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June 13

Infobox field and value ordering

Resolved

I'm working with a mediawiki installation and I have a bunch of values like so:

| label20 = ccat7
| data20 = {{{ccat7|}}}
| label21 = qid1
| data21 = {{{qid1|}}}

I'd like to add a ccat8 between ccat7 and qid1. Is there any way to do this without renumbering the whole template? --Rajah (talk) 00:57, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

depends on what you mean. If you're talking about a mediawiki template (like {{infobox}} then no. you at least have to renumber things to the next available space (in either direction). I wrote a small script that I use to fix that problem - if you point me to the page, I can run the script on it (basically it spaces out the labels a bit to give room for additions). If you're talking about a preference file or different template then there's may not be a specific need for parameter names to be in a given order. I'd need to see specifically what you're doing. --Ludwigs2 23:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, this is an Infobox. It's on a private installation though. I can write a script too, just wondered about that. Btw, do you know where the documentation is for Infoboxes? Specifically where it talks about labelN, dataN, etc. ? Thanks. --Rajah (talk) 03:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

if it's a copy of wikipedia's infobox template, you can look at the docs listed at the link I gave above. what I use is an applescript to modify the text, so you probably can't make any use of it. --Ludwigs2 04:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, got it. thanks again. --Rajah (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

XFire & Games List

Why do iTunes and Windows Media Player show up in my list of installed 'games' in XFire? No other programs appear (besides my other games, some of which don't, but that's presumably because they are unsupported). It would be nice if Word did, though, because I always feel the need to fire off a quick document in the middle of a game . --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably merely a matter of application detection -- perhaps Xfire's criteria of 'game' is pretty loose, or they just thought that media players should also be in the list. If you've not added them manually, more than likely they are in some database that came with it. Findstr (talk) 15:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The (archived) XFire README file states that XFire can be used to control Windows Media Player or iTunes; it can also use the "current song" to update your profile, and similar features. Nimur (talk) 16:34, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Excellent. So, if I enable this feature, everyone I know can get a little pop-up message on the bottom right of their screen every 4-5 minutes telling them what song I'm listening to. Also, if I feel like watching a film during a game I can just turn on Windows Media Player. How convenient. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MSN/Live Messenger has a similar feature. Nil Einne (talk) 04:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

June 14

anyone know how to download movies on a samsung advance a885?

/03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)~~\ l lOOOl lOOOl l / l lOOOl lOOOl l / l l / l l l l \03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)Peekingducky12 (talk) 03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC) PLZ tell l \_____/ l \ l l \ l /03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)03:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)~\ l l /__________________\ l \_________________________________________________________l[reply]

I removed your double post. It will probably also help if you don't have such an 'eye catching' and large signature. At the very least, there's no need for the time stamp to appear 10 times Nil Einne (talk) 04:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that the tildes ~ were supposed to be part of the ASCII art, yet the wiki software gets confused and turns them into time stamps/signatures. -- 109.193.27.65 (talk) 10:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't have worked anyway, since he didn't preface the whole thing with a space. Here's what he wanted:

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
l    lOOOl                                     lOOOl      l    /                                               
l    lOOOl                                     lOOOl      l   /
l                                                         l  /
l                   l    l                                l  \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (~~~~ PLZ tell
l                   \_____/                               l   \
l                                                         l    \
l               /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\                        l
l              /__________________\                       l
\_________________________________________________________l

Vimescarrot (talk) 11:14, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But what is that? A diagram of the device? Nimur (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Probably, here's proper instructions then:

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
l                                                         l    /                                               
l                SAMSUNG Advance                          l   /
l                                                         l  /
l                   l    l                                l  \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (~~~~ MOVIE
l                   \_____/                               l   \
l                                                         l    \
l               /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\                        l
l              /__________________\               A885    l
\_________________________________________________________l
216.185.72.2 (talk) 18:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since we've established the garbled code is supposed to represent the device OP was asking about (apparently a samsung advance a885), maybe someone would like to have a go answering the question. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving data

Imagine that I wanted to archive a copy of wikipedia, which is about 100GB these days (current revisions plus images?). If I want to archive it so that the data is good for a VERY long time (say 10,000 years) without power available how could one do it? I imagine amongst other things doing whatever it is say 3 times for redundancy would be a good idea. Store whatever in a vaccuum or inert gas or ...? The only thing I can thing of that could be expected to last that long is ceramics where I reckon you could easily manage 1Mbit per 100mm * 100mm * 3mm sheet. But that's 3 lots of 800,000 ceramic sheets. Might Mylar last 10,000 years? Punched copper tape? Any ideas folk? -- SGBailey (talk) 11:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Long Now Foundation's Rosetta Project hopes to address this, using data etched (as analog pictures) onto nickel alloy disks. They're only planning on storing 13,000 pages with a 2,000 year life expectancy. I think they're going analog because they're not confident that any digital format can be relied upon to be meaningful over such a timescale. The problem of intelligibility is one shared with the designers of deep nuclear storage facilities like Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository - see this. For physical media, the trouble starts when you have to survive some or much of that time in a condition of apathy or neglect. Ceramics crumble, metal oxidises, plastics offgas and become brittle (and are slowly eaten by fungii and degraded by sunlight), gas-tight containers aren't that gas tight (and the material of the box, and the seal, slowly contaminates the space within). Worse, you have to contend with people deliberately destroying the archive, because it's valuable (they melt those disk down), because they think it's valuable (they smash your ceramic memory blocks because they think there's gold inside them), or because of some cultural reason (they discover that images of the Holy Messiah Keanu Reeves are contained within, and so destroy the whole thing as an heretical graven image). Life, human and otherwise, is much of the problem - I wouldn't be entirely surprised if one day someone finds a marker on Phobos, marking the top of a mile deep shaft at the bottom of which is a huge cavern full of nickel disks, covered with the defunct Martian civilisation's Wikipedia. Short answer: right now, I don't think there's any media that could store remotely that amount of data for that time reliably, bar an effort of titanic expense. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:01, 14 June 02010HE (UTC)

You'd probably want to encode with an error-correcting code (a very redundant one) with lots and lots of section-numbering and framing (to assist a future archaeologist in reconstructing the stream of things when a great number of sections are damaged). Constructing such a primer (so some future person can figure out what the data encoding means) is much the same problem as communicating with an Alien intelligence (i.e. you have no common cultural reference, so have to build everything up from basic bits of science and math) - that's the meat of the Arecibo message and is explored (a bit superficially) in the movie Contact. If you're not willing to pay for my expensive Lunar storage, you at least need to have multiple redundant repositories in physically very distinct locations (continents apart) in geologically inactive places. It'd be nice to say "in the desert", but places that are deserts now were relatively recently (over your timeframe) fairly lush. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:10, 14 June 02010HE (UTC)

You could probably find sites safe to be geologically stable for the next 10 thousand years. 10 million years, or even worse billion years, would be far more problematic. StuRat (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the "how not to do it" category, IMHO, goes the record of Earth sounds sent on one of the Voyager missions. It's guaranteed to be heavily pitted by micrometeorites by the time it gets to any aliens, and they then must somehow construct a turntable to play it, and, of course, they might not have ears, and, even if they do, they couldn't make any sense of random sounds from Earth anyway. Then there's the extremely slow speed of the spaceship, which guarantees that we ourselves will pick it up and put it in a museum once we have much faster ships. StuRat (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If data is stored in a digital format, then you'd need to include a device to convert that info into something useful, like video and audio. Of course, that brings up all sorts of problems of how to make such a device last that long, power it (solar panels ?), etc. StuRat (talk) 14:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the general idea is, as Findlay points out, that you'd put it in a format that would be theoretically decodable, and let the future human/alien/whatever figure out how to represent it. Then you aren't dependent on trying to make a reading device survive into the future. Such an approach, of course, assumes a minimum level of technological savvy before it could be used. (Which might be a good thing, depending on what the message tells them how to do.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's a good assumption, though. We could very well have a primitive culture find this after the advanced technology is destroyed by an asteroid, mega-volcano or in a nuclear or biological war (in fact, if there was no such disruption, then the nuclear waste disposal site would still be known to future generations and there would be no need for a warning). Of course, one option might be to make the nuclear waste inaccessible to primitive cultures, say by burying it under a miles of concrete. Still, if they are sufficiently motivated, they might dig through it over generations. StuRat (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If they're really primitive, then even if the data was in a format they could read, they most likely wouldn't understand it away. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And also most info in Wikipedia would be completely meaningless to them, as jet engine design wouldn't be useful until they learned lots of other stuff. An AI system might need to be included that determines their level of expertise and provides info in a format and of a nature which they would appreciate. If cave men discover it, it could show them how to build a fire with videos, for example. StuRat (talk) 03:58, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The original question was not about nuclear waste, it was about encoding an encyclopedia. It's a different question altogether though it shares some common similarities about communicating across vast cultural gaps. The intent is different. You should not confuse the two—one is a warning against people who lack the understanding to comprehend the threat, the other is an attempt to preserve knowledge in a more ideal form across the ages. There are very different assumptions involved about who would find it useful and what the consequences would be if they couldn't understand the message. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

: I have come with a possibly workable hypothetical solution. Just my two cents worth...

Encode data onto gold surfaces at a density of 2MB per double-sided disc (i.e. 1MB per side), on discs with the following dimensions.

340mm diameter
5mm overall thickness
3mm titanium-nickel alloy substrate
two 1mm gold coatings (for encoding data), one on each side

Every 500 discs would be placed in a cylinder made of titanium-gold-tungsten alloy, with the following dimensions.

40cm in exterior diameter
34cm in interior diameter
256cm in exterior height
250cm in interior height

You would need a total of fifty thousand discs in one hundred cylinders. The one hundred cylinders would be placed in a sealed bunker with rounded edges, which would be constructed out of diamond, with the following dimensions.

Exterior Dimensions: 4300mm (length) x 4300mm (width) x 3200mm (height)
Interior Dimensions: 4000mm (length) x 4000mm (width) x 2560mm (height)

Diamond does not corrode, oxidize or crumble. The bunker should be buried at a great depth; either in a geologically stable yet remote location, or offworld on a celestial body such as the Moon. That way, a future civilization will not be able to access it until they have developed atleast some modern level of technology (possibly including primitive space technology such as ours), and are much more likely to appreciate the value of such an artifact from an ancient civilization, rather than simply destroy it in the hunt for gold or for religious reasons.

Rocketshiporion (talk) 03:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Diamond would be stolen for sure, but perhaps you could carve it on stone, It would take a lot of stone! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Diamond wouldn't be stolen if no one knew it was there, and I propose to encode the data on gold (not diamond) surfaces. As for stone, which do you suggest be made of stone; the discs or the bunker? Rocketshiporion (talk) 17:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gold is plenty valuable, too, and the object is to make this bunker visible, so future generations can restore all the Wikipedia info and rebuild civilization. Of course, in the interim, very primitive people may find the bunker, too, and we don't want them to loot it for valuables and thus destroy the info. StuRat (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

E-mail name

When I signed up for a Yahoo/AT&T account, they asked my name, and I put in NOYFB, because, well, it wasn't any of their business. However, once I started sending emails, they put <NOYFB>my_email_address@att.com as my name and address (not my real email, so no reason to remove it here). So, how can I permanently correct my name, after the fact ? Or, failing that, just convince it to stop supplying what it thinks is my real name, along with my e-mail address ? StuRat (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your name in sent emails is usually a setting in your email client. If you're using some sort of AT&T webmail, you'll need to browse through their preferences to change it. Indeterminate (talk) 16:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly what I'm asking about. I can't find where I change my name. StuRat (talk) 15:52, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hotmail

As a related query, Hotmail insists upon showing my name in capital letters. How can I change that? I have tried to change it before, could not. Thanks 92.24.183.80 (talk) 14:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OpenOffice3

1) Whenever I go to open an existing letter, I get a "box" that shows the List view. I have to change this to Details, and then click the top of the date column so that the most recent dates are shown at the top of the list. Is there any way of changing the default settings so that I do not have to keep doing this over and over again?

