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October 17
windows vista wifi problems
I'm trying to figure out why my brother's windows vista laptop suddenly won't connect to the internet any more. The connection would be through the wifi access point which is in the same room and which works fine with other computers. It worked fine with my bro's computer until yesterday or so, but he seems to have screwed around with some settings or something, that messed it up. Now the laptop's connection manager finds the AP and connects to it just fine, but the browser (IE8, I think) says it can't connect, and "diagnose problem" gives a useless message like "windows can't resolve this problem". More generally, what kinds of methods does one use to diagnose this type of thing? I don't see any way to get any indication of what is actually going wrong. Windows Vista doesn't even seem to have a way to get a DOS prompt any more (or anyway I don't see it in the start menu, but I'm a Unix user clueless about Windows in general). Thanks. 72.89.106.242 (talk) 04:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- First, move the laptop next to the WiFi transmitter, just to check that there aren't any problems with interference. Then, in Windows "Network and Sharing Centre" (from Control Panel), click "Manage Wireless Networks" (on the left). The WiFi should show here, and you can configure the laptop to connect automatically (and even if the network is not broadcasting). In "security", you can check that the correct encryption is being used by the laptop, and the correct security key (check with other connections). The "diagnose and repair" option should then reconnect, but, if it doesn't work, try resetting the network adaptor, and try disconnecting, then reconnecting manually. I have regular problems with my WiFi and I often go through these processes (in desperation, probably unnecessarily). Vista on my laptop keeps losing contact, but in my case it is probably a weak signal (through two walls) and a dodgy WiFi router, plus an intermittent internet connection.
- Vista has an emulation of the "DOS prompt". Just click "Start" then "Run", and type "command". You will then appear to be in DOS and can "ping" etc. (though everything is passed to Windows routines to execute the commands). Dbfirs 08:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Run "cmd", not "command". "command" brings up command.com, the old 16-bit command prompt from Win9x, running under NTVDM. "cmd" brings up cmd.exe, a Windows application that will work better and faster. -- BenRG (talk) 18:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Go to the command prompt as described above, then type "ipconfig /release" (without quotes) and then "ipconfig /renew". This might clear whatever problem the connection is having. Also check Internet Explorers proxy settings and make sure that it's got the right settings 82.44.55.25 (talk) 10:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Router (India) Santhosh.Sharma (talk)
I have been using for the last few years a router with two ethernet ports for connections and a third one for management, and this router has been used to connect two Local Area Networks, but now we also need to connect another LAN as well as to the internet, so can anyone here recommend a router with atleast four GbE RJ45 ports plus one for management configuration. Many thank you very much.
- Are you saying that you need to connect a third LAN to the internet, or do you want to combine the three LANs into one bigger LAN and connect that to the internet? Rocketshiporion♫ 08:25, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Each the three LANs has servers which must connected to the internet in order to service the internet to each of their desktops so their users can use the internet. These are under three domain names servers. Santhosh.Sharma (talk) 08:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Do you mean that each of the three LANs has a DNS server which needs to connect to the internet? If this is the case, you may want to connect the three servers to a high-speed switch, and connect the switch to your router. Rocketshiporion♫ 08:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
convert dvd camcoder to memorystick type..
Hi, i have a dvd -rw type sony camcorder.its dvd is quite costly and the model i have is also no more produced by the company.is there any way to convert or attach a memory stick to it.I have a sony dvd-dcr-705.Kindly help .. Thanx in advance..
59.93.129.55 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC).
- I'm no expert, but I don't think there is any way of attaching a memory stick to it, no. If it has no USB port on it, then you can't stick a USB memory stick in it. Apologies. You could always go about buying a Flip camcorder. They're cheap and have a built in memory stick.--Editor510 drop us a line, mate 16:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- That model apparently was only sold in Latin America and I can't find documentation for it, but the model with the most similar number (DCR-DVD010) was apparently capable of using memory sticks as storage devices, as described at this page. Looie496 (talk) 17:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- If your camera doesn't support memory sticks, a more plausible possibility may be hacking it to support normal DVD-RW. DVD-RW are hardly that expensive, even 8cm ones which I guess the camcorder takes although storage space is gonna be a bit limited compared to many memory sticks. See [1] and [2] for example. Remember of course you can copy the contents of the DVD-RW and re-use them many times if you keep them in good condition. BTW I don't know about the accuracy of the claim it was 'only sold in Latin America' as I find references to it in Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. [3] for example doesn't say it supports memory sticks. [4] in the US mentions is as a PAL camcorder so perhaps it was sold in many or most PAL countries. BTW I justed noticed that Amazon and the earlier the Australian link mentions it supports DVD+RW as well as DVD-RW so I guess you may have both as options. And BTW are you sure you need to use the Sony branded media? I find references (the Verbatim media link for example) which suggest at worst you may have the camcorder complaining ("Sony disc recommended") if you use non Sony branded media. Have you ever actually tried non Sony branded media? If not, perhaps there's no need for hacking at all. Nil Einne (talk) 09:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- That model apparently was only sold in Latin America and I can't find documentation for it, but the model with the most similar number (DCR-DVD010) was apparently capable of using memory sticks as storage devices, as described at this page. Looie496 (talk) 17:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Can I make an audio file?
Can I make an audio file out of spoken word, as produced in TextEdit (OS X, Mac computer), that can be put onto my iPod? Bus stop (talk) 11:48, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm a bit confused as to what you want, but it sounds like you either want text to speech software (of which there are many free options), or, if you are talking about simply recording spoken words, a program like Audacity will easily do this. iPods accepts a variety of file formats; mp3 is pretty common. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- As I read it, you're looking for a program to record the computer generated speech as it 'reads' a text file. Again Audacity could help you here as it can record streaming audio (effectively whatever is coming out of your computer's speakers). --jjron (talk) 14:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- At http://etc.usf.edu/techease/4all/learning/how-do-i-use-the-speech-service-in-mac-os-x-to-record-text-into-an-audio-file/ you will find instructions for doing exactly what you want to. Looie496 (talk) 17:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Looie496—I don't know what I'm doing wrong. It doesn't work. I'm referring to the supposed ability to add TextEdit files to iTunes as a Spoken Track. I've gone through all the steps, carefully, several times. But iTunes is not opening as it should (at the point at which you click "Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track"), and no recorded track is to be found in iTunes.
- I also downloaded Audacity, but I haven't looked into it much, so far. Bus stop (talk) 21:24, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I only did a Google search and found that page that claims to do what you want, I have absolutely no understanding of it. Looie496 (talk) 21:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- OK. Thanks. It's great. It seems perfect. Maybe Apple disabled it or something. Thanks again. Bus stop (talk) 21:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Followup: Yes, that feature doesn't seem to be functioning at this time, according to this explanation. But there is this workaround, and it works. One drawback is the awful sound of the "System Voice." They ought to make it more mellifluous. Thank you to all. Bus stop (talk) 13:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
How to install Java?
I am using Linpus Linux. I think it's Red Hat or Fedora-based. Anyway, I need help, because, as per usual, these instructions are written for people who know more about UNIX. Now, I'm not UNIX-illiterate, I do understand some of it, but this is just confusing. Where the hell would I find the /usr/java directory?! Can someone please point me in the right directions?--Editor510 drop us a line, mate 16:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Right, more detail now. I do have a /usr/ area, but there's no /usr/java. The bastard's not letting me create a new folder, either. Any suggestions?--Editor510 drop us a line, mate 16:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- On Linux, normal users can't edit /usr/ for security reasons. Use either
su -
orsudo bash
to become the root user (system administrator), and then try the instructions again. The first method will want the root password, then second your password. When finished, enter 'exit' to become you again. CS Miller (talk) 16:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- On Linux, normal users can't edit /usr/ for security reasons. Use either
- You can find very detailed and straightforward instructions at this page. Looie496 (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Since Linpus is based on Fedora, you might find this page more helpful. Fedora has packages for Java which work better with the OS than something you'd install manually. -- JSBillings 14:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
cost to replace a netbook's lcd screen
if a netbook (eee pc in my case) has a cracked lcd screen, is it even worth replacing? How much would that cost, including parts + labor (unless I could do it myself without too much trouble). The model in question is this one. 188.174.74.76 (talk) 16:52, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Unless still under warranty, replacement screens for laptops have traditionally been very expensive from the original manufacturer. They are available on eBay (for example, this advert suggests prices around £60 + shipping), but you would need to fit it yourself - something that is not easy to do. If you do go for this, I suggest you download a service manual first and study it very carefully until you are sure you are able to complete job, and only then order the replacement screen. Astronaut (talk) 20:01, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Visual C++ equivalent to Eclipse's Outline View
Yet another question. Again, I'm sorry for all the questions. Is there such an equivalent? KyuubiSeal (talk) 18:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Questions are welcome...you may be looking for Visual C++ Class designer, Visual C++ Class viewer, or Object Browser. Smallman12q (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, thank you! KyuubiSeal (talk) 20:49, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
ethernet switch
I ask this question previously about hubs, and people said to get a "switch". Today I finally managed to get an "8 port fast ethernet switch". So the question is; can I plug a cable modem into the switch, then plug two computers into the switch as well, and they will share the internet connection? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 18:55, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- I might be wrong on this but I don't think that it will work (i'm open to correction though) as you are trying to use the switch as a router but I think you could designate one of your computers as an Internet host. Then Install a second NIC in to this computer and plug your modem into that. Set up Internet Connection Sharing, and then connect the other computer to the host through the switch. Mo ainm~Talk 19:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- If your PC has an IP address in the form 192.168.???.??? then it will work, otherwise you'll need a machine to do Network address translation (NAT) for the machines. If your cable-modem also has WiFi or mutliple ethernet ports, then it will NAT, if not then it may-or-may-not. CS Miller (talk) 19:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Usually not, since switches can't normally handle IP addresses. They usually only work for local networks, and address computers by using their MAC addresses. What make and model of switch is it? Most people who use switches connect the switch to a router and then the router to a modem. They do this because a router usually only has four ports on the back. So, if you run a company with more computers, you'd need either a second router or a switch (or even a hub) to connect to the router.
