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June 29

help with a simple shell script

Resolved

Hi All,

I need help on a bash script. Here's what I need to do: I have this folder, which gets filled with .wav files (recordings) daily, and I want to segregate /move them into subdirectories based off a couple of factors.

This is basically what I want to do

pattern1 = ^OUT[0-9]{4}
pattern2 = ^g[0-9]{4}
default= any pattern not matched above, will be moved to a MISC folder (step 4)

1. loop over each file in the directory (assuming /var/test as the working directory)
2. create date dir (yyyymmdd -- current system date) if not exists
3. if filename matches regex pattern1/2, create subfolder based on matching part (if does not exist) and move there (ex mv /var/test/OUT1234-32134381-31358438.wav -> /var/test/20100628/OUT1234/)
4. if filename does not match regex pattern1/2, create subfolder 'misc'(if does not exist) and move there (ex mv /var/test/32134381-31358438.wav -> /var/test/20100628/misc/)

That is it basically... I hope someone can help me out. TIA PrinzPH (talk) 01:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

PS- I intend to put this in the crontab if it matter... PrinzPH (talk) 01:28, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

This is untested, and requires a relatively modern bash: —Korath (Talk) 01:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

#!/bin/bash
SOURCEDIR=/var/test
TARGETDIR=/var/test
PATTERN1='^OUT[0-9]{4}'
PATTERN2='^g[0-9]{4}'
TODAYDIR="$TARGETDIR/$(date +%Y%m%d)"
cd "$SOURCEDIR"
for i in *; do
    if [ -f "$i" ]; then
        if [[ "$i" =~ $PATTERN1 ]] || [[ "$i" =~ $PATTERN2 ]]; then
            THISDIR="$TODAYDIR/${BASH_REMATCH[0]}"
        else
            THISDIR="$TODAYDIR/misc"
        fi
        mkdir -p "$THISDIR"
        mv "$i" "$THISDIR/$i"
    fi
done

Thanks Korath! It's giving me an error though: Line [10], =~ binary expression expected? PrinzPH (talk) 03:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

what version of bash are you using? vesrion 3.0 seems to have no problem. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

bash --version tells me im running 3.2. But its My bad... apparently when I pasted the code over on putty, the PATTERNS inadvertently ended up with escaped braces and parenthesis. Thanks for the help! :) PrinzPH (talk) 05:53, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Help With Simple Ruby Program

Hi, I want to make a program in Ruby that will allow a friends computer to connect with mine, and then allow us to play tic tac toe. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about connecting the two computers, or how to manage input/output between them once they are connected, can anyone give me a few tips regarding this or point me to helpful, but simple, information on how to accomplish this? Thank you:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 04:26, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

OP here, I wrote the above when very sleepy; essentially, I know how to use ruby, I'm just not very aquainted with networking stuff. Ultimately, I want to be able to write a program that when open on two computers, will designate a given computer as in "control", when that computer gives input to it's instance of the program it will put it into a given state, then transmit data over to the other program putting it in the same state and putting it in "control". I really only need to do this using a small number of computers, hence, I'm hoping that a fairly simple means can be used to accomplish it. Any help would be greatly appreciated:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 09:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

You'd typically have one program, the server, that takes care of managing the game state, and several clients (the players) that connect to it to exchange move information. Such communication is usually done on a TCP socket, which most languages (including Ruby) have much the same API (essentially a wrapper around Berkeley sockets). An example of doing simple client-server communication over TCP is given in this IBM developerworks article - you're probably going to be doing something quite like the "building a ruby chat server" section. You'll have to decide what your application-layer protocol will look like (that is, the tic-tac-toe specific messages you're going to be sending back and forward over the wire) - I imagine the server will mostly send messages that mean "the board now looks like ---|-X-|-O-" and clients send messages that say "place my mark at position (1,2)". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 09:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Gmail Password changes by itself!

My pop gmail account, which worked OK a few minutes ago is giving problem. The Outlook Express client is asking for the password (this happens when password fed is not correct, but password is there alright ) Even if I fill up the correct password it does'nt help. The other gmail account is OK (as of now), what the hell is wrong ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 07:15, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

In my experience with POP problems (unrelated to Gmail), when Outlook repeatedly ask for authentication or passwords, even when clearly correct, that usually means that it is having trouble connecting to the e-mail server for problems on the server's end. I would wait a little while ("a few minutes ago" is kind of quick to jump the gun) and try again. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

You are right, 98. Now it works all right... Jon Ascton  (talk) 01:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

I ran into this problem recently, and it turned out to be because I was trying to send an executable file. Gmail doesn't allow executable files to be sent, but I guess whatever error message the server might have been sending, Outlook Express interpreted it to mean it should ask for my password. I finally discovered the problem by logging into the Gmail website and trying to send my message there. The website gave me a more useful error message. --12.25.104.8 (talk) 17:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Userscript navigate to random page

Resolved

A few days ago I asked if a greasemonkey userscript could scan a given webpage, pick a link on the page at random, and then navigate to that link. People said I would be too complicated, so I have a new question: Could a greasemonkey userscript randomly pick a url from a list of urls I specify, then navigate to it? For example:

http://example.com/123
http://example.com/456
http://example.com/789
http://example.com/abc
http://example.com/def
http://example.com/ghi

82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Put them all in an array, get the size of the array, then generate a random number between 0 and the size of the array and replace your current location with that url. Example:

var urls = ["http://example.com/123", "http://example.com/456", "http://example.com/789",
            "http://example.com/abc", "http://example.com/def", "http://example.com/ghi"];

window.location.replace(urls[Math.floor(Math.random()*urls.length)]);

Honestly, if you wanted to, it would be fairly easy to do the same on any random webpage. Just scan for all "a" objects with hrefs, dump the href into an array, then select a new page to go to randomly using the same method. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Using an ActiveX control module in C++

Hello all,

I'm trying to figure out the usage of an SDK provided by a thermal camera company and unfortunately I'm entirely unclear on how to proceed. As of yet, internet searches have yielded no results, and the documentation for the SDK itself is rather sparse (at least, in my opinion; I have a decent amount of experience with the use of C++ for scientific computing purposes but no experience with ActiveX, so perhaps if I did the documentation would make more sense to me). At any rate, the SDK apparently takes the form of an "ActiveX Control Module". The SDK documentation lists three files: a license file (.lic), a binary load file (.ocx), and a type library (.tlb). I believe these form the SDK runtime needed to run applications made using the SDK, but I'm not sure. It also says that the ActiveX Control Module includes one interface (which it provides the name of) and gives the object name that is exposed to applications. The rest of the documentation focuses on object properties and methods.

So, my question is: given the information detailed above, how do I use this SDK in C++? Should I #include or #import certain files? Can I use this SDK in C++ IDEs that aren't from the Microsoft Visual Studio/C++ family (some sources I've seen seem to indicate that ActiveX controls can be integrated into C++ code in Visual Studio/C++ only)?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I've pretty much hit a wall. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 15:08, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Not convinced this is going to be a helpful answer, but IIRC this is going to be hard. I've tried to do the same with .COM interfaces and in the end I gave up. There's lots of really complicated stuff to do with getting the interface handles that was too much hassle. When I was looking at it (quite a few years ago) I gave up and used Visual Basic 6, where you just import the .tlb and off you go. If you have access to VB6 I'd suggest trying with that. Failing that, I think it'd be lots easier with the latest Visual Studio. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, Phil. I don't have access to Visual Basic 6, but I do have Visual Studio 2008. Is there a way to import the necessary files into VS 2008? I've tried adding some of the SDK files to a project, but they don't seem to be recognized as anything special (Visual Studio doesn't generate a wrapper class or anything like that when they're added). --Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 23:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

JIRA SOAP question: getting issue comments

I've been given the task to work on a external customer front-end to our company's internal JIRA system. The front-end uses SOAP to connect to JIRA. I've already run into one problem: if the front-end user logs in as a JIRA user who only has external user privileges to a project, he/she can only see his/her own comments to the project's issues, while the specification states that he/she should be able to see all comments to the issues. But it looks like the JIRA SOAP method getComments(String issueKey, String user) is actually implemented to only return the user's own comments if the user only has external user privileges. Is there a way around this? JIP | Talk 18:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Computer too hot?

