this? Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 08:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] This website lists some ways to deal with this problem. Window Movies Maker Advice Hmrox (talk) 14:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Wireless speedsMy home wireless has been very wonky lately. It cuts out, it goes verrrry slow sometimes, things of that nature. It was never very fast to begin with. Just for fun, I tried plugging into it with an ethernet cable. Without the cable, over Airport, I get at max 5-6 Mb/s. Plugged in with the ethernet cable (to the wireless router), suddenly I'm scoring 30 Mb/s at speedtest.net. Is this common, or is it a sign that a) my wireless router sucks, or b) my wireless card sucks? What's the weak link in this system? Any way to improve it (other than being wired all the time)? The router is a Netgear MR814v3 (11 Mbps, 2.4 GHz 802.11, b). The wireless card is an AirPort Extreme. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]If your router is 802.11b, then you'll never exceed 11Mbps. Of course that 11Mbps is a theoretical maximum, and is subject to some overhead. Signal strength will also affect the speed. --LarryMac | Talk 13:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]OK. That's what I thought. Guess this old router has got to go! --Mr.98 (talk) 13:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Just be thankful that you have an internet link that makes wireless speeds possible! Here in rural UK we measure internet speeds in Kb/s. Sometimes we think we would do better in a third-world country! Dbfirs 16:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Trouble with while.....wendWhat is the best and most correct way to deal with a situation here- XLEN=LEN(X$):IF ENDPOS<XLEN THEN WHILE MID$(X$,ENDPOS,1)<>" ":ENDPOS=ENDPOS+1:WEND In this snatch of GWBasic code the value of endpos can exceed the length of x$, which causes an error. Is there a better way of arranging things other than just using a goto to break out of the loop when endpos become too high? Thanks 78.146.235.74 (talk) 15:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]What's the point of this code, really? What are you trying to accomplish? --Mr.98 (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] I want to capture each word in a string of words and spaces. The above code finds out where the word stops and spaces begin. Once the start and end position of each word is found, then the word can be isolated using MID$(). I'd be interested to hear of any better ways to do it. 78.144.204.139 (talk) 20:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] You can use 2 conditions in your WHILE statement. I'm not very familiar with GW Basic, but testing for WHILE MID$(X$,ENDPOS,1)<>" " AND ENDPOS<XLEN should do what you want - although you may need to check whether I've written it exactly as GW Basic will need it. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:19, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Thanks, that does seem to work. 78.144.204.139 (talk) 20:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]An easier way to do it would involve using INSTR to find the spaces, and then just using MID. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Progress report on the Commodore 64 games restoration projectThe XM1541 cable arrived today. I downloaded OpenCBM, compiled, and installed it. Everything went without problems. I then powered the system down, attached my old 1541 through the XM1541 cable to the PCI parallel port replicator, and powered the 1541 up first and the system up later. The result: The system boots up perfectly OK. I haven't blown it physically up or messed up the Linux kernel. It's a fully usable Fedora 9 system. Accessing the 1541 doesn't work at all. The red light stays lit the entire time the system is powered up, and cbmctrl status 8 reports: 99,driver error,00,00. Now I think the reason is either that the PCI parallel port replicator doesn't work, and I really do need a real parallel port on the motherboard, or that the 1541 itself is broken. But I don't know which is the case. Could someone suggest how I should proceed here? JIP | Talk 17:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I'd be suspicious that either the port replicator isn't working, or that the driver isn't talking to it properly. So I'd try the operation with the port replicator removed (from the USB connection). Only if you get a different error message to the one you have now can you begin to suspect the driver/cable/1541. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] The port replicator connects to PCI, not USB. I found out early enough that OpenCBM doesn't support USB parallel port replicators at all, so I went for a PCI one instead. I think cbmctrl status 8 gives the same error message whenever it can't find the drive, for any reason. It gave the same error message when I hadn't attached the drive in the first place. I very much suspect that the case is simply that even a PCI parallel port replicator isn't supported, it simply has to be a real parallel port. I have two options to test it: a real Commodore 64 or an old PC with a real parallel port. Unfortunately I have neither - my team mate did mention he had an old Commodore 64 for sale, so I could ask him about it, and I could ask the IT support at work if they have any old laptops for sale. JIP | Talk 18:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] A reply from the OpenCBM mailing list suggested that the 1541 is broken. No wonder, as it's over twenty years old. I should get a new one ASAP, but from where? I might try asking my team mate, but failing that, I could try Finnish small ads and auction sites first, and something like eBay second. The only issue with foreign hardware is the power sources. British power sources are incompatible with continental European ones, and American power sources are even more so. Will this be a problem with a 1541? JIP | Talk 19:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Looking at photos of the back (uk, us) it looks like there isn't a voltage selector (unlike modern PCs, for example); unless some models do have a voltage selector, then you can't use a US one. Really the 240v supply the UK used when 1541s were made should be compatible with the 230v Finland uses. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] Someone has recompiled Commodore Basic for Windows, if that is of any interest. http://www.pagetable.com/?p=48 78.144.204.139 (talk) 20:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] That is completely unrelated to my problem, and won't help me at all. Thanks for the good faith reply, though. JIP | Talk 20:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]To confirm your PC's new parallel port is working, you might try connecting it to a printer with a parallel port interface, then seeing if the PC can control the printer.Did you purchase the Commodore 64 your teammate offered to sell? If so, are you able to test the 1541 with the Commodore 64? Even with no TV or monitor connected, you might still be able to blindly enter LOAD"$",8 and see if the drive responds normally. --Bavi H (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] I didn't purchase the Commodore 64 yet. And using a parallel printer wouldn't help, because printers make less use of the interface than the XM1541 does, so they are more compatible, while the XM1541 requires better implementation from the interface. And I don't even have a printer. JIP | Talk 04:26, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Limitation of Maximum RAM based on CPU / COREI want to know is there any relation between the number of CPU's or CORE's and maximum RAM limitation? Is ther any capacity of the CORE is defined based on how much RAM can be addressed by each CORE / CPU? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.75.192.25 (talk) 18:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I'm assuming you mean CPUs and cores in a conventional PC-intel architecture (a normal PC, in other words)? In that case, all the CPUs and their cores operate in a shared memory space and with a common pool of RAM. So there's no relationship between the number of CPUs and the amount of memory (strictly all those CPUs have some onboard cache, but for the purposes of your question that's transparent). Now this isn't the only memory architecture there is; NUMA architectures have separate memory for each CPU, and then (often, but not always) a shared memory space too. This is how the Cell processor (that you'll most commonly find in a Playstation 3) works, and how IBM's NUMA-Q servers work. Strictly, in a rather weird way, even your PC does work that way - the GPU on your graphics card is increasingly like a CPU (in capabilities, and the tasks it's given), and it has its own memory. Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:40, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Riva tuner (fan speed)Hello there, I have increased my XFX 9800 GT's fan speed from 35 (stock) to 60 percent. After finishing any game or 3D application the fan speed soon goes back to its stock speed (35%). I have to manually set it again to 60%. Is it normal? Is there any way to keep the speed 60% in both idle or 3D load? Thank you--119.30.36.41 (talk) 20:25, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]October 2Digital ScaleFellow Wikipedians: I am looking into buying a small scale for weighing out various amounts (anywhere from ~1 to 10 grams) of marijuana. I want something sorta cheap (under $30 ideally) yet accurate, with a precision of at least a tenth of a gram...better if possible. Can any of you recommend any scales online? I searched amazon.com but I'm not sure if I found anything worth buying. Thanks for the suggestions! --98.108.37.202 (talk) 00:06, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]My Python Integer ClassI'm trying to make a class that only contains a number that can only be an integer. It's a pet project that I'm working trying to simulate how the .NET Framework's structs limit the aspects of the variable. Can someone tell me if this code is syntactically correct and how to properly instantiate it:class Int(object): def __new__(self): self.var=0 def __init__(self, var): test=test(var) if test==True: self.int=var else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def ret(self): print(self.int) def add(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=self.int+a else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def min1(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=self.int-a else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def mul(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=self.int*a else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def div1(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=self.int/a else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def min2(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=a-self.int else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.") def div2(self, a): test=test(a) if test==True: self.int=a/self.int else: print("The variable entered isn't an integer.")