- Also, why did you decide to buy a switch? It's actually kind of hard to find switches in retail stores nowadays, since routers have become so cheap, and since routers are more powerful than switches. Hubs are even more rare, so I'm also curious who told you to buy a hub before this.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The make is "Edimax 8 port fast ethernet switch 10/100 mbps, Palmtop size". I can't find a model number on the box or on the device. I got the switch because people said the hub I had would cause collisions of data and was outdated, and I got the hub because people said just connecting a normal ethernet cable between two computers wouldn't work. This was the thread. Anyway, so the switch can't be directly connected to the cable modem? Ok, thanks for the information 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:57, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Wait, wait, wait. The above answers are mostly nonsense. Every cable modem I have experience with over the last 10 years can be connected to a switch, and then you can connect multiple computers to the switch to share the connection. The cable modem itself (not the switch) acts as a DHCP server and each computer gets its own IP address in this situation. Best Dog Ever: You must be confusing switches with hubs when you claim it's hard to find a switch. I buy switches every month from the local computer store. Original poster: Just plug it in and see. It should work fine. If you were to get a router instead of a switch then you'd have a 100% chance of success. Without knowing what cable modem model you have, I'll say that using a switch in the way you describe carries about a 98% chance of success. The only way this will fail is if your cable modem lacks the ability to be a DHCP server, which I'll say has a 2% chance of being true. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Given the fact that I'm a CCNA, rest assured that I know the difference between a hub and a switch. Also, all of the cable modems I've owned can't be connected to a layer-two switch. I have seen some cable modems that are also routers, but my ISP will only give you one of those if you request it. There are some layer-three switches that can assign local IP addresses, but I don't think the Edimax 8-port fast ethernet switch is one of them. The switch I own (Netgear DSS-5+) can be connected to my modem, but each computer connected to it will get a separate public IP address. And, since I'm allowed only one public IP address, only one of those computers will be able to connenct to the Internet. The switch does not have a built-in DHCP server. Layer-two switches are called that because they operate at the second layer of the OSI model. MAC addresses work at the second layer. IP addresses work at the third.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I concur with what Best Dog Ever states above and I was also going on the assumption that it was a Layer 2 Switch. Mo ainm~Talk 18:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Given the fact that I'm a CCNA, rest assured that I know the difference between a hub and a switch. Also, all of the cable modems I've owned can't be connected to a layer-two switch. I have seen some cable modems that are also routers, but my ISP will only give you one of those if you request it. There are some layer-three switches that can assign local IP addresses, but I don't think the Edimax 8-port fast ethernet switch is one of them. The switch I own (Netgear DSS-5+) can be connected to my modem, but each computer connected to it will get a separate public IP address. And, since I'm allowed only one public IP address, only one of those computers will be able to connenct to the Internet. The switch does not have a built-in DHCP server. Layer-two switches are called that because they operate at the second layer of the OSI model. MAC addresses work at the second layer. IP addresses work at the third.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't know why Best Dog Ever thinks combined modem/routers are rare things. Every broadband modem I've seen in the UK has had at least two, and more usually four, ethernet ports on the back, a built-in DHCP server and NAT addressing - maybe the situation is different elsewhere in the world. Unless you have other network devices there should be connectivity for your two computers to share the one internet connection through the modem/router and for file/print sharing across the network as well, all with no need for an additional hub, switch or router. Astronaut (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- My cable modem only has one ethernet port 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- What happened when you hooked up the switch to it, and hooked your PCs up to the switch? (And if you are hesitating to try the experiment for some reason, we could put this to rest if you could tell us the manufacturer and model number of your cable modem, so someone can go look up whether it's a DHCP server.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The model number is "ambit e08c013". I have not tried connecting the switch because the last time I tried connecting different things to the cable modem I lost the internet for hours because the "host table" on the ISPs server had reached it's maximum allowed allocation of ip address. I want to be sure it will work before risking that again 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- From a quick search I think your SOL, the ambit e08c013 appears to be a modem only from what I can tell. You can either buy a router (whether 1 port in which case you'll still need the switch or multiple port in which case you probably won't) or set up one of your computers to function as a router (which will mean the computer will have to be on for the internet on the others to work and may also post security concerns if you're only using one network adapter for both the connection to your LAN and your modem) whether via software for the computer or something in a VM (e.g. m0n0wall). Well if you have a spare computer you can also set it up to be a standalone router (I use m0n0wall as my router for various reasons even though I actually have a 1 port ADSL2+ router/modem). If this spare computer has 2 NICs all the better. Nil Einne (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Is that not what I said in my first post Nil Einne? Mo ainm~Talk 18:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Mostly yes although it wasn't clear at the time whether the modem had router/NAT functions (many single port ones do, I've actually never come across an ethernet ADSL modem without some sort of router functionality although I'm sure they exist). Also you specified they must use a second NIC, this isn't necessarily the case depending on the modem and other factors. In fact with a VM you could probably somehow set it up with only one NIC if necessary (even if the modem uses DHCP, assign private IPs in a range the modem won't see to the other computers turning off DHCP so they never take the public IP and with only the VM having DHCP it will be the only thing to ever take the public IP). You could say this is somewhat cheating though since in that case you do have virtual NICs. However I think with mosts OSes even without a VM you should be able to do something similar with the right software. Of course considering the added complexity and security risks of such a set up and low cost of a second NIC, it's likely easier to just use a second NIC. Also setting up a router solution with only one NIC and without using a VM is I think harder then I thought it would be, at least without vlans. Nil Einne (talk) 09:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Is that not what I said in my first post Nil Einne? Mo ainm~Talk 18:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- From a quick search I think your SOL, the ambit e08c013 appears to be a modem only from what I can tell. You can either buy a router (whether 1 port in which case you'll still need the switch or multiple port in which case you probably won't) or set up one of your computers to function as a router (which will mean the computer will have to be on for the internet on the others to work and may also post security concerns if you're only using one network adapter for both the connection to your LAN and your modem) whether via software for the computer or something in a VM (e.g. m0n0wall). Well if you have a spare computer you can also set it up to be a standalone router (I use m0n0wall as my router for various reasons even though I actually have a 1 port ADSL2+ router/modem). If this spare computer has 2 NICs all the better. Nil Einne (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- The model number is "ambit e08c013". I have not tried connecting the switch because the last time I tried connecting different things to the cable modem I lost the internet for hours because the "host table" on the ISPs server had reached it's maximum allowed allocation of ip address. I want to be sure it will work before risking that again 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- What happened when you hooked up the switch to it, and hooked your PCs up to the switch? (And if you are hesitating to try the experiment for some reason, we could put this to rest if you could tell us the manufacturer and model number of your cable modem, so someone can go look up whether it's a DHCP server.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Mandelbrot set
Does anyone know where I could download an SVG of the Mandelbrot set from? ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 19:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- It's just not something that lends itself to a vector format(see caveat below); it's an intrinsically bit-mapped format. You can always force a bitmap into SVG, but it's not a good idea - the 800x600 jpg version of File:Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg, when turned into a SVG by ImageMagick's convert, balloons from 41K to 26M; that's because it's been rendered in SVG as about half a million tiny circles (and the resulting SVG is, unsurprisingly, entirely unviewable). Caveat: strictly, I suppose someone could write a Mandelbrot (etc.) engine that a priori targeted a vector format, it might (I'm just guessing, really) be able to produce a multi-scale (but not deeply so) vector image. While this might be fun to write, it'd likely produce an image quite unlike what you're used to (perhaps rather Braque-y), and surely still much less space-efficient than a bitmap. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- I doubt an SVG representation would be doable or visually meaningful. the Mandelbrot attractor is (if I remember correctly) everywhere non-differentiable, so one can't break it down into simple arcs or lines as an SVG does. further, the coloration is usually based on escape trajectories for points not in the set itself, and I have no idea how you would capture that in SVG format. --Ludwigs2 21:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- If you're willing to really have just the set, rather than pretty pictures that really show the execution of the algorithm, it's possible to analytically construct a mandelbrot with (I think) just cardiods and circles. Circles are SVG native; I don't think cardioids can strictly be represented with the splines SVG uses, but it's possible to hack them up (like this). Illustrated right is a comparable rendering, just with circles, of a similar fractal. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:55, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
computing - software
to whom it may concern
my question is simple.
why is software written in English. in the sense that commands and actions are in this language
thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.59.20.61 (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- You might find the Non-English-based programming languages article relevant. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Also see English in computing. This is probably due to the fact that English was among the first languages to have Character encoding and early computers did not have sufficient capacity to store multiple character languages. Also, early computing made heavy usage of assembly language which was also written with English characters. You should be aware though that though software is written in English, or other languages, it is usually compiled to binary code which is language independent.Smallman12q (talk) 23:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- I interpreted this as a question about user interfaces, not about program source code. User interfaces are not always in English - it's just that much software is written by English-speakers. Internationalization and localization is the process of designing software to be easily translated for users of different languages (and regions). But, it's expensive - it requires technical rework of the code and detailed knowledge of foreign languages. Hiring programmers who speak multiple languages is prohibitively expensive for many companies (and free software projects). But many commercial softwares (such as Windows and Microsoft Office) as well as many free softwares (such as Ubuntu and OpenOffice.org) are available with user interfaces in dozens of languages. Nimur (talk) 04:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- You don't need a multi-lingual programmer. What normally happens is there is a look-up table for each language. Each table contains multiple StringID:Translation entries; the program loads the appropriate table for the language it is using at present. When it needs to display a string, it looks up by the StringID (which is fixed for each message), gets the human-readable string, and displays it. The initial table is normally written in English, and the English look-up table is sent to a human translator to convert it one of the targeted languages. This is repeated for each supported language. However, hiring the translators is expensive, and each time the UI messages are changed, the new messages need to be sent off to get translated. Also, as the displayed length of the messages changes per language, the dialog boxes need to be checked in each language to see that they are laid out correctly, which adds to the testers time. CS Miller (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- <rant>Seperating programmers from translators is not always a bright idea. Firefox 3.6.10, to this day, contains a bug when you try to save a bookmark - the title of the pop-up screen where you can enter the description for the bookmark probably says "set bookmark for this page" in English, the German translation turned it into "Lesezeichen für diese Seite gesetzt" ("Bookmark for this page has been set") - when it clearly hasn't been set yet. Clearly, the translator had no idea where the string belongs in the application, and, lacking context, picked a wrong translation. Not sure how QA is implemented in the Firefox translations, but this bug going unnoticed/unfixed for so long, when it's in such a prominent place, is pretty disappointing.</rant> Now, does anybody know how to quickly file that bug without jumping through various you-need-to-create-an-account-first hoops? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, the English text in 3.6.10 is "Page Bookmarked", and I think in earlier versions of the new bookmark dialog it was "This page has been bookmarked" or some such. I think it's bizarre too, but it's not a clueless translator, it's a clueless UI designer (or clueless users who don't see that this is really a good thing). -- BenRG (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- <rant>Seperating programmers from translators is not always a bright idea. Firefox 3.6.10, to this day, contains a bug when you try to save a bookmark - the title of the pop-up screen where you can enter the description for the bookmark probably says "set bookmark for this page" in English, the German translation turned it into "Lesezeichen für diese Seite gesetzt" ("Bookmark for this page has been set") - when it clearly hasn't been set yet. Clearly, the translator had no idea where the string belongs in the application, and, lacking context, picked a wrong translation. Not sure how QA is implemented in the Firefox translations, but this bug going unnoticed/unfixed for so long, when it's in such a prominent place, is pretty disappointing.</rant> Now, does anybody know how to quickly file that bug without jumping through various you-need-to-create-an-account-first hoops? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- You don't need a multi-lingual programmer. What normally happens is there is a look-up table for each language. Each table contains multiple StringID:Translation entries; the program loads the appropriate table for the language it is using at present. When it needs to display a string, it looks up by the StringID (which is fixed for each message), gets the human-readable string, and displays it. The initial table is normally written in English, and the English look-up table is sent to a human translator to convert it one of the targeted languages. This is repeated for each supported language. However, hiring the translators is expensive, and each time the UI messages are changed, the new messages need to be sent off to get translated. Also, as the displayed length of the messages changes per language, the dialog boxes need to be checked in each language to see that they are laid out correctly, which adds to the testers time. CS Miller (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- If the translator is given the the application and user-manual in the original language, and instructions on how to access all the dialog boxes, then they can see all the messages in context, and thus make a better translation. CS Miller (talk) 21:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- <quote>and instructions on how to access all the dialog boxes</quote> - and here lies the problem. Either such instructions aren't made available to the translator, or the translator doesn't care about them - that's my experience with most botched translations I encounter. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 22:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- If the translator is given the the application and user-manual in the original language, and instructions on how to access all the dialog boxes, then they can see all the messages in context, and thus make a better translation. CS Miller (talk) 21:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- English is the lingua franca of programming language keywords and library functions. The advantages of a common language far outweigh the disadvantages in a situation like this. English won out because so much pioneering work in programming languages happened in the U.S., though why that's true I'm not sure. -- BenRG (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
iPhone Clones
I've seen some iPhone clones that run Android and more that run Windows Mobile, but what operating system(s) do the other iPhone clones run? I've identified that a few of the big iPhone clones (namely, Sciphone and HiPhone) that are made by CECT—which is a subsidiary of ShenZhen HuiTimes Technology—run an operating system called MTK, a variant of Nucleus developed, I think, by MediTek, Inc., but what about the iPhone clones such as ePhone, Miphone, or iiPhone? --Melab±1 ☎ 22:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- MTK isn't the operating system but the chipset. The vast majority of cheap Chinese phones, including iPhone clones do use cheap MTK chipsets with Nucleus RTOS. The MTK chipsets are cheap and usually I think one chip solutions and MediaTek themselves provide a relatively complete solution including I think the OS and software for phones so it's easy for manufacturers to put something together, see [5] for example.
