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December 5

HP Laserjet M1120 vs Linux - CLOSED

 Done

Short and sweet ('s 2 am here and I'm dying): does anyone have any experience with HP's all-in-one M1120 on Linux (I'm running Zenwalk Linux specifically). Broader: which all-in-one, if any, would you guys/gals recommend? I know I will prefer a laser printer over an ink jet printer, and I'd like to have a scanner. Xeros machine functionality would be nice, but I'll live without it. No networking/fax/misc magical powers are really necessary. Thanks for your input, friends. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 00:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The open printing database quotes one person who says printing and scanning work (on Ubuntu at least) out of the box. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 02:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm gonna close this because I did some searching and I found that it's supposed to work thanks to the libraries hplip and foo2xqx. Thanks, Finlay, for your contribution! --Ouro (blah blah) 16:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

C

Two questions about C programming:

1. When I run a compiled C program from the terminal using the "exec" command, the terminal closes when the program finishes. How can I get it to stay open?

2. Consider the following code:

void main(void)
{
  // some lines of code
  check();         // Line A
  // some lines not calling check()
  check();         // Line B
  // more code
}

If no key was pressed between lines A and B, check() returns a one-item list containing 0. If a key was pressed, check() returns a list of values corresponding to the keys pressed, in the order that they were pressed. Furthermore, check() does not cause any break/pause/etc in the execution of the program.

Are there any functions that can be used to create check()?

If it's pertinent, I use Code::Blocks and GCC. 72.197.202.36 (talk) 00:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

1. Don't use exec, or exec a command followed by a pause command of some sort (which really means you've spawned a new shell anywasy, so you may as well skip exec and just do program && pause && exit. Exec means the program replaces the shell, and when the program goes, so will the shell.
2. A non-blocking single character read would work, but real input handling is OS dependent. You'd need to give more details. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 00:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

For question 2, consider using keyboard hooks for a Windows system.--TParis00ap (talk) 04:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you want to use keyboard hooks, since that will capture all key activity even when your window doesn't have the input focus. For a Windows console application, ReadConsoleInput is the function you want (or just ReadFile if you don't care about mouse clicks and non-ASCII keys and such). To avoid blocking, you should first call WaitForSingleObject with a timeout of 0 to check whether there's anything available to read. To get keypresses immediately, instead of line by line, you need to use GetConsoleMode/SetConsoleMode to disable line input. The Linux equivalents are read, select/poll, and tcgetattr/tcsetattr. -- BenRG (talk) 02:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Can I use a RAID controller without any RAID?

I am trying to buy a cheap older computer to work as a data server in my house, and I already have a couple of large SATA drives already filled with data. I am looking at a Dell Dimension 8400 because the specs say it can take four SATA drives, and I think I'll buy another someday. When reading the manual it talks about RAID configurations 0 and 1, which both sound very nice, but if I understand them correctly neither is what I want. I want to keep the data on the drives (neither will have the OS), and I'd like to be able to a) remove them easily with everything working fine and b) take them to another computer, possibly as an external drive. So can I use a RAID controller in this manner? Thanks for your help. mislih 00:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

What you describe is called a JBOD ("just a bunch of disks"). That page you linked doesn't seem to mention RAID, so I guess that the machine doesn't come with one, and that you intend to install a PCI RAID (from someone like Adaptec), right? Every RAID controller I've ever used had a JBOD mode; but I'd check the specs of the specific RAID controller you're thinking about before buying one. Note that you can get a PCI SATA expansion card (that doesn't do hardware RAID) for a bit less than a RAID card (and, perhaps confusingly, you can still do RAID anyway, just with the OS and the CPU doing the work). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 01:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I picked this machine because it has four SATA ports on the motherboard as shown in the page I linked to above. When I read the manual is where it talks about RAID (the pdf I linked to is a pretty big). From other reading, I think it means the motherboard has 'fakeRAID' built in. Are you saying I can I run it in JBOD mode and get seperate disks? mislih 02:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

p22 talks about turning "RAID On", and talks about machines being delivered without that configuration. So that seems to me to be a pretty strong implication that, with RAID off, it's just a JBOD. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 02:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! mislih 04:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Be careful with the JBOD mode, in some cases it refers to a series of disks that the controller stitches together to form one logical disk. If you use the disks in this manner they will *not* be independently removable or transportable. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

adding Wikipedia search engine to my page

I would like to add Wikipedia search engine to http://sovietdream.com/researches/ , so that client would be taken to Wikipedia separate result page after entering search words to, that engine in my page. Could I get html code of such search engine? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.58.207.25 (talk) 08:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

my email - [redacted] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.58.207.25 (talk) 08:54, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

email removed to avoid questioner suffering spam. Question reformatted. --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the basic template used on most Wikipedia pages. It is pretty straightforward to modify; all I did was all the full en.wikipedia URL to the "action" value to make it portable.

<form action="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php" id="searchform">
	<input type='hidden' name="title" value="Special:Search"/>
	<input id="searchInput" title="Search Wikipedia" accesskey="f" value="" name="search" />
	<input type='submit' name="go" class="searchButton" id="searchGoButton"	value="Go" title="Go to a page with this exact name if one exists" />&nbsp;
	<input type='submit' name="fulltext" class="searchButton" id="mw-searchButton" value="Search" title="Search Wikipedia for this text" />
</form>

Enjoy. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem with MediaWiki code which I copied over to swfanon.wikia.com

Hey,

I copied {{Article issues}} over to the Star Wars Fanon Wiki: http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Mult_issues. I also copied over any other needed templates: {{DatedAI}}, {{Ambox}}, {{Ambox/core}} and {{ns0}}. Now, on Mult_issues/test, I cannot seem to get any of the parameters (which are all new, replaced ones, and no originals) to show up. Have I deleted a crucial bit of code? Or am I still lacking a certain template? Neither the Sysop nor I can figure out what's wrong with it. I hope you guys can do a better job ;-)

Thanks in advance, :-),--213.168.119.120 (talk) 09:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a lot of MediaWiki Extensions. Often, the more complicated templates on Wikipedia are deeply interwoven into these kinds of software modifications. All of them are freely available, and you can compare which sets are installed on Wikipedia's MediaWiki Version Information and the corresponding page on your wiki. I can't see any of the obvious ones missing (ParserFunctions is often missing on third-party wikis). All this is still hinging on the hunch that the trouble is based on a missing extension, which may not be the case, but it's what I would check first. Nimur (talk) 14:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

And they are often dependent on markup in MediaWiki:Common.css and code in MediaWiki:Common.css. See m:Help:Transwiki. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The last link should probably be MediaWiki:Common.js. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Find the center of a triangle in Blender

In Blender, I want to add a vertex at (I think) the circumcenter of a triangle. That is, a location equidistant to the three other points. Selecting the three points and choosing snap->cursor to selection doesn't do the job: it moves the cursor to (I think) the centroid, the average of the three points, instead. Any idea how to get my desired kind of center? This would be useful for constructing polyhedrons and probably for other things. 93.97.21.17 (talk) 11:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't use Blender, but the circumcenter is indeed equidistant from the three vertices, and can be constructed by drawing the perpendicular bisectors of the three sides. Does Blender have a routine for this? Dbfirs 13:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If it does not, Blender supports Python scripting, so you can write your own routine. The math would be fairly simple to compute the circumcenter; the hardest part would be locating the API to access the current vertices and get their coordinates. That would be the list() routine to get your object name, followed by the getData() routine to get its mesh and vertices. We have a WikiBook on Blender Scripting which walks through an example of getting vertex information. In addition, the official manuals and tutorials are available from the Blender website. Nimur (talk) 14:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

That is a most useful-looking wikibook, thanks for the link. 213.122.21.216 (talk) 15:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Force no redirects when searching

Hello all. I have attempted to solve this myself but I am not very good at these things. When I type a URL into my address bar (I use Firefox) and I make a typo, I get automatically redirected to Bing search for the typoed URL. 99.99% of the time what I want is to simply go back to the address bar and fix the letter I omitted or typed wrong and hit enter and I have no use for the search results. However, I can't do this since the URL has been changed to Bing's search URL. Is there a way to only go to exactly where I typed without being redirected (in the case of typos, I guess to nowhere with my browser saying the page cannot be found) so that the address in the URL is never changed for me. Thanks in advance.--68.160.242.48 (talk) 15:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There are several things which might redirect you. Your ISP may redirect bad DNS lookups to a search URL - there's not much that can be done about this (though you can override the default DNS with an alternate public service). More likely problems which might be causing this are due to your browser - I find these "fixups" very irritating. (I am often on a private network with valid URLs like http://nimur. When I type "nimur" into my URL bar, I do not want a "keyword search," I want Firefox to go to the correct server). You can disable these irritating "auto-fixup" features by disabling "search from the address bar" and other "url fixup" options in Firefox. You can also download ClumsyFingers addon, which disables several shortcuts (like "ctrl-enter" to automatically append ".net" and other DNS changes). There may be some other specific tweaks for your browser to make sure that you get a true "Server not found" error message, rather than a redirect to a different computer, when you mistype a DNS name or URL. Note the important distinction between a typo that results in a host not found, and a 404 error.Nimur (talk) 19:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Assigning a string to a variable in C

With out doing it when I declare the variable, how can I assign a string to a variable?

For example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define STRSIZ 20

typedef struct inventory{
      char product_cat,    /* Catergory of each product */
           depart_name[STRSIZ],  /*Name of department*/
	  product_name[STRSIZ],   /* Name of the product */
      meat_type,              /* type of meat */
	  plants,	  /* fruit or veggie */
	  aisle_side,  /* side of asile */
	  nonfood_cat; /*category of nonfood item*/
      int cost_item;    /* Cost of item in cents */
      int packaging_date,  /* Date of packaging */
	  expiration_date, /* Date of expiration */
	  aisle_number;
} any_product;

int main (void)
{
  struct inventory any_product;
  char pad; /*absorbs stray \n from buffer */

  printf("Enter product category (M,P,D,C,N,Q): ");
  scanf("%c", &any_product.product_cat);
  printf("%c\n", any_product.product_cat);
  scanf("%c", &pad); /*absorbs stray \n from buffer */

  switch (any_product.product_cat)
     {
     case 'm':
     case 'M':
          printf("Meats\n");
          any_product.depart_name = "Meat department";
   ...

The last assignment doesn't work. How can I make it so it does? -- penubag  (talk) 20:41, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Use strcpy, like this:

         strcpy(any_product.depart_name, "Meat department");

of course, you want to be sure the text never exceeds 19 characters in length.

I can see several improvements that could be made, but I assume this is something in an early stage of development so I'll leave it to you to learn. Astronaut (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you much! Please tell me what can be improved. -- penubag  (talk) 21:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Here are three recommendations. First, never use scanf() unless you absolutely need to process freeform input. The fact that it does not distinguish between space and newlines for most purposes can be very confusing when you use it interactively. Instead, use fgets() to read in one line (of convenient size; allow for several hundred characters) and then use sscanf() to examine that line and see if it has the form you expect.

Second, when you #define the maximum size of something, make it the maximum size of the string and add 1 to get the array size. So instead of

 #define STRSIZ 20
 char depart_name[STRSIZ];

write

 #define STRSIZ 19
 char depart_name[STRSIZ+1];

Then STRSIZ tells you the actual maximum size of the string, which is more self-documenting and may also be useful if you find yourself needing to do arithmetic on it.

Third, learn the difference between declaring a struct template and typedeffing the type. Your first declaration did both at once. If you are going to refer to your struct types in the style "struct inventory", then you don't need to use typedefs. Typedef defines an alternate name for a type, which allows you to not use the keyword "struct" all the time. Personally I think that is a bad approach when working with structs, but some programmers prefer it. In this case you have (presuambly accidentally) typedeffed the name "any_product" to be a synonym for "struct inventory". This would have allowed you, when you wanted to declare the variable "any_product", to write "any_product any_product;"! In practice, most programmers who use typedefs for structs use the same name as the struct tag, so they write "typedef struct inventory inventory;" or "typedef struct inventory { (template here) } inventory", and then declare "inventory any_product;".

Hope this helps. --Anonymous, 09:26 UTC, December 6, 2009.

Thanks you very much. It does help! -- penubag  (talk) 23:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

How do I play a movie DVD in my computer?

I cannot get a movie DVD in my DVD drive to play, neither with Windows Media Player nor with VLC. What do I need to do to view the movie please? I have WinXP. 92.27.148.85 (talk) 21:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

In order to play a DVD you need a DVD drive and the computer has to have the necessary software to interpret the DVD drive. Without those, VLC and Windows Media Player will not be of any use for playing a DVD. To start with the obvious, do you have a DVD player, rather than a standard CD player? Usually it tells you that it is a DVD player on the front of the drive. Falconus^{p t c} 21:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Try reading the top bit again please - it says "in my DVD drive". 92.27.148.85 (talk) 22:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

VLC contains the necessary software; it does not need an external codec to decode a DVD. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried trying to start it with VLC but nothing happened. 92.27.148.85 (talk) 22:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

VLC has a menu option (it's in "tools" on my machine) called "messages". Open that and retry to open the disk (using VLC's Media->open_disk option). The messages screen should display whatever VLC thinks is the error. Also try to play one of the (large) .VOB files on the disk by opening it in VLC. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, did that. The message box says "main error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called main error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called libmpeg2 error: invalid picture encountered" 78.146.29.54 (talk) 23:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It thinks the DVD files are corrupt (that they don't contain proper MPEG streams). Does this happen with all DVDs? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've tried another DVD, and this time it plays, in a manner of speaking, but the image is very very very corrupted, nearly all garbage. The message box says: "main error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called main error: ES_OUT_RESET_PCR called libmpeg2 error: invalid picture encountered spudec error: overflow in SPU next command sequence libmpeg2 error: invalid picture encountered libmpeg2 error: invalid picture encountered libmpeg2 error: invalid picture encountered" with the last comments repeated many times. I am in the UK where PAL is used rather than NTSC. I do not know if that makes any difference to the DVD encoding. The previous DVD was "widescreen" according to the box. The other more recent DVD that I tried gives more information on the box: PAL 16:9, DVD-5, Region 2. I suppose the 16:9 proprtion means that was wide-screen as well.

When I tried to run the DVDs with Windows Media Player I got an error message saying "Windows Media Player cannot play the DVD because a compatible DVD decoder is not installed on your computer." This lead to a webpage which said (edited): DVD Playback Options for Windows......install a compatible DVD decoder (also known as a MPEG-2 decoder) before continuing with......Playing a DVD......Playing video files that were encoded with the MPEG-2 codec (.mpeg, .mpg, and some .avi files) To purchase a compatible DVD decoder, visit Plug-ins for Windows Media Player."