I am in a hot room. A computer sensor - on the chip I think - says its temperature is 39 degrees centigrade. The HD temperature is 34 degrees centrigrade. Are these acceptable temperatures, or are they too hot? I have an old computer. Thanks 92.29.119.46 (talk) 18:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

These seem like acceptable temperatures to me. My CPU is 37C and my HDD 39C, and this is running at low usage in a moderately hot room. It's not even hot enough to make the computer start its main heatsink fan up. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:07, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

It has been widely known for decades that high temperatures reduce mean time between failure (i.e., increase the failure-rate), though a recent scholarly publication by Google Labs, Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population, refutes that claim with modern data. This ACM report, Hard-disk drives: the good, the bad, and the ugly, the author states: "In my conversations with numerous engineers from all the major HDD manufacturers, none has said the temperature does not affect head reliability, but none has published a transfer function relating head life to time and temperature." Nimur (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The temperature range around 40 is acceptable, if borderline. The problem occurs if it's maintaining a temperature around 45-50°C, as that usually means there's either not enough heat dissipation, causing the keyboard to feel warm (in addition to the degradation in laptop lifetime.) --Sigma 7 (talk) 18:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Wireless question

I have a Intel celeron M 380 1.6GHz laptop and have just had the internet for the first time. I have gone wireless and have to plug a 802.11g usb into my laptop. I keep losing the connection to the internet and wandered if it was because of a 'dodgy' usb. I have the laptop about 3 years. Should I buy a new 802.11g usb or another better one? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.70.39 (talk) 19:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

That's just one possibility. Check that your signal is strong (or move next to the wireless router). You should also check that the router is functioning correctly, and that your internet service provider is providing a reliable service. I have all of these problems from time to time. If your laptop has a network socket (RJ45, like a phone socket, bigger than USB), then you should try connecting direct to the router with a patch cable. Dbfirs 20:23, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I used to have a wireless adapter and it was unreliable; that's how the cheap ones are. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 16:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

DMA to PIO

Is an IDE drive (on a dell dimension) in XP that keeps reverting to PIO mode after a few weeks (reset to UDMA5 by uninstalling driver and rebooting) more likely to be a faulty HDD or faulty IDE controller? Would swapping the HDD and DVDR IDE cables on the mobo tell me if it was the IDE controller, or are both channels potentially controlled by the same faulty chipset? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.151.32.169 (talk) 21:13, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility it's a faulty cable? That would be the first thing I would check. I'm presuming we're talking PATA here, in that case I'd also look carefully at the middle pins, there's one which can be damaged if you put the cable in the wrong way (yes there's also the plastic key but from my experience it's not that effective and it's still quite easy to insert it the wrong way) and it has a keyed socket (i.e. the pin hole is closed) so the pin is pushed in. If looks pushed in, try pulling it out again carefully. If it isn't, you may want to wriggle it slightly to see if it seems loose (e.g. if someone did this before and fixed it). This particular pin is used by the controller to decide whether to use UDMA so if it's damaged it can cause this problem Nil Einne (talk) 21:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Software to display and sort a multi-column list?

I'm looking for some freely available software that can display a multi-column list, and sort the whole list (keeping rows coherent) by just clicking on the top of a column. Rather than doing a lot of clicking to say its a global sort or having to highlight everything and so on.

The freeware 'List Squared' can do this, but is there any other software that can do the same, such as a spreadsheet or simple database, while offering more functions? I've alrerady done a lot of searching. Thanks 92.24.183.236 (talk) 23:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if this is 1000x overkill, but since you did not rule it out, I'm obliged to suggest OpenOffice.org Calc, which is free but similar to Microsoft Excel. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The important thing is only requiring one click on the top of the column to sort everything (while keeping rows coherent) which I do not think Calc can do. 92.29.114.87 (talk) 09:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Script to rename same-filename files while copying

What would be the best language for a beginner to write a program or script that merges two file trees including combining folders with the same name, but automatically renames same-filename files to prevent overwriting? I've never found any software that can do this. Thanks 92.24.183.236 (talk) 23:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

cp with --backup. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 23:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

But if the task was to practice / learn scripting, you might find perl a good choice. It has very nice platform-independent file and directory management that is portable to dozens of different kinds systems. Nimur (talk) 00:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

cp could be perfect, but I presume it does not run under Windows? Is there a Windows version anywhere? Thanks 92.29.114.87 (talk) 09:41, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd recommend cygwin, but you can get just a cp.exe from google. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 15:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

June 30

Newly built computer won't boot

I just finished building my first computer, but I have a rather serious problem: it won't boot. At first, the fans would start up, the lights on the motherboard and case would come on, the lights on my keyboard would flash once like they always do, and I could hear the hard drive spin up, but nothing would come up on the monitor, it just had the orange "standby" light on. I ended up disconnected and reseating my video card, hard drive, optical drive, pretty much everything and finally checked the processor, where I found four bent prongs. I bent them carefully back straight with a screwdriver, put everything back together, and tried again.

This time, things worked slightly better. When I pressed the Caps Lock, etc. keys, the appropriate lights would light up, and when I plugged in my flash drive, it would light up like usual. Again, the hard drive would spin up, all of the fans were running, the lights on the motherboard and case would come on, everything. It's just that nothing will come up on the monitor. There's no beeps, either, although I don't have speakers. Does anyone have some idea of what's wrong? I tried looking up some guides online, but I've done pretty much everything they said--reseated the processor, RAM, and video card, unplugged and replugged everything, checked that the RAM is in the correct slots (I'm pretty sure it is, anyway) and it still won't work. Fletch the Mighty (talk) 01:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears that your motherboard is not using your video card. Does it have on-board video? If so, it is likely using the on-board video until you go into BIOS and tell it to use external video (the video card). It could be that the video card is simply dead. It won't beep without a speaker somewhere. There is usually a speaker connection on the motherboard where you can connect a tiny internal speaker to hear the standard beeps. -- kainaw™ 02:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I checked the manual, and yes, it does have on-board video. If the video card is the problem, would removing it and rebooting work? Fletch the Mighty (talk) 02:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Just plug the monitor into the mobo.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all so much!! It's working perfectly now! Fletch the Mighty (talk) 02:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to test whether the video card is functional, and you have a second monitor at hand, then shut down the computer, plug the video card back in, connect a monitor to it, as well, and then start up the computer again. If you're using any recent version of Windows, your desktop should come up on both screens. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Screensaver

Long ago I saw this screensaver, it was pretty cool, though don't remember what it was called. In this when it starts you don't see a typical pic of kittens or a sunset or a waterfall, no nothiing, the screen remains as it was, but ants begin to crawl on the desktop ! They start from the bottom barline with "start" and climb over the icons on the desktop and spread everywhere! What screensaver it was and where it's found ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 02:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

A simple Google search for "screensaver ants" turned up dozens of possibilities. Practice safe downloading and make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software. --LarryMac | Talk 01:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, man !  Jon Ascton  (talk) 06:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, be careful with websites with screensavers. Some of them contain malicious software. Chevymontecarlo - alt 12:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Help me get rid of this virus!