- Also the SciPhone and HiPhone and likely all of the complete clones are not made by CECT. The CECT branding is just as fake as any Apple branding. Very often no one really knows who makes these phones and there are many makers and different clones of the clones as for example firmware makers like Javquisoft and astute buyers have found out.
- In the case of the Sciphone, the originals appear to come from [6] who call themselves "Shezen Bluelans". [7] also has some helpful info on the phones (can't comment on their other stuff) although it may be getting a little outdated, and finally there are plenty of forums dedicated to discussion of clones.
- Nil Einne (talk) 06:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Free software java application for editing PDF file properties
Is there any (tiny) free/open source software, GUI, java application availabe, that comes in a .JAR file, and which lets me edit only those document properties of a PDF file that are stored inside the PDF file? (That is: I do not want the file properties that are handled by the operating system where the PDF is residing at the moment, because those will disappear when I send the file somewhere else).
--Seren-dipper (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- You're probably looking for software to modify PDF metadata...have you tried googling for a pdf metadata editor?Smallman12q (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you! :-)
--Seren-dipper (talk) 00:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you! :-)
October 18
Besides the iPhone, what is considered by reviewers to be the most beautiful smartphone...
purely from a design perspective?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 01:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- weird way to say it, but I think I know what you're trying to ask. probably the Xperia. 173.180.219.65 (talk) 02:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Hah, good luck with that. Beauty, it would seem, is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps you are looking for simplicity in design, by way of small shape and sleek lines? Or screen quality? Or durability? Or versatility? What is beauty to you? --Jmeden2000 (talk) 20:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Personally, I think a computer should look like a PS/2 and a mobile telephone should look like an SCR-300. Current market trends do not seem to satisfy my aesthetic needs. What happened to all the buttons and knobs? Those were the hallmarks of quality and configurability. Nimur (talk) 22:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- My xperia 10 is sexy like its owner... Sandman30s (talk) 07:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
trick gmail into thinking iphone is a computer
Hey, as you may know, gmail has a "fully" featured iPhone interface for gmail, but it doesn't contain a lot of the features from the desktop version (I'm mainly concerned with the "call phone" feature here), and although there is now a "desktop" view (button at the bottom of the page), it's still a simplified gmail with no google talk functionality. Safari is a fully functional browser with HTML5 support and all that, so it should be able to handle all the same feature that firefox can. Is there any way to trick gmail into thinking I'm not on an iPhone, i.e. by using a special URL or something? I have no reason to believe that google is actively blocking iPhone users from accessing the fully functional gmail interface, though I can't say I ever really know what google is thinking. Thanks! 173.180.219.65 (talk) 02:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Get a user agent switcher and make safari tell gmail that it's actually something else, like chrome or firefox. As for "call phone", this will not work, since the feature requires a browser plugin, which i don't believe exists for the iphone. 76.10.146.121 (talk) 06:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Call phone doesn't need a plugin, only the video feature does! BUT, I did find a user agent switcher (thank you!), and now it thinks I'm on Safari 5, and everything works BRILLIANTLY, BUT!!! call phone requires flash... doh! I think there is a way to get flash working for jb phones so I'll get to work on that. 173.180.219.65 (talk) 06:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't know what you mean by "jb phones", but the iPhone specifically doesn't support Flash. In fact, the notorious section 3.3.1 of the Apple developer agreement for the iPhone appeared to be a heavy-handed way to insure that Flash never made it onto the iPhone in any way. Paul (Stansifer) 12:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I guess that jb is the OP's shorthand for jailbroken. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, and there are now multiple band-aid solutions to the flash problem, though none of them are able to display all modern flash apps (understandable, since they are basically emulators), and unfortunately gmail detects them as lower versions of flash, so no "call phone" feature for me, yet. 173.180.219.65 (talk) 02:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I guess that jb is the OP's shorthand for jailbroken. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 17:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't know what you mean by "jb phones", but the iPhone specifically doesn't support Flash. In fact, the notorious section 3.3.1 of the Apple developer agreement for the iPhone appeared to be a heavy-handed way to insure that Flash never made it onto the iPhone in any way. Paul (Stansifer) 12:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Call phone doesn't need a plugin, only the video feature does! BUT, I did find a user agent switcher (thank you!), and now it thinks I'm on Safari 5, and everything works BRILLIANTLY, BUT!!! call phone requires flash... doh! I think there is a way to get flash working for jb phones so I'll get to work on that. 173.180.219.65 (talk) 06:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
screen blanking app - multiple screens
I have a TV hooked up to my laptop in a dual monitor setup, and I'm wondering if there's a little taskbar app/shortcut setup that will allow me to selectively blank (make black) either one of the screens; effectively putting half of the screen into screensaver mode. Thanks! 173.180.219.65 (talk) 05:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Would you want to revert to a single monitor desktop, or just blank the screen and keep what's underneath?Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 13:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Just the blanking yeah. Sometimes I do have stuff opened on the other screen, I just don't want it glowing while I'm watching a movie or something like that. Also, switching to one screen takes a few seconds (longer if the memory is being taxed!). 173.180.219.65 (talk) 02:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Function pointer
- Moved from the language reference desk. JIP | Talk 07:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Hello Friend,
Can anyone tell me ? What is the purpose of using pointer to function?
And void pointer function in C?
like void (*func)(int a, float b);
what is the difference between normal function and pointer function?
Regards, Antony Prabhu.M —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.53.225 (talk) 05:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- You'll have more luck asking this at the Computing reference desk. My intuition about this is that using a pointer to a function allows the function to be defined at runtime rather than explicitly in the code (similar to Python's lambda functions) but I am not an expert on this so you'd be better off asking one of the computer people. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:20, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- C does not allow the creation of functions at runtime. A pointer to a function is used for passing a pointer to an existing function as an argument to another function. A well-known example is the implementation of sort functions, such as quicksort (part of the standard library). Its prototype is
void qsort( void *buf, size_t num, size_t size, int (*compare)(const void *, const void *) );
- The last argument is a pointer to a function written by the user of the library, which specifies the sort-criterion to be used. In this example, the void* arguments of the compare function are pointers to the data elements that are to be compared, and void* buf is the start of the array to be sorted. A pointer to void in C is a "generic pointer", it can store an address to any data type, and will need to be converted a pointer to the correct data type before being used. Conversion is done using a typecast, or (in C, not in C++) implicitly in an assignment. --NorwegianBlue talk 06:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
C does not allow creating functions at runtime, but with function pointers, it allows switching between already created functions at runtime. You can define a variable of a function pointer type, and then assign any compile-time created function you want to this variable, as long as the signatures match. Calling this function pointer with the ()
operator then calls whatever function it is currently pointing to. JIP | Talk 12:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
VBA problem part 2
Hey, I want to move selected data from one table to another OnClick. The code that I'm trying to use at the moment is this but it's not working:
INSERT INTO Table![Merchant CCF] ([Customer Name], [Merchant Type], Partner, [Merchant Sector]) SELECT [Merchant Name], [Merchant Type], Partner, [Merchant Sector] FROM Table![Main Table]
Could someone perhaps let me know why it's wrong? Thanking you! PanydThe muffin is not subtle 12:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Full code is :
Private Sub CmdAddRecord_Click()
On Error GoTo Err_CmdAddRecord_Click
DoCmd.GoToRecord , , acNewRec
'Prevent user warnings
DoCmd.SetWarnings False
Dim SQL As String
SQL = "INSERT INTO Table![Merchant CCF]([Customer Name], [Merchant Type], Partner, [Merchant Sector]) SELECT [Merchant Name], [Merchant Type], Partner, [Merchant Sector] FROM Table![Main Table]"
DoCmd.RunSQL SQL
'Allow user warnings
DoCmd.SetWarnings True
Exit_CmdAddRecord_Click:
Exit Sub
Err_CmdAddRecord_Click:
MsgBox Err.Description
Resume Exit_CmdAddRecord_Click
End Sub
PanydThe muffin is not subtle 13:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Are you getting an error message? Are you sure it is not actually working (modifying the table) and just not updating the form? If I recall, if you do SQL operations in Access/VBA you usually need to have the form manually refresh its recordset before it'll show the new data. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not getting any error message at all but the table isn't updating either. It's very odd. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 13:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I thought as an alternative I'd try the following:
Private Sub Command83_Click()
Dim strSQL As String
Dim strCriteria As String
strSQL = ""
strSQL = strSQL & " INSERT INTO tblMerchant_CCF ([Merchant Name],[Merchant Type],[Partner],[Merchant Sector]),"
strSQL = strSQL & " SELECT ([Merchant Name],[Merchant Type],[Partner],[Merchant Sector]),"
strSQL = strSQL & " FROM tblMain_Table"
strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE (((tblMain_Table.ID) = me.ID AND ((tblMerchant_CCF.Test_ID) = me.Test_ID)))"
DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL
End Sub#
But I'm getting a run time error on that. Any ideas why? PanydThe muffin is not subtle 15:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- There's a superfluous comma at the end of the first line after [Merchant Sector]). What's the error message? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I fixed the commas but now it's saying: Compile Error: Method or Data Member not found. Eep! PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)- I've fixed the commas, I've fixed the errors with the data, now it's saying that it has a problem with the last line of code. At the moment it reads as follows:
Private Sub Command83_Click()
Dim strSQL As String
Dim strCriteria As String
strSQL = ""
strSQL = strSQL & " INSERT INTO Table![Merchant CCF]([Merchant Name],[Merchant Type],[Partner],[Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " SELECT ([Merchant Name],[Merchant Type],[Partner],[Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " FROM Table![Main table]"
strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE (((Table![Main table](ID)) IN ' & 1-5000 & ' AND ((Table![Merchant CCF](Test_ID)) IN ' & 1-5000 & ')));"
DoCmd.RunSQL (strSQL = [Yes])
End Sub
- I also tried the alternative
DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL
- No luck there either. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 10:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Once again, you really need to tell us the exact error message you're getting, not just "it has a problem with the last line of code" or "no luck". I don't have Access installed here so I can't try this out, but I believe the last line should be
DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL, False
- the second parameter indicates where the command is part of a SQL transaction, which I presume is not the case here. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)- The error on the last line simply means that the SQL doesn't make sense (this error will always be vague). "DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL" should work if the SQL is good. I can see several issues with this SQL. First I'd suggest using the .dot syntax instead of the !bang. "Table![Main table](ID)" should probably just be "[Main table].ID". Second thing, "me.ID" is unlikely to mean anything within a SQL statement. It should probably be outside the string if it refers to the form. Third thing, "IN ' & 1-5000" probably translates as "IN -4999". I'm not sure if "BETWEEN" works in Access/VBA, but it's worth trying (BETWEEN 1 AND 5000). I'd suggest using the second example code, with the comma fixed, with the last line like, " WHERE ( (tblMain_Table.ID = " & me.ID & ") AND (tblMerchant_CCF.Test_ID = " & me.Test_ID & ") )"
- Once again, you really need to tell us the exact error message you're getting, not just "it has a problem with the last line of code" or "no luck". I don't have Access installed here so I can't try this out, but I believe the last line should be
- Having made the changes both of you suggested (and thank you very very much for your patience) I now get Error 3134, Syntax error in INSERT INTO statement. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 13:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'd suggest posting the latest version. I'd also suggest, just before the "DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL" line, insert "MsgBox strSQL". A close look at the resulting SQL will probably reveal any errors. You can also get the SQL by adding a breakpoint (press F9) in the code editor at that point; run the code and when it breaks enter "?strSQL" into the "immediate window". -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- This is the latest version:
- No luck there either. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 10:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Private Sub Command83_Click()
Dim strSQL As String
Dim strCriteria As String
strSQL = ""
strSQL = strSQL & " INSERT INTO [Merchant CCF]([Merchant Name][Merchant Type][Partner][Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " SELECT ([Merchant Name][Merchant Type][Partner][Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " FROM [Main table]"
strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE ((([Main table](ID)) BETWEEN 1 AND 5000 AND (([Merchant CCF](Test_ID)) BETWEEN 1 AND 5000)));"
strSQL = strSQL & "MsgBox strSQL"
DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL, False
End Sub
PanydThe muffin is not subtle 14:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Modified (assuming all the field names are correct). Please note the changes:
...