2) Is it possible that when saving a letter using "Save As", that the former file name is remembered (so that I can make minor changes to it) rather than just getting a blank slot which means that I have to retype the whole file name completely?

3) Is it possible to make "boxes" such as the Open or Save As box whole-page, rather than having to peer through a little aperture at the information beyond? Thanks 92.24.183.80 (talk) 14:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Those issues are based on the window manager. Are you using Windows or Linux? If Linux, are you using KDE or Gnome? -- kainaw ™ 16:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've numbered your questions for ease of reference. Unfortunately, most of them appear to require changes to the program (coding) to improve. Some more specific comments:

1) This is the only one where it seems that there might be a setting you can change, although I don't know what it is.

2) A workaround might be to pick on the existing name to load it into the box for editing, but be aware than changing the name would cause another copy to be stored under the new name, and leave the old file as is, rather than rename it. Renaming seems to require brining up Windows Explorer (or some other File Manager). I've always found this lack of ability to rename or delete files from within most apps to be objectionable.

3) Unless there's a maximize button (a big square in the upper, right corner), the window probably isn't made to be scalable. Right-clicking on the title bar for the window is another way to bring up the Maximize option, if it has one. StuRat (talk) 16:46, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am using WinXP. Your answer to 2 - I think that's what I do already, but I always just get a blank slot. 3 - I don't know why programmers in general insist on people being given this weany little window to look through, since it inevitibly requires a lot of scrolling in all four directions. Its like being forced to watch a wide-screen tv through a letterbox. 92.15.10.239 (talk) 18:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I suspect that they sized the window when display resolutions were much smaller, like maybe 640×480, so it filled the entire screen, back then. Then they just never got around to expanding it as screen resolutions went up. Ideally, it should have been made scalable in the first place, so no coding change would be required when screens got bigger. StuRat (talk) 19:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can switch between the OpenOffice and XP save dialogs to see of one is more to your liking. Click tools - options - openoffice.org - general. There is a checkbox labelled Use Openoffice.org Dialogs. If it is checked, uncheck it. If it is not checked, check it. You will likely have to restart OpenOffice to make it take effect. -- kainaw ™ 19:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

TouchFLO 3D

In TouchFLO 3D (on a WinMobile 6.5 smartphone), on the Programs tab, is there some (any!) way to add a link to an executable which is not a program installed with an installation process (and thus not showing in the list of installed programs)? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 14, 2010; 17:42 (UTC)

Program for creating mathematical graphs

Cross-posted to the maths desk.

Hi everyone. I'm looking for a program to draw graphs easily (I do mean graphs not charts - essentially circles connected by lines). I'd like a program which has the following:

Graphical User Interface

Ability to drag/drop vertices around.

Preferably ability to resize the vertices, alter colours, alter thickness/colour of the edges, etc.

Does anyone know any software which can do this? -mattbuck (Talk) 17:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I asked something similar recently. (Discussion here) Dia was the answer I went with. APL (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That looks very useful, thankyou. -mattbuck (Talk) 18:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mac Dinosaur Game circa 1997-1998

When I was ten-eleven years old, I remember seeing a 3D dinosaur game with marvelous graphics in a computer shop. If I remember correctly, it was actually on a Mac, and not a PC. What might it have been? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nanosaur? Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter came out in 1997, but I don't think that it was on Mac. APL (talk) 00:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

June 15

Playing movies full screen at 1080p

Dear Wikipedians:

After playing a couple of divx movies at 1080p, I have found that while most movies play full-screen, a few movies left two wide ugly black vertical strips on the two sides of the screen.

How do I force-play all movies at full full screen?

Thanks.

174.88.241.162 (talk) 22:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is it like the photo to the right? See Letterbox or Pillarbox for why. You may be able to stretch the picture to be "full screen" but I don't recommend it; the picture will just be stretched horizontally, so everyone and everything looks wider than in reality. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Movies come at different aspect ratios, some of which match the wide-screen format well, and others don't. If they don't match the shape of your monitor/TV, the options are to stretch it to fit or have black bars. A few movies are available at multiple aspect ratios, and hopefully you can select the one which matches your needs, but most aren't, unfortunately. StuRat (talk) 03:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another option, which does not stretch it nor has black bars, is to zoom in, and cut off some of the edges. --169.232.246.242 (talk) 08:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of note: If you zoom in or stretch the picture, it isn't truly full 1080p as you are expanding each little pixel of color to cover more than one pixel on the screen. It is noticeable that the picture is stretched or zoomed when compared to actual 1080p. -- kainaw ™ 12:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To be specific, (US) cinematic releases come in ~2.39:1, 1.85:1, and rarely 1.37:1 width:height ratios. Standard 1080p television sets are at the ratio of 16:9, or ~1.78:1. This is "close enough" for the common 1.85:1 ratio movies play at, but "scope" films (2.39:1) need to be either letterboxed or pan and scanned. On the other end, the 1.37:1 films, and films originally shot for the 4:3 (1.33:1) television ratio need to be pillarboxed to show everything, otherwise you're again left with cutting portions out via pan and scan (which tends to be worse than in the scope case, as the composition is not as spread out). Your media player probably has some zoom system (how to reach it varies based on device), but be advised you are either going to lose some of the picture when it gets cut off, or you'll distort objects. -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for your inputs. I know what to do now. 174.95.170.219 (talk) 20:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Phone advice

I am due for a Verizon upgrade, and I'm thinking Droid-like in caliber for my next phone. Ideally I would like access to a website that streams my iTunes library somehow. I know that there are several ways to do this, but I was hoping for something that would work with Last.fm scrobbling. Can this be done with a Droid? Has anybody else done the same or similar? Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 02:35, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scrobbling... LOL. Anyway, picking a phone is simple. Identify what apps are most important to you since multimedia web pages (via flash) are out of the question (maybe Last.fm or some other music manager; itunes is obviously out of the question unless you get an iPhone) and find a phone that runs them well. Last step (and most important) go to the phone store and play with the thing for a while. Give the salesperson a stream of 'uh huh' if they try to "sell" you on one; your objective is to see how it feels to use. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 20:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

C++ 5.5

Sir, i recently downloaded the command line version of c++ 5.5 from the borland site.Please instruct me how to connect the compiler with the header files and to the linker files.I have already set the path on DOS.But i don't know how to link it with the header files. Help Please!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vishnuthelegend (talk • contribs) 12:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a tutorial here, Borland C++ 5.5 tutorial. Have you properly used the #include syntax? Have you properly used the -Iheader_path include syntax for headers not in the current directory or standard library? Nimur (talk) 14:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question (Internet domains)

How are domains like "123.example.com" made? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One registers example.com and then one sets up a subdomain 123.example.com, iirc by adding it to a name server. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The term to search for is subdomain. You have to 1. add it to a name server, and 2. configure your server to properly handle the subdomain requests (which depending on the setup can be as easy as modifying the .htaccess file). To give any more specifics than that would require knowing more about the server you are hosting it on. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:42, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I changed your useless title to one which actually identifies the question. StuRat (talk) 13:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Storage Area Networking across the Internet

I am intending to set up an international iSCSI SAN, but need to learn more about Storage Area Networking first. My intent is to have the SAN physically located in Singapore, and have initiators from other parts of Asia, Europe and the Americas be able to connect to it. I have the following questions about iSCSI SANs.

What is a SAN group? I am only familiar with individual targets.
I have heard that a many-to-one relationship between initiators and targets is possible. I would like to know how this relationship works; i.e. wouldn't the two or more initiators overwrite each other's data?
In the context of a RAID array in a SAN, what is a Disk Group, and why is there a limit on the maximum number of physical disks in a Disk Group?
As iSCSI is a low-level protocol, is it the best protocol for a SAN which is to function across the Internet, or is there a better higher-level protocol?

Rocketshiporion (talk) 13:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The best answer I can offer is that yes it is a low level protocol, and yes there are better things for use across the internet. iSCSI has very little in the way of session maintenance and graceful error handling; if the operating system relying on the iSCSI connection loses it for any reason very bad things happen very quickly (since operating systems are typically accustomed to having reliable access to their disks). Are you interested in using this for more than high speed file transfer between sites? --144.191.148.3 (talk) 14:35, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My intent is to use SAN targets primarily as remote centrally-managed data storage volumes for physical client computers, and secondarily as boot volumes for virtual client machines, i.e. remote desktops. These remote desktops would be hosted on a server in a different country. Rocketshiporion (talk) 01:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call iSCSI robust enough to do something similar to remote desktop for you... Any kind of disruption would result in the system self-destructing pretty fast. You could reboot it but unsaved work would easily be lost, and eventual corruption is likely. Unless you are dead certain that your network link between the sites is very steady, I think you will be disappointed in the reliability. RDP, for comparison, is very robust and can handle disconnection gracefully and re-connect the user at will with no lost unsaved work. As far as file sharing, iSCSI is high speed, relatively low latency and low overhead but you lose the benefits that all that overhead gives you like error correction and graceful failure handling. File level sharing tools like SMB, NFS, etc. are much better at managing files between sites with inconsistent (internet-grade) links. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 16:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Explorer.exe