-- --Melab±1 ☎ 00:27, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Maybe I'm missing something here, but Python already has a built-in integer type called int. What behaviour do you want from your class that is different from int ? Gandalf61 (talk) 10:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]World Wide WebBack in the early 90's, how did one use the World Wide Web. Furthermore, how did people use Usenet? 67.180.161.183 (talk) 04:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Almost everyone used dial-up modems. I remember we sometimes connected to a service called Prodigy. You'd dial into that and browse their home page. But, there was so little to do on that (as a kid, that is), that we mostly used BBSs. We downloaded stuff from those (pictures, etc.), talked in chat rooms, and played text-only games. Although HTML had already been invented, web browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer did not come into use until around 1995. So, in the early 1990s, we didn't really use the WWW. It was mostly text without HTML. Piracy was all done by hand, since modems were so slow. You'd borrow a game on a floppy disk from a friend and install it on your computer. I remember it took 10 minutes to download a single picture, and the computers were so slow that it would slowly appear on the screen. Of course, it was all really fast compared to the way it was in the 1980s. Later came America Online. In the early- and mid-1990s, most people used their ISP's home page (Prodigy, AOL, etc.) to check their e-mail, check the weather, etc. Yahoo! and Alta-Vista came along in the mid-1990s, but they were worthless at first. You just used them as portals and browsed lists of pages on them. They couldn't find anything that you wanted if you tried to use the search box. It wasn't until Google came around in the late 1990s that you could actually find something by searching. As for Usenet, I didn't use it very much, although I know you can read newsgroups like Usenet using Outlook Express. You can share files and of course talk on newsgroups.--Drknkn (talk) 04:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Drknkn's description is broadly true for a certain set of home users. However, it misses some important points. The Web was created at a research institution (CERN) for the purpose of disseminating scientific papers and information; most of its early users would have been faculty, students, and employees at universities and companies with permanent Internet connections, not dial-up ISPs. But even then, the systems were quite slow by modern standards! "Online services" such as AOL and Prodigy did not have Internet access until the mid-'90s; if you wanted that, you went to a dial-up ISP such as Netcom. The idea that ordinary people (outside of universities, the technology trades, or hobbyists) would want open and unrestricted Internet access took a long time to seep in. As for Usenet -- In the early '90s, I would dial into a local hobbyist Unix system and use the "trn" software to read news. Downloading pictures from Usenet meant saving several messages to a file, running uudecode on them, and downloading with ZMODEM. Getting software would involve floppy disks or downloading from a BBS more often than Usenet. --FOo (talk) 07:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Before world wide web there was Gopher ftp usenet and telnet. We would use a terminal in the computer lab, or dial into a serial port on a unix box using a terminal program on the PC. Then run commands on the unix machine. I think I may have used tin to read usenet. There were on line indexes around like Archie search engine and Veronica. When Mosaic first came out we wondered why would any one want to embed pictures in text? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]To sum it up: it was pretty slow, not very interesting. In the bad old early days, I had a lot more fun just basically posting to bulletin boards, occasionally playing text-only browser games. Where I was, it was a lot easier to connect to local machines than it was to connect to the internet, so our "online communities" consisted primarily of people who lived in the area code. 'Twas a simpler time, to be sure. ;-) Met my first girlfriend that way, if you can believe it! --Mr.98 (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I would disagree with the assertion that it wasn't very interesting; the limitations provided a challenge that was solved in various clever ways (see ASCII art for example. I recall seeing a ASCII movie back in 1994-1995 or thereabouts that exploited the way text-based unix email programs would page down if you held down the space bar, essentially creating frames out of each page. I was part of the Eternal September, though technically I was a university student at the time. I used a text-based unix system at the school. Email was through Pine, usenet was done with tin (earlier it had been vi, which was horrible) and word-processing was done with a program called Pico. In many ways, I miss those old days - and I missed out on the great heydays when virtually everyone you met online was in some kind of post-secondary institution. Matt Deres (talk) 16:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]PhotoshopIs there a particular website that you can post them a trick image (like two headed people) and wait for their answer for how to make it in Photoshop?