strSQL = "INSERT INTO [Merchant CCF] ([Merchant Name], [Merchant Type], [Partner], [Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " SELECT ([Merchant Name], [Merchant Type], [Partner], [Merchant Sector])"
strSQL = strSQL & " FROM [Main table]"
strSQL = strSQL & " WHERE ( ([Main table].ID BETWEEN 1 AND 5000) AND ([Merchant CCF].Test_ID BETWEEN 1 AND 5000) )"
MsgBox strSQL
DoCmd.RunSQL strSQL
...
-- zzuuzz (talk) 14:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- The SQL statement is invalid because the SELECT query only uses [Main table], but the WHERE clause also mentions [Merchant CCF]. If you delete
AND ([Merchant CCF].Test_ID BETWEEN 1 AND 5000)
then it should be OK. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)- Is it possible for me to run more than one of these queries in a single module/button? If it is, how would I tell VBA that one query had ended and another one was going to begin? PanydThe muffin is not subtle 10:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- The SQL statement is invalid because the SELECT query only uses [Main table], but the WHERE clause also mentions [Merchant CCF]. If you delete
SVG unique Id's
This should ba a relatively easy question to answer but I simply can't find the answer anywhere. I have given everything in my SVG file a unique ID and wish to reference the shape over and over, just changing its position. For example if I wish to recall the following.
<circle id="0_logo" cx="190" cy="405" r="10"
style="fill:#000000;stroke:#FFFFFF;stroke-width:2;fill-opacity:0.1;stroke-opacity:1;"/>
Is this similar to when you call, for example a gradient.
<circle fill="url(#grad)" cx="410" cy="285" r="30"/>
Thanks in advance :) 195.49.180.89 (talk) 13:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Don't worry - I eventually found it :)
<use xlink:href="#0_logo"/>
195.49.180.89 (talk) 13:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I was considering full disk encryption (via TrueCrypt, on a Mac), and had some basic FAQ-style questions that I thought people might be able to help me with.
I know the upsides of FDE. But what are the practical downsides of full disk encryption? Is there a large performance hit? Where would the performance bottleneck be located (e.g. RAM, CPU, HDD access)?
If I went with FDE, how hard would it be to reverse if I decided that I didn't like it? Is it the sort of thing you can just say, "OK, disable it now," or would that require a whole lot of work?
Thanks in advance. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- It depends a lot on your CPU which will be doing a lot more work (the bottleneck is in the CPU). Truecrypt encrypts everything prior to writing to disk, and decrypts when reading...so it will make your comp appear slower (cascading will make it even more slow). Truecrypt comes with a benchmark tool, so you can see what your speed will be. As for undoing it, its a fairly straightfoward procedure...just takes a while (however long it takes to encrypt your entire hardrive + whatever else you add)...you really need to see what the benchmark tells you. Just remember that with truecrypt, if you forget your pass or the MBT and your rescue disk breaks...you can't get your data back. Smallman12q (talk) 14:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I've found truecrypt on Windows to be essentially transparent. If you use AES, it's been optimized to the point that the CPU hit is far less than my disks seem to put through. I've never had an issue. I don't know about on mac, and it has had some "concerns" from some linux distros about its license, although that's given their somewhat different standards. Shadowjams (talk) 09:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- As for undoing encryption, truecrypt does not support decrypt in place. (If you decide, that you do not want encryption, all data will have to be copied to unencrypted backup and orginal encrypted disk formatted (and data copied back)) -Yyy (talk) 09:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Actually I'm pretty sure it does for system disk encryption. On windows at least. Shadowjams (talk) 10:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- As for undoing encryption, truecrypt does not support decrypt in place. (If you decide, that you do not want encryption, all data will have to be copied to unencrypted backup and orginal encrypted disk formatted (and data copied back)) -Yyy (talk) 09:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
MediaWiki api in C++ language
hello... i usually develop in c++ using Qt framework. i want to make a tool related to mediawiki\wikipedia which require interacting with API and a login to the system .however, i cant find any wrapper for mediawiki api in c++, and i dont know any web language like PHP java Actionscript etc. Does anyone know of somehing like this or even an example using cURL library --Umar1996 (talk) 15:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I can't find a C or C++ library that wraps the API, but all is not lost. The API is fundamentally an HTTP GET that passes what you want in the URL and spits the data back in a variety of formats. If you can't locate a library, it's not terribly hard to do what you want yourself. Essentially you can
- perform a query with an HTTP library, retrieving the contents of a URL like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=Area_51&rvprop=content&format=json
- parse the content with an XML or JSON library (e.g. json-glib, libjson)
- It's certainly more knuckledraggery than using a wrapper that abstracts this, but it should work. I'll have a check through the archives of http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api and see if anyone has done this already. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Saving information from a html form
Can I update a text file or even a SQLite file with html alone? (it would be a local html page saving the information into a local file).--Quest09 (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Not really. HTML does not have the capability to save to a file by itself. For security reasons, JavaScript cannot open/save files. It can open/save cookies. You could install something like WAMP and then use a back-end scripting language to handle the file interface while HTML handles the user interface. That is rather common. -- kainaw™ 19:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- On Windows, you can create HTML Applications which lift almost all security restrictions, and allow you to access filesystem objects and start processes through JavaScript. I've successfully used it to launch a few curl sessions and monitor their download progress by watching the download folder. To access SQLite, you would have to have it wrapped as an ActiveXObject Unilynx (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- HTML is a markup language; it can't specify actions. However, it's possible to embed JavaScript and ActiveX and Flash into HTML, and the web browser viewing the page has the option of executing them. In order to affect "outside" things, it's necessary to disable security restrictions, as Unilynx said, which will make it possible (in IE on Windows at least; I don't think I've heard of other browsers having that option), but I suspect that it's awkward to do things this way. Paul (Stansifer) 11:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- A HTML application is a bit different from normal HTML - it uses a .HTA extension instead of .HTML, and disables almost all restrictions by default - no restrictions to disable. But it indeed doesn't work outside of Windows or IE (although other browsers won't take over the HTA extension unless you ask them to, so anything deployed as a .HTA is quite likely to work on Windows, even if the default browser is changed.) Unilynx (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
PXR format, why still in Photoshop?
Curious, why would Photoshop support the PXR image format, when less than 300 of the Pixar Image Computer systems were ever sold? Why not make it just available through a plug in? -- Zanimum (talk) 19:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Aren't all Photoshop image format support via plugin? Nil Einne (talk) 20:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Okay well I checked in case Adobe changed things since the many years ago when I last looked and in CS4 I'm still right, all file formats are indeeded support via plugin including Pixar (pixar.8bi) Nil Einne (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Because Adobe never removes features from Photoshop. For example, if you go to Image --> Image Size..., there still is the "Nearest Neighbor" option within the drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog. Nearest Neighbor is less sophisticated than the other options in the list. But, it is great for expanding screen shots, because it simply enlarges pixels. Photoshop is used by creative professionals, who find creative ways to use old functions in Photoshop. There's usually two or three ways to do the same thing in PS, because of the retention of old ways of doing things.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 20:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Taking a guess at what Zanimium's question was... A perhaps useful thing to remember here is the feature was probably implemented in the late 80s. At a guess it wasn't that hard to get Adobe to add support for file formats in those days. Provide the code for the plugin and provided it's decent code and the format not patent encumbered Adobe may be willing to include that plugin as part of their official plugin code. (Of course it's also possible Adobe coded the support themselves.) Particularly if you're developing $120k machines in those days. (Remembering of course Adobe doesn't have a crystal ball, part of being a good company is predicting what your customers may want before they want it, and while it seems Pixar file format support wasn't that important it wasn't a bad guess from the info at the time it may be and anyway despite the limited success of the Pixar Image Computers, the format may have been important enough for whatever effort Adobe put in to it.) Heck, I don't actually know if it's that hard to get Adobe to support an image format nowadays.
- In terms of why they haven't removed the plugin, well other then what BDE has said, the code is very likely rather simple since the format is uncompressed (on x32 and x64 CS4 Windows the plugin is the second smallest after WBMP) so likely not that hard to port between platforms or versions. I don't know enough about the 8bi plugin format but it's even possible there's no effort needed.
- Also while I don't know that much about software development, from what I know in general in large organisations for a variety of reason, some bureaucracy may develop. So for people in Adobe removing any file format support may not be just a matter of doing it, even agreeing in a meeting may not be enough, perhaps someone will need to write a document explaining why they're removing it which needs to be passed up the chain. (The only real reason to remove the format may be KISS and security reasons but given the likely simplicity of the code, these probably don't matter much.)