Hello! I've had a minor problem with my laptop for the last couple of months. Whenever the laptop is running, the process "explorer.exe" has big spikes in the percentage of CPU usage every few seconds, causing video files and DVDs to play irregularly. Disabling the process is not an option, as it causes the start bar and desktop icons to disappear. Is there anything I can do to solve this problem? My operating system is Windows Vista.--Midgrid (talk) 13:55, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had exactly the same problem on Windows Vista, and it's apparently a common problem, see Criticism of Windows Vista specifically the 'Hardware requirements and performance' section. My advice would be to upgrade to Windows 7, as it's basically an improved Vista without the crap. Installing service pack 1 for Vista might help if you can't upgrade to Windows 7, although I don't know as the service pack failed to install when I tried it on mine. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Upgrade to Windows 7'? Doesn't that just mean 'buy a new operating system and install that'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's at least a little more practical than "switch to Linux". —Akrabbim^talk 16:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies! I've had this laptop for the best part of three years and this problem has only cropped in the last few weeks, so would it really be an integral problem with Vista in this case? I think I have the service pack installed, anyway.--Midgrid (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another view is that Windows 7 is basically Windows Vista SP3. To the original poster: How long does the spike last? How many seconds elapse between spikes? Is it a regular occurrence? How's your memory situation? Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:58, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The spikes are very brief (less than a second) and occur every five seconds or so. They take the CPU usage up from about 4-8% at idle to 100%, although I can reduce this to 40% by lowering the priority for the process. According to Task Manager, Physical Memory is (approximately) Total 1014, Cached 283 and Free 2; Kernel Memory is Total 174, Paged 79 and Nonpaged 94 (all in Mb), although I have several programmes running at the moment and looking at the position of the line on mthe graph of the physical memory usage history, it is usually a bit lower than it is now (just above the fourth horizontal line of five).--Midgrid (talk) 21:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try running HijackThis and see if it finds anything, such as an Explorer plugin that you didn't know you had. (If you don't know how to interpret the output, you could post it here.) Check if you're attached to an inaccessible network share or printer or something of that sort. Create a new user account and see if the problem occurs there. Temporarily disable any hardware that you can, like the wired and wireless network adapters and the DVD drive. Uninstall any

software that you never use but haven't gotten around to uninstalling. Install Vista SP2 if you haven't. (Press Win+Pause/Break or open the System control panel to see what service pack is installed.) -- BenRG (talk) 01:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To OP, if you don't find a solution from the above answers, you may want to just work around it by setting the program that is performing badly because of it at a higher priority than explorer.exe. Otherwise you could always just terminate explorer until you're done (unless the program that you're wanting to use needs to make calls to it), just do Task Manager > Processes > Select 'explorer.exe' > Press 'End Process'. To get it going again you just go back into task manager and do File > New Task > type "explorer" without the quotes. :) Findstr (talk) 02:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, a note: HijackThis does not work like traditional malware scanners, that is, it detects them using similar methods to most malware scanners but does not label anything as good or bad -- that is for you to decide, so don't just go on a removal spree based on what it says. :) Findstr (talk) 02:32, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on Windows XP, but have a similar problem with movies stuttering. I use the Task Manager to stop all services I can (with the exception of Windows Audio, since stopping that makes my movies play without sound). In particular the Automatic Updates and Anti-virus/Firewall products seem likely to cause such probs. After the movie, I just reboot to start everything back up again. This works well for me. StuRat (talk) 04:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to your anti-virus software, you could do scans with the free software listed here http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-adware-spyware-scumware-remover.htm to see if any of them find something nasty. Use Ccleaner before scanning. 92.28.251.43 (talk) 11:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for all the suggestions! I'll try the more complicated ones later on, but for now setting the priority of my media player to high (and explorer to low) seems to be working as a stop-gap measure.--Midgrid (talk) 11:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

I intend to use Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 as a virtualizer on a server to create up to 120 virtual machines. The Microsoft website officially states that only Linux OSes that are supported are RedHat and SUSE. I want to know whether each of the following operating-systems are supported as guest OSes by Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.

Debian 5.0.4 Linux
Mandriva Linux One 2010
Ubuntu Desktop Edition 32-bit
Ubuntu Server Edition 32-bit
Ubuntu Netbook Edition 32-bit
Ubuntu Desktop Edition 64-bit
Ubuntu Server Edition 64-bit

As you said, they're not officially supported. But people have gotten Debian and Ubuntu to work in Hyper-V.^{[1], [2]} I couldn't find any info on Mandriva, though. But it couldn't hurt to try it.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AARRRRGGG!!!! (Lost Blackberry pics)

I have a blackberry bold 9700, when I take pictures sometimes they appear in, media, pictures, when i take a video it does not go to media video any more. Some one told me to look in applications, files. But theyre not in there either, please please pretty please help me before I stamp on the thing! It is the pictures i really want, some times they are saved where they should be but more often than not they disapear to some where else, please I am begging for help here! Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.145 (talk) 19:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When you are in camera or video mode, in the options page there is an area for "Store Pictures" where it has you select the device and the folder... Did you double check these to make sure they are where you expect them to be? Also, instead of using "Videos" and "Pictures" in the Media area to view them, there is an option in the menu when in Camera or Video mode to "view" which should take you straight to where they were downloaded. Lastly, did you check the device with the USB cable in mass storage mode? It is easier to navigate with your computer than on the device; you can use this to surf all the folders and see where else the files might have gone. Good luck! --144.191.148.3 (talk) 18:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

June 16

Using Open Streem Map within our GPS softwares

Dear colleagues,

Good day. I am Sayed Habibullah from Kabul Afghanistan. I am wondering if anyone could help me with the question I have, I am using a GPS AVL software for tracking. I have Installed the GPS device into a car and would like the car to start its Travel from Kabul city initially where it will help me to update the OSM Afghanistan Map with accurate address and would like to move on provinces one by one.

Would you be able guide me how can I use/link the OSM in my software so that I am able to see the tracks and location of the car with GPS installed in OSM map within the software I use?

Thanks in advance.

Sayed from Kabul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.151.122 (talk) 03:52, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a help section on the OpenStreetMaps wiki: Recording GPS Tracks. That wiki may also be your best source of information for other OSM technical issues. Nimur (talk) 14:22, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How to remove a folder which isn't there

I have a folder on my pc which I cannot delete because "this is no longer located in .... Verify the item's location and try again." It's been there for several months, though multiple updates, restarts, shutdowns, chkdsks, virus/adware/spyware scans. It cannot be deleted, moved or renamed because it's not there. If I try putting anything in the folder, a duplicate folder appears which can be deleted but when deleted leaves the old folder.

Any suggestions as to how to remove this once and for all? I run Win7, HD is NTFS. -mattbuck (Talk) 04:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where does this folder appear ? On the Desktop ? StuRat (talk) 04:15, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Downloads folder. -mattbuck (Talk) 04:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, how about if you delete the "Downloads" folder, which should take any sub-folders with it. Then recreate the "Downloads" folder. Of course, if there's anything else in the "Downloads" folder you want to keep, you'll need to move that to somewhere else ("Downloads2" ?) until the folder is recreated, then move it all back. StuRat (talk) 14:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The folder might have a trailing space or dot in the name, or be named "con" or "prn", or otherwise be invalid to Win32 but valid to the NT kernel. Cygwin 1.7 can remove (and create) such files. It is possible to name these files in Win32 with a path beginning with "\\?\", e.g., "\\?\C:\Users\Mattbuck\Downloads\abc.", but not all software supports this. Unfortunately, cmd.exe seems not to. -- BenRG (talk) 06:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can delete prn with cmd.exe on NTFS volumes. I've done it before. [3] describes various ways I can't recall which one I used. You may need POSIX compatible utilities. Windows 7 also comes with Windows Powershell by default which may help. BTW has the OP tried safe mode? Nil Einne (talk) 09:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The folder name has a # and a space in it, but is otherwise alphanumeric. It is not "con" or "prn". I have not tried safe mode. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:02, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Often, rebooting the computer will either cause that sort of thing to go away of its own accord, or to let you delete it. ╟─Treasury Tag►Not-content─╢ 09:34, 16 June 2010 (UTC)~~[reply]

~~"It's been there for several months, though multiple updates, restarts, shutdowns, chkdsks, virus/adware/spyware scans" Nil Einne (talk) 09:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)~~ (Feel free to delete if you want)[reply]

Googling the error message suggests trying to rename or delete it from cmd.exe using the dos-compatible 8.3 filename, which can be seen with dir /x. —Korath (Talk) 10:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC) Tried a Linux live CD? 121.72.182.145 (talk) 12:32, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

C++

In managed C++ "->" is used to de-reference pointers but this isn't used anywhere for any reason in unmanaged c++ is it? Just revising for an exam; was doing last year's paper as a practice and one of the questions used "->" to dereference an unmanaged object in some example code. Typo? Thanks, Benjamint 10:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's the same in both managed and unmanaged C++. (Pedantically, derefencing a pointer looks like *a; a->b is member b of the object pointed to by a.) —Korath (Talk) 10:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Like Korath says, the arrow operator is specifically used to access a member of a class - although it implicitly dereferences the pointer (unless the operator has been overloaded). Additionally, "->" is used in C++'s pointer-to-member operator, "->*". I would think Managed C++ has the same operator. C++/CLI certainly does. decltype (talk) 10:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another C++

code fragment:

 class A {
 public:
    virtual void func() { cout << "calling from A" << endl;
 };
 
 class B : public A
 {
 public:
    virtual void func() { cout << "calling from B" << endl; }
 };
 
 A a = new B();
 a.func();

what is the behaviour of a? since the actual object is of type B I'm assuming it will call B's func()? Thanks again Benjamint 10:47, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I took the liberty of adding syntax highlighting to your comment, for readability. decltype (talk) 10:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see from the syntax highlighting, you have made a few typographical errors, and your declaration is also ill-formed. Assuming you intended to write "A * a = new B(); a->func();" (note the arrow operator!) then yes, it would call B::func(). decltype (talk) 10:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

thanks a lot ;) it's actually both ways, two parts to the question, a) being with a pointer and operator-> while part b) is what I transcribed here (exactly apart from the missing " ) Benjamint 11:13, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's also a missing "}" in A::func(). I suppose this example is only intended to demonstrate virtual functions - For real code, you would really, really need a virtual destructor in A, or you'd have undefined behavior upon deleting a. Ideally, the functions should also be declared const. decltype (talk) 11:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The assignment A a = new B(); won't compile because the type of new B() is B*, and there's no constructor for A which takes a B*. If you wrote A a = B(); or A a = *new B(); then A::func would be called, not B::func. What happens in this case is that A is constructed using its implicit copy constructor A::A(A const&), with a reference to the heap-allocated or temporary B object as the argument. The copy constructor copies all the data members (there are none in this case) but not the original type of the argument. Variables declared as having type A always have type A, never a subclass of A. -- BenRG (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One remaining possibility is A& a = *new B(); a.func();, where a "reference to A" is bound to the B object, or more precisely, to the A sub-object within B. Still, since the function is declared virtual, the code ends up calling B::func() because the call is resolved dynamically. decltype (talk) 05:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drivers

1) According to System information for windows I have Raid Controller hardware installed, but it is not working (error 28) because I think the driver is missing. Is it possible to download a free driver from somewhere please? I am using WinXP. I would prefer not to install a driver update scanner as my experience in the past was that they are not very helpful.

2) Would I notice any improvement if I did get the Raid thing working?

3) I do not seem to have any Nvidia hardware. Even so, might I have Nvidia drivers installed on something? Any way of checking? I bought this old computer second-hand, and it has traces of Nvidia that I would like to delete, perhaps due to hardware changes before I got it. Thanks 92.28.251.43 (talk) 12:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Slow starting Windows 7 install?