Update: I've tried another DVD, this time 4:3 format. It will not play in Windows Media Player, giving the same error message as above. It does play imperfectly in VLC, with some garbage on screen, very choppy sound, and I have not figured out how to get past the opening menu. Thanks Update 2: Despite uninstalling VLC and re-installing the latest version, I still get the same problems. 89.243.153.124 (talk) 13:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You may have to clean your laser lens in the drive, it may have dirt or fluff on it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

To test this, I put a non-movie DVD and a CD into the drive, and they both read perfectly with no problems. So probably the lens is clean. 78.146.231.126 (talk) 12:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

huawei

i'm posting this questions after 7 hours of thorough googling. i received a modem from my bro that had been locked. he's in another country and i'm in Kenya and i would want to unlock it so as to use the networks available in my country. It's a Huawei E160 3g modem and here guys are charging heavily for unlocking modems yet they've downloaded the software from the net for free. Anyway anyone who knows a site i can download the unlocker preferrably for free ,i've already changed it's dashboard but i need the unlock code. The one at nextgenserver.com is givin a mscoree.dll or something error message when i run it. please assist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.88.34 (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Two idle google clicks of my own make me think it's asking you to install .NET, as per [1]... 81.131.30.94 (talk) 04:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

December 6

Why ALU division is slow

I'm making slides about why integer division in an ALU is slow. To be complete, I've been Googling to see if there are any reasons I haven't included and I see many websites/papers that claim that one of the reasons for the slowness is that you have to check in each iteration to see if you are done. In addition/multiplication, the number of iterations is known from the start. I find that a bit strange. How can it take more iterations than bits in the dividend? -- kainaw™ 01:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Could it be because of the added complexity of calculating fractions or remainders? I don't know that much about how the logic systems keep track of things, but if you were dividing 12 (1100) by 8 (1000), the answer would be 1.5 (0001.01). Any other odd divisions would end up with more bits. Maybe that's not how it works, I don't know for sure since my digital logic education didn't get that far (I'm more of an RF guy). —Akrabbim^talk 04:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

For integer division, 12/8=1. Each step of the process, be it restoring or non-restoring, produces at least 1 bit of the answer. Since the maximum answer for 4-bit division is 4 bits, it will iterate a maximum of 4 times. By your answer, I wonder if a lot of sites are confusing integer with float division. -- kainaw™ 04:24, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

After I shut down my computer last night, I realized that even floating point division has a distinct number of iterations. For example, SRT division begins with k padded zeros. The number of zeros (k) is how many shifts will be needed to complete the division. So, even if there is confusion between integer and float division, the number of iterations is still known before the iterations begin. Therefore, I think it is just nonsense being copied and pasted throughout the Internet that one reason for division to be slow is that you don't know the number of iterations before you begin. -- kainaw™ 16:24, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Division isn't important so why bother spending a lot on it? The division algorithms that are used are fast enough so it isn't a bottleneck and that's good enough. Just a little extra speed on addition or multiplication is more worthwhile. I don't see any great problems about making it almost as fast as a multiplication if it really was important. Dmcq (talk) 18:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That is a horrifying over-simplification. Some computer graphics algorithms such as texture-mapping have to compute at least a couple of divide operations for every single pixel that's drawn. The speed of division can be a critical bottleneck and computer graphics people spend a lot of effort to minimize the number of them. SteveBaker (talk) 03:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(It's been a long time since I thought about this!) Isn't it because multiplication can be done in parallel? For a 16x16 bit multiplier:

• Take 16 differently wired multiplexers - each one selects between a zero and the first operand shifted up 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 and 15 times (that's just wiring up the inputs of the mux'es - no actual math is required).
• Use the 16 bits of the second operand to switch the 16 multiplexers (a 0 selects the 0 input of the mux - a 1 selects the shifted version of the first operand.
• Add the 16 outputs using a cascaded 16-way adder.

I don't think there is a similar algorithm for division - you have to know the result of each bit before you can calculate the next bit - so a 16 bit division requires anything up to 16 steps. SteveBaker (talk) 00:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Floating point is a lot like integer math - remember, you can simply add or subtract the exponents then multiply the mantissae using integer math. There is a bit more messing around for the corner cases (denormalised numbers, etc) - but it's not that hard. SteveBaker (talk) 00:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

First, no-one seems to have provided the seemingly obvious wikilink to division (digital) yet, so let me do that. Anyway, I think SteveBaker's answer hits the core of the matter: binary multiplication can be effectively parallelized in hardware using Wallace trees or similar methods, while no such simple parallelization method is known for division. In particular, one of the "fast division" methods described in the article, Newton–Raphson division, basically works by reducing the division to multiplication by the reciprocal of the divisor, which must first be computed iteratively. Therefore it will always be slower than the corresponding multiplication operation. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I didn't link to the article because it is pretty much worthless. It completely fails on the "how" because it assumes the user knows how everything works and makes very vague references to restoring and non-restoring techniques. I considered rewriting it, but it looks to me like it used to be a good article and then a group of hardheaded editors came along and took ownership of it, forcing it to be useless. -- kainaw™ 13:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I was searching for answers to a question below, and came across this: New Radix-16 Divider in Intel Technology Journal. There's a sort of implementation overview, but no diagrams. Maybe this can point you to some other leads to follow. Nimur (talk) 16:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Non-linear stretching for HDTVs

Some widescreen televisions offer a non-linear stretch mode for displaying 4:3 images on the entirety of the 16:9 display without losing any (or at most very few) lines at the top and bottom edges and without the unpleasant effect of uniform stretching (especially on people). Unfortunately, there seems to be no standard name for this technique. Widescreen display modes calls it "wide zoom", but I suspect that name may instead refer to a stretch that differs in x and y (say, 16/12=133% in x and 120% in y, losing 1/12=8.3% of the lines in the image and distorting an on-screen square to an aspect ratio of only 110.8%). Other names seem to be Just, Horizon, Smart Stretch (which seems to be Sharp's name for it), Panorama, or TheaterWide — but I've seen written elsewhere that TheaterWide is another non-uniform x-y stretch. So:

1. Do all of those names really refer to non-linear stretches?
2. What is the name of the non-linear stretch mode (if any) for Samsung, Sony, and LG televisions?
3. What other brands support an equivalent option (and under what names)?
4. Do Blu-Ray players exist that can apply such a stretch if the TV can't? Can they apply it to upconverted DVDs and for BDs?
5. Are there any significant quality differences between implementations?
6. How does the notional aspect ratio of a DVD play into this? Some movies, like Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, were actually shot in 4:3, but their DVDs were released early enough that (I believe) they are expanded (linearly, surely) on the disc to 16:9, with the expectation that a DVD player connected to a 4:3 TV will undo the stretch. Having that movie stretched non-linearly and then recompressed linearly to 4:3 would obviously lose.

Thanks in advance for responses even to a few of these many questions! --Tardis (talk) 04:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Having owned a Sharp TV I know that their term of "smart stretch" is for a non-linear zoom where the left and right edges get stretched more heavily than the middle and a 4:3 image is converted fully to a 16:9 one. Most DVD players I have seen are more concerned with fitting a 16:9 image onto a 4:3 display instead of the other way around since (in the US anyway) there are more TVs with 4:3 than there are DVDs at *only* 4:3 (many of which are multisided offering 16:9 as well). Hope this helps! --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Re Willy Wonka, according to the article it was shot open matte and released with both 4:3 and widescreen crops on the DVD. The widescreen crop was the intended one (the one the cinematographer shot for). If you play the 16:9 version on a 16:9 TV, you'll see the movie as intended. If you play the 4:3 version with nonlinear stretching to 16:9, marvelous things will happen. -- BenRG (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Make apps running outside a VM visible within it?

In Windows, is it possible to set up a virtual machine so that selected apps running outside the VM have their memory mapped into the VM and are visible to apps running within it? (The only practical use for doing so that comes readily to mind is a future-proof way to defeat Warden -- run Warden in a VM, and let it see only Blizzard games and Windows system processes. Running the games themselves inside the VM would probably slow them down.) NeonMerlin 08:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Surely not. I don't think it violates the rules of thermodynamics, but trying to get the guest OS to imagine it has a process running when it really doesn't sounds far too complicated to be feasible. --Tardis (talk) 16:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Your best bet is to forget that one machine is "virtual" and make the applications visible to each other via a network service. Both the host and the virtual PC can operate as either server or client, and can communicate to eachother via an IP or TCP/IP-based protocol. Depending on your needs, you might find OpenMPI very helpful for dealing with such tasks, especially if you are writing the software. In general, though, this categorically excludes shared memory programming, which is what you are seeking (mapping the memory space of one computer across a different computer). You could switch to a different operating system like Altix, which makes network-based shared-memory "transparent", but this is not possible on Windows or most linuxes. Further, it has huge performance obstacles - and since you're already virtualizing the system... well, why would you virtualize and then attempt to share memory? Anyway, re-reading your post, it sounds like your goals are very specific, and I think this approach is not going to work. You stand a better chance at running a proxy server and intercepting the network traffic, modifying it, and re-transmitting "clean" network traffic - but this has its own set of challenges. Nimur (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes it's possible, see Windows_Virtual_PC#Windows_XP_Mode —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 20:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Warden examines other processes, and mmaps their memory (our article says it only mmaps the wow process itself, now at least). You can subvert this without a VM (indeed, a VM seems like an unnecessary burden). It's generally possible to intercept kernel calls, and to give Warden fake (i.e. okay) copies of pages (ones you've patched) when it tries to mmap. Or you could just patch warden yourself. Of course warden will have some protections against that, but that can only go so far. With a bit of work you'll succeed in being able to change the Wow process without warden noticing. But when Blizzard figure it out (which they will if you post the program onto some public forum, or when they change warden to be more devious, which I guess they do very often) they'll break your hack (they'll look for your hack, they'll run extra checks). So starts a war of randomly-named polymorphic code (much like the war between virus checkers and polymorphic viruses that seek to disable them). Eventually they gain an advantage because they can persuade (i.e. pay) Microsoft to sign a Vista/win7 kernel module, which you can't, and which you can't patch. You can still subvert that by rootkitting the entire machine, to overcome Windows' signed-kernel-code restrictions. That works unless a given machine will not boot a patched kernel, verified using the Trusted Computing infrastructure. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course Blizzard have another trick up their sleeve. Warden doesn't (or need not) disable WoW even if it sees a given cheat. They can just keep a log of all the accounts that uses one, and then every six months or so close all those accounts for a TOS breach. That will piss off the regular users of the cheat no end (because even with the cheat they've spent/wasted countless hours on their character); it won't inconvenience the goldfarmers (who you'd expect would be the biggest users of cheatware) as they're smart and will roll accounts over quickly regardless (in part because of Blizzard's existing anti-goldfarming measures). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Web

What was the very first Web site? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 10:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

According to this page by Tim Berners-Lee it was http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. That page is no longer active but there is an archived version. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 10:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the World Wide Web is only a small part of the overall Internet. Tim Berners-Lee started serving HTML pages in around 1989, and so earns the claim as the first "Web Site", but there are other internet and non-internet events which predate that. History of the Internet is a good overview. Nimur (talk) 15:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Also note... "Web page" implies that you are looking for an HTML document that is accessible through the Internet via a webserver. Long before there were web pages, there were HTML documents. You just couldn't access them via a webserver. The first ones I saw were only available via FTP - just to show what HTML syntax looked like. Then, by 1993, webservers were popular enough that you could access a lot of HTML through them. If memory serves, it wasn't until around 1995 that the web succeeded in completely supplanting gopher. -- kainaw™ 13:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OOP/philosophy terminology concordance?

Do any dictionaries exist for translating between object-oriented programming terms and their equivalents in philosophical ontology? NeonMerlin 13:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. And if there was, would it be very long, or very interesting? I doubt it. Which is probably why there isn't one. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Does The Jargon File help? (I'm not sure I'd describe it as 'philosophical ontology' - but it's a dictionary that's full of the terms that OpenSource programmer use - explained in more-or-less plain english. SteveBaker (talk) 04:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

ip address

A while ago I asked what the technical risks of someone knowing your ip address were, like hacking etc. Now I'm wondering what other issues might come from someone malicious knowing and wanting to cause trouble, for example someone randomly harvesting ips from Wikipedia recent changes and reporting them to the respective ISPs as having violated their TOS, hosting / posting illegal material, violating copyrights etc. All of the accusations are baseless, but would an ISP terminate a customer if someone were to go around reporting random ips? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably not. ISPs themselves have very limited liability for things like that. As a consequence, they don't get much out of enforcing requests other than hassles. They will comply with legitimate legal requests (e.g. a subpoena for info on the real human behind an IP address) but I doubt most would do anything just because some company asked them to—the ISPs themselves have very little to gain in doing so. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Simply complaining to an ISP is not sufficient for them to take action against anyone. Usually, a subpoena or court order is required before the ISP will do anything; the barrier to obtaining one of these is sufficiently high that it is nearly impossible to get one frivolously, let alone to get them in bulk for many IPs without any actual cause. Nimur (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. @ Mr.98, I wasn't even thinking of something as large as a company making reports, I was thinking of just a random person with nothing better to do collecting ip addresses and reporting them to a page like this, out of spite or boredom or something. Anyway, thank you for the helpful answers :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 20:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, the ISPs have basically no liability for user activity (at least in the U.S.A.), and get their money by keeping users, not kicking them off. They would have to be extraordinarily stupid to actually pay attention to random letters alleging bad behavior and actually act on them in a way that hurts their own economic interests. It doesn't mean it's not possible, but I doubt it could be a serious problem in any way. It would be an extremely unproductive way of trying to make trouble. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

While this doesn't really answer the question, we do have Wikipedia:Abuse response which handles legitimate long term abuse providing evidence in the form of 'diffs'. It isn't particularly active and responses aren't that great and indeed primarily chases cases of educational institutions who are more likely to respond but they do sometimes deal with normal ISPs. For privacy reasons, many ISPs are not going to report if they did anything so if the behaviour stops, it's possibile it's because the ISP did something, it's possible the vandal just gave up. Many ISPs do of course have TOS which would allow them to cut off users although I would expect a warning is more likely (and probably enough to scare off most vandals). Abuse reports coming from random people may work if strong evidence is provided, and wikipedia diffs may be accepted as good enough evidence. Of course abuse reports coming from wikimedia system admins would likely be even more effective at getting a response but the foundation doesn't have the resources and I'm not sure about the interest. (I see some discussion of getting some official sanction and an appropriate @wikipedia or @wikimedia address, it would be interesting so how much this helps if it does happen. I expect a lot.) Abuse reports without any real evidence are almost definitely going to be completely ignored Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I added the citation needed tags myself since I'm not entirely sure how correct they are. It was my impression but some things I've read particularly here Wikipedia:Abuse response/2009 Revamp make me question it. Volunteers there will be able to give you a better idea. Nil Einne (talk) 14:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Synching two computers

I have a desktop with Windows Vista and a laptop with Windows 7 and I would like to set it up so that if I change/add/delete a file on one computer, that the change will be made on the other computer as well so I don't have to use a flash drive to move files back and forth all the time. Is there an easy way to do this? I would be willing to spend a small amount of money if I need some sort of hardware to do this. In case this info is helpful/necessary, my network is an unsecured wireless network as my apartment provides this for free. And, I have a Seagate external hard drive which automatically backs up my desktop computer, but I believe it can only be hooked up to one computer at a time. Thanks. StatisticsMan (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

A one way sync (just changes on one machine to the other) is quite easy - rsync is easy and very good. Personally I'd tunnel that over ssh (particularly because you're on an insecure connection); you can get easy to setup ssh client and server from OpenSSH. A two way sync (where a change on either machine is propagated to its counterpart) is more challenging - rsync's counterpart Unison (file synchronizer) will do that. For any two-way scheme (including those from Microsoft) you'll run into "conflicts", where the same file has been changed on two different machines - it's just the same problem as a MediaWiki edit conflict, and like those you're left to resolve the conflict manually (usually you end up with two versions of the conflicted file). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

You can try something like Jungle Disk. For US$4 a month, you get 10 GB (you can purchase additional space at a rate of US$0.16 per GB). You can install the Jungle Disk clients on both your machines, and it will keep them in sync in real time. This may not be ideal if you have a lot of data because it will sync it via the Internet. It has the added benefit of letting you access the data from anywhere that you have internet access, and keeps an offsite backup. - Akamad (talk) 02:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Similar service is Dropbox where you get 2GB for free. You can find some other services and informations on Comparison of online backup services. Lukipuk (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

December 7

What is the Pipeline Depth of Intel Core and Nehalem CPUs?