- More to the point (and somewhat in line with what BCE said), the people who did use Pixar Image Computers were likely large organisations who would be important customers to Adobe, customers who don't like unexpected changes, and customers who may sometimes maintain legacy stuff long after they were largely obsoleted. So while it's possible no one would care if pxr was removed, it's possible someone will and finding out after you removed it would be a bad idea. Sure you could survey all your customers, or hunt down whoever has ever owned Pixar Image Computers and ask them but that's will likely annoy them and it's a lot of effort for something (maintaining the support) which as I've said, is probably very little effort. And of course some people who never had Pixar Image Computers may have used (or even use) the format, as I said a lot recently, who knows? (It may even be someone in Adobe.)
- P.S. I didn't notice the header of this question until now. A reminder it's always helpful to mention anything important in the actual signed question.
- Nil Einne (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Other languages that can do COBOL business things
1) COBOL is an old language. What other languages can be used in place of COBOL (supersets of COBOL?), while still having good handling of dates and financial functions?
2) Is it really true or not that most serious business applications are still written in COBOL in the 21st century? Why? Even though COBOL may be a legacy language, why are not new programs written in something else? Thanks 92.15.28.219 (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- What's a serious business application? Nil Einne (talk) 20:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The sort of things that merchant banks or insurers might do for internal use. I do not mean websites. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The largest businesses in the world typically have contracts with major software and technology services companies - like, for example, IBM. IBM writes most of its application code in the Java programming language. As mentioned earlier on this desk, Java is currently the most widely used business programming language ([according to many surveys). That means new business programs are written in Java. It is difficult to estimate the quantity of legacy systems that still run COBOL programs; I am suspicious of commonly-repeated, vague claims that 40-year-old software still runs unmodified. Some existing systems certainly do run COBOL; there are probably even new programs and modifications still being written in COBOL; but these are exceptions, not norms. Consider IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS - the objective of this current product is to help integrate COBOL systems in to (reasonable) modern platforms that use Java and XML. Other COBOL tools exist, and the market is not "small", but it is hardly the mainstream. Nimur (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Although Nimur claims that Java is the most popular business language, the reference he/she cites in support of the assertion appears to be for any programming, not just business, and is therefore invalid. Whereas this http://www.cobolportal.com/developer/future.asp?bhcp=1 says that COBOL is the most popular for business applications. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- I would think that most applications that would in ancient days of yore have been done in COBOL would nowadays make use of databases and languages such as SQL. Looie496 (talk) 21:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The link the argumentative OP cites is to a "survey taken of professional business and industry employers who are using COBOL in their information systems". Presumably if you surveyed "professional business and industry employers who are using JAVA blah blah blah" you'd get a completely different impression. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I think SQL does not have any financial functions, so it would not be much use. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- It is true that there is a lot of COBOL code lying around: [8]. But, I think that those programs are mostly old apps. Hardly any new programs are written in COBOL. Many of the old COBOL programs in use aren't being updated or even patched. If you look on job web sites for COBOL positions, you won't find very many. Most job openings are for other technologies like Java and .NET. I haven't worked with Java much, but .NET contains quite a few financial and temporal functions and data types, making it popular with businesses.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 21:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Reading the article you linked to (aqnd ignoring the slight spin put on by the author) gives the opposite impression: eg 62% of organisations use COBOL, and it is the 2nd most popular language. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- On CareerBuilder.com, you will find 550 jobs if you search for the term "COBOL." If you search for "Java," you will find 7,431 jobs. If you search for ".NET" you will find 3,179 jobs. If it's the second-most popular language, why is it the least in-demand language in the workforce? Employers must not need much COBOL to be written, either as patches or new programs. Although there are programs in use that were written in COBOL, there are not many new programs written in COBOL. That's the conclusion I come to after reading that article and looking on a job board. In the article I linked to, there is a chart at the bottom showing that only 58% of the companies that use COBOL are using it to develop new applications.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- "Only" 58%! Thats over half of them! 92.15.28.219 (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- If 62% use COBOL, and 58% are writing new COBOL applications, then at most only 6% of COBOL users are dropping it for something else. 92.24.191.1 (talk) 09:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry what? If 62% of businesses use COBOL, and 58% of businesses that use COBOL (which was what BDE specified) are developing new applications with it that means 42% of businesses that use COBOL are dropping it (well either that or they are planning to use their current apps forever) and only ~36% of businesses are using COBOL for new applications. (If it helps, 100% of business that use COBOL, use COBOL. So 100% of businesses that use COBOL - 58% of businesses that use COBOL and are developing new applications = 42% of businesses that use COBOL and aren't developing new applications, presuming there's no inbetween like haven't decided or didn't answer.) I'm actually not sure where the 6% came at all since 62-58=4. Even if you are considering rounding, that would suggest the most is 5 (62.5-57.5). I do hope the COBOL developers for serious business applications are better at maths then COBOL supporters... Nil Einne (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- 1-(58%/62%)=6%. If you were into financial calculations, you would understand that. Despite your spin, 58% is still more than half. 92.15.29.194 (talk) 19:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry what? If 62% of businesses use COBOL, and 58% of businesses that use COBOL (which was what BDE specified) are developing new applications with it that means 42% of businesses that use COBOL are dropping it (well either that or they are planning to use their current apps forever) and only ~36% of businesses are using COBOL for new applications. (If it helps, 100% of business that use COBOL, use COBOL. So 100% of businesses that use COBOL - 58% of businesses that use COBOL and are developing new applications = 42% of businesses that use COBOL and aren't developing new applications, presuming there's no inbetween like haven't decided or didn't answer.) I'm actually not sure where the 6% came at all since 62-58=4. Even if you are considering rounding, that would suggest the most is 5 (62.5-57.5). I do hope the COBOL developers for serious business applications are better at maths then COBOL supporters... Nil Einne (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- If 62% use COBOL, and 58% are writing new COBOL applications, then at most only 6% of COBOL users are dropping it for something else. 92.24.191.1 (talk) 09:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- "Only" 58%! Thats over half of them! 92.15.28.219 (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- On CareerBuilder.com, you will find 550 jobs if you search for the term "COBOL." If you search for "Java," you will find 7,431 jobs. If you search for ".NET" you will find 3,179 jobs. If it's the second-most popular language, why is it the least in-demand language in the workforce? Employers must not need much COBOL to be written, either as patches or new programs. Although there are programs in use that were written in COBOL, there are not many new programs written in COBOL. That's the conclusion I come to after reading that article and looking on a job board. In the article I linked to, there is a chart at the bottom showing that only 58% of the companies that use COBOL are using it to develop new applications.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Reading the article you linked to (aqnd ignoring the slight spin put on by the author) gives the opposite impression: eg 62% of organisations use COBOL, and it is the 2nd most popular language. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Considering the job market for COBOL (it took me seconds to find an ad for a contract Cobol/CICS developer position in France, among many others) I would say there is still plenty of need for development in Cobol. Though, I strongly suspect most of the roles are related to maintaining legacy code rather than developing completely new systems. Astronaut (talk) 21:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- On CareerBuilder.com, you will find 550 jobs if you search for the term "COBOL." If you search for "Java," you will find 7,431 jobs. If you search for ".NET" you will find 3,179 jobs.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the answers to question 2). Are there any answers to question 1) please? 92.24.191.1 (talk) 09:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Why do you ask? You seem to have already made up your mind. You probably knew the answer to both long before asking about them here. Nimur and I both suggested some languages, but why would you listen when you already know everything about it?--Best Dog Ever (talk) 09:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't know the answers - be pointless asking wouldnt it? Nobody has confirmed that SQL or Java include the similar date and financial functions that I assume COBOL has. People have seemingly just plugged their favourite language. I'm doubtful if a database language would have financial functions, but I do not know. 92.24.191.1 (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- No-one buys into your assumption that such functions are a necessary precondition of the language being of use in financial software contexts. In short, you assume COBOL has some functionality and you assume that JAVA does not, and so you reject the clear and repeated answer to your question. Somewhat solipsistic. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Surely having financial and date functions makes writing a financial application easier and quicker? I cannot imagine that anyone would prefer to use a language that did not have them. (I'll ignore the personal digs, and bow to your superior vocabulary). 92.24.191.1 (talk) 11:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Having special functions for specialised needs does of course make things easier. That's presumably why we find the ability to add libraries of such functions to JAVA. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Surely having financial and date functions makes writing a financial application easier and quicker? I cannot imagine that anyone would prefer to use a language that did not have them. (I'll ignore the personal digs, and bow to your superior vocabulary). 92.24.191.1 (talk) 11:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- No-one buys into your assumption that such functions are a necessary precondition of the language being of use in financial software contexts. In short, you assume COBOL has some functionality and you assume that JAVA does not, and so you reject the clear and repeated answer to your question. Somewhat solipsistic. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't know the answers - be pointless asking wouldnt it? Nobody has confirmed that SQL or Java include the similar date and financial functions that I assume COBOL has. People have seemingly just plugged their favourite language. I'm doubtful if a database language would have financial functions, but I do not know. 92.24.191.1 (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Yes. An answer to 1 is SQL and JAVA. All of the work I've known about or been associated with for financial institutions (e.g. Nomura, Goldmans & others) has used these two. You harp on about "lack of date and financial functions" as if entirely unaware that should there be need for functions unsupported in JAVA, these can and are added as class libraries. We can only answer the question so many times before we get bored with your rejection. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think mentioning it once counts as "harping on". 92.24.191.1 (talk) 10:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- An anecdote: Because I am a good Cobol programmer, I have had three Cobol contracts in the last ten years. All three were with large organizations (two companies and the government). All three jobs were basically the same. They have a Cobol application that has been in place for decades and they want it rewritten in Java. So, I do a rough rewrite and then a team of Java developers come in and pretty up the thing. I see Cobol turning into the same type of language as Ada and Mumps. There will always be organizations using Ada (Air Force) and Mumps (VA), but use is shrinking, not growing. -- kainaw™ 12:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- At various times throughout the discussion, I prepared a response, but decided not to submit, because I believe the OP does not want to hear reality and may be trying to spark a debate. But I can't hold back. Like Kainaw, I have seen wild COBOL in its native habitat - large organizations and the government, and seen the functions it provided being actively replaced by new, better software. Java provides extremely powerful, simple, and localizable, compatible time, date, and calendar functions. It supports all types of mathematical and financial calculations. And it is a modern language with an enormous reservoir of talent. Java is also compatible with all the gimmicky fad-technologies of the day - simply because more Java is being written today. But not all technology progress is a "fad." For example, the Java language also seamlessly provides the facilities of the internet protocol - something COBOL will struggle with, even in today's latest and greatest COBOL incarnations. The oft-repeated claim about "banks and insurance companies" who have mysterious vaults of System-360 machines from 1967 is a misrepresentation of reality. Large organizations like banks and insurance companies have lots of money to invest in the newest, latest, greatest hardware and software - and can afford the consultants, contractors, service-company affiliations, and in-house developers to upgrade their systems. Production data centers are more like a factory-floor than a cathedral crypt. Old and outdated cruft gets replaced, not worshipped. COBOL had its strengths, and still serves in some cases where a suitable alternative has not yet been feasible, but it is severely diminishing in importance as new languages like Java and .NET steal the big "business software" market. Probably most surprising to the OP is that most COBOL currently runs in a Java virtual machine - and probably on ia32/ia64 hardware on linux. (Because of virtual machine advances - it doesn't matter what platform/architecture your code targeted). Our article, enterprise software, might help you gain some contextual insights into what business software actually looks like in 2010. It is still quite different from ordinary application-programming, and some specialized hardware still exists, but there are very few shops that still seek to buy "mainframes" and run COBOL on them as if it were 1980. Nimur (talk) 14:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Finally, an answer to question 1). Don't know why you are imagining this "OP does not want to hear reality" nonsense. 92.29.117.157 (talk) 18:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- There are possibly more things that can get you into trouble if you naively program in Java. Rounding and formatting are the two where I have seen most errors. Java is quite capable of doing these but if you take a "general purpose" Java programmer and give them a financial application to write then there is a fair chance they will trip up. Also one of the difficulties is that often new programs have to be wedged into old systems, which means reading fixed format records, etc. These again can be done in Java but they are the "bread and butter" of Cobol and seem a bit unnatural. For a completely new application you would probably use XML in Java, which is much more flexible than fixed format records but almost impossible to deal with in Cobol. The company I work for has written tactical new programs in Java, while our long term strategy is to move to a Java/XML/SOA environment. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- At various times throughout the discussion, I prepared a response, but decided not to submit, because I believe the OP does not want to hear reality and may be trying to spark a debate. But I can't hold back. Like Kainaw, I have seen wild COBOL in its native habitat - large organizations and the government, and seen the functions it provided being actively replaced by new, better software. Java provides extremely powerful, simple, and localizable, compatible time, date, and calendar functions. It supports all types of mathematical and financial calculations. And it is a modern language with an enormous reservoir of talent. Java is also compatible with all the gimmicky fad-technologies of the day - simply because more Java is being written today. But not all technology progress is a "fad." For example, the Java language also seamlessly provides the facilities of the internet protocol - something COBOL will struggle with, even in today's latest and greatest COBOL incarnations. The oft-repeated claim about "banks and insurance companies" who have mysterious vaults of System-360 machines from 1967 is a misrepresentation of reality. Large organizations like banks and insurance companies have lots of money to invest in the newest, latest, greatest hardware and software - and can afford the consultants, contractors, service-company affiliations, and in-house developers to upgrade their systems. Production data centers are more like a factory-floor than a cathedral crypt. Old and outdated cruft gets replaced, not worshipped. COBOL had its strengths, and still serves in some cases where a suitable alternative has not yet been feasible, but it is severely diminishing in importance as new languages like Java and .NET steal the big "business software" market. Probably most surprising to the OP is that most COBOL currently runs in a Java virtual machine - and probably on ia32/ia64 hardware on linux. (Because of virtual machine advances - it doesn't matter what platform/architecture your code targeted). Our article, enterprise software, might help you gain some contextual insights into what business software actually looks like in 2010. It is still quite different from ordinary application-programming, and some specialized hardware still exists, but there are very few shops that still seek to buy "mainframes" and run COBOL on them as if it were 1980. Nimur (talk) 14:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Toy language or game to teach Object-oriented programming?