I've just been infected by a malware program called AV Security Suite. Yep it's got it all, colorful graphics, constant telling of computer errors, constant demand to "buy a full version" and (really) bad grammar. I'm pretty sure this is the same as all those other malware programs such as ErrorSafe and Windows Antivirus 2010. It's not letting me run any program other than connecting to the internet and it is constantly bugging me with false errors, random popups every few seconds, blockage of random sites, and seriously bad grammar. Can someone help me get rid of this stupid thing quickly? Its wasting most of my computer's energy. 64.75.158.197 (talk) 09:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

If you have another computer available, take out the hard drive of the infected computer and plug it into the other one. Scan with Malwarebytes, Spybot and your favorite antivirus. Otherwise boot into safe mode and scan. 121.72.218.81 (talk) 10:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Try the general instructions here. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Searching for "AV Security Suite" in Google found lots of detailed instructions for it removal. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22AV+Security+Suite%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a0f713e140dfbc98 92.15.3.46 (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Battlefield 2:Special Forces shortcut command line

What is the command line to access the BF2 Special Forces? I lost the shortcut and don't remember the command line. Looking under the properties of the shortcut should find it. Thank you in advance. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 14:48, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

One window wiki

How come wiki software doesn't allow you to make edits in the same window that you view the project? Couldn't there be an easier setup? Supposing there was an "Edit" button to click on that caused the same window you were looking at to transform into an editable window. After making edits you would then click on a "Save" button. Isn't it a bother to work with two windows? Bus stop (talk) 15:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It is possible. I have done it for clients. However, it is difficult. It is far easier and more cross-browser compatible to do all editing as plain text in a text box that is submitted through a standard form. -- kainaw™ 15:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki chooses not to implement this feature, in order to preserve a clean and direct mapping between the technical implementation details to the conceptual ideas they represent: there is a distinct and well-defined HTTP POST transaction for each "edit"; there is a distinct and well-defined HTTP GET transaction for each "read". Recent versions of MediaWiki do expose an AJAX API, documented here, or you can roll your own system (as Kainaw has mentioned). Nimur (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both very much for that information. I guess I will opt to continue using the editing features as they are. Bus stop (talk) 23:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

rsync help

I was writing a quick and dirty script, designed to copy only program files across over the network, thus i had this

rsync -rCvz -e 'ssh -l username' --include-from=include username@some.server:/some/folder/ . 

where the include file contains, on separate lines:

*.c
*.sh
*.sm
*.py

and everything is running in the same folder, Now unfortunately this isn't working as expected and is pulling everything, which is a problem as there's over 1TB of raw data that i don't want. So what really obvious thing am i missing from my rsync command? Thanks--82.26.227.101 (talk) 15:53, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

See the FILTER RULES section of man rsync: if neither an include nor exclude pattern matches a given file or directory, it's included. You're explicitly including .c, .sh, .sm, and .py files, but not excluding the rest, so add an --exclude '*' after your --include-from=include.

This will also omit directories, so any matching .c etc. files in them will never be seen unless each directory also matches one of those patterns. To get files with these extensions everywhere in the source directory tree, add */ to your include patterns, and maybe --prune-empty-dirs to your options. —Korath (Talk) 18:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks its kinda worked --exclude '*' stops me getting any files, doing --exclude '*/*' gets files but only goes one level deep, even though i have set -r and have altered the include file —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.227.101 (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

rsync syntax is a headache, so I can't be sure this will work like I think it will, but you might try the following include file:

+ **.c
+ **.sh
+ **.sm
+ **.py
- **

the doubled asterisks match anything, including slashes, so this should include all paths that end with the given extensions, no matter how deeply nested, and exclude everything else. --Ludwigs2 01:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

SCART cables

Hi! I connected my DTT Amstrad decoder to a LG Hard Disc recorder and in cascade the latter to my Synudyne CRT TV: I see all black & white and the sound is off if the recorder is off.. No problem if the decoder is directly connected to the tv. Thanks in advance --217.194.34.103 (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with any of that hardware so I could be way off, but the symptons you're describing suggest to me that the Amstrad device is outputting an NTSC signal which the LG HDD recorder can't handle and in turn it comes out black/white and without sound. Doing a whois on your IP says you're in Germany and PAL is the normal encoding system used there so that adds to this theory. I don't know if you can check on the Amstrad box whether or not to output NTSC or PAL because switching to PAL may fix it (the TV obviously supports both, but the HDD recorder sounds like it doesn't). Someone else may have a better idea though! ZX81 ^talk 17:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Or possibly the recorder can handle a PAL input, but is outputting it as NTSC. --Phil Holmes (talk) 07:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both! I forgot to say the I see colors when the recorder takes the signal from its own tuner and not from the decoder. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 07:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Mac OS X sudo copying through the Finder?

I'm trying to restore some old files on a previous Time Machine drive Mac OS X, but the Finder says I don't have enough permissions (even when I go use Time Machine). If I did the copy through the Terminal I could 'sudo cp' the files. Is there anything GUI-based that'll give me sudo power? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

generally speaking, if you try to do something in the Finder that would require sudo, a dialog will pop up asking you to enter an administrative account name and its password. That won't work in every case - sometimes you'll have to drop into terminal to sudo - but it will usually work. --Ludwigs2 00:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Muting a program in Windows 7?

Is there a way to prevent a program from producing sound in Windows 7? --Belchman (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Click the sound icon on the taskbar, then click "mixer", now you'll see all the active programs which are producing sound. You can individually control each of them, mute them etc 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

That's brilliant. Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 19:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

On a similar topic, is there any way in Vista to prevent Office 2000 from making beeps when it is looking for a file? I have all system sound effects turned off, but Office seems to override this setting. I don't want to mute the speaker. Dbfirs 11:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Well Vista lets you control sound for individual programs like Windows 7. However I don't know if this will hold over sessions and it will obviously kill all sounds for Office. The obvious question of course is whether you've looked in the Office settings Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

My "mixer" in Vista shows only "Windows sounds" under applications, and I have this muted. There doesn't seem to be any option for file seek sounds in Office 2000. I have feedback with sounds turned off. Dbfirs 10:04, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Shortcut to Desktop

I would like to have a shortcut to my Desktop on my Desktop, as I often have lots of other shortcuts there that overflow off the screen. How could I do this please, in XP? I know there is software that pans the desktop, but I prefer a simple solution. Thanks. 92.15.3.46 (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The contents of your desktop is located in a folder in your user directory. In XP this should be something like "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Desktop". Navigate to just "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\", right click on the desktop folder and select "create shortcut". Now just move the new shortcut to your desktop. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, done it. 92.15.3.46 (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Just curious, but wouldn't now be an ideal time to cleanup your desktop? It would make it easier to find stuff and provide space for new stuff. Astronaut (talk) 11:50, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

My Desktop is an informal to-do list of weblinks and changes all the time. So, no. 92.28.247.183 (talk) 20:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in a little utility Pitaschio (Google it). Amongst its many cool features is the ability to set your desktop icons to "list view" like you can with normal folders. It helps keep my desktop tidy. Zunaid 12:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That is a bundle of eleven different things, including "calculate the Moon's age", which I find irritating. You could achieve the same thing by moving all your icons into a folder on the desktop. 92.29.126.166 (talk) 08:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Database for image metadata