So there's a computer with i7-930, 6GB DDR3 1600 and VelociRaptor. It is not slow in any way. I was installing Windows 7 on it and noticed the installer took a very long time to load. Anyone know why? The same disc loads the installer quickly on other computers. 121.72.182.145 (talk) 12:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it feels the need to check memory and do a disk scan, then more memory and disk space could make it take longer. Some install programs give you the option to skip such checks. StuRat (talk) 14:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could be a slower optical drive, too. Installing from USB is much faster (IMHO). Indeterminate (talk) 16:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Address bar and title bar unchanged

The article Vuvuzela has a list of references, of which the one now numbered 49 links to the following page, and the quoted expression links to another page, and so on.

http://www.sport24.co.za/Soccer/WorldCup/NationalNews/Vuvuzelas-unplugged-for-some-20100611 ("website")
http://www.webtickets.co.za/ ("11 Jul 2010 Vuvuzela™ - Collection")
http://www.webtickets.co.za/event.aspx?itemid=1644602 ("www.vuvuzelaunplugged.com")
(new window) http://www.vuvuzelaunplugged.com/ ("Noise Reduction Rate")

The next page is the Wikipedia article Earplug, with the links at the top of the page showing that I am logged into Wikipedia, but the address bar and the title bar are unchanged. Also, I can not go back to the previous page. How can this be explained?—Wavelength (talk) 17:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(For clarity, I am reorganizing slightly my first message.) Also, the links at the top of page ("Wavelength", "my talk", "my preferences", "my watchlist", and "my contributions") work as usual, but the address bar and the title bar are still unchanged. I did not want to test the "log out" link.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:56, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

www.vuvuzelaunplugged.com is just a frameset with a single frame that contains www.tulazela.com. Because the page is a frameset, by default any links you click on the page remain in the frame, and the address and title stay the same. --Bavi H (talk) 01:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. After I read your reply, I read some of the Wikipedia article Framing (World Wide Web) (permanent link here), and points 1 and 6 of the section "Critique" seem to describe aspects of my experience. Also, the article reminded me of transclusion, but I suppose that there are some differences between using framesets and using transclusion.—Wavelength (talk) 06:28, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Save my old Mac as some kind of image in my new Mac

Hi all,

I just got a new laptop, and instead of imaging over from my old machine with all of it's crud, I installed a fresh copy of Mac OS X 10.6, and brought over just the files I need from the old computer (Mac OS X 10.5). However, I know that I'll be needing more files from the old one as times go on, and from places that I'd never remember to copy over (usr/opt/bin/etc or whatever). I have five times the amount of hard drive space on my new computer as on my old one, so I'd love to simply place everything in my new computer, or on an external harddrive.

The best option would be some kind of bootable image. I use VirtualBox, but I don't know if I could create a virtual machine of my old machine on my new one. Is there some way I could create a bootable image to put on my hard drive?

Alternatively, some other kind of easily accessible image would be fine.

What are my options, and how would I do them? Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.135 (talk) 17:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sam. I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of making disk images (despite having used OS X since it came out) but I suspect you would be able to do something with Disk Utility, make a disk image of your old hard disk (saving the new file on an external drive) and use that. You could also buy a USB hard disk cradle which lets you use a 'naked' internal hard drive as an external one, then just stick your old HD in there. The forums on Macrumors are pretty busy and no doubt there'll be someone there with the expertise you're after. Brammers (talk/c) 18:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can use dd to image a disk - first use disktool -l to list the disks, and figure out which one is the disk you want to image (it'll be called something like /dev/disk3s10. Then, as root, dd if=/dev/disk3s10 of=/somewhere/image.dmg VirtualBox should allow you to mount that .dmg file as a disk. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:50, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you want it to be bootable, you pretty much need to make it a partition, not just an image file. As long as the both machines have FireWire, you can do this fairly easily with Disk Utility:

Back up your new system, just in case anything goes catastrophically wrong. Time machine's an easy option, if you don't already have a system in place.
Create a new partition on your HD by selecting your new computer's HD in the Disk Utility sidebar (note: select the drive, not the volume listed under it), then the Partition tab on the right, then "+" under the partition view, then adjust the slider to control how much space it gives the new partition. When you have it set as you'd like, click Apply, and wait for it to do its magic.
Put the old laptop in Target Disk Mode by powering it on with the "T" key held down (hold until you see a FireWire icon on the screen); this essentially turns it into an external FireWire drive. Plug in a FireWire cable between it and the new computer, and it'll mount on the desktop.
Back in Disk Utility, select the Restore tab. Drag your old volume (this time you want the volume, not the disk) into the Source field, and the new (blank) partition in as the Destination. Make sure that Erase destination is selected, and double-check that the Destination is the volume you want to clone to. Click Restore, then wait for it to copy.

Alternately, if you don't need the backup to be bootable, you can store it in a disk image:

Put the old computer in Target Disk mode (step 3 above).
In Disk Utility, select File > New > Disk Image from Folder from the menu (note: you can also create the image from a unix device, but Folder mode is generally preferred because it doesn't image "empty" space on the drive).
In the Select Folder to Image dialog, select the root of your old HD.
In the New Image from Folder dialog, select someplace on your new drive to store the image; you might also want to switch the Image format from compressed to read-only (faster to create, but takes up more space) or read/write (makes the contents modifiable).

If you make an image and then later decide you want to recover it to a bootable partition, you can do that (if it's compressed or read-only) by scanning the image for restore (under the Images menu) then using the Restore tab with the image as source. 72.1.134.20 (talk) 22:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Computer control

I'm trying to get started in pursuing robotics as a hobby. For my first "project", I want to use the computer to send a single voltage down a single cable for a predetermined length of time. What I mean is that if I connect a cable (headphone, Ethernet, serial, etc.) to the computer, and measure the voltage between two of its leads using a multimeter, I should get the voltage I asked the computer to send.

Is this possible? Is it possible with the audio port, and if not, which port should I use? Where can I find a tutorial on how to do this? I know programming, but I've had no experience controlling computer hardware with software. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hobby electronics with modern PCs is a bit of a pain. In the old days computers often had a "feature connector" or at least a programmable parallel port, which you could easily hook up to external electronics. Modern computers have modern interface ports, which are controlled by smart (and mostly non-programmable) microcontrollers - so it's very difficult to wring General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) from ethernet, serial, or usb ports. A nice option is to buy (they're not terribly cheap, unfortunately) a little adapter board that sits on USB and gives you GPIO and programmable analog IO - Google found this one (which looks very nice, but I've never actually used it). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since doing this from the computer is difficult, as far as I am aware, and since devices like the one linked above are expensive, a better option would be to use a microcontroller. Simple ones like the Arduino and its clones cost $20-$30. Using an Arduino you can very easily create your suggested program to make any of its pins to be a certain voltage for a certain amount of time. Even better, and no more difficult, you can read a voltage from a pin, and so you can easily program behaviors like "if pin A reads above X, set pin B to Y," and so can do things like connect wheels to light sensors to navigate a little car. Best of all, you disconnect it from your computer after programming it to make it portable. Look up Arduino projects online to get a sense of its capabilities. — Sam 63.138.152.135 (talk) 18:52, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding audio: yes, you can control the output to this, but it's not immediately useful. Say, for example, you set the audio output circuit up to 8-bit mono. That way you can send streams of bytes to the audio output, and by modulating that output you move the cone on a speaker and so play sound. But that only yields a voltage on the audio output when that stream is changing. It's the change that does work, that moves the speaker cone - the value you sent is the position you want the cone to be in. So (simplistically) an increasing stream of byte values yields a +ve voltage, a decreasing stream yields a -ve voltage (the magnitude of that voltage is proportional to the slope on the byte stream, so really its the first derivative ~~wrt~~ of the byte values wrt time). The trouble is that when the byte stream gets to 255 it maxes out, so there's no more change, so there's no more voltage (i.e the voltage drops to 0). Ditto for falling to 0. So you can't post a constant voltage for more than a very short time, and so it's mostly useless for control applications. If you really want I can post some linux/cygwin code that does this, but I don't think it's worth your effort. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But here's a hack: chop open a USB keyboard and redirect the three lines to the three indicator LEDS (numlock, capslock, scrolllock) - that's three lines you can control from software (they're just on/off output only), plus you can redirect keys (e.g. the numeric keypad) for input (bearing in mind the wiring of the switch matrix to make sure they're mutually independent). That's three lines out output and 108+ lines of input. In linux (on the console) leds can be controlled by setled ; I'd imagine there's some utility that does the same for Windows. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses! I've investigated Arduino, and it doesn't have any analog output, only 5-volt PWM outputs. Unfortunately, that doesn't work; I need something that can output a constant voltage. The same goes for using the keyboard LED's and the speaker: they can't output a constant voltage for an arbitrary amount of time. Are there any microcontrollers that can output a true analog signal? --Bowlhover (talk) 23:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Annoyance with Chrome