I started amateur programming before any object-orientated languages were around, so the OO methodology is new unknown and confuising to me. I tried to learn it by reading a book about it, but it was heavy going and I gave up after a few pages. Is there any easy instructional language or game that would teach me about OO programming? I am happy to use things designed for kids. Thanks 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps you will find this Object Oriented COBOL tutorial helpful? Nimur (talk) 21:19, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Joking aside, if you want to learn an object oriented language, there is no surrogate for Java. It is entirely free software - the specification and its implementation are both freely licensed (see OpenJDK); and there is also widespread commercial support in the form of service companies and commercial implementations of the language and its platform. Furthermore, the official Java Tutorial sequence is free and includes everything you need to know - from design paradigms to syntax to complete working code examples. The "Specialized Trails and Lessons" section has complete tutorials for a variety of the most common O.O. tasks - making a web program, making a graphical user interface, making a small game, and so on. Nimur (talk) 21:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- No need to keep on plugging Java, thanks. In any case it is not the toy language or game I was asking about. 92.15.28.219 (talk) 21:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- Joking aside, if you want to learn an object oriented language, there is no surrogate for Java. It is entirely free software - the specification and its implementation are both freely licensed (see OpenJDK); and there is also widespread commercial support in the form of service companies and commercial implementations of the language and its platform. Furthermore, the official Java Tutorial sequence is free and includes everything you need to know - from design paradigms to syntax to complete working code examples. The "Specialized Trails and Lessons" section has complete tutorials for a variety of the most common O.O. tasks - making a web program, making a graphical user interface, making a small game, and so on. Nimur (talk) 21:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- This sounds exactly like Smalltalk. Smalltalk is simple and elegant and frequently thought of as a teaching language. It's not designed for kids, though it's sometimes used for teaching kids, and Squeak is much more brightly-colored and cheerful than, say . It's also truly object-oriented. Java and C++ are messy compromises (C++ was once famously described as being object-oriented in the sense that nailing four legs to a dog makes it an octopus) with huge specifications. Smalltalk is therefore much more pleasant to work in, at the expense of running slower. The main disadvantage is that if you ever have to sit down to write some Java and have to type out
for(i = 0; i < something.length(); i++) {
you will know what you're missing. However, knowing a programming language's weaknesses makes you a better programmer, so the fact that simple and elegant languages (Scheme, Smalltalk, and even C) are rarely used should not dissuade you from learning them. Paul (Stansifer) 03:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)- I agree Squeak could be a good idea for this purpose. Like all early Smalltalks (as far as I know), it provides basically a wiki-like programming environment, and this is essentially where object orientation started.
- Of course there are various degrees to which a language may or may not be object oriented. You might want to try Lua (programming language). This is a minimalist language very close to the spirit of BASIC, so it is extremely easy to learn. Like Perl, Python and Ruby, it has a certain degree of object orientation which is built from hashes + syntactic sugar. The basic idea is that you can write
hash.field
forhash["field"]
and you can store functions and objects there just like a number or string. Then ifhash.field
contains a function that takes two arguments, you can invokehash.field(x,y)
. An object is simply such a hash that has a number of such functions. Since several objects typically form a "class" of objects/hashes that share basically the same functions, it is convenient to write the functions so that they can be shared, i.e.hash1.field
=hash2.field
. But typically the functions need to know which hash they belong to, so you pass that as the first argument:hash1.function(hash1, x, y)
. And because this occurs so often, there is an abbreviation for it:hash1:function(x,y)
=hash1.function(hash1, x, y)
. - I think this implementation-based approach to object orientation should be a lot easier for getting started. Once you have become accustomed to that, you can still read the religious, dogmatic accounts of object orientation and concentrate on the various sects with their different attitudes to inheritance. Hans Adler 07:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- You might be interested in BlueJ. APL (talk) 04:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
What do people think of Etoys (programming language)? 92.24.191.1 (talk) 09:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I haven't programmed in Squeak/Etoys myself, but I know a few who have, and they spoke highly of it. You might also want to consider Alice, which I use to introduce some of my students to OO programming in first year, as it provides an easy interface and a quick, but fairly solid, introduction. A few of my students have also tried Game Maker before they arrive at uni, and I gave my son a shot at it - he seemed to enjoy it. I've only coded enough in it to help him out, which wasn't much, but it is OO and would probably do what you have in mind. - Bilby (talk) 09:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Is Logo at all OO? 92.24.191.1 (talk) 11:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- There are a few versions that are OO, from memory. Object Logo springs to mind, although I don't think it is still supported. I wrote my own OO-ish Logo interpreter some time ago, but it isn't really suited for anything but demos of how OO works. Interestingly, Etoys is pretty much Logo, so I'd lean towards that per your suggestion before. - Bilby (talk) 11:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
October 19
Windows application icons
What does it mean when Windows, instead of using a program's regular icon, uses that generic looking icon for a program? I can't really describe what I'm thinking of... And the signal to noise ratio on searches for "windows icon" is too high to come up with anything useful.
Let me describe what I saw and maybe it'll help understand what I'm thinking of. I just saw my manager's laptop desktop. On it was the installers for iTunes, RealPlayer, FlashPlayer, two different versions of Firefox (one of them was Firefox 2), and three different versions of Adobe Reader. A utility for setting up a WLAN and another for adding a printer (neither of which he ever has to do on any sort of timely basis). In addition to all that (amongst the 40+ icons on his desktop) were those generic Windows icons.