In order to search photo metadata (IPTC and maybe EXIF) of a large number of images quickly, I would like to collect this data in a database. I know that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can do this, but I am looking for a simpler and cheaper (=free) alternative. Basically what I would like to have is a program which collects all the metadata (or at least keywords, location,...) from a directory of images (".../pics/dogs") and writes it into a file (".../pics/dogsmetadata"). The program should then allow to search for metadata (e.g. keyword "labrador") and display all the images in .../pics/dogs that have this keyword. Is there such a (free) program? bamse (talk) 22:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you can extract the metadata programatically using ImageMagick, which would be one part of the solution. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Our EXIF article discusses many software tools that may be helpful. ExifTool is a Perl script that can pull that data out easily from a list of files. You can use this tool as a standalone program, or as a part of a custom Perl script you write. Nimur (talk) 23:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Since I am too lazy to write any code, isn't there a GUI based program to do these tasks (1. extract and write metadata into file, 2. search in extracted metadata file)? bamse (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Picasa can do some limited sorting and searching operations with EXIF data: Picture Data: Viewing EXIF data and histogram. Will this work? Nimur (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as far as I understand (please correct me if wrong), picasa's database is not easily portable to other computers or just the metadata part saved in a separate file. For instance, I'd like to backup my images together with the metadata file. bamse (talk) 16:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

That's my understanding of Picasa as well. You seem to want a fairly customized feature, insofar as you want to take "standard format" EXIF data and put it into a custom format data base (or flat file) of your own invention. I think you may have little alternative except to write your own script; but don't panic - this should not be very difficult and will be a good learning exercise. Perl makes file handling extremely straightforward; and the ExifTool I linked above has reasonable documentation and example code. I imagine you can write a simple perl script that can scan a directory of images and export the EXIF data in the format of your choice, all in around 20-30 lines of code. If you need any assistance with the specific details, feel free to follow up. Nimur (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the offer to help. At the moment I don't have much time, but I might give it a try in the future. bamse (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

July 1

OEM vs Retail de-activations

I'm considering buying a copy of an operating system that rhymes with "Bimbo's Heaven". The OEM version is nearly half the cost of the full retail price. The differences, as I understand it, are that OEM versions are locked to a specific machine. OEM installs are a one-way ticket. Also, there's no phone support (no big deal). And you have to buy a specific 32 or 64-bit version.

On the other hand, the full retail has both 32 and 64-bit on the same disc. You get some tech support. AND... this is the big deal for me: Even though you can only install it one machine at a time, you can de-activate it on one machine and activate it on another any number of times. I'm a Mac user, so I'd be using this in Boot Camp mode. There's a strong possibility I might decide to change the partition size, add hardware, switch to 32-bit, or want to use another computer entirely -- all things that would cause the OEM version think it's on another computer and invalidate my single activation.

Before I spend the cash and break that very expensive seal, I just wanted to verify with you geniuses that this is indeed the situation. Does the full retail version allow on-demand activation and de-activation?? I've just never seen or heard of a Windows "De-Activator" before. --70.130.58.45 (talk) 01:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe activation of OEM versions of Windows is tied to the motherboard of the computer. Still, OEM versions are not supported by Microsoft, and as you mention, you cannot buy a 32-bit version and choose to install the 64-bit version, and vice-versa. PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you've just re-answered the questions I already knew in my original question. The question is about de-activation. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I've never done this, and a quick google of deactivate windows 7 site:microsoft.com only yields a couple of support threads in which querents were told a couple of times (by random people on the Internet) that there is no deactivation process and that you just do it, and if there's a problem when you activate Windows on the new system, you have to call Microsoft. Sorry to give you some more information that you probably already googled. Unfortunately I would also check with Microsoft beforehand. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no facility to "deactivate" the retail version of Windows (for use on another computer), however it's based on the number of days since it was activated. Within the first 120 days if it's reinstalled on the same PC it'll reactivate over and over again (resetting the number of days since activation back to 0 each time), but if it's installed on another computer within a 120 day window then it won't automatically activate and you need to contact Microsoft by phone, explain why and they may/may not issue you with an activation code. If it's past 120 days then it should just activate on another computer without a problem and without needing to contact Microsoft (but again resetting the days since activation back to 0). This is only for the retail versions, as mention above by PleaseStand, the OEM version is locked down to a combination of the motherboard and other key components and will only work on that one system (you can change a few things, but not the motherboard). ZX81 ^talk 16:50, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Having faced this same question, I uncovered a number of anecdotal data points suggesting that the OEM 'reactivation' process was able to be worked through by calling Microsoft and explaining your situation, that the previous computer failed and in order to achieve a repair brand new components were needed. If your situation came to that, it might be an option for you. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 14:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to cause any offence, but that really shouldn't be the case and I certainly wouldn't rely on that being an option that would always work. OEM licences (as part of the of the licence agreement and as already mentioned above) are sold for a specific machine and in the event of a hardware failure it's the responsiblity of the person that built the machine to replace the faulty components with equivalent matching parts so that it will still appear as the same machine so that it can be reactivated. It is literally down to the OEM reseller (which in this case is also the end user) to fix the problem with identical parts and if that can't be done then another licence has to be purchased. I'm surprised Microsoft would even assist on an OEM machine as another part of that agreement and another reason why it's so much cheaper is that all support/problems have to come back to the OEM reseller (or another 3rd party). ZX81 ^talk 14:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

What DPI for character recognition?

Google Books is great. They scan old library books, so there is an image of each page, that you can read, and they do some sort of character recognition, so you can search the text for words or phrases. I have an old book through interlibrary loan that I must return in 2 days, that I want to scan for future reference. It has not been scanned by Google, but I would like to scan it and save it on a DVD, and possibly run a character recognition program for full text search. My question is, at what level of dots per inch should I scan a book for future character recognition? I have an advanced Epson scanner which could go to ridiculous resolution, but that wastes storage space. What standard does Google Books use? What would be a good program to use for character recognition? Is there any free program which would be useful for scanning an entire book, two pages at a time? Thanks!Edison (talk) 02:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a copyright problem unless the book is in the public domain in your country. If it is in the public domain, 300 dpi grayscale (TIFF or PNG format) is supposed to be optimum for OCR (if done correctly, black-and-white would work just as well, but you are limited in the image processing you can perform after scanning). One problem with book scanning is the curvature of the books; be aware of that as well as the fact that book scanning takes a lot of time. The technology of Google's book scanning operation probably far surpasses what you have access to. As for OCR software, Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders typically uses ABBYY FineReader Pro. See our article Book scanning, and also [1] and [2], for more information. PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:33, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

When I scan documents for personal use, 300 dpi works fine—it's enough resolution to print the thing out at a 1-to-1 ratio. Adobe Acrobat recommends 300 dpi for text OCR.

However it's of real note that this is a slow process unless you have a REALLY fast scanner or it is a REALLY small book. When I scan whole chapters from books, I have access to a high-speed scanner which is basically a digital photocopier. Even with that thing it can take an hour, an hour and a half to scan an entire book. With a home scanner I imagine it would take about five times that amount of time. In fact, I would wager that it would probably be faster to just photocopy the book and later run it through a scanner with an automatic page feeder—and the quality would probably be better, too, than a home scanner. (Photocopiers are much better at getting that perfectly posterized image in black-and-white, without picking up the grain of the paper it is printed on, than most scanners.)