I've scoured Google for the answer to this, but can't find any info. The closest I've found is the instruction pipleine depth for the fastest Pentium IV (30?). Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.105.96 (talk) 11:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

p258 of Inside the Machine by Jon Stokes says Core has a 14 stage pipeline (up from 12 in P6). As of its writing (its copyright 2007) he says Intel hadn't released a full breakdown of the Core pipeline. That book predates Nehalem. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's the number of stages per instruction, right? I'm looking for the number of stages executed per clock cycle (the depth). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.105.96 (talk) 13:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Intel Core 2 Microarchitecture Whitepaper] doesn't seem to have a solid number. The real answer probably varies based on current instruction, because new processor architectures are very effective at shutting down unneeded logic circuits and activating them as needed. Actual numbers might be proprietary, which is why it's hard to find an answer. Nimur (talk) 16:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Would it be two per core? I'm talking about superscalar architectures and instruction pipelining. I read today about Intel's hyper threading technology, which executes two threads per core, although I read somewhere else that the Pentium (586) processor introduced superscalar execution with two per clock cycle. Then, the book said that the Pentium II (686) executed three per clock cycle, which really confused me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.105.96 (talk) 00:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No - "two per core" is roughly the number of pipelines, not the depth of each pipeline. Each core is a separate pipeline, in a handwavey approximate explanation. In fact, each core contains multiple "semi"-pipelines (execution pipelines or "data flow graphs"), with a different pipeline used for different instruction logic execution. These "semi-pipelines" are partially what make out of order execution possible - i.e. allowing a later instruction to progress through its logic before a prior instruction has returned its result. But these logic circuits are really just separate functional units and do not actually independently have the capacity for a single, arbitrary instruction to complete. The set of all logic pathways necessary to execute all possible next instructions is a "core." The number of stages of logic is the depth of that core's pipeline. The ambiguity in pipeline depth is because (as I mentioned above), different instructions have different logic complexities (e.g. an add instruction is simpler than an SSE 4 instruction, and so it has a shallower pipeline). So if you want the depth of the pipe for the entire core, the best answer is to give you the deepest possible pipeline - almost certainly, this would be on one of the recent SSE or x86-64 extensions. But most of the time, when simpler instructions are executed, an instruction does not have this long latency and does not traverse through that "worst-case" number of pipeline stages. So, as always, it depends on your particular program and the exact assembly code that it compiles down to. Nimur (talk) 05:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

VGA & SCART connections for monitor & PS2

Not exactly a computer question, though it is related. I've just got a playstation 2, which has a SCART connection for plugging into a tv (male scart into which the 3 audio & video plugs from ps2 plug). I don't have a tv with a scart or individual audio/video plugs, just a 15 pin VGA connector, which is plugged into the computer. I want to ask what type of adaptor connector I need to get to run my ps2 through the computor monitor. I was thinking of a VGA splitter though they only seem ot display a computer signal on 2 monitors rather than allowing you to choose which feed displays on 1 monitor. Any ideas? AllanHainey (talk) 13:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If all the PS2 has is a SCART output or other component, composite or S-video outputs for TVs this isn't going to work with any passive connector. You're going to need some sort of active box cable of inputing a component/composite/S-video signal and converting it into a VGA signal. I came across this site from a search [2] but can't vouch for their reliability, but that is the sort of thing you'll need. Alternatively if you have a computer you could use a video in card (including many TV tuners) but this is likely to introduce a fair amount of lag depending on the setup. Nil Einne (talk) 14:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The PS2 has a Euro-AV connector plug with a scart socket (labelled VMC 91), this connector has 3 plugs going into it - red yellow & white 1 video & 2 audio. I've got a computer but I don't know how to run the PS2 through it. AllanHainey (talk) 18:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you read Nil Einne's response? You need to get a converter box with a composite video input and which somehow outputs VGA video; or you need to get a video card for your PC that has composite video input. Both options are probably more expensive than buying a used PS2. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I did read the response, but wanted to clarify as its not just only a scart output. I see what's meant now though, I'd misunderstood as I'd focussed on the scart reference. I've got a video card in my pc, how would I go about checking to see if I can run the ps2 through it? Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 20:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If the PC has a female RCA connector meant for video on the back of it, then you're in business. Some video cards have a weird proprietary connector on it, which you're supposed to plug another weird proprietary octopus-like splitter cable into, and that cable has the female RCA video connector you need. If you have none of these, you'll need a video capture card — either a dedicated PCI card whose only function is to input video; or, more likely, a graphics card that also has a composite video-in connector. The All-in-Wonder is the first that comes to mind but there are hundreds of other choices. You should attempt to verify you like the quality of the end setup before you purchase, if possible. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't reckon it has, there's a socket coloured yellow (and one white & red which my speakers are plugged into) but the plug is too loose in it & it doesn't have the raised ring of metal around the hole for the plug's ring to fit over. It doesn't work either when I plug into it so I don't think its an option. I've done a wee search and found this product which looks like it may do the trick. Do you agree or am I missing something? AllanHainey (talk) 21:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me, though again I'd recommend you try it out before purchase because the results may not be what you are expecting. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

dropbox

Does dropbox ever delete files, say if you're not using the acount for ages? This is on the free option —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 17:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

According to policies on their website: "Dropbox reserves the right to terminate Free Accounts at any time, with or without notice. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, and without further notice, Dropbox may choose to delete and/or reduce: (i) any or all of Your Files if your Free Account is inactive for 90 days; and (ii) previous versions and/or prior backups of Your Files." Lukipuk (talk) 18:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Your files will still be safe on any computers synced with dropbox. As long as the dropbox application is running, your account is active. They will only delete files off their server and not your computer. Additionally, dropbox also keeps backups of deleted files while your account is active. If you are looking to permanently delete these files, this help page may be relevant. Caltsar (talk) 18:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If the DVD Video specification is only licensed with a non-disclosure agreement...

Then how do we have open source DVD authoring software? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The DVD spec isn't licensed with an NDA. You can create menus and encode to MPEG-2 using open source software. However, the use of CSS to "protect" the DVD is where open-source software falls apart. It's actually much harder to play commercial DVDs using open source software than to make a DVD for personal use. This is assuming the software isn't using deCSS or a similar library. This is why there is no DVD player included with Ubuntu and other high profile Linux distros. That said, if you want to author commercial DVDs with encryption using open source software, I believe you are out of luck due to the CSS problem. Caltsar (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that the secret parts of the DVD-Video standard all became public through legal reverse engineering. Once a trade secret becomes public, it's not a trade secret any more. Even if it was disclosed in breach of an NDA (which wasn't the case here), there are no legal restrictions on using the now-public information. Patents and the circumvention clause of the DMCA are bigger problems for open sourcefree software, since they place restrictions on how you can use already-public algorithms. -- BenRG (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So the statement "The specification is not publicly available, because every subscriber must sign a non-disclosure agreement." at DVD-Video is false? 71.161.40.220 (talk) 01:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Phrased properly, "The official specification is not available..." may be accurate. A specification, which was the result of a now-infamous reverse engineering effort, is available and is the basis for some software. The legal status of this now open-source code is disputed. Nimur (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot more to DVD-Video than CSS. It also includes the IFO file format, the navigation sectors in the VOB files, the subtitle and menu and closed-caption formats, alternate-angle interleaving, the disk file layout, and so forth, and of course the public parts (MPEG-2, AC3, UDF, DVD-ROM). As far as I know no part of the official NDA'd specification has ever been leaked. If it had, it couldn't be freely distributed anyway because it's covered by copyright. -- BenRG (talk) 07:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Accessing files from a digital voice recorder

I have an old (pre-Vista) USB digital voice recorder that requires proprietary software to access the files on the drive. It isn't set up to be accessed like an external drive, but there aren't any drivers for the device for any OS after XP. There is only one computer using XP in the house left, and it's on its way out. Is there a way to "hack" into the device to get the files off of it, without having the appropriate drivers for Vista (which I have now) or 7 (which I will likely have soon)? Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 18:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

What make and model is it? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Olympus, VN-480PC. Their website has an update for the software that claims to make it compatible with 32bit Vista, but the driver installation has always failed with locating the .inf file or something. And even if that did work, I would still like to find a solution for my 64bit lappy. —Akrabbim^talk 19:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered installing a virtual machine like VirtualBox, installing Windows XP and the device's XP drivers on the VM, and using the VM every time you want to access the device? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I think 7 has a "XP Mode" that would let you do that. Thanks, 174.114.4.18 (talk) 20:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Windows Virtual PC#Windows XP Mode is our article on Windows XP Mode. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I might just have to resort to that. Thanks. —Akrabbim^talk 23:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Turning off one of two monitors?

I've been assigned to work with a Windows XP desktop computer that is equipped with two monitors, set to work as one wide one. Because my tasks are unrelated to the purposes for which the double-monitor setup was put in, I only need one monitor, and having the second is distracting. Is there any way to have the computer go to one monitor in such a way so that it stays that way until I turn it off, but so that it defaults to having both monitors whenever the computer is turned on? I've tried turning off the power button for one monitor, but that doesn't help at all. Nyttend backup (talk) 19:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Control Panel -> Display, then click the Settings tab. You'll see a drawing showing the two monitors. There is some setting where the computer will "Extend the desktop onto this monitor" — at least, that's what it's called in Vista (sorry, that's what I'm using at the moment, no XP machine with 2 monitors in front of me right now) and you should be able to turn that setting off. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Monitor #2 is disabled, just as I hoped it would be. Now we'll have to see if it comes on automatically when the computer is restarted. Thanks! Nyttend backup (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Restarted, but the monitor is still off :-( I guess I'll have to leave a note on how to turn it back on. Thanks again! Nyttend backup (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think monitor and screen resolution are a "per-user" setting. Consequently, it's probably impossible to set automatic resolution changes or disable monitors based on the login. You might be able to get third-party software to do this, but I would just allow users to change settings per their individual needs. This tutorial and this knowledge-base article from Microsoft are good tutorials - you can send those to whoever might need to change settings. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

While this isn't an ideal solution, you could set the desktop image to be solid black on the secondary monitor. It won't be off, but you also shouldn't have much to distract you as long as you keep in mind that your workspace extends further to one side than you want it to. This will have the benefit of not messing with system settings, and it requires no real tinkering. Caltsar (talk) 21:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I'm just volunteering at my local historical society, and I know that they don't have money to spend just for this (definitely minor) purpose. Somehow, a maximized window only fills the default left screen (although it can be dragged into the right), so filling the right screen with black wouldn't help me any more than turning it off — the main thing is that I generally close a window by moving the mouse up and right, and that obviously doesn't work when the little X is effectively in the middle of the top. Nyttend (talk) 03:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Try training your fingers to use alt-f4 to close things. Or, try making the right monitor your main one, the ignore the left one. (And I fixed your unindent template.) Ariel. (talk) 10:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

December 8

Check this code

Not homework, just asking for some suggestions in this test case.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

struct name{
    int x;
    char a[4];
};

int add(struct name newname)
{
    newname.x = newname.x+1;
    return newname.x;
}

int main(void)
{
    struct name newname;

    newname.x = 1;
    strcpy(newname.a,"hi");
    add(newname);
    printf("%d" , newname.x);
    printf("%s" , newname.a);
return 0;
}

-- penubag  (talk) 00:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't help you directly, but I can tell you that any code-related questions posted to Stackoverflow.com get answered in less than 10 minutes on average, and sometimes in under a minute. Much, much more handy than using the Wikipedia Computing RefDesk (not meant as a slight to the fine folks here at all!) 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you expect it to print "1hi" - then it's working! If you expected "2hi" then you have a bug. The problem is that 'add' is being passed a copy of the structure - is incrementing that copy - then throwing it away. So it's a copy of newname.x that is incremented - not the 'original' that you're printing out. If you need to fix that - then you need to pass the address of the structure rather than the structure itself.

 int add(struct name *newname)
 {
   newname->x = newname->x+1;
   return newname->x;
 }

(and you'd call it with "add(&newname);")

Most C programmers would probably have saved a line of code and written your version of "add" like this:

 int add(struct name newname)
 {
   return ++newname.x;
 }

SteveBaker (talk) 04:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Another option, only requiring the addition of a single character, is to make the add function pass-by-reference instead of pass-by-value. Change it to int add(struct name &newname). Then, the struct passed in won't be copied. -- kainaw™ 05:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it's C, not C++. -- BenRG (talk) 07:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I copied/pasted into an editor and I can see it now. The highlighting here makes #include statements very light green on a white background, so I can't actually read it. I can only see that it is an #include or a #define. I have to move it to an editor to get rid of the colors to make it visible - or work on figuring out what CSS I need to beat up to get rid of those colors in code. -- kainaw™ 13:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(The clue that made me think it was old-school C was saying "struct name" rather than just "name" in the parameter declaration for the 'add' function - nobody in their right mind does that in C++!) SteveBaker (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You obviously don't teach C++ classes. It is rather amazing what students put in so-called C++ code. Ever seen a class defined inside a struct inside main? What is amazing is that some students actually get this stuff to compile without errors or warnings. I, then, have to pick through the code to try and figure out what they are doing and explain why it doesn't work. -- kainaw™ 21:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No - I certainly don't teach C++ classes! The trouble with C++ is that there are an awful lot of odd things that you are allowed to do (declaring classes inside other classes and classes inside functions being some of the milder ones) that you really shouldn't do. The difficulty is to convey to students that doing those things will make you very unpopular with co-workers in the future! When we recruit new programmers - one of the interview questions we ask is "How familiar are you with C++ - on a scale of one to ten?" - nearly everyone answers 7 or 8. That's a good answer because people who are 9's or 10's are really dangerous in a team environment! They write code that mere mortal 7's and 8's can't understand - and that's dumb because there is almost never any real advantage in performance in the incomprehensible stuff they produce. Keep it simple! SteveBaker (talk) 03:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The way I word it is like: You can put functions inside your structs, but that isn't what a struct is for. So, if you do, the other programmers will laugh at you - hopefully just behind your back. That isn't what they usually remember most. I think the phrase I use that they all remember most is "Nobody can play with your privates except your friends." -- kainaw™ 06:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Issue with website: Javascript/OS detection needed?