Sometimes, when I click on a link here on the RefDesks, Chrome downloads a .php file and doesn't open the link. I'm not sure why it does this, as it does it sometimes and doesn't do it other times. It appears to happen more often with internal links to archives. It doesn't happen with Firefox or Opera, but I'm not opening a whole new browser just to check something out on a link (unless it's totally necessary). Is there something in the settings for Chrome that I can alter so that it just does what it's supposed to do rather than giving me a .php file titled 'index'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's seeing a content-type for which it thinks it doesn't have a handler. If you can give a concrete example of a link that makes it behave this way, we can see what's up. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. I went over to the RefDesk Talk page (where this seems to happen most often) and lo and behold, first link I clicked on (the one in Cuddlyable's post about the troll) gave me a .php file. Let's see if we can sort this out. I can open it in Notepad, of course, and inside I see a link to the page, and some other code (?). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:34, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That link works fine for me in Chrome on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 20:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean the link to the "uranus" diff in Wikipedia talk:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Delete banned user question, that link opens fine for me in Chrome 6.0.427.0 dev -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:39, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the link I meant, but anyway, where you put 'that link' in your post just now, I get a .php file there, too.... It's just me? Even after reinstalling Vista last week and redownloading Chrome? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe your ISP is doing something to the data stream. I had a similar problem with my ISP where they were trying to save bandwidth or something but it just ended up giving garbled nonsense code to the end user 82.43.90.93 (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You would expect to see such a problem with any browser, though. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:20, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try appending chrome://net-internals/view-cache/ to the beginning of problematic addresses to view the item from the Chrome cache, then see what it says for Content-Type. For example 'that link' above becomes chrome://net-internals/view-cache/http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&action=historysubmit&diff=366268824&oldid=366267489 --Bavi H (talk) 00:27, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. This is what I got:Content-Type: application/x-external-editor; charset=UTF-8 X-Cache: MISS from sq65.wikimedia.org X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from sq65.wikimedia.org:3128 X-Cache: MISS from amssq37.esams.wikimedia.org X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from amssq37.esams.wikimedia.org:3128 X-Cache: MISS from amssq33.esams.wikimedia.org X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from amssq33.esams.wikimedia.org:80 I don't understand the code, but I guess this reveals at least something about what the problem may be (I'm guessing the word 'miss' may mean something?). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:34, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]When I searched for application/x-external-editor, I found a Wikipedia / MediaWiki help page about External editors that suggests your Wikipedia Preferences → Editing → "Use external editor by default" option might be turned on. --Bavi H (talk) 03:43, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] After experimentation, it looks like it's the next option "Use external diff by default" that's causing 'that link' above to be returned with application/x-external-editor, and if there's no program defined for that type, Chrome just downloads it. The solution would be to uncheck that option. Or setup an appropriate program I guess. --Bavi H (talk) 03:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Gentlemen, we have a genius in our midst... That has indeed fixed it! Now, I wonder why my editing preferences were set in such a way.... Anyway, right, thanks!! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:13, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] You're welcome :) The genius troubleshooting was, of course, a group effort: Finlay McWalter started us on the right track when he suggested the content-type was the problem. --Bavi H (talk) 00:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]PHP QuestionI have a php script that adds entries as lines to a flatfile. I would like it to somehow detect if there are more than 20 lines in the flatfile, and automatically delete the excess bottom lines if there are. Is this possible? How could I do it? Thank you 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]The most straightforward way is to read the the file into a variable, use explode('\n', $var) to chunk it into an array, use array_unshift() to add the new line to the top of the array, and then shorten the array to 20 elements. Then implode() it and write it back out to disk. or you could read the file in line-by-line using fgets(), build the output text as a string and write it back out after you've read 19 lines. I'm not sure which would be more efficient, but I personally prefer to work with arrays. --Ludwigs2 20:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] I'm still very new to php, and I don't really understand functions or how to use them just by their names. It helps me to see an example code, then I can play with it and try different things until it works for me. I know it's asking a lot, but could you give an example script for this? Thank you :) 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]You really should have a copy of the PHP manual on your system, so you can look things up. Under the PHP manual, look under "Array functions," and you'll find a list of all of the functions that have to deal with arrays, for example. Under "Filesystem functions," you'll find all the ones to do with reading files. It's an essential part of programming with PHP, because nobody remembers all of the functions—you just remember where to look them up. PHP has a ton of useful functions that can do almost anything you can imagine you'd want to do with them, but their names and variables are idiosyncratic and need to be looked up quite often. The only things you really need to have memorized are control structures, like while and for. Here is code that will make sure the file is no longer than 20 lines:ini_set('auto_detect_line_endings', true); //autodetect file line endings -- useful thing to do first $file_array = file($yourfile); //read $yourfile into a string array while(count($file_array)>20) { //while the total array length of the file is greater than 20... array_pop($file_array); //removes the last element of the file array } //end of the while blockNow you'd need to write $file_array back into the file again. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] I don't know PHP, but could this possibly be done more efficiently? If the file is something like 100 lines, you end up iterating over that loop 80 times Can't you remove more than one element in a single operation? decltype (talk) 12:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Sure, there are a million ways to do it. array_slice is probably the most straightforward, as I look into the manual again. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Hmmm, so would something like $file_array = array_slice( file($yourfile), 20); work? decltype (talk) 09:20, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] I do this regularly, but it is system-dependent. Because I never run anything on a Windows or Mac, I expect to have the standard Linux/Unix commands. So, I just add this line to my PHP code: exec("tail $FILENAME > tmp; mv tmp $FILENAME"); However, there is a race condition there. If you have a busy site, it is very possible that you will end up erasing the file all together, which is the main reason I am adding to these answers... You will want to lock the file before working with it. It is a bit trivial. First, you want to create a locking file: $lock = fopen("mylock","a"); Then, you want to get a lock on that file. Use an exclusive lock just to ensure nothing bad happens. while(!flock($lock, LOCK_EX)); Notice that ends with ;. It will wait forever to get a lock on the file. That isn't good. It should timeout, but I'm trying to keep it simple. When you get exclusive lock, then you can work with it. Remember, lock it before writing to it or removing excess lines. Always lock it first. When you are done working with it, just unlock it with flock($lock, LOCK_UN); -- kainaw™ 12:06, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Thank you everyone for the help :) I tried Mr.98s code but I just end up with the text "Array" in the file 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Then you're not writing it correctly. If you try to just print or output an array as an array, you get "Array" as a response. You need to either iterate over the array and print out each element, or you need to convert it to a string. An easy way to do convert an array into a string of values separated by newlines would be to use $array_string = implode("\n", $array);. To iterate over the array, use a foreach construct. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Why is Xcode 2.3 GB ?

ResolvedWhy is it so big? Are the libraries of a bunch of languages included? --Rajah (talk) 20:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Also, "Xcode 3.2, the latest major version, is bundled free with Mac OS X v10.6, but is not installed by default." does that mean if a Macbook is running Snow Leopard it is already on the hard drive? If so, how to install it from the hard drive instead of downloading? --Rajah (talk) 20:40, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I can't answer your first question, but can have a go at the second. If 10.6 is anything like 10.4 (which I have on my (very old) iBook, then anything which is not installed by default will be on your install disk. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Right—it's on your OSX DVD, under "Optional Software" or something like that. (Along with Quicktime 7, if one tires of the dumbed-down Quicktime X.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]As for size, looking at my own install (my "Developer" directory), the biggest folders are "ADC Reference Library" (900 MB), "SDKs" (342 MB), "Applications (160 MB), and a folder called "usr" (150MB). The "Reference Library" looks primarily like documentation; SDKs has a bunch of code; "Applications" contains the Xcode application and other utilities for coding; "usr" has compiler binaries in it. Seems like an awful lot of space devoted to documentation if you ask me—620MB of which are just HTML files, 30,000 of them! --Mr.98 (talk) 00:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Especially considering most developers are usually connected to a worldwide network of computers that they can search for documentation. Thanks for all your answers! --Rajah (talk) 01:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Color (Laser Printer)Are the color printers like this any good ? How are their results ? Are they economical enough to use ? Is the quality like standard color magazines we see or inferior ? Jon Ascton (talk) 20:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] The specs for the indicated printer don't seem that great. If you want a printer which produces magazine-quality color prints yet is pretty economical, you should be looking at certain inkjet printers rather than laser printers. I would personally recommend the Hewlett-Packard Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-One A909b Printer (CB862A). I bought mine for less than US$400.Rocketshiporion (talk) 02:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Magazines use offset printing. Offset printing is a wonderful technology -- both cheap per copy and high quality. But, as you can see from the picture in the entry I linked to, offset printing presses aren't available to you and me.The best color prints you and I can get are printed by inkjet printers. The dye-based inks that come with most inkjets blend colors well, but they aren't as great at producing sharp, clear text. Laser printers excel at printing precise shapes (e.g., text). The best tradeoff I've found is the Canon Pixma iP4700. It has five ink cartridges inside:cyan (dye based), magenta (dye based), yellow (dye based), black (dye based), and black (pigment based).So, not only do the photos look great, but it also prints very sharp text, because it uses a pigment-based ink for text. You can buy one for only $50 online. Plus, the ink isn't very expensive, because the printheads are separate from the ink cartridges in the Pixma. As you may have guessed, it's what I use. But no matter what printer you use, don't try to save money on paper. You won't get good results unless you use high-quality paper.On another note, I'm not a big fan of HP printers, because they have a tendency to jam. I'm a computer repairman, so I've actually had some calls to remove jams from the HP OfficeJet 8500 mentioned above. Laser printers are also high maintenance. You have to clean out a laser printer each time you replace the toner, or the rollers will start to foul your paper.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 03:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Computer security and privacy online testIs there anywhere I can test my browser online to see for example which ports I've got open that could be closed and so on? I tried www.bcheck.scanit.be but it was not anywhere as good as something I'd tried in the past, nor did it tell me how to make improvements such as closing ports etc. I understand that the more stealthy your browser is, the lower the risk of malware problems. Thanks 92.28.251.43 (talk) 16:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Open ports are usually unrelated to your browser. As for your question, there are plenty of online port testing utilities which a simple search will find. I suggest you try a bunch like [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] until you find something you like. They're mostly free after all. Also may I suggest the computing desk for this sort of question in the future. Nil Einne (talk) 18:14, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Sorry posted in wrong place by mistake, and I suppose I meant computer rather than browser. 92.15.1.238 (talk) 20:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]The links above just mostly duplicate what the link in the original question does. I'm looking for something that can help turn my computer into "stealth" mode. 92.15.4.168 (talk) 12:04, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]June 17Using RealPlayer to download videosAccording to their website, the new version of RealPlayer can download videos from the web. I have the new version, but can't seem to turn on the setting. I check the box and press OK, but when I come back, the box is unchecked again. I'm using Chrome if that matters. Simeon24601 (talk) 00:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Typeface for identification

ResolvedThis one :)Can anyone help me identify the typeface used in this? It's a screenshot from the credits of The Thick of It... ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 11:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]For the light text on the left, WhatTheFont comes up with Quadraat OT Disp Italic. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:15, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] It came up with that for me, too, but it doesn't quite match (eg. the lower-case g) so I'm guessing it's not right... :P ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel─╢ 12:21, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]And for the heavy text on the left, its best guess (to my mind) is Maxime-Bold. The blurriness intrinsic to a TV/DVD capture hides some of the subtler details, making a perfect identification difficult. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] It's true, but neither of those two really match (eg. the tail of the lower-case l and the curl of the bold a) ╟─TreasuryTag►inspectorate─╢ 12:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Aha, found it, it's Joana MT :D ╟─TreasuryTag►Regent─╢ 12:56, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I tried identifont. For the text on the left there was no reasonable match (and in fact the suggestions it made didn't seem to fit with my answers, so maybe I hit a bug). But for the right-hand text, ITC Golden Cockerel looks like a perfect match to me. --Anonymous, 19:23 UTC, June 17, 2010.OpenOffice Base & MS Office AccessIf one has a database in Access 2010, is it possible to copy the data to Base simply? We've got a membership databaseup in set up in Access 2010, but most of the people who will need to use it don't have Access on their PCs. DuncanHill (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]OpenOffice will open all of the tables without much trouble. The forms and reports are not compatible. They must be recreated in OpenOffice. -- kainaw™ 14:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]OK, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 09:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]PHP commasI have a php file (probably written by someone here on the ref desk, thank you!) which reads some lines from a flat file. However it gets into problems with entries that aren't followed by a comma, for example4,June17,hello 3 2,June16,hello 1,June15,helloNumber 3 is missed by the script. This is the code:list($dnumber,) = explode(",", $line[$d]);How can I make it read all the lines, even those without ending with commas? (I'm a complete novice at php so I'm sorry if this is a horrifically simple question I'm asking, or if it makes no sense) 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:41, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]An extremely "quick and dirty" approach would be to count the number of commas in the line first, and then add the extra commas. This is assuming that the fields missing are always going to be blank. E.g.:if(substr_count($line[$d],",") < 2) { //if the number of commas in the line are less than 2 $line[$d].str_repeat(",",2-substr_count($line[$d],",")); //add to the string a number of commas (2 minus the number currently in the string) }Which ought to work. Note that there are all sorts of ways this could be more complicated (what if one of your values was the string "June 16, or 17th"?). When you start getting lots of complexity (so that you are essentially writing your own database input/output functions), that's about when one says, "I'm done using a primitive flat file" and starts thinking about looking into something more advanced. At the very least, one can find very nice CSV classes already on the internet that take care of all of the many situations when explode/implode aren't enough by themselves. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]No need to explode. PHP has a very nice fgetcsv function:$fp = fopen("myfile.csv","r"); while($b = fgetcsv($fp, 1024)) { //$b is an array containing the fields from a line of the file } fclose($fp);Using the built-in fgetcsv, you get the fields already parsed and it works on lines that contain no commas. Further, it understands that commas inside of quotes are not delimiters. -- kainaw™ 17:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Strange Computer ProblemMy computer has a problem where usually the first time I turn it on everyday, the monitor acts like it doesn't receive a signal (ie remains black as if the computer is off yet both are clearly on). Turning off the screen and turning it back on again seems to do nothing. I can hear the start-up sound through the speakers and I have even heard, on occasion, my anti-virus program tell me that it is now updated, suggesting that it is in fact booting to the desktop, but the screen remains unresponsive. I can get the screen to change by adjusting the settings on the screen, which causes and on-screen menu to appear, but the background behind the menu is still black (not the desktop). If I turn off the computer (by hitting the power button once, which causes the usual shutdown process on my computer), and then restart it, it seems to always work with the screen the second time. This appears to be the only way to fix this problem. Unfortunately, I have limited means to test the problem with different equipment. I am booting using Windows Vista Home Premium with a 17" Dell e173fpc monitor. The computer itself is using a Nvidia 9800GT graphics card on an Asus P5N-E motherboard with 2 gigs of off-brand RAM. Does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing this problem? Nkot (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Hmm, it looks like your motherboard is made for SLI, and so has 2 full-speed PCI-E slots. Have you tried moving the video card to the other one? I'm not sure whether it makes a difference which slot a single card should be in. Also you could check the BIOS settings to make sure it's not trying to use SLI on boot. Actually.. hmm, it looks like the motherboard has a little red reversible card that determines whether it operates in SLI mode or not. Crazy! Check your manual, and make sure it's facing the right way. If this problem has just started happening recently though, hmm... could be a motherboard or video card problem. Hopefully not. Indeterminate (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]My theory:1) Your computer boots up faster than the monitor, and when it does the check to see if a monitor is attached, it consequently doesn't find it. It therefore stops sending signals to the monitor, which then completes it's own boot process, but has nothing but a blank screen to display.2) When you reboot the computer, you either don't turn off the monitor or, if you do, it reboots faster this time, being "warmed up", and the computer is able to detect it in time.So, if this is the case, what's the cure ? How about if you turn the monitor on, get yourself a cup of coffee, then boot the computer. See if that works. Another option is to just leave the monitor on overnight. If it's an Energy Star certified monitor it will "hibernate" to save energy, but will hopefully wake up more quickly from that than from a full boot. StuRat (talk) 15:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]What is QNIX?