Curvature of the page is important for OCR and there are some books that just can't be scanned well on a flatbed scanner without breaking their spine (which is not really very palatable for a library book). --Mr.98 (talk) 11:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not try out a few pages and see if the OCR'ed text comes out OK? Scanning at 300dpi should be good enough, but only if the text is very clear on the page. If it's faded, small, typeset very close, or otherwise obscured in any way then the OCR process could well benefit from 600dpi. Also, if it ends up not being palatable to the OCR tool at all you may find a benefit from manual contrast enhancement (with photoshop or a similar program), which is best done with the most resolution possible. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 14:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Echo all the above, though I'd like to add a couple of tips. If the pages are reasonably bright and the text is nice and legible, you can get away with significantly smaller DPIs. I've been able to use 180 DPI, for example, and it cuts down on the scanning time significantly, but check the results before you scan all 1,700 pages, okay? :-) As others have noted, scanning can take a lot of time. If you find yourself crunched for time, it may be faster to photocopy the pages so that you can scan and OCR at your leisure later. Obviously, the quality of scanning/printing on photocopiers varies a lot, but it's worked for me (though I've only tried it once). I have used both ABBYY FineReader and OmniPage, though not the latest versions. I preferred the ABBYY product. Matt Deres (talk) 15:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Much thanks all for the timely advice. Edison (talk) 19:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Computer engineering institute in India

which are the best computer engineering institute in India ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parth ladani (talk • contribs) 05:05, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

• The IITs. --59.95.110.31 (talk) 12:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 oem on a Dell pc

On my old Dell Optiplex, the Windows XP disc that came with it lets me do a clean install without ever asking for a product key or activation. I suppose it just checks for a Dell bios and that's enough. So I'd like to know if Vista and Windows 7 discs from Dell will install as easily (on a Dell box), or if you now get all the same hassle as with a retail copy? 217.42.254.231 (talk) 12:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the same. The OEM disks don't ask for a serial number.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 16:22, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Enlarging browser

I could enlarge my browser display by ctrl-mouse wheel. Now I can't. Does anyone know about this feature being taken away, perhaps by an automatic update? My browser is IE v.8 and the OS is Vista Home Premium. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC) I am aware that ctrl- and ctrl+ control the zoom level. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ctrl-mouse wheel still makes my IE (version 8.0.6001.18702) font increase and decrease in size under XP, for what it's worth. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

It is probable that the browser setting has not changed, but the way your operating system is interpreting mouse-wheel scrolling might have changed. Can you check if you are using the default Windows mouse drivers, or are using some specific manufacturer's driver and/or application-layer mouse software? For example, Logitech will by default install its own mouse interpreter, called Logitech SetPoint, in Windows when you install its wireless mouse drivers. These will change the behaviors of scrolling; I have had weird results with it. Sometimes a "smart scroll" mode performs some other application-operation; sometimes it conflicts with specific hardware drivers and totally fails. Nimur (talk) 17:23, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

OP here. FWIW I have IE v. 8.0.6001.18928. Depressing the mouse wheel gives autoscroll ok, but rolling the mouse wheel does nothing. The PC is an Acer Aspire, I have used the same USB mouse all along and not (consciously) changed any driver. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:20, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Stupid question : Does the mouse wheel work in OTHER programs? If not, it could be something physically wrong with the mouse. I've had scroll wheels wear out on mice before. APL (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Good question! My only other program where I expect the mouse wheel to scroll up/down is MS WORD...and it doesn't. (Depress wheel gives autoscroll ok). The wheel doesn't work when I plug the mouse into a 2nd PC either so this looks like a a sick mouse. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Just FYI, you can also enlarge your browser by making it fullscreen...ussually by pressing F11 to go to full screen and F11 to go back.Smallman12q (talk) 15:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

ethernet cable

I want to remote control a computer connected via ethernet cable. TeamViewer works perfectly, but it requires a connection to the internet to function, which isn't always possible. Any there any other remote desktop software that works on ethernet cable, and how do I set it up? Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.90.93 (talk) 17:23, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

If you have Windows, you may have access to Terminal Services (depending on your version - business, professional, and Server versions of Windows have this feature, while "Home" editions do not). If you are using a Linux, Unix, or recent Mac system, you can remotely log in with SSH. VNC is a free software package that works on most major platforms and might do what you want; though I find it a bit limiting because it usually runs as a user-space program, rather than starting a new login session. Many articles about other programs can be found in our remote desktop category. What exactly do you want to "remotely control" - the desktop, interface, hardware, or some other thing? Nimur (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Echoing Nimur, I use Windows Remote Desktop and VNC for this. Neither requires an Internet connection. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

You can fake an Internet connection with a standard home router. Even if you don't plug it into the Internet, the DHCP will give every computer you locally have a unique IP address like 192.168.1.100. Then, you can connect through the router to the other computer. -- kainaw™ 17:52, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

(I believe the TeamViewer software requires actual connection, because you are proxying your remote connection through their server, "thin-client"/"cloud computing" style. Note that like all other "cloud-computing" services, this represents an implicit trust relationship with the TeamViewer server, even if the can of worms of relaying potentially sensitive over the internet is properly managed with secure / encrypted communication. Nimur (talk) 18:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC) )

IN FACEBOOK HOW DO I CHANGE MY STATUS???

HOW I CAHNGE MY STATUS ON FACEBOOK FORM BREEN TO GREY? VERY IMPORTANT K THX I DONT WANT MY BF TO KNOW IM ON —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.15.144 (talk) 21:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Please don't type in all capitals. It is seen as shouting. Please also sign your posts with four tildes. - Kittybrewster ☎ 21:33, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe you click the "Chat" thing in the lower right of the browser window (mine says "Chat (37)" right now, for example), and then click "Options" at the top of the pane that pops up, and then click "Go Offline". Someone should test this to be sure. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

That's incorrect - when at your home or profile page there will be a text bar near the top of the screen which says "What's on your mind?". Just type what you like in there and click share to make it your status. AJCham 01:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The IP is referring to chat status -- she says "[g]reen to grey", where green is the green dot indicating a user is online to chat, and grey either refers to the grey moon indicating a user is idle (which wouldn't do much good in this situation) or the grey dot that appears next to a person's name when they go offline while you are chatting with them. Xenon54 (talk) 01:59, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

July 2

Does scala really have dynamic types?

I have only just started to play with Scala, so I am probably doing things the wrong way. I decided to convert a Java program that demonstrates that Javea is statically typed

class A {
	
	def f(param: P): String = {
		return "A.f(P)";
	}
}

class B extends A {
	override def f(param: P): String = {
		return "B.f(P)";
	}
	
	def f(param: Q): String = {
		return "B.f(Q)";
	}
}

case class P  
case class Q extends  P

		
object TestApp {
	
	def main(args: Array[String]) {
		val  pRefingP: P = new P();
		val  pRefingQ: P = new Q();
		val  qRefingQ: Q = new Q();
		
		val  aRefingA: A = new A();
		val  aRefingB: A = new B();
		val  bRefingB: B = new B();

		
		println("\t\t|\tP referencing P\t|\tP referencing Q\t|\tQ referencing Q");
		println("A referencing A\t|\t" + aRefingA.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + aRefingA.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ aRefingA.f(qRefingQ))
		println("A referencing B\t|\t" + aRefingB.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + aRefingB.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ aRefingB.f(qRefingQ))
		println("B referencing B\t|\t" + bRefingB.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + bRefingB.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ bRefingB.f(qRefingQ))