So i made this script to pop open a new window with a fixed size in javascript. It works fine except im finding that in Windows XP its not opening the window "wide enough". It was tested on a Vista pc which the size is appropriate for. I have one of two options in my mind.

1) Find out why on these particular XP machines its not opening as wide, so all the content can be seen.

2) Put in some OS detection, and if the user has WinXP, open the window wider.

For #2, i have this: JavaScript OS Detection

Can someone tell me why WinXP opens the window differently? or help me modify the javascript i linked so that it detects specifically windows XP?

Thanks!

137.81.112.176 (talk) 06:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, this is the kind of code I am using:

<a href="#" onclick="javascript:window.open('Help.html','popup','width=200,height=600');">Emote-Icons</a>

137.81.112.176 (talk) 06:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it has anything to do with the operating system -- just the browser. Windows Vista comes with Internet Explorer 7 and Windows XP comes with Internet Explorer 6. My XP computer has Internet Explorer 8 installed and when it tries to open a window 200 pixels wide, it enlarges the window automatically to 250 px. I tested the same code in an XP virtual machine with IE 6 and it opens with a width of 200 px. So, the XP machine is performing the operation correctly. It is the Vista machine that is performing it incorrectly. So, I would not try to detect the operating system -- just the browser. Firefox 3.5 also opens the window with the correct width. You can measure the width of a window using the free Screen Calipers tool. If 200 px is too narrow, then increase the width.

<html>
	<head>
		<script type='text/javascript'>
			function openWindow(url)
			{
				var nav = navigator.appVersion;
				if (nav.indexOf('MSIE 7.0') != -1 || nav.indexOf('MSIE 8.0') != -1)
				{
					window.open(url, '_blank','width=200,height=600');
				}

				else
				{
					window.open(url, '_blank','width=250,height=600');
				}
			}
		</script>
	</head>
	<body>
		<a href="#" onclick="openWindow('Help.html')">Emote-Icons</a>
	</body>
</html>

--Drknkn (talk) 07:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The size difference is probably because the specified "width" parameter represents the renderable area, but does not include window decorations like borders and toolbars. Between Windows 2000, Windows XP's Luna (theme), and Windows Vista's Aero, the exterior border style and size have significantly changed. Is this the root cause of the different apparent window sizes? Nimur (talk) 08:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a browser issue, not an OS issue.--Drknkn (talk) 08:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Nimur:

I don't think so. Looking at a screenshot from a friend of the window opened in windows XP, there is no major difference in width of the "decorations" of the borders etc. However, i was reading something about the java window.open method, and it says that varying versions of IE in different operating systems have different required minimum widths and heights. Maybe this causes the difference, but im not sure... as I am more a "see and mimic" java-script user, i dont understand the more complicated issues such as this.

Regardless of the cause, perhaps the code provided by Drknkn will help.

If it makes any difference, i will note that on my Vista, i have the old classic look set up (not aero), and it came like this out of the box i believe. However the XP screenshots i have show XP with their standard giant blue titlebars and the red X's and whatnot. However, as i already stated, i can see how this would affect the height, but not the width.

Drknkn:

If this is browser related, please clarify what the issue is? and should i have the script look for the "funny acting browser" instead (likely the xp related versions of IE)?

To all:

Any further thoughts? Thanks!!

137.81.112.176 (talk) 08:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I changed the code above to look for the browser instead of the OS. Try it now.--Drknkn (talk) 08:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If its of help i found that XP seems to open the window 50 pixels "too thin". Drknkn, question. I use IE7 here on vista, so should the exclusion really be for my browser? Im just curious and again i state that i dont know a ton about this issue, but it would seem to me that XP would use an earlier version than i have? it displays fine in my browser. Do we need a browser/OS combo? Sorry if my knowledge is limited! :)

137.81.112.176 (talk) 08:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You're fine. :) I also added some comments above the code. It looks like Internet Explorer 6 (the version that comes with Windows XP) opens a narrower window than IE 7 or 8. Thus, if you're using IE 6, and the window is sized to 200 px, you will see a 200 px window. If you're using IE 7 or 8, you will see a 250 px window. So, the code above compensates by opening a narrower window if it detects IE 7 or 8. If it detects any other browser (e.g., IE 6, Firefox, etc.) it opens a wider window. To find out which version of IE you're using, press ALT + H and select "About Internet Explorer."--Drknkn (talk) 08:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think i am beginning to understand the situation. There are a couple pages where i have this code implimented (different pages/widths), so i will have a look at this on an XP pc and try implementing your code. Hopefully ill get back soon to mark this as resolved if it works out. Hopefully i can continue with you if it doesnt work Drknkn? Thanks alot for your patience and skillful explaination of the problem! :)

137.81.112.176 (talk) 08:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem. Sounds great! Keep me posted.--Drknkn (talk) 09:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to all that posted to help on this problem. I am happy to let you know that i found a laptop with IE6 which had the issue. I used the code supplied by Drknkn and it solved the issue completely! Thanks a ton!

Resolved

137.81.112.176 (talk) 09:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

For this kind of testing, you can get free Virtual PC images of various versions of IE here. --Sean 13:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

IRC save

Is there a way I can log or save the chat in an IRC channel for the times I'm offline? For example, I need to reinstall my operating system but I don't want to miss any of the conversation in an IRC channel. How could I do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 11:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

With the clients I use such as Template:MIRC I cant copy and paste so I dont think so.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

mIRC does allow you to copy and paste - you need to hold down the mouse button to keep the selection highlighted as you hit the CTRL-C combination. Nimur (talk) 17:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Its possible in a variety of ways. You could load an irc client onto a server and use a shell account and have that connect to irc 24/7, you can then tunnel in yourself to control the client or read the logs. You could also use a BNC or put an eggdrop bot onto a server and have it log 24/7. Nanonic (talk) 14:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the normal approach to logging an IRC channel is to set up a bot, e.g. an Eggdrop. If you don't operate the channel, you may want to get permission to log it; different communities are more sensitive to these sorts of things. Nimur (talk) 17:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm! I actually have a bot hosted 24/7 that i could use to help this person log their room, but is it possible to exchange information safely here, and within standards? Sorry if this post is too far off topic, but im just trying to help! :)137.81.112.176 (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Cookies

How did they come up with that name? Its not like their similar to real cookies!Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Magic cookie says "The name "cookie" comes from a comparison to an unopened fortune cookie, because of the hidden information inside" (although I'd prefer a more reliable source than the one it cites for that fact). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I would have thought that a webpage takes a bite out of a cookie on your hard drive and leaves a bit of its saliva (think DNA) behind, but then again, I've had too much wine tonight...Sandman30s (talk) 19:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I buy the fortune cookie explanation - although it is one that you hear a lot. The Jargon File (which is an ancient and revered source for software slang) says that some of the very early hackers were obsessed with watching the Andy Williams show and liked the "Cookie Bear" sketch. A guy in a bear suit tried all sorts of tricks to get a cookie out of Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking: ‘No cookies! Not now, not ever...NEVER!!!’ And the bear would fall down. So "getting a cookie" became a kind of meme for getting something back from a piece of software that you had to pursuade to give it to you. So, for example if you open a file in C/C++, the 'fopen' routine gives you back a "cookie" only if you give it a proper filename and a legal read/write mode flag and the file has the right permissions and the drive is mounted, etc - otherwise you don't get a cookie, you get nothing - and (if you aren't very careful) your program crashes, just like the bear falling down. Other kinds of cookie-dispensers might make it very hard indeed for you to get your cookie - requiring you to go to the same lengths as the guy in the bear suit. A cookie in the context of the 'fopen' function is a pointer to a 'FILE' structure that you really don't do anything with - except to give it back to the I/O library. This connotation - of a small chunk of data that you have to hold on to - but can gain no useful information from looking inside - gradually became the more common meaning for the word. That's pretty much the definition of an internet "cookie". "Magic cookie" likely comes from the idea that anything that you can't readily understand must be "Magic". So the cookie that Wikipedia gives you to let you access the site without having to keep logging in every time is "magic" because nobody really ever looks inside to see what it actually says. SteveBaker (talk) 19:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that etymology in the Jargon File's entries for "cookie" or "magic cookie"—there is an entry for "cookie bear" but it seems to be unrelated. And that etymology seem implausible because the defining feature of a magic cookie is that it's opaque, not that it's hard to get. A token is hard to get. -- BenRG (talk) 21:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The term (like so many that we use) has slowly mutated over the intervening 30 or so years. I've been using computers for almost 40 years - and I've seen the meaning gradually drift. The Cookie Bear entry in the Jargon file explains the original association of cookies - it's a bit sketchy on the intervening stuff. SteveBaker (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing in the Jargon File's definition of "cookie bear" or "cookie monster" to suggest that they are related to "cookie" in the browser cookie sense. The stated meanings are completely unrelated, and the cookie bear/monster entries don't link to [magic] cookie nor vice versa. Did you actually observe the origin of the modern term "cookie" in the cookie bear sketch, or did you guess a connection after reading about the cookie bear sketch in the Jargon File? If the latter, there's no reason to believe the connection is real. Word origin stories guessed in this way are often wrong. Wikipedia even has an article about it. -- BenRG (talk) 06:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In my mind, i always imagined the server as an actual server, and with regards to cookies, this little conversation plays out my head:

Server: Greetings, and welcome to [random web site], what can I do for you?

Client: Hmm, let me see... Just give me index.html

Server: Certainly, sir

Server walks away and comes back

Server: Here is your index.html.

Client: Thanks!

Server: And would you like a little cookie with that?

Client: Don't mind if I do!

So, ok, it's not a perfect metaphor, but that's how I always imagined it. The main piece of content flying back and forth is the webpage itself, but on top of that there is a little something extra, a little cookie with your main meal. Belisarius (talk) 19:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Similar to Stever Baker's note... My memory of "cookie" from the 70s was that it was the product of "cooking". Unlike the HTTP cookie which is used to store information, a cookie was something rather meaningless that you cooked up in your program to send to another program. Then, when you asked for it back, you could verify that it was the one you sent. At the time, "token" was already a very common term. So, you couldn't say you were passing a token back and forth. Also, a token had a meaning understood by everyone. A cookie only had meaning to the original sender. The current meaning of HTTP cookie - which is basically a content-based variable - has almost nothing to do with the old "magic cookies". Now, I wonder if anyone uses magic cookies anymore. It seems to me that it would be a rather dead practice by now since public-key encryption lets you know you got your original message back and it was sent/returned by the correct recipient. -- kainaw™ 06:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

To avoid ambiguity, Kerberos (protocol) calls this a "ticket" and it has a specific meaning within that protocol. Other software terms I've heard include "token", "key," or some context-specific data structure name. "Cookie" has become so widely used in reference to its web server use that it's probably invalid to use in a more generic sense nowadays. Nimur (talk) 14:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There was a difference between a cookie and a ticket. The use of a cookie - back in prehistoric times - was that A would send a cookie to B. B could look at it, but it was just nonsense. Later, if A wanted to make sure B had come earlier, A would ask for the cookie back. This is, obviously, a pathetic form of control. Nothing keeps B from handing back an old cookie or handing back C's cookie. A ticket is encoded with information for two or more computers. In the most convoluted sense, B wants to talk to C, but C is controlled by A. So, B talks to A and gets a ticket. B can't read the ticket, but A and C can. So, B gives the ticket to C and C reads it, accepting B. You can see the difference is that the cookie is written/read by one computer and a ticket is written/read by multiple computers. Of course, that difference means nothing now. -- kainaw™ 15:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

php ip logger

Resolved

I have the following script which logs ip addresses, but it will repeat the same ip over and over. How can I make it check to see if the ip is already listed, and not make a new entry if it is?

$logfile= 'log.html';
$IP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$logdetails=  ''.$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'].'';
$fp = fopen($logfile, "a"); 
fwrite($fp, $logdetails);
fwrite($fp, "<br>");
fclose($fp);

I dont know coding, but you need to put something in their that stops the cycle.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 15:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Easiest (but not necessarily the best or the fastest) way would be to load the entire log file into an array with file, then use array_search to see if the IP already exists, and if so, not record anything, and if not, write to the file.

If you are interested in PHP-based browsing statistics, I might also point you in the direction of BBClone, which is pretty easy to use. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, but I have absolutely no grasp of arrays or php beyond the very most basic level. I have no idea how to write an array. Could you explain how to make one? Thank you :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 18:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The official PHP.net array documentation is the place to start. If you really have no direction at all, the Getting Started Tutorial will point you along the right path. Be aware that storing huge volumes of data in memory (i.e. storing your entire log in a PHP array) is likely to function only for very small websites. If you get large volumes of traffic, you may need a more advanced system, like a relational database or even a simple flat file log. These are scalability and performance issues, though - for "testing purposes" of a prototype logging tool, an array will work. Nimur (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is what I meant before. As Nimur points out, it is really pretty inadequate unless you are just playing around, because as the data set grows, it will take more and more effort to check it for existing data. (A clever and abstract programming problem for you, if you are learning, would be to try and figure out ways you could avoid that problem—it is not inherent to the problem of growing data, just the method of looking it up.) If you want something more serious, I would recommend using existing logging software (like BBClone), rather than trying to do it yourself from scratch... (or looking into how to write to a database).

$logfile= 'log.html';
$IP = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$logdetails=  ''.$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'].'';
$existing = file($logfile);
if(!array_search($logdetails."<br>",$existing)) {
	$fp = fopen($logfile, "a"); 
	fwrite($fp, $logdetails);
	fwrite($fp, "<br>\n");
	fclose($fp);
}

I had to rewrite the other code slightly, adding a newline after each IP (that's the \n), as otherwise it won't get split into separate likes by file. I have not tested the above code. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That code didn't seem to work, but thank you for trying. With some more googling and trial and error, I managed to hack together a script from several different scripts I found and it seems to be working. Again, thank you for the help

Are 30 frames per second of interlaced fields and "60i" the same thing?

From 24p: "At standard analog NTSC video rates (30/1.001 frames per second) a full "interlaced" frame, unlike a progressive frame, is nearly 1/30th of a second and is composed of two separate "fields," each field nearly 1/60 second."