Would they be shortcut icons for programs that no longer exist and therefore don't have the proper icon? Dismas|(talk) 00:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Was it one of these standard Windows icons? If a program file does not contain the icon, or specify the external location for its icon properly, Windows will default to one of its shell icons. The specific icon used will depend on file type, shell settings, and so on. Nimur (talk) 00:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Yep, it looked like the icon in the first image at location (0,-2), if we're using a standard (x,y) Cartesian coordinate system. I'm figuring that he deleted the programs that they were tied to but didn't get the icon on the desktop. Dismas|(talk) 00:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- That would cause the effect you described. It may also have had some other issue loading the proper icon and given up. There are exotic possibilities, but a common one would be that they were links to programs on a network drive that wasn't currently connected. APL (talk) 04:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Or a Removable Drive. Or the target has been moved somewhere else or deleted. Sir Stupidity (talk) 11:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Yep, it looked like the icon in the first image at location (0,-2), if we're using a standard (x,y) Cartesian coordinate system. I'm figuring that he deleted the programs that they were tied to but didn't get the icon on the desktop. Dismas|(talk) 00:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- If you know the program has its own icon, then one of the above seems likely. But it might be a console application that doesn't have one at all; that's the generic "program" icon used for batch files for instance. --Tardis (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
gcc problem
Hi. I'm trying to compile gcc 4.5.1 (needed for emacs) and SVNed that latest revision (165682). Although it configures fine, compiling throws the following error:
/home/rksh/scratch/gcc/host-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/gcc/xgcc -B/home/rksh/scratch/gcc/host-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/gcc/ -B/usr/local/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/ -B/usr/local/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/ -isystem /usr/local/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/include -isystem /usr/local/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/sys-include -g -O2 -m32 -O2 -g -O2 -DIN_GCC -W -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wcast-qual -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wold-style-definition -isystem ./include -fPIC -g -DHAVE_GTHR_DEFAULT -DIN_LIBGCC2 -D__GCC_FLOAT_NOT_NEEDED -I. -I. -I../../../host-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/gcc -I../../.././libgcc -I../../.././libgcc/. -I../../.././libgcc/../gcc -I../../.././libgcc/../include -I../../.././libgcc/config/libbid -DENABLE_DECIMAL_BID_FORMAT -DHAVE_CC_TLS -DUSE_TLS -o _muldi3.o -MT _muldi3.o -MD -MP -MF _muldi3.dep -DL_muldi3 -c ../../.././libgcc/../gcc/libgcc2.c \ -fvisibility=hidden -DHIDE_EXPORTS In file included from /usr/include/features.h:371:0, from /usr/include/stdio.h:28, from ../../.././libgcc/../gcc/tsystem.h:87, from ../../.././libgcc/../gcc/libgcc2.c:29: /usr/include/gnu/stubs.h:7:27: fatal error: gnu/stubs-32.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. make[5]: *** [_muldi3.o] Error 1 make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/scratch/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/32/libgcc' make[4]: *** [multi-do] Error 1 make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/scratch/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/libgcc' make[3]: *** [all-multi] Error 2 make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/scratch/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/libgcc' make[2]: *** [all-stage1-target-libgcc] Error 2 make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/scratch/gcc' make[1]: *** [stage1-bubble] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/scratch/gcc' make: *** [all] Error 2 HPS223:~/scratch/gcc%
Googling seemed to reveal that others have had similar problems, but no solution. Does anyone have any ideas? Robinh (talk) 08:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- (OP here). Thanks to a local guru, I have answered my own question: the trick was to install glibc-devel-32bit, which was unintuitive seeing as my system is a 64 bit SuSe installation. Thanks anyway, Robinh (talk) 08:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
AVG slows down my computer significantly
I've had various versions of AVG Antivirus Free on my Vista laptop since I bought it in late 2007 or early 2008. Yesterday, I downloaded the 2011 edition, and since that time, my computer has been functioning far slower: it's almost as slow as the computer used to be when the full computer scan was running, but I've checked and confirmed that the scan is not running currently, and the slowness continues. Any ideas what I could do to improve performance? I downloaded this program from the AVG website, so I know that it's not some odd sort of virus in disguise. Nyttend (talk) 12:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I used to use AVG too and found it slowed the computer an unacceptable amount. I switched to Avira which is a free (for non-commercial use) antivirus program that runs so much faster and uses less memory. I know that's not the best answer to your question considering you obviously want your paid for AVG to work fast, but if you run out of other options give Avira a try. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the pointer. I didn't pay for this service; as I said, it's AVG Free, which is also noncommercial. Nyttend (talk) 19:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I used to use AVG too and found it slowed the computer an unacceptable amount. I switched to Avira which is a free (for non-commercial use) antivirus program that runs so much faster and uses less memory. I know that's not the best answer to your question considering you obviously want your paid for AVG to work fast, but if you run out of other options give Avira a try. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
wget time-stamping
With the -N option in wget it checks whether the remote file is newer than the local file, and downloads it if it is. However it also checks the size of the file; "If the local file does not exist, or the sizes of the files do not match, Wget will download the remote file no matter what the time-stamps say." I've found with some sites that the size of the remote html files sometimes change (presumably adverts or something) but the page has not been modified in any way, the content is exactly the same, and the last modified headers are the same as they were previously. In these instances wget downloads all the pages again. How can I stop this? I want wget to only check the last modified headers, not the size of the files. I've looked through the wget guide but can't find any way to stop this. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- I may be confused but how can the remote HTML file size change but it not be modified in any way? Surely there must be some difference even if only in blank spaces or links to ads or whatever? Nil Einne (talk) 14:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- In terms of the wider question, I can find several people who've asked but no one has offered any suggestions other then use something else. That and the lack of anything in the documents suggests to me it isn't a currently supported option. Nil Einne (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- If you care that much about it, why don't you just recompile wget? Surely the part of the check that looks at the file size in addition to date must be like ONE LINE, and you comment it out and it's done. It'll take you like 2 minutes to find that line, and if you're on Windows and haven't used Linux or C before, like no more than 200 hours to be totally used to your Linux environment and to recompiling everything from source, along with learning enough C to be able to make meaningful source-code changes. That's the beauty of open-source. Get to it -- you won't have much of a beard after just 200 hours, and if you wanted to make meaningful kernel-level changes we're talking more like 20,000 hours, but we all had to start somewhere...84.153.229.95 (talk) 15:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
cURL is a bit more modern alternative to wget; so consider checking it. I can't see an exact option for what you want, but the cURL documentation is extensive, and I haven't checked it all. cURL also has a programmer's API so you could write custom logic to analyze the HTTP metadata libcurl returns. Or you can call curl from the command line to spit out headers or HTTP metadata and process that with a script. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
.bif file
Hi! do u know where can I find the bif file on a sd mem card? T.i.a. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 15:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Have you checked you can see hidden folders and files? On Windows 7, go to any explorer.exe window, click on organise, then on folders and search options. Under the view tab, change it to 'Show hidden files and folders'. Then check if you can see it.Sir Stupidity (talk) 21:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
grep doesn't work on windows7
I just installed grep for windows (version 2.5.4) and typing "grep" on the commandline doesn't do anthing, but if I go into C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin> and type "grep" it works. Can you give me EXACT instruction (i'm just a beginner) on how to get it working so if I just type "grep" it works? I'm on windows 7, please don't assume I know anything! I need very detailed instructions, normally when I ask for help I don't know how to do any of the steps anyone tells me to do. Thanks a million!!! Jenny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.174.25.49 (talk) 17:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Windows has this concept called the "path". The path is a big list of directories where Windows searches each time you type something from the command line. You have grep in "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin" but Windows doesn't know to look there when you type "grep" from the command line, so Windows gives up and displays an error. This link discusses how to add a directory to the Windows 7 path; try to follow those directions to add "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin" to your path, and reply back here if you have any problems. Make sure you add this directory to the end of the path (don't delete the whole path that you already have). Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Is it possible for a computer virus to evolve?
And to do so on its own without any input from the creator of the virus. ScienceApe (talk) 18:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- No (at least not given current techniques, and not if you're using the conventional biological definition of evolution). Using computer terminology, biological evolution works on a playoff between expressed and unexpressed code. i.e., you have a large storage base in the genome of genetic material that doesn't do much or is only rarely executed, and a more restricted set of code that generates the organism and its properties. as the environment changes, expressed code that is counterproductive tends to kill off that individual organism, while rarely expressed code that is productive becomes more common. Plus, random mutation is consistently adding new unexpressed code into the genome. In order for this to be modeled in a computer virus, you'd need (at minimum) some form of code-transference between viruses to produce new distributions of code and to spread both unsuccessful and successful code bits through the population, some non-random method for determining which code bits get expressed and which remain unexpressed in a given virus, some random method for generating new potentially viable code (creating purely random code would not be sufficient), a large enough population of running viruses to make for a statistically adequate population size, and some sort of inbuilt motivational structure (resources to be sought out and consumed, dangers to be avoided, an urge towards code-exchange). Even if you could overcome these programing obstacles, you'd certainly have to construct a special environment for this to happen, because I can't think of a system that could handle the (likely millions or billions) of individual virus threads that you'd need to get something akin to evolution and species diversification. --Ludwigs2 19:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- What Ludwigs is describing is an evolutionary algorithm. You'd have to program the virus to work in this way, though, so it wouldn't really be without input from the creator. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- How cool. I did not know we had an article on that. --Ludwigs2 21:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- What Ludwigs is describing is an evolutionary algorithm. You'd have to program the virus to work in this way, though, so it wouldn't really be without input from the creator. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- When a person states that a computer virus "evolved", they mean that someone wrote the original virus. Someone else altered it. Then, someone altered that. Then, someone altered that. Over and over, the virus evolves. While it does meet your criteria of "without any input from the creator", it is obviously not what you are looking for. -- kainaw™ 19:07, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- You may be interested in Tierra_(computer_simulation). APL (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
It would actually be very simple. All you'd have to do is to program the virus to make, with some low probability, a random change to its own code on some occasions when it replicates. It wouldn't work very well unless the code was specially written to be fault-tolerant, because otherwise it would be hard to avoid Muller's ratchet, but in principle it is straightforward. Looie496 (talk) 22:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Code displayed on a web page
I was browsing the net and came across this site www.stalltheball.ie and the following code is displayed on the home page
Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at /home/stall/public_html/includes/application_top.php:41) in /home/stall/public_html/includes/functions/sessions.php on line 102
the code is only visible when I view the page using Opera, I tried IE and Firefox and the error doesn't appear. So is it an error on the site or is it the Opera browser? Mo ainm~Talk 19:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- The site. Strictly it's not showing you source code, it's showing you an internal error message (intended for developer consumption, not for users). For any production site, it's very bad form indeed to show a regular visitor an internal error message like this. The fact that it doesn't work with a given browser just means they haven't tested it properly. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- So any idea what is causing it to display is it that session_start() is not being called at the correct time in their source code? Mo ainm~Talk 19:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- No, you'd have to see the source for their web app to see what they're really doing wrong - error messages are the computer equivalent of "my leg hurts", and are rarely enough to really figure out what's wrong, without a proper examination. Incidentally the site works fine for me in Opera 10.61 (build 10.61) on Linux. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:55, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thats great thanks for the info, also the error message is not being displayed anymore for me either. Mo ainm~Talk 20:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- No, you'd have to see the source for their web app to see what they're really doing wrong - error messages are the computer equivalent of "my leg hurts", and are rarely enough to really figure out what's wrong, without a proper examination. Incidentally the site works fine for me in Opera 10.61 (build 10.61) on Linux. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:55, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Samsung mobile/pc cable
What cable do I need to sync a Samsung GT-E2121B to a PC? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Samsung's support page for this phone is here, but I don't see any mention of such a cable in the (not very detailed manual). I do see the phone has BlueTooth, so you should be able to sync it over that. A little usb BlueTooth adapter should cost very much (and may be more cost effective than a cable). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- You meant shouldn't right? Nil Einne (talk) 19:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Oops, yes. In the UK that means £10 or so. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- You meant shouldn't right? Nil Einne (talk) 19:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'll see about getting one of those then. I did email Samsung to ask them, but they said to ask retailers, but the retailers they suggested were places like Argos or Curry's, who wouldn't have a clue. DuncanHill (talk) 21:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Before you do that, download and install the Samsung app that you'll be using to sync. Verify that it does have a connect-with-bluetooth option; I'd be very surprised (and disappointed) if it doesn't - the Nokia equivalent certainly does. The nice thing about having a bluetooth adapter is that it should work with any future phone you buy (rather than having to get a new cable for a new phone), it should work with friends' phones (so you could use it to get photos etc. off a visiting friend's phone), and you can use bluetooth accessories with the phone (for example, I used my little Nokia bluetooth headset with Skype on the PC). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks, yes the software does have a bluetooth option. DuncanHill (talk) 10:44, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Before you do that, download and install the Samsung app that you'll be using to sync. Verify that it does have a connect-with-bluetooth option; I'd be very surprised (and disappointed) if it doesn't - the Nokia equivalent certainly does. The nice thing about having a bluetooth adapter is that it should work with any future phone you buy (rather than having to get a new cable for a new phone), it should work with friends' phones (so you could use it to get photos etc. off a visiting friend's phone), and you can use bluetooth accessories with the phone (for example, I used my little Nokia bluetooth headset with Skype on the PC). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 21:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
- You should BTW be able to get a cheap Bluetooth device for under US$3 shipped from China/HK from a place like Buyincoins [9], DealExtreme [10] [11], Lightake [12], Kaidomain [13] or eBay. Can't comment on any customs problems although my memory is they don't care in the UK if it's under £10 or something and I don't think they'll care even though it's RF so could theoretically violate UK law on transmission power or frequencies or whater. Shipping will take a while of course (I normally get stuff in 1-2 weeks to NZ but I think UK can be longer and more importantly it's starting to get near busy season, I'm already reading of people complaining about long shipping times and I actually think I'm encountering it too). Nil Einne (talk) 10:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
October 20
Locking down a computer (in terms of anti-virus security)
Hello,
I'm attempting to help a relative who knows very little about computers configure their machine so that it's protected against viruses to the maximum reasonable extent possible (they've had multiple issues with viruses and, unfortunately, behaviour-based protection - i.e. don't open dubious e-mails and be careful about what sites you visit - probably won't work for a number of reasons I can't do anything about). For a starting point, I was planning to install Firefox (which is close enough to IE for them and their kids to be able to use it) with the Adblock Plus and NoScript addons and make it the default browser on the computer. However, I'd also like to add some sort of real-time virus protection (preferably something free) and I was wondering if there are any "best bets" as far as this is concerned. Some sort of internet parental control software might also be beneficial.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments regarding this, I'd appreciate them.