	}
}

The output of this is the same as for Java:

		|	P referencing P	|	P referencing Q	|	Q referencing Q
A referencing A	|	A.f(P)		|	A.f(P)		|	A.f(P)
A referencing B	|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(P)
B referencing B	|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(q)

Now You can achieve the result with a patern match:

class A {
	
	def f(param: P): String = {
		return "A.f(P)";
	}
}

class B extends A {
	override def f(param: P): String = {
			param match {
				case e:Q => return("B.f(Q)");	
				case e:P => return("B.f(P)");
			}
	}
}

case class P  
case class Q extends  P

		
object TestApp {
	
	def main(args: Array[String]) {
		val  pRefingP: P = new P();
		val  pRefingQ: P = new Q();
		val  qRefingQ: Q = new Q();
		
		val  aRefingA: A = new A();
		val  aRefingB: A = new B();
		val  bRefingB: B = new B();

	println("\t\t|\tP referencing P\t|\tP referencing Q\t|\tQ referencing Q");
		println("A referencing A\t|\t" + aRefingA.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + aRefingA.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ aRefingA.f(qRefingQ))
		println("A referencing B\t|\t" + aRefingB.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + aRefingB.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ aRefingB.f(qRefingQ))
		println("B referencing B\t|\t" + bRefingB.f(pRefingP)
				+ "\t\t|\t" + bRefingB.f(pRefingQ) + "\t\t|\t"
				+ bRefingB.f(qRefingQ))

	}
}

This gives the expected result:

		|	P referencing P	|	P referencing Q	|	Q referencing Q
A referencing A	|	A.f(P)		|	A.f(P)		|	A.f(P)
A referencing B	|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(Q)		|	B.f(Q)
B referencing B	|	B.f(P)		|	B.f(Q)		|	B.f(Q)

This is not really dynamic dispatch though, the same thing could be achieved in Java by testing instanceof in the overridden method. I understood that Scala was a dynamic language, is this wrong? -- Q Chris (talk) 13:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

To answer your question's title, no Scala doesn't have dynamic types. (see Scala (programming language)#Static_typing) It does have dynamic dispatch, just like Java. I scanned through the source you posted, and perhaps the language feature you are looking for is Multiple dispatch, aka. multimethods? Zigorney (talk) 14:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Website

I want to host a small website on my home computer, with a number of pages, images etc, probably 50mb total size. Will 40 KB/s upload speed be way too slow? That's all my ISP gives me (btw I've checked if I'm allowed to host a site, and they said I am) 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:42, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It really depends on the images, and the amount of viewers you are excepting. If this is a site for a limited audience, and you won't usually get many viewers at the same time, and you're not hosting high resolution photos or screen captures, it should be okay. Also, if it's just HTML and images, it's easy to transfer to another host if things seem too slow. So no harm in trying.

If you'd like to tell us more about what your site is all about, I'm sure we can help more on the specifics. If you want photos, for example, there's plenty of free photo hosting sites out there, which allow you to embed the photo in your own page, saving your upload bandwidth. Zigorney (talk) 18:36, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It sounds to me as if you want your ISP to host your website. I'll assume for now that this is so. You don't suggest that your site is one to which viewers will be able to contribute. If they indeed won't, then the only person affected by upload speed will be yourself -- the speed will neither affect nor be affected by the number of people who view the site. Now some simple division: fifty thousand kilobytes at forty kilobytes per second. Is the quotient OK for you? -- Hoary (talk) 20:07, 2 July 2010 (UTC) ...... PS Uh, not quite. The upload speed will be forty kilobits per second, so multiply the time by eight. No, by ten or so, to account for error-checking and so forth. -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Good call, this might very well be about hosting space offered by the ISP. I hope we'll hear more from the questioner. Zigorney (talk) 20:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The way I interpreted the question, I think the OP is a subscriber to a residential broadband service, and plans to host the server in his/her own home. This means his/her "upload" speed is important - every page queried will be transfered via the ISP connection to the client at the "upload" speed. For this, 40 kbps is functional but it is not "high-performance." You might want to know that commercial hosting is pretty darned cheap - ~ $4 US per month nowadays, which is probably less than you will spend on electricity if you host the server in your closet. Nimur (talk) 20:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

And if all you are hosting are a few pages with a few images, you might as well just use Google Documents for free, no? It seems to me like a silly thing to waste one's up speed on, or to worry about security issues, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Unless it is for learning-purposes, or if you have special software/hardware needs, etc. Nimur (talk) 21:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

In addition the OP didn't say anything about security issues so perhaps they it's something they feel they have under sufficient control. Also in the past, the OP has mentioned having problems signing up to Gmail because of the requirements for a mobile phone in the UK which may make problems signing up for Google Docs but I'm under the impression Google have changed their policies anyway and actually I can't recall why the OP had no luck with the plenty of sites offering Google invites that I think existed at the time. There are of course plenty of free hosting services which provide various features and degrees of reliability so as with Nimur perhaps the OP has reasons for wanting to host the site themselves. (Besides what Nimur has explicitly mentioned an obvious one would be being uncomfortable with the privacy policies and/or history of the free hosting services, if you host it yourself while I can't stop people visiting it then doing dodgy stuff with it, at least you haven't potentially given them rights you have no desire to.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Audio Voiceover In Videos

Resolved

I'm putting some gameplay videos up on YouTube and various other websites, and a mate of mine has suggested that it might be better to add a voiceover - essentially to explain what I'm doing. Is there any software available (either for free or I already have it with Vista) that would accomplish this for me? I would prefer to record the screenplay of the game first, then record a voiceover to add to it later, not simultaneously (as XFire would allow). TIA! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I suggested he record the voice separately and glue the voice to the video using Windows Movie Maker. We just don't know how to record the voice. Vimescarrot (talk) 23:08, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

No, 'gluing' it is the problem. I have plenty of softwares that allow me to record audio. But thanks for the clarification. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Wait, what? (for clarification, I'm the mate who he discussed this with, although he doesn't seem to realise this.) Gluing it is the easy part. You just open the audio file and the movie in WMM and...well, yeah. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:14, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

That is what I'm on about! :) How!? It needs to be in synch with what's happening on the video - so, I suppose I should be asking 'will it be?'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:39, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Watch the video while you're recording the audio, then what you say will be in synch with what's happening. Then just fuse the two with WMM. 'course they'll be in synch, as long as you were in synch when you were talking. At this point I'm very confused about what you're asking. Vimescarrot (talk) 13:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Okeedokee. Let's take this back to MSN because it seems we're the only ones talking about this. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

July 3

Not so respectable search engines

This post got me thinking. Quest09 pointed out that only respectable search engines are going to follow robot.txt instructions for a website like Facebook. I know that we at Wikipedia have the NOINDEX template which similarly politely requests that search engines not point to that page. So my question is, what if I want to search for pages that are excluded from the indexes of respectable search engines. What non-respectable (but still pretty good) search engines could I use for searching these types of pages?. Buddy431 (talk) 01:43, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Building an asset register

Any suggestions for quick and easy (and free!) software I could use to create an asset register for a charity? Ideally, I'm looking for something that will run in Windows, scan the entire network of ~30 Windows PCs and list stuff like computer name, IP address, technical specifications, software installed, etc, then store the resulting report in a commonly used format like an Excel Spreadsheet or an Access Database so I can add other assets like printer, photocopiers, faxes and so on. Astronaut (talk) 03:23, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