I have an older Sony Handycam which I'm pretty sure is NTSC, as I've read that that's standard in North America, but I can't find documentation that comes out and says what the frame rate is for my model. The above referenced article has information about converting 60i to 24p using VirtualDub, which I'm interested in trying to give my video a film-like aesthetic. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "60i" is a term anyone uses commonly used term, because it isn't the name of a video format (including the mention specification of screen resolution, for example). If your older Handycam was sold in North America, then it's surely an NTSC handicam, yes; for all the discussion of frames and fields and the frame rate, see the "Technical Details" section of NTSC if you haven't read it already. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the video format names that you typically read about, like 720p and 1080i, are named for the number of vertical scan lines and then an "i" for "interlaced" and a "p" for "progressive". Hence my disappointment that "24p" is being used as a name of a video format; "24p" refers to 24 full frames per second, progressive; but calling it "480p/24fps" or something would be much easier to read. "24p" itself doesn't tell me enough about the format - is this 1080? 720? 480p? Mr. Name Maker Upper Guy was sloppy when he came up with "24p". Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

In the context of the question does the resolution really matter one bit? While it is naive to reduce the terminology so far that a video format is simply the FPS rate and the scan mode, if you are having a discussion about converting between 60 frame/sec interlaced video and 24 frame/sec noninterlaced video, who cares if it's 480 lines or 10,000 lines? Anyway, about the question at hand, the issue of utmost importance is using a good deinterlacer since the reverse pulldown (pull up?) only stands a chance at improving the "aesthetic" of your film if you can avoid interlacing artifacts. What your NTSC handycam has recorded are 60 fields a second, each field being on opposite scan lines from the one before it, and hence each field being only half the number of scan lines as the total screen. It's a nightmare if your video has any great deal of motion, the interlacing is very hard to reconcile. Also remember that storage and display systems that natively support 24p aren't all too common, so you may want to consider stopping when you get to 30 frame/sec deinterlaced video. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Free tool to convert HTML forms to database queries?

I have html forms with 20 or more fields in each pages and I gotta design database for that so that people can store information using it. Got to use plain PHP and MySQL for that. It would be nice if there is a free tool that generates creates tables based on these forms. The tables and datatypes need not be perfect as there is room for improvement and i can later manually tweak it . It is just for quick and dirty work.If the tool generates update and select queries, that would be a plus too. May be iam expecting too much... please tell me, such a tool or script is available anywhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.95.28 (talk) 17:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about a one-stop-shop that can do what you want (only because it sounds rather vague, yet very specific to your project), but there are plenty of free PHP MySQL classes that make life a lot easier in taking POST data and putting it into an appropriate table. (I will, because you don't seem to be planning to make this too open, forgo emphasizing how dangerous this kind of thing can be for your database, if not done very carefully.) --Mr.98 (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

mac programs on windows

Will mac programs work on a windows os?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 17:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Short answer: No.

Long answer: see Hackintosh. Which is not the same thing as a "Windows OS", really, but is really a question of "Can you install a Mac OS on non-Mac hardware?"

Sideways answer: Some programs that are on a Mac also exist in Windows forms. But programs compiled for the Mac will not work in Windows. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) No. The Mac has a range of proprietary APIs that are unique to it. Someone could implement them on Windows (contingent on patents) but no-one has. There is some software that can be compiled on Windows, Mac, and Linux, but that's a source level (rather than binary level) compatibility. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Having spent some time during the last year to make one of my research tools "cross-platform" to work on Mac, Windows, and Linux, I have to say that in my opinion, the Mac OS device driver model, programming style, and general contract between applications and operating systems is very different (despite claims that it is "Unix-like.") Though the APIs are different between Windows and Linux, there's usually a suitable equivalent replacement for every particular feature. Trying to port code between Windows and Linux is often a matter of swapping out those GUI APIs and tweaking slight file-system details. But trying to port to Mac OSX (from an originally "for Linux" code) was extraordinarily painful because of the fundamentally different way that OSX treats applications, shared libraries, and access to device drivers. Take a look at "frameworks" - they're sort of a wacky combination of shared library, kernel module, device driver, and application. For users, they are "great", "transparent," and nobody even knows they exist. Installation procedures typically involve "Double click the Framework Icon." When I saw this for the first time as a developer, and realized that I had to port code into a Mac Framework, I realized that this is absolutely not a Unix or a Linux (no matter what people claim about a "BSD kernel") - and it's certainly no Windows. Moving the reverse direction, I think that the first question a Mac developer would have on seeing the Windows API might be, "where's Xcode"? The challenges of porting source in this direction (from Mac to Windows) are huge - both technically and culturally, for the developer, who will need to learn entirely new programming paradigms. Nimur (talk) 18:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That very much depends. If you stick to POSIX or even supported UNIX calls, or if you are willing to use X11 instead of Aqua/CoreWhatever, most programs port from Linux and MacOS-X without any trouble. I've moved my theorem prover from Solaris to Linux to MacOS-X with minimal pain, and that little pain coming from non-compliant code in the first place. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

New code can be standards-compliant, but inherited code is whatever it is... anyway, the main trouble I had was with a hardware peripheral (an accelerator), so it's almost expected to be non-standard code. Nimur (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Help with an SQL Query

It has been a while since I queried a database and that's why i am having some trouble. So help will be appreciated!

Suppose I have the following table, which has a list of people with the sports they play. Let's call the table 'Sports', e.g:

UniqueId	Name	Sport
10	Bob	Soccer
10	Bob	Basketball
11	Mary	Soccer
11	Mary	Basketball
11	Mary	Hockey
10	Bob	Hockey
12	John	Basketball
12	John	Soccer
11	Mary	Golf

I wish to write a query that tells who are the people who play 'Soccer', 'Basketball', and 'Hockey' in the same time. For the above example,the query result should look like this:

UniqueId	Name
10	Bob
11	Mary

As you can see, Bob and Mary show up in the results because they play the 3 sports simultaneously, while John doesn't because he only plays 2 sports out of the required 3. So how would the SQL query look like?

Thanks! Hia10 (talk) 19:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

SELECT  DISTINCT UniqueId, Name FROM Sports WHERE UniqueId IN
(SELECT UniqueId FROM Sports WHERE Sport = 'Basketball') AND UniqueId IN
(SELECT UniqueId FROM Sports WHERE Sport = 'Soccer') AND UniqueId IN
(SELECT UniqueId FROM Sports WHERE Sport = 'Hockey');

--Drknkn (talk) 19:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Nested queries are always tricky. Just one small clarification: What is PLAYER_T?

Hia10 (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Whoops. That's short for "Player Table." Just replace all those with "Sports."--Drknkn (talk) 19:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There is also a bit of a problem with your table design. It appears that the columns UniqueId and Name hold the same data - UniqueId being the Name encoded. I expected UniqueId to be a number which would serve as a primary key for the table, and be unique for each row, leaving Name as the thing unique for each person. If, on the other hand, UniqueId is intended to be the reliable identifier for the person, so you could have two different people named "bob" and tell them apart, I would expect this table to not hold Name, but only UniqueId and sport, and another table to exist to show which numbers map to which names. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 07:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Reinstalling trial version

If you install one trial version in a separate partition and format this partition (including the OS), can you install it again and again? Or can the installation save a kind of cookie somewhere outside the partition?--Quest09 (talk) 20:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Even trial software you have to register lets you do that (provided you use a different e-mail address each time). I use VMWare Workstation to install the software inside virtual machines, so I don't have to reboot into a new partition.--Drknkn (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There's no way for the trial software to save information outside of the partition, other than, say, information on a web server (you could, for example, force a phone home, and check the IP address, or something like that). --Mr.98 (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Short answer: Maybe. Long answer: Depending on the method used to secure the trial software (or lack of one), you could install it on any number of machines, or only one. Some trial software phones to a server, some software puts a file or key on your computer, and some software just lets you use the trial as much as you want. Without knowing the specifics of the software, this question can't be definitively answered. In my experience though, most trial software can be installed on as many machines as you want (or as many partitions as you want). Caltsar (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Travel + laptop purchase

Where can you buy a cheap laptop? I mean one of mainstream manufacturers - IBM, ASUS, Sony, Toshiba. I know that it is economically not worth it. However, if you want to travel anyway, you could travel to a place where you can buy a cheap laptop. if you are flexible, you'll also find a cheap flight. So, what is the place with the cheapest laptops? -81.47.159.223 (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you limiting this to a specific country or are you willing to go to a curb-side cart in Thailand to buy a Soney or I8M laptop? -- kainaw™ 21:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You don't say where you are traveling from, which is very important in answering this question because of the changes in the values in world currencies compared to each other. For example, the Xbox 360 has maintained its price in the European Union countries despite the slide in the value of the dollar over the last couple of years; so if you lived in the EU, the answer would be "America" and if you lived in America, the answer would either be "down the street" or "whichever American state is closest to you that does not charge sales tax — perhaps Oregon". A Toshiba laptop from a Taiwanese street vendor may be cheap to a German but expensive to an American because of the currency exchange rate. Because of this, to hazard a guess across the entire industry of laptops, if you are an American, I think the answer for you is "in America". Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You also want to be cautious about buying something like a laptop. There are simple things like the power adapter might not work with your electricity at home, the keyboard may not be in layout you are familiar with, the version of Windows/Mac OS installed might be in a foreign language, etc. A potentially major problem though is the scope of the warranty - many laptop manufacturers do not have a world wide warranty - if you buy cheap in Taiwan you might not get any warranty cover if you take it home to Europe. After all Taiwanese purchaser might reasonably be expected to return it to the Taiwan service centre and deal only with that service centre (in Chinese!) Astronaut (talk) 07:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

One other thing is you might get stung paying import duty if you bring it home. Astronaut (talk) 07:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's safe to presume that the OP is in Málaga, Spain. --203.202.43.54 (talk) 07:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Identifying or opening a mysterious file

I have a file, ebook.rar, that 7-zip cannot open. According to what I read on the .rar article, this might be because the format is older than what 7Zip can cope with. I have checked the file with the DROID file checker and it says it is a rar file - perhaps it is merely checking the file extension. I have tried to use trid, a freeware file identifer, but it just briefly opens a DOS box and then immediately closes it again. Anyone know what I should do next please? I scanned the file with MalwareBytes and nothing was found. 78.149.206.42 (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Download and install WinRAR, which is the originator of the .rar file format. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You can also get the command line unrar for Windows which doesn't have a time bomb. From a DOS window: "unrar l ebook.rar" to list files, "unrar x ebook.rar" to extract, just "unrar" for help. 88.112.56.9 (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Winrar is "trial" software. I did instal it, it said "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged." I think unrar would give similar results. I suspect the file extension is wrong. Can anyone tell me how to use trid? Thanks 78.149.206.42 (talk) 22:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The TrID article points to a GUI version here — that's probably easier to use than the command line version? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just pulled a (valid) rar file into a text editor. The first 3 bytes in the file were "Rar". Seeing that in your file would eliminate questions about the format of the file. Astronaut (talk) 07:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I could not get the trid gui version to work - I think it needs some data file to be loaded. When I tried to open the mystery file with Notepad or Ted then nothing seemed to happen, nothing was loaded. I've just opened the file with HxD hex editor, and it consists entirely of lower-case letters only, plus a few 3s or 4s. The file starts "sdkfaasdfhiasdfu....." and ends "......erglqergäöergmopeirgnerg". Just glancing at the beginning of it I noticed that this sequence: "uiq34nrfjklqwenflqwiufhqwelfjknqsdflkashdnfjkasndfuqefhlk1j3efn" is repeated near the start of the file. I have not looked closely at the remainder of the file. A quick look through some of it just shows more of the same. I guess that it is unlikely to be a compressed file, as I think such a file would not restrict itself to the alphabet. I wonder if its something that's been encoded to send as an email? 84.13.190.195 (talk) 12:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Tinting icons in XP Explorer

In Windows XP, is there a way to tint the icons of the files in one of my folders in Explorer? I want to mark the files in some way, without renaming them, in order to keep track of which ones I'm finished with. I'm thinking of the old "Label" menu item from the Mac's System 7. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You can hide them. Right-click a file, select Properties and then check the Hidden checkbox. In the default setting, hidden files are hidden (no surprise!), but if you open Folder Options (on the Tools menu bar in an explorer window), you can change that. Then hidden files are just shown a bit shaded, and hence you can see the difference between two types of files in a folder: those that are hidden, and those that are not. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(Or maybe it is actually an advantage that files that already have been processed are invisible. Then you know when you are done, when all files are processed: then no files are visible any more! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC))

Not an awful idea, I think I'll try it next time. Thanks; I never considered that! Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

How about adding a folder image? This may only work if you view the icons in "thumbnail view" mode, as opposed to "list view" or "detailed view," but it allows for arbitrary customizability. I find hidden files are irritating. Alternatively, how about creating a subfolder, "./done/", mirroring the root directory's structure, but only including files when they are done? Nimur (talk) 14:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the two suggestions — folder images only work on folders, it looks like, unfortunately; I want to mark the individual files. Another possibility might be for me to add a "Description" or one of those other metadata fields accessible through "Properties", if I can get the folder's Details view to show an extra field. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Writing with Java in a privileged directory

Hello! When I distribute my java programs as .jars, I tell people to make a new directory in the Windows Program Files and put the file there. I recently found out that one of my programs, despite already being in the Program Files directory, can't load a log file stored in the same directory and resave it because the access is denied. Is there any way to give the program this ability and still keep it in the program files directory (without have to do run it as an admin every time)? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You want your program to be able to modify files in Program Files (which is global, not user-specific) without elevated privileges? Wouldn't that imply that any normal user of the computer could replace the installed applications, tampering with their use by all other users, and possibly compromising the administrative account? A program's presence in a directory does not confer it any status or access rights there. Why not have the log file be per-user and put it in AppData (or whatever it's called these days)? That way if more than one user runs it at the same time, there's no collision. --Tardis (talk) 13:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I had a misunderstanding of how the Program Files directory worked. I figured that the programs would save some kind of log file or default-settings file in the same directory and be able to open and change it. It did not realize that all programs have a separate file outside the PF directory to save all their alterable files.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Glad to help. It should be said that what you first wanted is not impossible: you could create a non-privileged account that owned the program and its directory, and have the program run setuid (I believe Windows has an equivalent). But you'd need a good reason to go to that much trouble if having it be per-user is sufficient. --Tardis (talk) 22:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

December 9

Unbelievable attack

Something completely unbelievable just happened. I followed the link on this very page to the article Anonymous (group), and then clicked to the article Encyclopedia Dramatica. Then I felt like checking out the site Encyclipedia Dramatica, to see how it really looks, so I clicked the link to encyclopediadramatica.com in the Wikipedia article. I read a few pages on the site, and found it very unpleasant. But that was expected, of course. However, suddenly the Java tray icon appeared, as always when a Java applet is running in the browser. I did not like it (because I do not trust Encyclopedia Dramatica), so I closed the web page in Google Chrome, but strangely the tray icon did not disappear. A few seconds later, a full-screen application appeared, showing a raster picture of the Windows Vista security centre, and a (real!) dialog box appeared, and prompted me to remove viruses and trojans from the computer.