--Mikespedia (talk) 07:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]There's not a simple "one-click" way to digitally alter a photo. The fun stuff you see on, say, Photoshop Phriday, are manually edited. You might want a general purpose photoshop tutorial site to learn the tools available; but there's a good amount of "art" and technique to making a reasonable-looking image. Nimur (talk) 07:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]The answer to 90% of questions about "how to make it in Photoshop" is 1. clone tool, 2. masking, 3. patience. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]And layers. It's vitally important to keep things on different layers and mask them, instead of just plopping stuff down on the background layer. It's surprising how many people forget this. APL (talk) 14:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]How do I make portable apps?How can I make portable apps? I know some websites offer them, but I want to have the power to make my own... Are there any special tools for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.241.114.62 (talk) 10:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Take a look at Portable application creators (In my personal experience, VMware ThinApp and Xenocode are the best). --SF007 (talk) 11:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply] The above software is really good but can cause problems sometimes, especially with updating or adding plug-ins and stuff like that, because all files are stored in an executable file which can't be modified. For an alternative approach, have a look here where there are some tools and guides for making portable apps which retain the original file structure. It also depends of what type of program you wish to make portable (not all work well in portable form, some not at all) and the environment you're going to run them in (some portable apps might require java to be installed on the host system for example, and won't run without it)StablemotherboardIs there any motherboard which will be stable in hot temperature (no freezing or lock up)? Is Asus P5Q EM is appropriate for that job? Any thoughts? --119.30.36.51 (talk) 11:43, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Obvious Question : How hot? The probably is that the motherboard itself is not your point of failure here, it's the CPU. Without a special cooling system, the hotter the surrounding air, the less effective the CPU's heat-sink will be, and the faster it will overheat. You'll also want to keep close watch on your video card's temperature as well. What's your application? Are you married to the x86 (PC) architecture, or are you willing to use something else. It's my understanding that ARM CPUs are not nearly as heat sensitive as Pentiums and whatnot. If a rather low powered Linux machine would suit your needs, you might be able to put something together around the BeagleBoard, but I can't seem to easily find specs on what temperature range it's happy with. APL (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply](after EC) Does "hot" refer to the ambient room temperature, the computer's internal case temperature, or the CPU core temperature? This is an important consideration. ARMs and other low-power devices may be able to operate at higher ambient room temperature because they don't need as much thermal dissipation (they are typically lower power than, say, a Pentium Core 2). But I'd be willing to bet that their thermal shutdown core temperature is not that different from a higher-power CPU: Thermal Design Guidelines for 423-pin Pentium 4 and for 80331 (Celeron); meanwhile, even a high-end ARM runs at 300 mW. But if your case temperature were very high from something else, the ARM will probably fail. It looks like ARM does not publish thermal tolerances for operation (only storage) - so I suspect they have not been tested or certified to pass certain thermal benchmarks. (Surprisingly, even their automotive- processors do not have thermal tolerances listed - this is usually a major component of automotive electronics design!) So in general, while they are cooler processors under normal conditions due to their low power dissipation, if you have a special need (e.g. running the device inside a hot car, or even long-term exposure to an un-airconditioned server room), you might actually find a hotter P4 more robust and reliable. Nimur (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Too hot that causes a system to freeze and it forced user to press reset button. As far as I know Overheating of CPU causes system to shut down or restart repeatedly, but not freezing or locking up the system. My video card is not overheating as it is idle in 43 degree and 60 in load. Processor temp is 27 degree to 34 degree Celsius. Ram is not problem. I have conducted numerous test on system.Yes I am planning to load Vista 64 bit soon. But need an stable gaming motherboard. Should I go for that Asus model?--119.30.36.51 (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]For normal gaming usage, I think what you really want is good fans, and a good heat-sink. And good airflow. (Keep your case closed, And don't go adding vents or fans in random locations without thinking about what this does to your overall airflow.) In my experience choosing the right case is just as important as the CPU in these sorts of issues. If this computer is more than a few months old, be sure that dust is not accumulating on your heat-sinks. That can severely limit their effectiveness. Clear that out with compressed air. APL (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I have all the necessary instruments for a gaming system. For example, I have full tower thermaltake Xaser VI case. I have XFX 750i SLI mobo which runs too hot that causes system to freeze. That mobo is proven to be unstable. Does Asus P5Q EM have good heat-sink?