The Dude from MikroTik is a excellent at mapping the network. It won't show you what software is installed on a PC, although if there are open ports you can make a guess.--TrogWoolley (talk) 13:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Securing Vista Home Premium on a shared computer

Any tips please for locking down program settings in Windows Vista Home Premium, especially Firefox and the NoScript addon? And how about software to automatically close all programs and log users out if the computer is left idle? I need to stop my baby sisters from messing up the computer my mum uses for web banking. Many thanks in advance! 86.136.139.69 (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

With the caveat that I use 'Win XP Pro' still, you could set up seperate Windows user accounts on the PC for each user, and one specifically for banking alone is a very good idea. If your baby sisters are old enough to use a PC a 'guest' or similar account for them is ideal, as it has limited user privileges, meaning thay can do less accidental damage. If you set up the PC to go on standby or sleep after a short period, in XP at least there is a checkbox that requires you to use your log on password to log back onto the PC. There should be a similar setting on Vista, though I am not certain Home Premium has this, I would be surprised if it didn't. Note that standby mode will NOT close all programs, merely require you to log on to the PC again after it goes on standby. Also try looking up "password" or "log-on" with the inbuilt Windows help functions (usually function key F1), it should lead to the info you require. -- 220.101 (talk) ^\Contribs 17:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

For your sisters use Windows SteadyState to create a completely locked-down account that deletes itself after logging off. I use it at work for our breakroom computers. It is an amazing program. --mboverload@ 21:36, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Merging Feedburner Feeds

I'm in the process of moving my blog to a new domain. I'd like to know if it's possible to keep all my RSS subscribers from the previous domain automatically -- can I move them over to the new feed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.189.6.78 (talk) 16:21, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Arithmetic result exceeded 32 bits

Hi everyone.

I got a new camera recently and accidentally set the date as 2009 rather than 2010, so all my photos show the wrong date. I used Windows Photo Gallery to fix them, but some refuse to be fixed. I try editing them individually and it says "Changes to the taps, caption, rating or date taken could not be saved to this file" (it does the same when trying to change a rating on the files). I then tried editing them via the right click peoperties command, and it came up with an "unexpected error" - "Error 0x80070216: Arithmetic result exceeded 32 bits". I tried editing the source file (rather than the copy) and the problem persists. I am running a 32bit Vista install on this pc. Does anyone know why this is happening, and whether it can be fixed? -mattbuck (Talk) 20:39, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Before someone comes along with a proper answer have you applied all the latest patches from Microsoft Update? --mboverload@ 21:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, could you find one of the images that you're having a problem with and try and edit it on another computer to see if you get the same error? --mboverload@ 21:34, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Computer is up to date. I'll try anotehr pc tomorrow. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:40, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

MATLAB Query

I am currently teaching myself to program (very basically) in MATLAB and am having trouble in understanding part of the code that is used in the guide I am working from. I would much appreciate it if someone could help me understand. My question is as follows: the code I used originally listed for me the squares from m to n for m<n and 0<m, with m and n integers. The code was then adapted to list the squares for m≤0 and also m>n. Ultimately there is only one line in the new code that I don't understand but the problem is that it completely baffles me as to how it works.

Original Code:

   Isquares=zeros(Ihigh-Ilow+1,2)
   for I=Ilow:Ihigh
      Isquares(I,1)=I;
      Isquares(I,2)=I*I;
      disp(['I = ' num2str(Isquares(I,1)) ', I*I = ' num2str(Isquares(I,2))])
   end    

New Code

  Ilow=round(Ilow); Ihigh=round(Ihigh);
  range=abs(Ihigh-Ilow)+1;
  Isquares=zeros(range,2);
  for I=1:range
      Isquares(I,1)=Ilow+sign(Ihigh-Ilow)*(I-1);
      Isquares(I,2)=Isquares(I,1)*Isquares(I,1);
  end
  end

Could someone please explain to me, step-by-step, what the bolded line is doing? Thanks 92.11.130.6 (talk) 21:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, solved it. 92.11.130.6 (talk) 11:31, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Engvar in firefox

Running Firefox 3.0.19 under Ubuntu (9.04 I think; not sure how to check quickly). After a recent update the spell-chequer apparently switched from US English to Commonwealth English. How can I change it back? I can't find a preference for it in either the Firefox or OpenOffice.org menus — bizarrely, a Google search suggests that the latter is relevant. (OpenOffice.org 3.0.1)

(Actually, my real preference would be to take the union of US and UK English — if I type the word furore it's unlikely to be by mistake. But if it has to put the red line under either aluminum or aluminium, I prefer it to call the second one the error.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know about OpenOffice, but you can install dictionaries for different dialects of English here and switch between them by right clicking in the edit box and selecting from the "Languages" menu. --59.95.108.152 (talk) 17:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

How electronic voting works??

I am posting here because its more computer related. How electronic voting works?? I mean, they ones that created the machine coulndt just put, that 1 in x votes to guy A goes to guy B, but still saying that he voted in the guy A? How electronic is reliable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.131.252 (talk) 22:48, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

First, you have to define what you mean by "electronic voting". That could simply refer to having some sort of electronic machine tally paper ballots, such as an Optical scan voting system that reads marks made on a paper (or holes punched in a ballot, or whatever). In these cases, there is a physical document (the paper ballot) that remains, which could be looked at by hand in case the results from the machine counting were in doubt (as happened in the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008. These types of machines can be quite reliable (or can be relatively unreliable, if they aren't built well). There is less of an opportunity for fraud, because if the machine's accuracy is in doubt, you can always go back and look at the paper ballots that it counted.

On the other hand, there are now some systems that use an electronic direct recording system to count votes. Direct recording systems are by no means new. It was common in the past in the United States, for example, for voters to literally "pull a lever" to indicate which candidate they wanted to vote for, which would mechanically increase some counter by one for that candidate. In a direct recording system, there is no physical ballot to fall back on if the machine's results are in doubt. This can increase the chance of miscounts (either mistakes, or deliberate fraud). With electronic (rather than mechanical) direct recording systems, it becomes even harder to ensure that votes are being tallied correctly, mostly because computers are a lot more complicated than even the most elaborate mechanical vote recording systems. Generally, the government running the vote would set strict standards on the electronic recording devices, to minimize the potential for these types of vote counting errors.

Our article Electronic voting is pretty detailed, covering both document based voting systems (filling out a ballot and having a machine read in) and direct voting systems. Additionally, the Voting machine article may be of some interest, for a broader look at how votes are (and historically have been) tallied. Vote counting is a logistically difficult task, and there are problems associated with nearly any method of tallying that you could come up with. Buddy431 (talk) 23:30, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about DRE voting machine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.131.252 (talk) 05:08, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Greasemonkey links

I'm trying to write a greasemonkey script that can list all the links on a page that start with

[<a href="page/

So for example "http://example.com/page/30" and "http://example.com/page/9" will be listed, but not "http://example.com/images/logo.jpg". Thank you for your help :) 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:18, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

var allLinks=document.getElementsByTagName('a');
var pageLinks=[];
for (link in allLinks)
{
    if(link.href.match(/page\//))
       pageLinks.push(link);
}

//The array pageLinks should contain all the desired links at this point.