Of course this is not a real security software dialog, but somehow, completely without my permission, a foreign application has executed on my computer, as a result of my visiting Encyclopedia Dramatica (using the link from the Wikipedia article). Of course I have all Windows security updates installed, an anti-virus software (ClamWin, but anyway...), the firewall activated, Windows defender running, and, most impotantly, I am a very, very experienced computer and Internet user, and I know exactly how “real” security dialogs look like and behave. How could this happen? I though Google Chrome was a reasonably safe browser. As soon as I discovered the attack, I opened the task manager, and found a lot of strange applications. In addition, in the system tray, there was a UAC like icon (but not real, because the popup menu was wrong). So I removed the power from the computer, in order to stop the execution of the unwanted software. But when I restarted Windows, the program(s) was (were) still running (some sort of autorun – I will check msconfig etc.), but I used the task manager to kill all unknown processes.

I have used the Internet daily for more than ten years, but never experienced any sort of virus attack or anything (so I almost did not believe it could happen). But exactly how could this happen? Google Chrome cannot just run a foreign executable without the user’s permission, can it?

And: perhaps it would be a good idea to remove the link in the Encyclopedia Dramatica article? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The software even created an icon in the "Quick Access" toolbar (or whatever it is called in English). Apparently it resides in

C:\ProgramData\0add093\WS0add.exe

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

...and it calls itself "Windows Enterprise Defender". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

And in the newly-created directory

C:\ProgramData\0add093\BackUp

I find a link to my Internet bank's security application. Should I be worried? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the directory C:\ProgramData\0add093\ is well-hidden. You need not only to enable the "Show hidden files" options, but also disable the "Hide important system files" option... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I just scanned the directory using ClamWin, but it did not report a problem. Shouldn't it? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd google windows enterprise defender virus and go from there. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately, the real Windows Defender recognized the problem and removed it for me. Thank you, Microsoft. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 02:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Mr Rejbrand, I suggest you nominate the Encyclopedia Dramatica site for inclusion on the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. Also, you can remove the link from the article yourself. --Jc3s5h (talk) 02:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know. But I wanted to hear some comments on it. (After all, I cannot be 100 % sure that the attack originated from that site, although I would be extremely surprised if it did not.) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 02:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, I do not think it is fair to blame Google Chrome, because it appears like Chrome just told Java to run something, and then Java did something it should not. Or? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it was wrong of me to post it here on the Reference Desk. Indeed, "how could this happen?" is a question, but still... You can remove it if you want. I just got so surprised. I have never seen anything like this before, and almost did not believe it could happen (if you can tell fake ads and apps from the real ones, which I can, more than well). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 02:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It didn't come from ED. I don't know what Chrome has for security settings with Java, but a JVM shouldn't be writing files to %programdata%. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

How do you know? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The Java tray icon appeared right when I entered the ED page, and the icon disappeared when I closed Chrome. (And the ED page contained a lot of ads (including pornographic), popup windows (but Chrome blocked it/them), some YouTube videos, JavaScripts, IFRAMEs, and also flash apps, JavaScripts etc linked from external sites (e.g. gigya.com), etc.) But I am not an expert on Internet security, so if you are one, then I trust you. If I were interested enough, I would look at the (HTML) code of some of the pages I visited, and I would in particular scan for any reference to a Java applet. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 03:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Aren't all Java applets subject to Sun's written-in Security Manager? As I recall, you have to explicitly specify added privileges for the applets; the default significantly limits what the program is allowed to do, and I believe, no kind of I/O by default.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. If the java applet was running as a web browser plugin, it can not create or open files on the hard disk. If the Java program was even responsible at all, it must have been downloaded and manually executed as a standalone application. See What Applets Can and Cannot Do, "They cannot access client resources such as the local filesystem, executable files, system clipboard, and printers." I suspect the Java applet is just a red herring and that the infection was caused by some other method. Nimur (talk) 14:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah there are loads of these types of things on the net, and I highly doubt it came from ED. They're struggling to stay alive with what little money they get from ads as it is, they wouldn't drive people away by uploading java viruses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 18:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

aptitude on kubuntu: always install debugging symbols

Do Ubuntu package files, or any other machine-readable sources, specify what packages provide a given package's help files and debugging symbols, if they exist and aren't included? Can I configure aptitude to automatically download, install, update and remove them along with the main package, and to remove debugging symbols that are for the wrong version and can't be updated? NeonMerlin 03:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Many packages have a -dbg package also which will install debugging symbols. It's not automatic, you need to choose to install the -dbg package. Only the more complicated packages usually will have a -dbg package. (Although I think it's an option in the build scripts which can make them for any package.) The dependencies on the packages will (should) prevent the wrong dbg package from being installed. Ariel. (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Writing Binary

Does anyone know of a programming language that will allow the developer to write/read files directly as binary? To be more prescise, suppose that I had a file that needed to store a sequence of terms each of which took one of four values, is there a language where I could write a file with a sequence of bits, each pair of bits representing a term? Or, on the other hand, that would let me read a file bit by bit; namely, if I could read a text file and modify each bit (for purposes of encryption/compression)? I've tried googling this and browising around, but have had a very hard time finding an answer. Finally, just to be clear, I do not want to write a string of ascii 1's and 0's, I want it to be the case that if I write 1100_0000_1100_0010 to the file, then the file will only be 2 bytes in size, not 16 bytes. Thank you for any help:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 04:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm reasonably certain that the operating system forces you to write in increments of whole bytes.

However, if you want to write in increments of whole bytes, you can easily define those bytes any way you like in most languages. For example, You can use C to manipulate individual bits in a byte and then save that entire byte. APL (talk) 06:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Not only the operating system - most modern, mainstream CPU hardware does not have a capacity to write data anywhere in increments smaller than its minimum word length. The operating system probably enforces much coarser-grain access to IO devices, (transparently) accessing in page file size blocks, e.g. 4 kilobytes at a time, even if the programmer requests a single byte read or write. Nonetheless, a programmer can still use a routine to write single bits if they choose to write a binary-level scheme. Languages like C and Java provide bitwise operators, so via bitmasking and buffering, you can write whatever binary you want. Nimur (talk) 14:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. Do you know anywhere I could get more information on how to go about doing this? Could you do this in Ruby/Python? Thank you again:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 06:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The following will do what you want in Perl:

perl -e 'print pack("v*", 0b1100_0000_1100_0010)' > bits

I don't know of any operating system that would allow you to read/write files bit by bit, though you might find a library that fakes it. --Sean 12:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be painful for the OS to have to do that - for starters, the hard drive's interface is byte-at-a-time. Also, you'd have to store the length of the file to the nearest bit. That kind of complexity and additional storage cost is completely unwarranted given that you are quite possibly the only person in the entire history of computing who has actually wanted to do this! (I'm kidding) SteveBaker (talk) 00:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

This (StackOverflow.com) could help you with python. Lukipuk (talk) 14:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

lf2-help

i n my friend wanted to play lf2...through hamachi.first we started hamachi..thn started little fighters 2 thn went to network game n my frnd typed my ip address n i clicked on waiting for opponent ..the game started to load n after some time it says you and your friend have diffrent data files..???

can someone plz help me??? we did this using hamachi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.184.151.91 (talk) 06:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea, but you might get a better response if you write in English. Astronaut (talk) 06:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

For those who don't want to bother looking it up, lf2 apparently stands for Little Fighter 2. Even though I now know what the subject of the question is, I still have no idea what's being asked. Dismas|^(talk) 07:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me the OP is trying to play Little Fighter 2 using hamachi (I presume because behind a NAT). The OP appears to have largely done everything correctly, i.e. got hamchi working okay, started the game and then told the game wait for opponent while the friend entered the OP's hamachi IP address (well I hope so anyway) and asked the game to connect. The connection appears to have happened fine but then the OP got an error due to 'different data files'.

At a guess, this likely means you have different versions of the game, or one of you has modified your version. I suggest both of you go to the official website and download the game again. May be even use the same specific download site (i.e. 1 or 2). Then install again and try again and it should be fine. Alternatively, one of you can send your copy to the other one. If that doesn't help, as I hinted at, the OP should make sure their friend is entering their hamachi IP address not any other address. You might also want to make sure there's no issues connecting between the two of you via hamachi (I suggest you look at the hamachi help to find out how)

Nil Einne (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Laptop / router issues

Halp! I installed my new wireless router yesterday. My plucky little laptop recognises the router, and the router seems to be fine with creating a link to the internetz. But Internet Explorer doesn't work when it is launched. "Diagnose the problem" comes up with...."there is no problem". I am not very tech savyy (can you tell?!) so I did what I could on my own last night, but nothing seemed to work. What possible reasons, even "invisible" if you know what I mean, is there for IE not to recognise the fact that there appears to be a strong, installed, existing internet connection?

By way of context, in May/June this year, there was a technical error with the laptop, when with no warning it decided to stop working for a bit. On boot-up it would get to the stage of reading the DVD drive before giving up. If these two are connected, I cannot say.

Any help would be great! Why would IE not want to display any pages if there seems to be a internet connection and a fully recognised connection to the router?

doktorb _words^deeds 08:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

What make/model is your router? How do you know there is a working internet connection between the internet and the router? If you plug the network cable the router is using to connect to the internet directly into your laptop, can you access the internet? (if yes, your router is not properly configured) Connect to the router's setup page and check the Status - does it list an IP address or just DNS addresses? If you disconnect and refresh the connection, do you get a new address? I suspect the problem has nothing to do with IE but rather with a router that isn't talking properly with your modem/building LAN. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 08:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, hold on here, because I'm not totally up to speed with things (or for that matter, is my internet connection :) ) If Vista is not lying to me, there is a working connection between the laptop and the router, and the router to the internet. But IE is just not displaying even when it appears a direct connection to the device (through an ethernet cable) or wirelessly (my laptop is wireless enabled) exists. I wonder if upgrading to IE8 would by chance remove what may be the issue with the current IE, or else I start faffing with settings that I don't understand and hpe for the best that way! I'd rather not though, hence asking here.... doktorb _words^deeds 08:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the browser (unless you changed the advanced settings for the browser manually, which is unlikely). To repeat what 218 said above, look at the router and tell us the brand and (if possible) the model of the router. Also go to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories, right-click on the Command Prompt, choose Run as administrator, and then type ipconfig /all > ipconfig.txt and copy and paste the text from the ipconfig.txt file here.--Drknkn (talk) 09:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I am at work, so can't do any of that at the moment. But if I cannot solve it when I get home, I will copy down all I can and get back to you. It could be the laptop, I suspect there's some kind of "Invisible" error that cannot be traced, as nothing else seemed to be wrong. doktorb _words^deeds 14:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Update!

Internet STILL not working. Had 02 on the phone last night, looking at the Protocol settings and such (I had no idea what they were asking me to do). My mate tells me I should have the LAN settings in IE changed so "Automatically Detect Settings" is ticked, and "Use automatic configuration script" has something in it, but I don't know what that something would be, and in any case 02 told me last night they don't think it's that.

I wonder if it's just some "invisible" error with IE? I could spend some money buying IE8 (no, I can't download it) so the installation of that would perhaps "knock out" what it wrong with the current IE ?

Anyhoo, thanks for the help, any other info is welcome =/ doktorb _words^deeds 07:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Normally I'd suggest downloading Firefox (or some other browser), and trying to use that with your laptop. If that works, you know the problem's with IE rather than the router or laptop - and what I'd try next in that case would be to update your security software (particularly the firewall). If you can't download Firefox, you could start Command Prompt (look in the Start menu) and type in ping www.google.co.uk . If you get a response each time, it looks as if you've connected OK and it's just that IE isn't working for some reason. AJHW (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

He won't do any of that. He's just telling us what he thinks is wrong.--Drknkn (talk) 12:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea AJHW. And Drknkn, I did take what you suggested home last night, but given what happened with 02 I didn't think it neccesary. I will try the "ping" suggestion tonight. doktorb _words^deeds 14:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Help with Java NullPointerException error

I keep getting a NullPointerException error when executing this code:

public class Grid
{
    public String[][] gridarray;

    String e = "#";
    String s = " ";
    String b = "|";
    String c = "C";

public void PopulateGrid()
    {
        
        gridarray = new String[111][33];
        
        //create grid and track
        for (int q=0; q < gridarray.length; q++)
        {
            for (int w=0; w < gridarray[q].length; w++)

            gridarray[q][w] = s;
            gridarray[q][0] = e;
            gridarray[q][33] = e;
        }

    }

    public String toString ()
    {
        String result = "";

        
        // this is where the error occurs
        for (int row=0; row < gridarray.length; row++)
        {
        ...

In the populateGrid method i am creating a multidemnsional array and then filling it with values. The String toString method is supposed to take the array and convert it into a string.

Does anyone know what i can do to solve this problem? I think it is something to do with referencing an null pointer, but i didnt think this would happen if i have filled the array before calling the toString method.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.124.16.28 (talk) 13:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As i dont know the rest of your source code, i could only take a guess: you call method toStrging() before you call PopulateGrid()? Lukipuk (talk) 14:00, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you cut off the line of code which is actually causing the NullPointerException. Alternately, if it's really where you say it is, my guess is that your code never called PopulateGrid() and therefore never initialized gridarray. Nimur (talk) 15:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Because toString() is a standard method for all objects, it's possible that it might be getting called from somewhere that you don't expect, before PopulateGrid is called. In any case, you could add a constructor which creates the array to ensure it is allocated before it is referenced, or put a check in toString() to check if gridarray is null, and if it is null return a message rather than converting the array to a string. --Pleasantman (talk) 15:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Belkin router "bottleneck" in internet connection speed

Hi, I recently ran some speed tests. The first test was with my cable modem (on a "up to" 20 meg plan) directly attached to my PC, and the second had the Belkin router (F5D7231-4) in between, using ethernet on both sides (it does happen to be a wireless router but I wanted to elimate that source of latency from my enquiries). I noticed that the first test achieved in excess of 14 meg, whereas with the router in the picture I got less than 6. I think the reason relates to the WAN port, or the "WAN to LAN" throughput. So, my questions are: 1. Am I right? 2. If not, then what could the problem be? 3. Can I buy a router that is less of a bottleneck? --Rixxin (talk) 14:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's not supposed to happen, but the first review for this product at Newegg says:

Pros: Good range.

Cons: Needs to be constantly reset to avoid slow down.

Other Thoughts: This router works well when it is working. Typically, however, it slows my internet speeds way down. It has only gotten worse since purchasing an iPod touch. Whenever I am doing something that requires large bandwidth, i.e. talking to a friend on skype, I have gotten to the point where I just plug directly into my cable modem.