--119.30.36.34 (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Back button won't go back in Yahoo emailThis [13] is where the discussion began. Actually, a link there goes to where my computer information is. In summary, when I finished looking at an email and tried to go back to what I was doing, I couldn't. I ended up in an endless loop. This may also be related to this [14], a problem I also have on other sites. The advice I was given by someone from Yahoo was that it might be a Java problem. As it happens, I kept getting messages that Java needed to be updated, so I did. This has not solved the problem. I also keep getting Error Code 21. So far they haven't responded back. I was wondering if anyone might have anything to say.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]You could use an email client. Evolution is a good one, and Opera comes with built-in email reader that isn't bad either. The plus side would be that you are not dependent on some yahoo provided interface that will be changed and gone when they feel like it. Otherwise the best you can do is to clear all caches, make sure you are running latest versions and, if all else fails, reinstall everything. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]It's simpler just to remember not to go to Yahoo except when I first sign on. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the simple link to email at the top of the page. As for getting anywhere within Yahoo, I can always click on "Inbox" or whatever folder. At least that always works now. And no problems with losing my drafts lately either.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:26, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I've been reading Vchimpanzee's postings here over the past few months with mild concern/amusement. You seem to have so many problems with your browser/PC that I'm starting to think you should just format and re-install everything. Honestly, I've never come across anyone having this much trouble on so many different websites and with such a disparate variety of issues that one can't even begin to get to the root of the problem. You sir/madam have a very sick PC which either has some serious corruption/improperly installed software, or bad bad BAD case of malware/spyware. Seriously, format and re-install. It's just not funny any more. Zunaid 20:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]The back button worked just now.Nothing's wrong with my computer. Norton scans it every Friday and never finds anything but cookies. I keep away from unfamiliar sites.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]A clean Norton scan does not mean "nothing's wrong with my computer". PCs tend to accumulate problems over the months and years as the user downloads, installs, and uninstalls software.I am not sure that Vchimpanzee's computer is as awful as Zunaid seems to believe. I think most of his/her complaints are about small, common problems that most of us would not think twice about, and Vchimpanzee is complaining here because of the ease of doing so.Vchimpanzee, I, for one, am tired of answering your daily questions and comments about problems with Yahoo Mail on your particular PC. I, and several others, have told you the fix for the problem many times. Switch to a different mail provider. You don't have to put up with this crap. Just switch to a different mail provider. Or, format your PC's hard disk and reinstall everything from scratch if you are for some reason hellbent on staying with Yahoo Mail. That is as far as I can go. We have told you how to fix all of this. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:55, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]I don't see what's so wrong with being curious to learn what causes things. I think the problem may be with Internet Explorer 8, as I said in a question with a link above. I never got a clear answer on whether Internet Explorer 8 has any problems, or how to find out. In any case, there are no obvious problems with the computer. I saw an AT&T ad when the "Not Responding" message was there. An earlier question of mine was about an AT&T ad with Firefox at a library. I despise Firefox. Nevertheless, going to unfamiliar or troublesome sites there is less risky. The latest Firefox update seems to have solved the AT&T problem, or maybe AT&T did.NO more questions for at least a week because I think I'll be at the beach. Something could change but that's my plan.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:42, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]Keeping files on a hard disk without registering in file system (FAT32 or NTFS)Is there a program for writing files directly to hard disk without registering it in File Allocation Table or whatever it is called under NTFS (just writing it into empty space hoping it won't be overwritten later on) and keeping record of it on some portable disk together with checksum?? and restoring it in case no part of it was overwritten? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.8.52.97 (talk) 20:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]TrueCrypt doesn't do exactly what you ask for, but appears to be able to create hidden volumes in ntfs and probably is what you really want. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 20:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]October 3