Resolved – but you can add more stuff if you likeI was talking to my grandparents about UNIX the other day, and they said they'd, quote, 'never heard of it, do you mean QNIX?' My nan worked at a solicitors', and they used what appeared to be in my youth, very simple, ASCII-based systems. It appeared to have no GUI. I think it may be UNIX-like or a UNIX-remake or clone. Can anyone tell me?--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 20:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Well, QNX is a real time operating system (the forerunner of QNX Neutrino) which has a (fairly rudimentary, IMO) Posix compatibility API - but you'd expect to see that in a factory automation setting, not a solicitor's office. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:29, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Ah, but if you search Google for "QNIX solicitor" you get a bunch of pages like this one which suggest it's a client database program (that is, a database of solicitors' clients). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Thanks!--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 20:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] More: it's apparently "QNIX case management system" or the like, made by "Sanderson GA". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Force Shield in Yuri's RevengeDear Wikipedians: In Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge, is it possible to place your force shield on an enemy building to protect the enemy building from being destroyed? The reason I ask is I would like to use Soviet drednoughts to totally destroy a base save for the construction yard, so I would like to protect construction yard from being destroyed by splash damage from the V2 rockets on the elite drednoughts. Thanks, 70.31.153.204 (talk) 21:16, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I don't think so. If memory serves (it's been a loooong time since I played this) the force shield is for defending against super weapons like nukes and that weather thingy, and it only protects buildings you own. If you capture the construction yard with an engineer first, then that should do it (and you can have a repair run on it while you bombard). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Yeah, that appears about right, I couldn't even force-fire the forceshield on enemy buildings. Well, that was the last trick I was going to try and from this day forth I shall play no more Yuri's Revenge or any other computer/video games for that matter. 174.88.242.215 (talk) 19:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Don't know whether I ever played that particular incarnation but I do remember placing an Iron Curtain on an enemy power station, not realising what it was actually intended for! :D Have you tried sending in Tanya? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.225.204 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ResolvedJune 18Microsoft-based VirtualizationVirtualization with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition I have a question in regard of creating and hosting Virtual Machines on the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition operating-system. The Microsoft website states that Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition only supports a maximum of four virtual machines. Is this limit of four virtual machines an overall limit, or is it the limit of the number of Windows-based virtual machines which can be hosted by a server with the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition operating-system? In other words; can more than four non-Windows based virtual machines run in a single physical Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition operating-system environment?It doesn't say that. What it says is "Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise licenses include the use right to run up to four additional virtual instances of Windows Server with one server that is licensed with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise." That means, I gather, that the purchase price of this product includes four Windows OS licenses intended for use in VMs. It has nothing to do with the number of VMs the product can support. -- BenRG (talk) 00:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Management of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Is there any software other than Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 which can be used to manage Virtual Machines running on a server operating on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2? In addition, does anyone know what precisely is the licensing model for Microsoft System Center? The Microsoft System Center homepage can be found here, but I have not been able to figure out the licensing system up to now. It's not anything like the regular model of a server operating-system and Client Access Licenses.Objective & Comparison My objective is to create and host dozens of Linux-based virtual machines on a single physical machine. Which of the two hypervisor operating-systems; Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2; would be more appropriate for this objective? My key considerations are as follows.Compatibility with both Ubuntu Linux and Debian Linux Ease of Management of Virtual Machines Simplicity of Acquisition - Licensing Model Economy - which one is cheaper and/or more cost-effective? Although Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is free to download, it requires Microsoft System Center to manage the virtual machines hosted on it. And I have to date been unable to decipher the licensing model of Microsoft System Center. Thanks in advance, Rocketshiporion (talk) 00:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I don't think anyone here has any experience with these products. However, I don't think System Center Virtual Machine Manager is required to use Hyper-V Server; is there a reason you think it is? Also, is there a reason you're considering only Microsoft products? Xen and VMware's products are other options. -- BenRG (talk) 07:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I believe that Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager is required to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server as it is stated on this page under the question "Will System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) support Microsoft Hyper-V Server? When will it be available?" that "System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is required to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. It is available today. An eval version of SCVMM is currently available or download from http://www.microsoft.com/scvmm". I have not yet considered VMware, as I am mostly familiar with Windows and a bit familiar with Linux. Is there any open-source Linux hypervisor which can be used instead of Microsoft Hyper-V Server; i.e. something with similar features? Rocketshiporion (talk) 08:07, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] I think the quoted text means that 2008 R2 is the earliest version of SCVMM that will work with Hyper-V Server, not that SCVMM as such is required to use Hyper-V Server. Xen is an open source (GPL) hypervisor with corporate backing from Citrix Systems. I've never used it (or any of these products) but I think it's mature and well regarded. I think its support for Windows guests is rather poor compared to MS and VMware's products, but it supports Linux rather well. -- BenRG (talk) 19:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]If you're looking for more information, consider posting your questions here or here. Right now, you seem to be talking to an OSS guy.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 01:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Thanks. The Microsoft Technet Forum turns out to be quite useful. Rocketshiporion (talk) 06:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Can a whole disk be copied?I have been struggling to repair a laptop with a totally screwed Windows XP operating system, probably caused by a head crash some time ago. I am particularly keen to keep the other programs which are installed on the same disk, programs for which I do not have replacement installation disks. After successfully recovering (most of) the registry, and using chkdsk to try to patch up the hard disk, the machine no longer boots (stopping with a black screen with just the mouse pointer on it). I have tried using a XP installation disk to repair the existing Windows installation, hoping to repair the broken files that chkdsk identified. However, about halfway through the process it suddenly stopped, saying the hard drive is corrupt and it cannot continue. I was wondering if it is possible to copy the whole disk to folder on another machine (obviously taking the disk out and using an external USB housing to do this), reformat the faulty disk so it correctly marks the damaged sectors as unusable, then copy the original contents back again? I know that will still leave me with broken files, but the idea is to fix the disk corruption that prevented the repair installation from completing. Are there any things likely to trip me up later (for example: what happens if 'C:\System Volume Information' ends up with different attributes from the original)? Astronaut (talk) 03:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]It's worth trying. Norton Ghost can do a sector copy of your drive to (a) another drive, or (b) a file. You could then reformat the bad drive and copy the stuff from (a) or (b) back to it, preferably sector-by-sector. (List of disk cloning software lists other software that can do some or all of this.) However, I strongly caution you not to use that drive anymore. If it actually has bad/damaged sectors and this isn't just a software problem, then more bad sectors will appear. I'd advise you to replace the drive. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]If you know *nix (linux/unix) at all, it's very easy. You could get a Knoppix live disk and then run dd if=/dev/sda | gzip -9 -c >> DRIVEIMAGE.img.gz. This will direct copy the disk (in this case SDA, adjust for your purposes), compress it with gzip, and then pipe it out to a file. Adjust the output appropriately so it doesn't overwrite something. This creates a byte-for-byte copy of the original image. If you have to write it back, it's easy to reverse that command. Shadowjams (talk) 08:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Just in my own experience, GParted is exceptionally reliable and easy to use for this sort of thing. It does not require you to type in any obscure Linux commands to work. I've used it many times (as a non-Unix user) to make clones from one drive to another. Whether it will work exactly right depends on more than that, but that's a pretty easy thing to do. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]If the disk is physically damaged, ddrescue may be of interest. --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Is is possible to navigate the Rolling Stone website at all?When I go to read music reviews or articles and then I read the comment section, sometimes the comments are a little long to display in its entirety, so I have to click on the comment to finish reading it, and instead I get redirected to Rolling Stone's main page. What the hell? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 05:58, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Please provide an explicit example for us to contemplate. -- SGBailey (talk) 12:50, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]This is common when reading archived pages on a web site, including our own Ref Desk archives. What happens is that the pages to which the link pointed have moved and it can't find the new location of the (now archived) page, so instead of giving you a general "page not found" error, they redirect you to their home page. Yes, it is annoying and there are ways to archive without breaking links. One way is to put everything in it's final archive position right away, initially providing links from the main page, then sever those links from the main page once it has been "archived", but leave all the internal links in place. Another option is to have a bot go through and search for any broken links created when a page is moved, and modify those links to point to the new location. Finally, anyone moving a page could be forced to leave a redirect behind, so any links to the old page can still find the new page. StuRat (talk) 15:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Video_game_console vs. laptopsWhy do video game consoles exist at all? At the beginning, a couple of decades ago, when computers were expensive, they certainly had a purpose. But, nowadays, why would someone not buy a laptop instead of a video game console? Laptops can do everything and more, can't they?--Mr.K. (talk) 09:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]You're entering into a long debate my friend. Short version of the argument is that consoles can force developers to write programs a certain way and can also optimize graphical functions. Hence why lots of parallel ps3s can do good distributed projects. That said, most major studios also like to have cross-platform compatibility, including PC. The second piece is the economics. Many consoles are priced below cost on the expectation of selling games for them. Like buying a printer and then buying ink. Or a cellphone, and buying service. Shadowjams (talk) 09:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Also, because consoles are entirely built-for-purpose, and their purpose is not as broad as that of a PC, it is generally considered that they have less problems due to conflicts or system inadequacies. That doesn't however make it less likely that an issue is present with the hardware itself, although you would expect it to be put under a lot of scrutiny. Findstr (talk) 11:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] There have been cases where I've bought a game and then was later disappointed that it wouldn't run on my computer. Hardware and software differences mean that games will not run the same on every system, and sometimes won't run at all. Except for a few rare exceptions, games designed for a particular game console will always run on that console. The hardware and software is all standardized. If I buy a game for my console, I don't have to worry about the requirements. I know it will run because I have the console. I don't have to compare the game's requirements to my machine's specs, or mess with settings to find the ideal configuration. I just stick the disc in and start playing. And the PC is freed up to do something useful while I'm wasting my time playing games. Reach Out to the Truth 20:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]A large part of it is simply marketing. A lot of promotion is put into game consoles (Both to consumers and to developers), but there doesn't exist any single company who could do the same for PC gaming. (Microsoft would be the best bet, but they've already got a console.) APL (talk) 21:59, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Citing PDFsNot sure if this is entirely the best place to put it, but USAir Flight 405, an article I'm working on, was just turned down for WP:GA because the number of inline sources was too low. I have based a good deal of the article on the NTSB report on the accident, and most of the quotes in the article come from this PDF. However, I don't want to have the article littered with [1]s, because it would look messy and improper. Is there a way to have inline citations link directly to a certain page in the PDF? I know the URL doesn't change depending on what page you are on, so I was wondering if there was any other way. Thanks in advance, WackyWace ^{talk to me, people} 11:52, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]You can add #page=pagenumber to the end of the URL, though this doesn't always work in every browser. Recent Internet Explorer and Firefox releases should support it, though. NTSB report, page 12. Note that this will use the actual PDF page numbers, which aren't always the same as the numbers printed on the page you're displaying. so the previous link will show pages 3 and 4 of the document, as they are displayed on the 12th page of the PDF file. -- 109.193.27.65 (talk) 12:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Or you could just cite the page in the citation ("Report on XYZ, page 6."), without the hotlink. That's an easy way to do it that doesn't depend on PDF readers behaving correctly. Perhaps a better way, on the whole. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]If this led to the article being quick-failed, I would ask the reviewer how he or she would prefer the article to be referenced - and if there was any chance of him or her reconsidering their decision. decltype (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]What they want, I gather, is not just a million "general" citations, but citations that say, "this statement comes from page 6." It's not an unreasonable thing to ask for, though it does create a lot of work for someone else, of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]True that. A recent discussion on WT:GAN seemed to conclude that page numbers should normally be given. However, there's many ways of doing that. For example the "shortened" style as seen in WP:CITESHORT. I encouraged the author to contact the reviewer to ensure that he or she didn't do it in a manner that would result in another failed review. decltype (talk) 17:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]HTML web page creation using ASPI can create an HTML formatted web page using ASP code and save it to the server logical path. I can also create an HTML formatted web page manually using a text editor on the client and save it to the server using the URL path. However, what I want to do is to save the HTML formatted web page I can create using ASP not to the logical path on the server but to the URL path. How do I do this? 71.100.0.224 (talk) 14:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]When you save it to the URL path, would I be right in thinking that you're doing this with FTP? --Phil Holmes (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] When I save it from the client I can use DOS FTP or FrontPage FTP of FrontPage HTTP since the server is FrontPage and ASP enabled. The problem is in saving a file generated by an ASP program on the server to the URL path I manually access client side by saving using FTP or HTTP post. 71.100.0.224 (talk) 21:21, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File Location Accessed from Access Type Path Server Server (via ASP) Logical d:\\logical folder name\\my file name Physical d:\\hard drive folder name\\physical folder name\\file name Server (via IP) IIS d:\\inetpub\\physical folder name\\file name Client (via FTP/HTTP) URL http:/logical folder name.the domain name.the extention/physical folder name/file name