--59.95.108.152 (talk) 16:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

program that will record anything

whats a program that will record anything on my pc screen and the audio too. i need it for a sporting event thats live streaming online tonight but i have to work so i wanna record it and watch it later —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexsmith44 (talk • contribs) 23:48, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Camtasia Studio will do the trick? There is a 30 day free trial version. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Bear in mind, such recording may well be illegal. --Tango (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It's just time shifting, which is covered by fair use provisions in the USA, anyway. But we aren't here to give legal advice one way or the other... --Mr.98 (talk) 01:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI: Fair use says nothing about time-shifting. The right to do this is covered by the Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. ruling. SteveBaker (talk) 11:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The case ruled that time shifting fell under "fair use". That a case clarified this is not unique; the fair use doctrine itself says nothing about much of anything specific (indeed it is maddeningly vague, putting basically all discretion at the hands of individual judges), and it is only through caselaw that specifics and precedents are ironed out. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:24, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I recommend Fraps. Our article List of screencasting software lists others. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:27, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

July 4

Splat!

If there is anyone else here who uses the program Splat!, I have a rather specific question. This morning I began a line-of-sight terrain analysis using the command line splat -t [tx_site].qth -r [rx_site].qth -p [terrain plot].png. It is now over 13 hours later, and Splat is still happily motoring along, sucking up a large percentage of CPU time in the process. All it claims to have done is loaded the appropriate terrain files (four of them) and written a site analysis report, both of which it did within seconds of starting up. Is it normal for Splat to take this long when performing analyses? The transmitter and receiver are also a little over 60 miles apart; could this have had any bearing on the time required? Thanks in advance, Xenon54 (talk) 01:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Youtube Player with A Video in E-mail

Does anybody know how to put a youtube player with a video in an e-mail message?? I don't want a web link, but a youtube player with a video that is ready to be played in the e-mail. 174.114.236.41 (talk) 04:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Due to security concerns any any proper email program would not allow you open a flash object (in this case a YouTube video) in an email you have received. Research says gmail will strip it out, as will Outlook. Your best bet is to just send them the link. --mboverload@ 06:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Wireless

Resolved

Is it possible to disable to wireless part of a WGR614 Cable/DSL Wireless Router? I have one which I want to use to network two computers to share the internet via ethernet cable, so the wireless part is pointless and I hate the thought of signals buzzing in my head all day long while it's in use. Short of opening the thing up and cutting the cable to the aerial, is there another way to shut off the wireless signals? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 09:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

If it is like a normal router, you can just go into the settings page and disable the wireless. No need to bring out the scissors. 121.72.189.19 (talk) 09:51, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I worked it out! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Sharing internet between two computers via a ethernet cable router

I get my internet via an ethernet cable. My computer (Windows 7) has two ethernet ports. I want to connect a second computer (Windows XP) to the first and share the internet between them. I connected a router (like the one in this pic) to the second ethernet port on Windows 7, and connected the XP computer to that router. Now the internet doesn't work on Windows 7, even though it's showing up on the Network and Sharing center as connected and working, and the second computer also isn't getting internet. What am I doing wrong? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Plug the router into the incoming ethernet cable at the wall - and then plug both computers into the router - that should work fine. SteveBaker (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't work either :( And the two computers still can't connect to each other 82.43.90.93 (talk) 11:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with what Steve says, are you using 2 ethernet cables from both computers into the router? Mo ainm~Talk 12:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The router thing has four ethernet ports and what looks like a phone connection. I connected both computers into the routers ethernet ports. Both computers detect the router, but they don't connect or detect each other 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the model number of the router? Jc3s5h (talk) 12:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Netgear dg834g 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe something here you are missing. Mo ainm~Talk 13:30, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I went though all of that and it's still not working :((( 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Try turning off router and both computers and leaving them off for 5 minutes before starting them up one at a time. - Kittybrewster ☎ 14:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I did, still nothing 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:44, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) That sounds simple enough to do, having read all of the above I still cannot fathom why this shouldn't be working. I have a setup like this at home myself. If you've already tried switching everything (both computers, router, modem (your internet cable needs to be coming from somewhere, for assurance reset the next device upstream from the router, this will be a modem in most cases)) off and on again, that leaves one question: have you configured the router? You might need to log onto the router itself (say accessing http://192.168.1.1 or a similar address from your browser). I had to do it for mine (TP-Link) when I bought it two months ago. Username and password are usually given in the instruction manual, as is the procedure to (auto)configure the device once logged in. If that step also doesn't help you, then I'm stumped to the bone. --Ouro (blah blah) 15:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably 192.168.0.1 admin password - Kittybrewster ☎ 17:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I can't find anything in the routers config pages which might help. Under "attached devices" it registers both computers and their mac addresses. But they're still not connecting to each other :( 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Understood. Are they both connecting to the internet? Do they have the same SSID? Kittybrewster ☎

return type

in a c programing, printf() is a commonly using in build function.now I am coat with a doubt whats its return type.Similarly what about scanf()? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.84.14 (talk) 16:31, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

printf returns the number of characters it printed (not including the terminating null). So printf("%d", 349) returns 3. scanf returns the number of arguments it successfully matched . -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The return type of both printf and scanf is int, regardless of the types indicated by their format strings. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

can u explain a bit more —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.84.14 (talk) 16:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

not any better than the articles printf and scanf, and the corresponding pages in your compiler/library's documentation can. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

what abour printf("abcd"); —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.84.14 (talk) 16:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

4 -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:43, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

• The man pages contain all you need to know about standard functions like printf. On *nix you can just do man printf to see the manual. --59.95.108.152 (talk) 16:49, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

print() and scanf()- c programing

i like to print/scan a set of data , it may be integer,charater,float,string,or mixed (there is no order that means data may 1001fdff10565anoog12102.552gfg or aadfd.hghg665gffgf55662055 or 10a or a or he is good boy or world cup 2010 or 21 cup 2010 or any combination.).then how to print or scan it

scanf really only works when the data is of a fixed format (strictly, clever handing of errors can allow some flexibility, but this quickly becomes more work than it's worth). If the data isn't of a fixed format, you'll have to examine the data yourself, character by character, and figure out what to do. Some cases may call for using a regular expression, and more complex cases may require a formal parser. There isn't, and can't be, a general library function that takes data in any random format and somehow divines meaning from it. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:41, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

syntax

i need commonly used tags or syntax of pascal.Can u help me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.84.14 (talk) 16:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

If you mean the Backus Naur form of the Pascal programming language, try this. If you mean you want to know how to do some basic programs in Pascal, try the Pascal programming wikibook. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:49, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

formating output

i wand to display 2 raised to some no (ie; 2^3) using c programing.how? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.84.14 (talk) 16:49, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

By using the appropriate document format (e.g. RTF, HTML, etc.) While you could attempt that using printf, it requires a massive kludge and is easier just to sidestep the issue. --Sigma 7 (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

dump mediawiki articles' source to text file

Hi, I have a personal mediawiki installation and I just want to get the mediawiki source for every article (or even better, certain articles with source matching a regular expression). What is the easiest way to do this? Is there a mediawiki extension/plugin that I can use? Is there mysql code that will reconstruct the source and I can dump that to a text file? Whatever is easiest/quickest is what I'm looking for right now. Character encodings, multimedia, etc. don't really matter to me. Thank you for your help. --Rajah (talk) 18:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Why such a long-winded bookmarking procedure in Firefox?

To bookmark the page that I'm viewing in Firefox I have to:

1) Click "Bookmarks"

2) Click "Bookmark this page"

3) Click "V" on the "Edit This Bookmark" menu

4) Choose from a menu

5) Click "Done"

Why cannot I just:

a) Click something that means "Bookmark this page"

b) Choose from a menu

c) Click "Done"

The later procedure would avoid the pointless showing of two different menus at 2) and 3). Thanks 92.15.12.165 (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2010 (UTC)