So I guess I would try resetting it, to see if that helps. If it does, I would speculate that it has an inefficient network address translation implementation, that keeps too much translation information around and gets bogged down. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Coneslayer. I have noticed that it does need to be reset often to just get it to work, much less work fast! I should probably add to my description of the tests I performed that I have power-cycled all the equipment (including the PC) to ensure that everything is working at the best it could be. I think the answer I'm looking for is for someone to tell me what technical spec to watch out for when browsing for a new router. --Rixxin (talk) 16:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Here are two ideas that won't cost you money, but require some time and patience:

1) Contact Belkin and explain your problem. Since you don't seem to be the only one suffering from this problem, they may have an updated firmware or something that will fix it.

2) Try one of the free replacement firmwares. I use Tomato (firmware), but it does not appear to support your router. DD-WRT, which is probably the most famous and widely-used open source firmware, does claim to support it. This requires some time, technical skill, and ability to follow instructions. It is conceivable (though unlikely) that it could render your router inoperative.

If neither of those work out or appeal to you, I would say that from a standpoint of technical specs, the router you already have is perfectly fine. The problem is that it has some software flaw that's not reflected in the specifications. If you shop for a different model, I'd look for something similar from a different vendor (on the "fool me once" principle), and read the reviews on sites like Amazon and Newegg to make sure there's no widespread problems. (I happen to use a Buffalo WHR-G54S, but I have a 0.5 Mbps satellite Internet connection, so I'm the last person to comment on its peformance. It's served me well with both the original and Tomato firmware.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've looked into updating the firmware to a later edition but for some reason the latest firmware available for variants of that model is not available for my one, which seems to be a UK-specific variant. Annoying. I did try to use one of the other variant firmwares but it just rejected it. I have also looked into flashing it with an open source firmware, but have always chickened out in case it went wrong! I have no problem with buying another router if it did mess it up, but then I'm back to square one in respect of my original problem; I don't know if the new one would "cap" my throughput. --Rixxin (talk) 10:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Help needed on spreadsheet formula

I have a spreadsheet with multiple columns and rows. I need a formula to check for the repeated occurrence (I mean, duplicate/exact match) of each cell value/selected cell values and return the cell reference ( i.e., row & column) of the cell(s) where repetition occurs. Can someone please suggest an OpenOffice (or Excel) formula?--117.204.82.3 (talk) 16:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean this sort of situation?

Col 1	Col 2	Col 3
Jam	Snooker	Bowl
Toast	Laptop	Pink Flamingos
Radiators	Sofa	Boots
Pink Flamingos	Cat	Light

So "Pink Flamingos" appears twice in the dataset. If this is not what you mean, it might be helpful to frame your question with a frame table.--Rixxin (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, supposing the table has a hundred columns and a few hundreds of rows, what formula can return details of the repeated values all over the spreadsheet? 117.204.82.3 (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay. This isn't exactly what you asked for, but it'll start you off. The range A1:C4 needs to be named "Range1".

	A	B	C
1	Jam	Snooker	Bowl
2	Toast	Laptop	Pink Flamingos
3	Radiators	Sofa	Boots
4	Pink Flamingos	Cat	Light
5	=COUNTIF(Range1,A2)	=COUNTIF(Range1,B2)	=COUNTIF(Range1,C2)
6	=COUNTIF(Range1,A3)	=COUNTIF(Range1,B3)	=COUNTIF(Range1,C3)
7	=COUNTIF(Range1,A4)	=COUNTIF(Range1,B4)	=COUNTIF(Range1,C4)
8	=COUNTIF(Range1,A5)	=COUNTIF(Range1,B5)	=COUNTIF(Range1,C5)

Which will leave you with:

	A	B	C
1	Jam	Snooker	Bowl
2	Toast	Laptop	Pink Flamingos
3	Radiators	Sofa	Boots
4	Pink Flamingos	Cat	Light
5	1	1	1
6	1	1	2
7	1	1	1
8	2	1	1

Any instance of 2 or greater highlights a duplicate. Obviously for a hundred rows and columns each way, you will need to autofill this formula down and across. --Rixxin (talk) 11:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Installing an additional hard disk drive

My current HDD is starting to fill, and as I have two or three other old HDDs available I am thinking of installing one of them, or if cheap enough buying a new one.

Does this simply involve putting the HDD in the bay, attaching the other socket from the cable ribbon, and restarting the computer? I have WinXP. I seem to dimly recall that there are two different types of incompatible HDD - is this true? Is two the maximum number of HDD I could install?

Is there any limit to the size of HDD? My current old HDD is only 40GB. a Maxtor 2F040J0. My motherboard is an ASRock P4VM8. Are there any restrictions to the size or type of HDD I could use with it please? 84.13.190.195 (talk) 16:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

There are currently two standard internal hard disk types that PCs use: SATA drives, and the older type, now commonly called PATA drives or "IDE drives". According to the user manual I googled for, your motherboard does have two SATA connectors — look at that SATA article to see what the connectors look like on the motherboard, and double-check for yourself to make sure. (The BIOS screens should reference the SATA connectors, too.) Your Maxtor hard disk appears to be a PATA drive. In the US, one-terabyte SATA drives are wonderfully cheap — Newegg is selling a 1TB SATA hard disk this morning for US$85 with free shipping, or 1.5TB is US$110. To install a PATA drive, you would first look on the new drive for the little connector plugs you need to rearrange to tell the motherboard that the new drive is the so-called "slave" drive. (Your old drive is already set to be the "master".) Then you would indeed just turn off your computer, open the case, put the HDD in the bay, screw in the little screws that hold it in place, plug a Molex connector from your power supply (there are probably some unused ones in there currently) into the new HDD, plug the second connector on the cable ribbon into the HDD, close up the case, and then when you boot up, go into the BIOS to be sure it correctly autodetected the drive. Then format the drive and you're in business. For a SATA drive, you would connect a SATA ribbon cable to connect your motherboard to the new drive, and you would connect a SATA power cable from your hard disk to your power supply — there are adapter cables from Molex to SATA, and one may come with your drive if you buy the drive as a "retail kit" rather than as an "OEM" drive, which just means the bare drive with no cabling or software. I'd recommend the SATA drive, certainly, even if you have the PATA drive still connected, because for your next computer you won't want to use a PATA drive. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Newer HDDs (SATA drives) don't use ribbon cables, but it sounds like all the drives in question here are PATA (AKA IDE), which use ribbon cables. There can be four PATA devices attached to your mobo. That includes CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives (if they are PATA). So, yes, you can connect at least one extra drive to one of the PATA cables in your case, but PATA drives use jumpers. Usually, one must be master, and the other slave (both in BIOS and with the jumpers). So, if the computer doesn't detect one or more of your drives after installation, the chances are that you will have to fiddle with the plastic jumpers on the back of the drive next to the ribbon cable.--Drknkn (talk) 17:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Oh, you asked about the hard disk size limits for your computer. Assuming this manual is the manual for your computer, it doesn't actually say, but it supports "Ultra DMA-5". Unfortunately our PATA article doesn't have a corresponding entry in the table that just tells us what size is supported. Newegg this morning appears to be selling only 7 PATA drives, everything else is SATA; and the largest PATA drive is only 500GB and appears to be an ATA-6 drive, so I'm not sure what it'll do in your computer. I'd go with a SATA drive. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Buy an external hard drive —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.75 (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The Maxtor drive stated above is IDE only. Your mainboard has the capability for SATA and IDE, so I would get a SATA drive, you won't have to mess around with master/slave jumpers. Mattg82 (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

unique visitors on a website

Where can I find statistics for "unique visitors"? I mean something like Alexa but I think that company doesn't provide that information (at least, for free). Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Who's hosting your site? Hosting companies often have statistics in the hosting control panel. You can also write a hit counter, but the language you use for that would also vary by hosting company.--Drknkn (talk) 17:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've heard good things about Google Analytics. APL (talk) 18:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Google Analytics is pretty easy to use and very pretty in general, though it is arranged primarily around aggregate information (which works nicely if you have a HUGE website but is less interesting for a small one). Personally I use a combination of Analytics and BBClone for websites I host (I find BBClone gives better individual information, if you want to track who is visiting at any given time of the day). But as Drknkn says, if you are just looking for raw numbers (especially on a site that is already up—BBClone and Analytics can't go back in time, obviously), your hosting company will almost surely have it in their logs for your site, which are usually accessible through the hosting control panel. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'd like to check the unique visitors for a website that isn't mine :) --Belchman (talk) 21:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

CRT TV failure

My fairly recently bought 13" CRT TV made a popping sound while I was watching a broadcast, turned off, and does nothing now when I try to turn it on. I've tried unpluggin the power cord, etc., but nothing's happening. What'd you do? Imagine Reason (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

If the power cable of your TV is fused then I would first check that it is not the fuse that has blown (therefore protecting your TV). If you can verify that your TV still receives power but doesn't work, then I'd take it back to the shop. Rjwilmsi 21:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's fairly recent - then checking the warranty is job #1. Failing that - the cost of repairing a small-ish TV is almost always more than the cost of a new TV...so sadly, if it's anything more complicated than a fuse then you're probably going to have to chuck it out and buy a new one. The fact that you heard an audible POP suggests that it could be a fuse - but it could equally be the power supply. SteveBaker (talk) 00:44, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It's out of warranty, with a fused power cable, and I don't know how to check the fuse. Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 03:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be handy to know which country you're in. What is the deal with fuses and US televisions? As far as I can see from our article on plugs, neither of the common US types have fuses. So how does that work? Is the fuse in the TV, or do you rely on ELCBs or what? --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

US plugs are almost never fused - they rely on the circuit breakers in the household fusebox. In the UK, there is usually an easy way to replace the fuse in the plug - it's sitting underneath the plug between the pins. ImagineReason: How do you know that the cable has a fuse - and yet not know how to replace it? We need to know which country you live in before we can figure out how to change the kinds of fuse you'd be likely to have. SteveBaker (talk) 04:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, sorry for the confusion. I thought you meant that the power cable is undetachable from the TV set. The fuse is inside the TV, I guess. It's a typical US TV. Imagine Reason (talk) 16:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The TV might have a fuse inside - but it's rather unlikely. You could take the back off to look - but please be very careful. Even though when TV isn't plugged in - and even though its power supply is probably hosed - there can still be highly charged capacitors in there that can zap you pretty seriously (maybe even kill you in the worst case scenario). Personally, I doubt there is an internal fuse. It's looking more and more likely that you need a new TV. Sorry. SteveBaker (talk) 22:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Scareware

Not sure if anyone can help me but I am looking for a site that will infect my PC with scareware, I intend to run it in VMWare so nothing will go wrong on my machine, I want to document the process that scareware goes through and how it infects your machine thanks. BigDunc 19:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about direct linking here so putting in scareware list into google will find you something that you want. Mattg82 (talk) 00:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"Wireless Network Connection" has gone missing?

This has been driving me up the wall for over an hour now. I have an old, spare Windows 2000 laptop I want to give someone to allow him to use the internet via free wifi in pubs.

I used to use that laptop myself and was able to find available wifi networks without a problem. However, trying it out now, I cannot seem to find the option to view available wifi networks. Looking at with my current XP laptop, I find I have a "Wireless Network Connection" option at the bottom right (the "system tray"?) that lets me view available wifi. I had a feeling there was something similar on the old Windows 2000 laptop, but for the life of me I cannot find it.

That old laptop has a wireless card in the appropriate slot, and it's working properly according to the hardware wizard. Am I just looking in the wrong place, or does something need fixing? --A bit iffy (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly which version of Windows 2000 are you using?

I read an article that said such a feature was added with Windows 2000 SP4. If you haven't installed that yet, connect yourself to a wired connection and install it. If that is not possible, it appears from some Googling that older versions of Windows 2000 require you to manually configure the wireless connection. I can't seem to find any instructions on how to do this; all I can recommend is to go to Control Panel -> Network, click on the card's entry in the list, hit Properties, and look around for the appropriate options.

If Windows 2000 is updated to SP4, go to Start -> Run, and type services.msc. Make sure the "Wireless Zero Configuration" service is running. If it is not, set it to start automatically. This should get you the Windows XP-style wifi configuration dialog. No guarantees, though. Xenon54 / talk / 22:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It only has Windows 2000 SP2. But the very odd thing is that I was able to connect to wifi services very easily when I last used it a couple of years ago. I certainly didn't go through any complicated rigmarole to manually configure things - I wouldn't have known how. I think I'll try to get rid of it somehow - it can't be worth more than £20 now - probably I'll just leave it outside my front door to see if someone will take it off my hands! Thanks again. --A bit iffy (talk) 23:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's possible that the physical wireless system on your laptop has been turned off? It's not uncommon for them to have an on-off physical switch - it may be worth checking for that before you throw it away. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I had a look but couldn't find a switch. However, my friend's now agreed to take it in spite of it being probably junk, so it's off my hands at least. Thanks, --A bit iffy (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

December 10

Program oddity

I wrote this program to solve Project Euler 125. It seems to work perfectly, but the sum is off by 3. When I put the numbers in a list, however, ([3]), it outputs the correct answer. Why is the first sum off? Nadando (talk) 06:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

In case anyone is taking a stab at this, the problem is to Find the sum of all the numbers less than 10⁸ that are both palindromic and can be written as the sum of consecutive squares.[4] decltype (talk) 09:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

In the first program there is sum += int(m) (line 36). It corresponds to second program's sum += g (line 37). The difference is that in first program you use int(m), which truncates floating number (i.e. from 1.999999 it makes 1 instead of 2 ...python doc). Apparently this happens total 3 times in the run of program as the difference between outputs is 3. I didnt looked so much into your code, but maybe use of round would fix the problem. Lukipuk (talk) 13:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Getting the URL of a frame, pop-up, etc

I'm writing a brief guide for the computer-illiterate/impatient that very incidentally advises them that when they want to refer in their own written material to a particular web page, they should normally provide the URL of that specific web page.

Thanks to frames (incl. cloaking) and Javascript, this information is often hidden. If I have to look for it, I know how to do so within the source code. But I don't want to explain this stuff: most of my potential readers wouldn't want to read it. Instead, I want to say "In any of most good recent browsers, right click in the area that interests you; then choose 'view this frame only' or similar, and save the URL of the page that's of interest." (Yes, "Command-click" for a Mac with a single mouse button.)