If you can post your page to your website, you could send it via the HTTP POST method. The basic syntax is shown here [9]. Alternatively you could try using the inbuilt FTP exe as shown here: [10]. If you can't do that, there are a number of other suggestions that you could try by googling "asp ftp". --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Firefox RAMWith 10 tabs open (normal wikipedia pages, not games or fancy javascript processes or anything else) Firefox 3.6.3 is using 300mb of RAM after 5 mins of use. Is this normal? How could I reduce this without using just one tab as that basically defeats the point tabs. Are older versions of Firefox (versions 1 or 2) less resource hungry? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]On my Mac, I opened up 10 Firefox tabs of CNN.com (a pretty resource-heavy page), and got about 200MB of RAM. I did the same in Safari and got the same result. When it is 10 pages of Google.com, it's only 80MB or so (50MB on Safari). So a lot of that is likely dependent on the page content, how many extra "helpers" the browser has to load to display it. (In terms of "raw size," CNN and Google are pretty similar: 200KB of content for CNN, 103KB for Google. But in terms of page complexity—amount of elements to render, calls made to other scripts, Flash ads and etc.—the CNN page is much more complex.) I suspect this is probably pretty standard but I'd be interested to hear how other browsers perform. I think it is probably unavoidable though that modern browsers rendering modern webpages are very resource-intensive. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:05, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Most resource usage complaints for Firefox can be traced down to its addons - try disabling all the addons and do the same test again, see if there's a significant difference. If there is you can re-enable them one by one until the problem come back. But if you aren't really running out of RAM, reducing Firefox's RAM usage probably won't do much at all. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Greasemonkey scripts

ResolvedIs it possible for a single greasemonkey script to take different actions depending on different url you're viewing? For example, I have the following two separate scripts;// ==UserScript== // @include http://en.wikipedia.org/* // ==/UserScript== document.title = 'YOU ARE ON EN [DOT] WIKIEDPIA [DOT] ORG';// ==UserScript== // @include http://google.com* // ==/UserScript== document.title = 'YOU ARE ON GOOGLE [DOT] COM';Is there a way I can combine the function of these two separate scripts into one script? Installing potentially thousands of separate scripts for every website I might want to alter the title of seems like a waste of time if one single easily updateable script can do it. Thanks for your help 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Something like this? (My Regex is bit rusty, apologies for any inadvertent error)// ==UserScript== // @include * //enabled on all websites // ==/UserScript== if(location.href.match(/http:\/\/wikipedia\.org/)) document.title = 'YOU ARE ON EN [DOT] WIKIEDPIA [DOT] ORG'; else if(location.href.match(/http:\/\/google\.com/)) document.title = 'YOU ARE ON GOOGLE [DOT] COM'; else if(....) ...--59.95.103.172 (talk) 16:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]The script doesn't seem to be working :( Thank you anyway for trying 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:55, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] Works for me after a slight modification to the Regex :)//==UserScript== // @name asdf // @namespace qwerty // @include * // ==/UserScript== if(location.href.match(/http:\/\/en\.wikipedia\.org/)) document.title = 'YOU ARE ON EN [DOT] WIKIEDPIA [DOT] ORG'; else if(location.href.match(/http:\/\/.*google\.com/)) document.title = 'YOU ARE ON GOOGLE [DOT] COM';It is also possible to "extract" the name of the website from the URL; that way it will work on all websites and without an if...else if ladder. --59.95.99.64 (talk) 20:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]AWESOME! Thank you so much! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Plustek OpticFilm Scanner 7500i and 7600iCan anyone find me some real concrete differences between these two models, apart from the price tag? The plustek website and review site do not indicate this and I have found it pretty frustrating after quite some research. Anyone have anything concrete? 86.140.210.188 (talk) 18:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]The Plustek does have a feature "comparison" page. Primary differences seem to be the lamp (7600i has a white LED, 7500i uses a cold cathode), different preview speeds (7500i is faster), and scanning speeds (7500i is faster except at 7200 dpi, for some reason). --Mr.98 (talk) 20:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I wasn't signed in but I had no historyIf I look at my history with CTRL-H I can only see today and yesterday. Earlier this week, there was no yesterday since I had not been on the computer in several days, yet the first two Wikipedia pages I went to showed I was signed in. The third said I wasn't. Perhaps it had been 30 days, but there shouldn't have still been pages in my history if I can't see my history beyond the previous day--right?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:20, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I often see "unusual" Wikipedia claims that I am logged in after days away from the computer. I believe it's just because I've read the page before and it's been stored locally in the browser cache, and the copy of the page that is in the cache says at the top "Comet Tuttle - my talk - my preferences"...etc. I think the third page you visited in your example above was a new page you didn't have in your browser cache. If this bothers you, you can clear your browser cache. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]When is a gigabyte not a gigabyte?When a company advertises certain storage devices, they count the bytes in a base of 10 to yield a greater number of gigabytes than if they were counted in a base of two and this leads to confusion when ignorant end-users install these devices and discover that they appear to offer lower capacity than advertised. Does this apply to all data storage devices, or just HDDs? What about SSDs? Just because it appears to be standard in the industry, does that mean it must remain an acceptable practise? Could it not be deemed misleading by the UK Office of Fair Trading, requiring all sellers to describe their goods in binary quantities of bytes? --78.150.225.204 (talk) 22:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]This "issue" has occurred in the US and there have been class action lawsuits about the allegedly "missing" storage, and the issue is behind the recent use of the odious term gibibytes and its symbol "GiB". Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Some space from the advertised size is always lost by system files and file tables etc 82.43.90.93 (talk) 22:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I think that ram is usually still advertised in the traditional base two units, (Partially because it needs to be packaged that way, for technical reasons.) But most storage cards are sold advertised in the SI base ten units. I would assume that the reason it's not considered fraudulent is because of the IEEE 1541-2002 standard which attempts to define the SI base ten units as correct, and give the traditional base two units silly names. Adaptation of this standard has been haphazard outside of storage manufacturers. Many claim that using base ten units for computer storage is unintuitive, while others claim that it was politically motivated by hardware manufacturers. APL (talk) 22:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]"Giga" almost always means 10⁹. The only widespread exceptions are (a) RAM sizes and (b) sizes reported by commonly used file management software like Windows Explorer. The software could easily be changed to use decimal units instead; in my opinion, this should have happened long ago. -- BenRG (talk) 03:09, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]This issue gets worse as memory, disk space, etc. get bigger. Here's a chart of the difference between the base 10 and base 2 units at different scales:KB 2.4% MB 4.9% GB 7.4% TB 10.0%So, while 2.4% is small enough to ignore, a 10% difference begins to become significant. 68.248.75.49 (talk) 04:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)II[reply] They do it with things as small as pen drives. I know my "2 GB" pen drive is actually about 1.9 gigs, because of this rounding. I think everything should be rounded down to decimal units, instead of up to binary. As software becomes more accessible, so should its workings and terminology. {{Sonia|ping|enlist}} 05:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]June 19SATA-to-USB bridgeHello! I bought a SATA-to-USB bridge to connect my old laptop's SATA master drive (don't worry; I know the drive still works even though the laptop broke) to my desktop computer with the USB. When I connect the drive, Windows recognizes a "USB Mass Storage Device" has been connected, and states that the corresponding drivers have been successfully installed, but the drive doesn't show up in My Computer. I accessed the disk management utility, and it recognizes the drive but says it's uninitialized, but when I try to initialize it, I get an error: "Device is not ready." I tried this on two different computers (Vista and Win7) and two different SATA drives, and it didn't work. Am I missing a step? Does it have to do with the drive's configuration as a master drive? I wanted to use this bridge for emergencies when a computer breaks down and I need to access its hard drive. Would that be impossible anyway? Does Windows need to format a drive before it can mount it? The bridge was cheap, so I can't rule out the possibility that it's just crap, but the OS's ability to recognize it as a USB storage device gives me some hope. Thank you in advance for any comments or suggestions!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 02:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Why not just connect it to your desktop directly via SATA? The SATA interface is exactly the same on laptops as on desktops, it'd be faster and almost guaranteed to work. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:07, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Does that drive shows up in disk management ? -Yyy (talk) 10:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]visual land vl-875I bought a Visual Land VL-875 media player in March. Now, it is having trouble connecting with my Windows OSs (xP and Vista). When i plug it into the USB port, it thinks the media player is charging. But when I used a friend's USB cord meant for a printer, it works! Any way to correct the computer connection problem? thanks for ur help :-)--LastLived 02:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]The VL-875's USB cable is probably out-of-order. Try replacing the USB Cable. If that still doesn't work, then try uninstalling then reinstalling the VL-875's drivers. Rocketshiporion (talk) 05:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Free natural voice text readerDo you know where I can get a free natural voice text reader? I've already downloaded several text readers, but the only voice available is computer Sam which sounds very robotic. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me to a place where I can download for free (most important) a text reader which has natural-sounding voices that can be played (most important). Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.109.119.6 (talk) 04:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]I'm not sure I've ever heard a speech-synth program that I really thought was "natural". But a good place to start would be Wikipedia's rather incomplete Comparison of speech synthesizers APL (talk) 06:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Microsoft Sam is the default voice of Microsoft Windows XP. Microsoft Anna, the default voice of Windows Vista and Windows 7, is far improved. However, finding a free voice better than these is probably impossible. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 06:24, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Also, 99.9 % of all freeware text-to-speech applications available on the Internet for Microsoft Windows do not implement their own text-to-speech engine and voice, but rely on the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI), included in Windows. Hence, the only thing these programs actually do, is to call the Windows function SpVoice.Speak("This is a text"). You know, it is like all these freeware (and even shareware) web browsers that actually are nothing but alternative front-end GUIs of the Internet Explorer web browser. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 06:34, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]url