However, I find that this doesn't work with MSIE (which I rarely get to use) or even Safari or Opera. I think that these are all covered by: "Right-click the link that leads to the page concerned and take the option to copy the 'link location', 'link address', or 'shortcut'. You should cite this URL"

But I'm not keen on this as it sounds convoluted. Is there a simpler or better alternative? Tama1988 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Right-click on the page (frame, popup etc.) and click Properties. There you can read the URL. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Serial Mouse on Ubuntu

How do I get my Serial Mouse to work on Ubuntu? Thanks!--Elatanatari (talk) 07:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Presumably you mean X windows, not ubuntu. Maybe this will help. Also take at a look at the gpm program which can translate mouse protocols. Ariel. (talk) 10:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Orconfig.h

Hey all, I have been trying to run a C project on Visual C. However, when I build it, it shows FATAL ERROR: config.h not found. I have already included the header file though. Kindly,help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Books2491 (talk • contribs) 08:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If the file resides in a different directory than the rest of your project, make sure you have added that directory to the list of include directories. This can be done in Project properties -> C/C++ -> Additional include directories (may vary based on which version of the IDE you're using), or with the /I flag if you are compiling from the command line. decltype (talk) 09:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you did #include <config.h> or #include "config.h" - they are not the same. One looks in the system directories, the other in the local directory. Ariel. (talk) 10:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Repairing Camstudio temp files

I use Camstudio to screencapture occasionally, and recently I've suffered a crash in the middle of a recording that I would like to recover. The Camstudio wepage: http://camstudio.org/faq.htm#Recover lead me to the temp file, which I copied, and now I'm trying to figure out how to repair it. It not huge (about 3 megs) but it's big enough, and I've tried a few different programs (DivXRepair just produces a blank progress report, i.e. does nothing, and AVI previewer doesn't think it's an AVI file), but have had no luck. If the page is to be believed, and there is actually a chance of saving the file, how might I progress? The codec I'm using is called Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2, and I have a feeling that may be one of the problems. I would use a more normal codec but I recently came into troubles recording at different sizes, so I just found one that worked.

Thanks in advance! 210.254.117.185 (talk) 14:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

VLC has an inbuilt video repair function which activates when you try and open a broken video in it, I've had success with it in the past. Chris Rocen (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I use VLC but it didn't work, unfortunately :'( 219.102.221.182 (talk) 00:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Netbeans problem

I have written some coding in Netbeans relating to a GUI. Currently the first form requires you to input a name and sales amount, all this works fine when entered correctly. What I need to fix is when people enter no values for one/either input or a string for the sales amount. I've come up with the following coding that seems to restrict advancing to the next page in all the situations except when I enter a value for the sales amount but no name.

try {
  int ErrorChecker = Integer.parseInt(SalesFigureField);
}
catch(NumberFormatException nFE){
  System.out.println ("This is not a number");
}

if (Name.equals("")) {
  System.out.println("Nothing entered in Name Field");
}

So firstly how can I stop the next form from being linked to when no name is entered. Secondly how do I go about changing the System.out.println messages into an error/dialogue box displayed so the user knows what they have completed incorrectly. Also I need the form to recognise using numbers such as 17.99 with the decimal place in (if possible).

Many thanks in advance. --195.49.180.146 (talk) 14:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

(I reformatted your code and put it in a <source> tag.) First, if you just want to provoke an exception, you need not assign the result of the function to a variable (so you can dispense with ErrorChecker entirely). (You do need to assign if you're trying to provoke a ClassCastException: (GoodClass)mightReturnBadClass(); isn't a valid statement.) You seem to already be checking for the name to be the null string (not null!); you could also use tf.getText().length() to see how many characters are in it. If that's not working, provide more of your code for context and ask again. As far as making dialog boxes goes, the easiest thing for simple dialogs is the JOptionPane class. --Tardis (talk) 21:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

AppleMac "Address Book"

I regularly backup my address book when ever I make changes or additions to it. However I sometimes would like to look back at a saved version, but when I try to open it it always says that this will overwrite the existing Address Book. That I do not want to do. How can that be avoided, anybody know please? Thanks in anticipation.--88.109.243.127 (talk) 16:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Any reason you don't just backup your current address book, then allow the program to override with the old one, get the info you need, then restore from the backup you just made? —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 21:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Facebook privacy update

Following the (fairly unimpressive) Facebook privacy updates of the last day or so, am I right in thinking that it is now [U]impossible[/U] to edit which news-feed stories appear on your wall? For example, previously, I had it set that when I liked someone else's status, my profile wouldn't automatically say, "So-and-so likes P's status." All that seems to have gone now? Any help appreciated! ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 16:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, the privacy updates didn't have anything to do with those settings, so I don't see why you can't. I haven't tried myself yet though. The privacy update was mainly to stop people from obtaining information through massive geographical networks, which was a long-standing issue on Facebook. 219.102.221.182 (talk) 00:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Gateway/tigerdirect accidental warranty

Hi, I purchased a gateway laptop on tigerdirect and I got the accidental protection warranty. A friend had a similar warranty (from best buy) and when he was dumb enough to spill soda on it he got a new (and better) laptop for free.

Now, I'm naturally more careful with my expensive purchases, but let's say this purchase was on the verge of becoming obsolete, what kind of "accident" would be very likely to lead me to a similar outcome with little worry on my side. I don't have the exact text of the warranty at hand but will put it up later hopefully. Chris M. (talk) 17:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You're asking us to help you commit fraud, so I won't help you, and hopefully nobody else on the Refdesk will, either. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Realistically it's a genuine question about what kind of coverage they have been known to cover, liquids, drops, electrical damage, screen damage. I'm not asking someone to help me commit fraud, I'm asking for someoen who has had experience with their warranties to let me know what accidents are covered. If you don't want to answer, then it's pretty easy to not post, you don't have to tell others not to help me with information either. I've seen people help others use piratebay/torrents on here, and while it's POSSIBLE this was for a non-illegal purpose, it's exceedingly unlikely. So please don't respond to this unless you intend to help me. Chris M. (talk) 19:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If you've seen others on the Reference Desk help people use Pirate Bay and torrents, then that was an error on the part of the helper. In some cases, you'll see Reference Desk regulars answer questions about illegal activity, on the grounds that it may be legal where the poster is posting from — recently a poster asked for and received some advice about visiting a prostitute, which is apparently "not fully illegal" in Hong Kong, where the poster was allegedly visiting from — even this help is somewhat controversial at the Refdesk. But in your case, you're obviously asking for advice on how to best defraud Tiger Direct, which is illegal; and aiding and abetting this crime is also illegal. On a personal note, I think you should be ashamed anyway; this is stealing, and most would agree it's much worse than copying a music file via a torrent. Please don't try to use the Reference Desk for this purpose. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

There are of course plenty of legal torrents and they are a very common means of distribution of large open source software nowadays and in some cases even closed source software. If the OP thinks anything to do with torrents is illegal, that says more about the OP then anything else. In terms of the PirateBay, while it's perhaps harder to WP:AGF , it's not impossible since there is some legitimate content on PirateBay and so that's ultimately up to the question answerer IMHO. However if someone came here asking for help downloading say Windows 7, you can be assured they would get no answer even if they later said it was a 'genuine question' about how to download stuff off Pirate Bay and/or use Torrents. In any case, from my experience many P2P related questions only tend to receive minimal help Nil Einne (talk) 20:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"and" struck above accordingly, thanks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid no amount of AGF convinces me that the wording on the OP's part is incredibly suspicious. It is pretty obvious that the OP wishes to cause said "accident", not least because of the phrasing in the penultimate sentence. The intent is pretty obvious. Chris Rocen (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

See moral hazard. --Tardis (talk) 21:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how that is related, anyway, I will boldly archive this if further discussion occurs related to the OP's post. Chris Rocen (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It describes the condition that the OP is in: given that an accident will result in no loss (or even a net gain, since the technology continues to improve), the natural desire to protect one's "expensive purchases" is much impaired, and may even be inverted (in the less scrupulous). --Tardis (talk) 21:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

One-time numbers for credit cards

You know those little plastic cards that high-security people use, which have a number screen that has a pseudo-randomly changing number on it? And they use that number as a password? What are those called?

Anyway, why do credit card companies not use that technology? Each card has a pseudo-random number generator, and the numbers change every hour. Each number would only be valid during that hour.

Or, better, since people taking card information may not get it processed immediately, you could have a card that spits out a new number every time you click it. Each of those numbers is valid once they've been generated, but each may only be used one single time. Possibly one would also have a second, permanent number to match this (like the three digits at the back of regular cards) as a check that someone isn't just guessing numbers and that no two cards have valid numbers out at the same time.

Would that work? Would it help prevent credit card fraud? — Sam 63.138.152.120 (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, you can get one-time CC numbers (from a number of CC issuers) for online use - see this article. Secondly, for payer-present transactions, many banks are issuing EMV-compliant smartcards, which make stolen card use much more difficult. This does still leave the problem of abuse of stolen numbers for payer-absent transactions (that is, mail-based fraud). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue is just what you describe; there are too many ways for cards to be used for any one solution to work, and without all of the solutions the fraud problem won't go down (since fraudsters will simply use a different avenue once the main one is blocked off), so card issuers really have little motivation to better secure the system. Most of it comes down to cost/benefit, and since a lot of fraud results in the card issuer/bank getting their money back from the store that failed to properly verify the cardholder's identity, the banks have little motivation to shut off that avenue of fraud. The stores are just lucky if the customers are only stealing/defrauding as much as the employees are, so the issue of improving identity verification isn't high on their priority list. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 18:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Security token is our article on those randomly-changing things. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Mail recommendation please

I have been happy with the email provided by Orange, but now need a wider range of facilities. In particular I need to email the membership of an association. There are so many providers I shall welcome comments and recommendations. I operate an iMac using MacOS 10.5.8 at present. Thanks in advance.Froggie34 (talk) 17:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)Froggie34

When you say you want to "email the membership of an association", I assume you mean you want to do a mass-mailing to a list of people who are opt-in members of this association? If that's the case, you might do well to set up a Yahoo! Groups account (or its competitors), or use the groups function in your email client (outlook, thunderbird, and web-based services like Gmail all have this feature). Personally I recommend people not use the email account supplied by their ISP (or mobile ISP) for anything important, as they'll generally lose that when they change provider. There's no shortage of free email services; Gmail, Yahoo, and MSN(HoTMaiL) among them. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Gmail supports mailing multiple contacts at a time, then again most mainstream email providers do nowadays. Gmail is definitely my preferred provider, but any mainstream provider like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or the like should do in terms of simple mass mailing. Chris Rocen (talk) 20:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Proxy servers in France or Germany

Hey guys, I really need a proxy server that is physically located in either France or Germany. Thank you! --Belchman (talk) 21:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

First result for 'proxy france' on Google. [5] Chris Rocen (talk) 21:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

For some reason, when I tried the fastest one from that list, it wasn't working. But now it is! Thanks!! --Belchman (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Stop Windows Messenger turning itself on

Have just got a new notebook, Windows XP. How do I stop the Windows Messenger thingy turning itself on every time I turn the computer on? I don't want to uninstall it, just stop it leaping out at me when I don't want it. Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 22:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Install the freeware Startup Control Panel by Mike Lin, and stop it (and a lot of other unwanted stuff) from running at startup. 89.242.147.237 (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Go to Start --> Run... and type cmd /k sc config Messenger start= disabled. A black window should then pop up with the words, "[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS." That's the Messenger Service.

If you're talking about the chat client, then go to Start --> Run.. and type appwiz.cpl and click on "Add/Remove Windows Components." Deselect Windows Messenger and then click OK.--Drknkn (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It is relatively safe to do both the former and the latter (if you don't know what the Messenger service does, you likely don't need it running), but the one you're talking about is the latter. Chris Rocen (talk) 23:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If I do that will I still be able to turn it on when I want it? DuncanHill (talk) 23:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. You would replace the word "disabled" above with "auto" and re-check the box in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box. In other words, you would do the reverse of the above procedure.--Drknkn (talk) 23:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You could also do it from within services.msc. :) Chris Rocen (talk) 23:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there must be a simpler way that just stops it starting on start-up and I can then start it when I want to from start/all programs. I'm sure I did something like that on my desktop. I don't know what services.msc is. DuncanHill (talk) 23:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No, services.msc is used to operate services -- the Messenger service is completely unrelated to Windows Messenger, that was just a side note by Drknkn which I commented on. To directly remove startup entries you can go to Run keys like HKLM/Run and remove the string. You're probably thinking of All Programs > Startup, but I doubt it would be in there. Chris Rocen (talk) 23:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

What I remember is doing something in start/run and editing something there, and after that if I wanted to use the Windows Messenger I just went into all programs and clicked on it just like for any other program. DuncanHill (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The autostart of Windows Live Messenger for Windows Vista can be disabled in the program settings dialog box. Surely the same applies to the old XP version? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That makes more sense - tools/options then uncheck the start on windows start up box. Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 23:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

WoW

I have been playing World of Warcraft trial version recently, the trial version only lasts for 10 day, I feel I may be hooked, I fullu play on buying the full copy of the game, however being just before Christmas I would like to wait until after Christmas to buy it, is it posible for me to play the trial version again 3 or 4 times before I buy the real thing? I have tried deleting it and re-dowloading it but to no avail, I cant see any reason why one would not be allowed to play it a number of times prior to buying it, can some one please answer this for me as I would really like to keep playing as if I stop now I fear that ina few weeks when I am in a possition to buy the real thing I will have lost my enthusiasm for it and will no longer want to spend £20 on the box set and first 2 months. Thanks people, and please donate to wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.35.133 (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this straight — you are afraid that you will lose your addiction? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You can keep playing the trial version, but it will have to be on a different account, so you won't be able to keep playing the same character. No need to download the client multiple times, just make a new account. If you know someone that plays or are willing to find someone that does you could ask that person to send you a "refer-a-friend" referral (if Blizzard is offering that for European realms, I have no clue). If memory serves you then get an unrestricted 30 day trial with a bonus to experience gain, as well as some other goodies once you buy a license and game time. 161.222.160.8 (talk) 23:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

December 11

Google search results sometimes confound me

Can anyone tell me why Google will not infrequently give you more results when you put in a limiter? I was just searching to buy long johns (cold winter a-coming) and I was getting results for a union suit, which I don't want, so I added to my search "-union" to reduce the hits—the results climbed from 4,000 to 14,000. What gives?--162.83.166.101 (talk) 01:25, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Due to the rate and number of queries being processed, the estimate is a very shoddy estimate, really it is not an estimate at all. This doesn't come as much of a surprise. Chris Rocen (talk) 01:48, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer but that can't be the whole picture. When I have these results they are consistent. A month later the same search returns the same numbers. Everything you've said would lead me to believe that the results are almost random, and should fluctuate each time you hit the search button. No, there's something screwy about it but it's not that.--162.83.166.101 (talk) 03:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

1 January 1968 = 1

What's that date system called (if it has a name)? Where dates are represented as a count starting at the date in the title and 11 dec 2009 is 15321. -202.124.72.52 (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

See Epoch (reference date)#Notable epoch dates in computing. If 1 January 1960 is day 1 then 11 December 2009 is actually day 18243. There are 15321 days from 31 December 1967 to 11 December 2009 so it appears your count is the same as used in Pick operating system. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

OP here. 1968 is what I meant. Oops. And it is indeed in a Pick related system - a UniVerse database. Thanks -202.124.74.1 (talk) 04:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)