ResolvedI want to generate a list of the same url, each time appending a higher number onto the end. For example http://www.example.com/page/1 to http://www.example.com/page/100 and everything in between (http://www.example.com/page/2, http://www.example.com/page/3, etc). How can I do this automatically? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Save the following function as a bookmark:javascript:(function(){%20function%20selectColor(i)%20{%20return%20["#fdc",%20"#cdf",%20"#bfd",%20"#dbf",%20"#fbd"]%20[i%5];%20}%20var%20u=location.href,%20ul=u.length;%20var%20tparts=[""],%20zparts=[],%20nz=0;%20function%20isDigit(c)%20{%20return%20("0"%20<=%20c%20&&%20c%20<=%20"9");%20}%20for%20(i=0;%20i<ul;%20)%20{%20for%20(;%20i<ul%20&&%20!isDigit(u.charAt(i));%20++i)%20tparts[nz]%20+=%20u.charAt(i);%20if(i<ul)%20{%20zparts[nz]="";%20for%20(;%20i<ul%20&&%20isDigit(u.charAt(i));%20++i)%20zparts[nz]%20+=%20u.charAt(i);%20tparts[nz+1]="";%20++nz;%20}%20}%20if(!nz)%20{%20alert("No%20numbers%20in%20URL.");%20return;%20}%20D=window.open().document;%20D.write();%20D.close();%20function%20a(n)%20{%20A(D.body,n);%20}%20function%20A(p,n)%20{%20p.appendChild(n);%20}%20function%20E(q)%20{%20return%20D.createElement(q);%20}%20function%20cT(t)%20{%20return%20D.createTextNode(t)%20}%20function%20cBR()%20{%20return%20E("br");%20}%20function%20cS(t,ci)%20{%20var%20s=E("span");%20s.style.background=selectColor(ci);%20s.style.fontWeight="bold";%20A(s,%20cT(t));%20return%20s;%20}%20function%20cTB(v,oc)%20{%20var%20b=E("input");%20b.size=6;%20b.value=v;%20b.addEventListener("input",%20oc,%20false);%20return%20b;%20}%20function%20cCB(t,oc)%20{%20var%20L=E("label"),%20b=E("input");%20b.type="checkbox";%20b.checked=true;%20b.onchange=oc;%20A(L,b);%20A(L,cT(t));%20return%20L;%20}%20function%20cL(nz,tparts,zparts)%20{%20var%20L=E("a");%20var%20u="";%20for%20(var%20i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20A(L,cT(tparts[i]));%20A(L,cS(zparts[i],%20i));%20u%20+=%20tparts[i]+zparts[i];%20}%20A(L,cT(tparts[nz]));%20u%20+=%20tparts[nz];%20L.href=u;%20L.target="_blank";%20return%20L;%20}%20a(cT("Original%20URL:%20"));%20a(cBR());%20a(cL(nz,%20tparts,%20zparts));%20a(cBR());%20a(cBR());%20var%20fromBoxes=[],%20toBoxes=[],%20padChecks=[];%20for%20(i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20a(cT("Run%20"));%20a(cS(zparts[i],%20i));%20a(cT("%20from%20"));%20a(fromBoxes[i]=cTB(zparts[i],%20listURLs));%20a(cT("%20to%20"));%20a(toBoxes[i]=cTB(zparts[i],%20listURLs));%20a(cT("%20("));%20a(j=cCB("%20Pad%20with%20zeroes%20to%20maintain%20length",%20listURLs));%20padChecks[i]=j.childNodes[0];%20a(cT(")"));%20a(cBR());%20}%20a(cBR());%20resultDiv=E("div");%20a(resultDiv);%20listURLs();%20function%20listURLs()%20{%20while%20(resultDiv.childNodes.length)%20resultDiv.removeChild(resultDiv.childNodes[0]);%20var%20lows=[],%20highs=[];%20for%20(i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20lows[i]=parseInt(fromBoxes[i].value,%2010);%20highs[i]=parseInt(toBoxes[i].value,%2010);%20if(highs[i]-lows[i]%20>%20999)%20{%20A(resultDiv,%20cT("Too%20many"));%20return;%20}%20}%20urls=[];%20function%20cb(sta)%20{%20var%20newzparts=[];%20for%20(var%20i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20var%20z=""+sta[i];%20if(padChecks[i].checked)%20while%20(z.length%20<%20zparts[i].length)%20z="0"+z;%20newzparts[i]=z;%20}%20A(resultDiv,%20cL(nz,%20tparts,%20newzparts));%20A(resultDiv,%20cBR());%20}%20fors(nz,%20cb,%20lows,%20highs);%20}%20function%20fors%20(n,%20callback,%20lows,%20highs)%20{%20function%20fors_inner%20(states,%20v)%20{%20if(v%20>=%20n)%20callback(states);%20else%20for%20(states[v]=lows[v];%20states[v]%20<=%20highs[v];%20++(states[v]))%20fors_inner(states,%20v+1);%20}%20fors_inner%20([],%200);%20}%20})()Navigate to the first page you want, click on the bookmark and it will allow you set the initial and final value of your page range. I use this all the time when downloading a list of sequentially numbered pictures for example. If you JUST want to generate the list though, doing it in Excel is easy. Put the standard part of the URL in one column and copy-paste it all the way down; put the numbers sequentially in the next column, then use the CONCATENATE command to combine the 2 into a third column. Or wait for someone to post a Perl script to do this in one line in the next few minutes :) Zunaid 10:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply] That's great, it generates a nice list which is just what I needed. Thanks! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]How to translate a Word Document into forum codeHi. I have an extremely long document that I want to post onto a forum. The document uses bold, italics, strikethrough, and underline however, which normally don't show up when copy-pasted into a forum text box. I've been attempting to find a way to use Word's find/replace feature to add [b][/b], [i][/i], [s][/s], or [u][/u] around the necessary parts, but I haven't had much luck. Is there an easy way to do this, with or without the Find/replace feature? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 10:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]You could paste it into a forum with a WYSIWYG editor, then turn off javascript and preview it. It should then show the code. Findstr (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Save as html, open in a decent text editor like Notepad+ or Emacs, trim off the opening verbiage, and replace the html bold, underline, italic tags with their (very similar) forumcode equivalents. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:55, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Server Requirements Now I am looking for a server which meets all of the following requirements; I have considered major brands such as HP, IBM and Dell; but I have not been able to find anything similar. Maybe someone here has come across such a machine...Has eight processor sockets, and is able to accomodate eight-core Intel 6500 or 7500 series processors. Accomodates one terabyte of DDR3 ECC RAM running at atleast 800MHz, and preferably 1066MHz or 1333MHz. Has two internal 2.5" drive bays, and is able to boot from a RAID 1 SATA SSD array. Has atleast three, and preferably four, PCIe 2.0 x8 Slots. Consumes no more than two to three units of rackspace. Has a depth not exceeding 100 centimeters (39.37 inches). Has a motherboard which supports Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Is entirely compatible with the Dell PERC H800 External RAID Controller and Dell MD1200 DAS. In my (perhaps hasty) enthusiasm, I have already placed an order ten days ago for a Dell MD1200 DAS to be configured with twelve 2TB 3.5" 7200rpm NL-SAS 6Gb/s HHDs in a RAID 6 array; before actually finding a compatible and suitable server, or deciding confirmedly what hypervisor I'm going to run on the server. So here I am again... Thanks in advance. Rocketshiporion (talk) 11:15, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Create a Wikipedia Bot with no experienceHello, I'm looking for someone that is willing to teach me( or tell me) how to create a Wikipedia bot. Is this possible? Sir Stupidity (talk) 11:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]User:Chzz might be able to help you. They use bots a lot. Of course there are other people too but that's the person I thought of first. You might want to ask at the WP:HD instead, someone might be able to point you to a help page or something. Chevymontecarlo 11:28, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]Hi there, Sir Stupidity.See also: Wikipedia:Creating a botThanks for you interest and enthusiasm.A lot of new users get interested in Wikipedia bot, and I'm not really sure why. Bots mostly perform very boring repetitive tasks. They require considerable programming expertise, and they need approval - it's not easy. We already have bots to do most things, so if you have something that needs doing, it is much easier to ask an existing bot to do it, than to write a new one.Before you start to create one, you need two things;Computer programming skills. This part is not within the scope of "Wikipedia help" - if you do not know how to write computer programs, then look around for tutorials either online, or in books, or college/university courses. A fairly high level of experience with Wikipedia; as you only appear to have made 60 edits, and created this account a week ago, I suggest waiting a while.Then, you could try out auto-wiki browser, which a semi-automatic editor - you need around 500 mainspace edits, and a good editing history, to use it. Use of AWB helps to learn about some of the many complications in automated editing.Beyond that, you should carefully study the Wikipedia:Bot policy, and get involved in the Bot Approvals Group - watch what happens there, with other requests for approval. And, study the code of existing bots to see how they work.Feel free to ask me any further questions on User talk:Chzz, or even better, talk to helpers live, with this. Chzz ► 14:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]assign JSON response to variableThe twitter API (the JSON version) returns the response in the form of an array. Just like it's supposed to. If I just say,<script lang="javascript" src="http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.json"/>then it just executes the object, and I've got an object floating around without any way to access it. How would I assign the response to a variable so I can manipulate it? Thanks, 74.177.0.70 (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]