Thanks!
Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 01:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- In Windows 7 there is parental controls I believe under Windows Live. FOr antivirus, you can have Avria. Basic protection, no realtime protection. For realtime you could try using Spybot SD., but my experience suggests that it is too technical for ome people.Sir Stupidity (talk) 02:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- This is the sort of situation in which I'd think about switching them to Linux, depending on what they use their computer for. Another product that you might want to look at is Sandboxie. -- BenRG (talk) 07:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I doubt they could find their way around a Linux box - remember from the question that the relative doesn't know a whole lot about computers. —Jeremy (v^_^v PC/SP is a show-trial!) 07:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it depends. Some people never use their computers for anything but web browsing and email, and those people would barely notice the difference, especially if they were using Firefox and Thunderbird under Windows anyway. -- BenRG (talk) 07:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I doubt they could find their way around a Linux box - remember from the question that the relative doesn't know a whole lot about computers. —Jeremy (v^_^v PC/SP is a show-trial!) 07:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- The simplest solution would be to make them a regular user -- not an administrator. In Windows XP, you go to Start --> Control Panel --> User Accounts --> Change an account --> Change my account type. Before doing that, create another account that is an administrator that they can log into to install programs. The link to create an account is inside "User Accounts," too. Since only administrators are allowed to install programs, they won't be able to install any virii, either. Easier than installing Linux, huh? I did this for my friend. She uses Windows XP. Her kids kept infecting her computer with virii, so I limited her main account, and she hasn't gotten a virus since. That was a few years ago! I should mention that it's theoretically still possible to get a virus, even as a limited user. But this technique will stop the vast majority of them. And even if one gets through, it won't be able to cause much damage.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- That also applies to Windows 7. And if you do have Windows 7, maybe you should up the UAC level. Sir Stupidity (talk) 07:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- For realtime virus protection, I'd go with Microsoft Security Essentials. It tends to stay out of the way of the user and warnings are very clear. It's also free. As for the UAC level, I'd recommend putting it at the minimum so the user actually looks at the dialogs instead of clicking through when too many warnings pop up. Without being close by to do real tech support, completely locking down a computer tends to be somewhat counterproductive in my experience. Occasional warnings will be looked at and read, but when false positives are popping up all the time, the user will simply stop reading them and click through. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 15:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I heartily recommend Best Dog Ever's suggestion. Non-admin accounts do a lot to limit malware. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see why you get UAC all the time if you aren't a technical user. Note that if you are able to run fine in a non admin account, there's really no reason why UAC should be a problem. Nil Einne (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'll look into Spybot S&D; perhaps I can explain the fundamentals of its operation to my relative, as I think they could really benefit from real-time protection. The Linux suggestion is interesting, but I think in this case Linux (even one of the more Windows-like distros) might be too different from Windows for them. However, I like the suggestion about making the main account a regular user account; this hadn't even occurred to me and it's a good idea. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 21:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
VoIP
1. What is the main advantage of VoIP over PSTN telephony for users and service providers?
2. How is a packetised network different to a circuit switched network?
3. What equipment and software is required for users of VoIP?
4. Why do telephone numbers have to be matched to IP addresses, and how is this achieved?
5. What are three problems that can affect the quality of service to a VoIP call
6. What is the limitation of VoIP regarding emergency numbers?
–-115.178.29.142 (talk) 01:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Please do your own homework.
- Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:10, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Alternative CSS scripts printing useless rubbish from a webpage?
If you go to this page and obtain a print-preview or otherwise copy and paste the page, additional fields appear which aren't visible on the page. I suppose this is to do with alternative CSS. Is there a simple way to print what appears on the screen (other than printing screenshots)? ----Seans Potato Business 08:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- [14] is probably a better link since I suspect quite a lot of people here don't belong to the Edinburgh university so can't use their EZproxy facility (it also isn't necessary in this case since the site isn't subscriber only) Nil Einne (talk) 10:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- One (rather long-winded and not-very-scalable) way would be to save the page locally (as "webpage, complete") and then edit the resulting HTML. The text that appears on printing has
class="hidden"
, so 'hidden' is presumably defined differently in a stylesheet for print and display. You could just edit/replaceclass="hidden"
tostyle="display:none"
. Alternatively it might be possible to use Firebug (web development) or similar tools to override the CSS settings. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- One (rather long-winded and not-very-scalable) way would be to save the page locally (as "webpage, complete") and then edit the resulting HTML. The text that appears on printing has
Downloading contents of a vBulletin Chatbox
Hello there,
I frequent a site where a lot of entertaining discussion goes on in a chatbox, which, however, is emptied every month or so. I was wondering if there is a way to download the contents of a chatbox in a non-manual way? The archive is basically [whateversite].com/misc.php?do=ccarc&page=y, with y being the archive page number, and the page numbers going up to 1900. I thought perhaps a site downloader might be able to do this sort of thing, but Im unsure on how to use one without it downloading the whole site, which would take weeks and weeks.
All the best,
--178.99.46.121 (talk) 10:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- With httrack you could specify to exclude all links except ones containing "*[whateversite].com/misc.php?do=ccarc&page=*" in the filter settings. It would then only download those pages and ignore everything else. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 11:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
iSCSI over DDR InfiniBand
Hi folks,
I'm aware of the iSCSI protocol being routed over 10GbE networks, but I want to know whether it is possible (not where to get such a product) to send and receive iSCSI CDBs over DDR InfiniBand networks. And if so, whether this has been actually implemented.
Thanks as always.
Content filter algorithms
Is it possible to find out the type of algorithms used by the content filters that are available to buy like Net Nanny or do the companies not allow you to see such things? Mo ainm~Talk 12:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- They use pattern matching (see regular expressions). They have lists that decide what is blocked (or allowed). You can download prefab lists from the company website or build your own. -- kainaw™ 13:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Const pointer conversions
We know why int** can't be converted to const int**:
int *p;
const int ans=42,**qa;
qa=&p; /* not allowed */
*qa=&ans; /* because this makes p point to a const int */
*p=0; /* which we could then modify */
But why can't int** (or int*const*) be converted to const int*const*, since the target pointer could not then be redirected to a const int?
The practical reason for asking: I have a function that reads an Iliffe vector (which point is not negotiable).
int sum(const int *const *a) { /* or const int *const a[KNOWN] */
int i,j,ret=0;
for(i=0;i<KNOWN;++i)
for(j=0;j<2*i+1;++j) ret+=a[i][j];
return ret;
}
But I can't call it (without a warning or cast):
#define KNOWN 3
int flat[]={0,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34},*const iv[]={flat,flat+1,flat+4};
++iv[0][0];
return sum(iv); /* warning: passing argument 1 of ‘sum’ from incompatible pointer type */
Since we want to modify the array in the function that owns it, we can't declare const int *const iv[]
. What's the proper way to handle this? --Tardis (talk) 14:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Generally these conversions aren't allowed because types like int * and int const * aren't required to have the same low-level representation. It's not even required that sizeof(int *) == sizeof(int const *), as far as I can tell. Just as it's safe to convert from int to double but not from int const * to double const *, so it's safe to const-qualify a pointer but not to const-qualify "underneath a pointer".
- I don't know what to advise regarding your arrays. It is irritating, and I've had this problem myself. If you could switch to C++, a template function with an argument type of T* const* would solve your problem (with the added benefit of being able to sum over other element types). -- BenRG (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- C99 says that "pointers to qualified or unqualified versions of compatible types shall have the same representation and alignment requirements", so I take it that const int* and int* must be interconvertible in that sense. It also says that conversions may add a qualifier to the type from which a pointer type is derived, and that "the values stored in the original and converted pointers shall compare equal", but I don't think these help any. As for C++, I want to promise callers that sum() doesn't change the pointers or the values, and templating that way would only promise "sum() won't change the pointers, and won't change the values if you already can't". Better than just leaving the const out forever, of course, but it doesn't really solve the problem. --Tardis (talk) 21:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I shouldn't have sounded so sure because I'm not, but it's my impression that the standard is meant to allow const int * to have more values than int *. For example, an 8086 implementation could put writable and unwritable objects in different segments and make int * a near pointer and const int * a far pointer (not that I've ever heard of an implementation that did that). The first passage you quoted is ambiguous; it says that the types can be qualified, but not necessarily that they can have different qualifiers (compare "pointers to integer or floating-point types that are compatible shall have the same representation and alignment requirements"). There are passages that might imply that converting from const int * to int * and back must yield the original value, but it's never completely clear (to me, anyway). Maybe declspec knows. I agree that my template solution mostly just sweeps the problem under the rug. -- BenRG (talk) 00:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- g++ and Comeau C++, at least, accept the above code without complaint. --Sean 15:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I see that too with g++; apparently this overall issue is something that C++ gets "right" and C doesn't. It certainly makes sense that you should be able to add as many consts as you like so long as they are "all on the right". --Tardis (talk) 20:41, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- C99 says that "pointers to qualified or unqualified versions of compatible types shall have the same representation and alignment requirements", so I take it that const int* and int* must be interconvertible in that sense. It also says that conversions may add a qualifier to the type from which a pointer type is derived, and that "the values stored in the original and converted pointers shall compare equal", but I don't think these help any. As for C++, I want to promise callers that sum() doesn't change the pointers or the values, and templating that way would only promise "sum() won't change the pointers, and won't change the values if you already can't". Better than just leaving the const out forever, of course, but it doesn't really solve the problem. --Tardis (talk) 21:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
E-mailing newspaper articles
If I use a newspaper website button for e-mailing an article to a friend, does the newspaper keep a record of my e-mail address or the address of my friend?
—Wavelength (talk) 22:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- Probably. Each newspaper is different and has different policies, so you would have to check the newspaper's Terms of Service or Terms of Use page to find out whether they discuss this issue. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't understand the need to use such buttons. You can email the URL to your friend. Sometimes it may be necessary to strip off personally-identifiable data, or session-IDs, or other items appended to the URL. When sending a URL, I strip it to as small as possible, then I always check the "cleaned" version to make sure it works before mailing it. Nimur (talk) 23:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
October 21
How to remove the HD?
From one of these...
...before disposal. Thanks, hydnjo (talk) 00:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I know this is not the point, but are you sure you don't want to try selling one of those? They're quite sought after. Chevymontecarlo 06:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Have you tried Googling "replace hard drive iMac G4"? There are quite a few tutorials. You need Torx #10 and #8 screwdrivers (which are non-standard unless you take Macs apart often, which I imagine you don't based on the question), but otherwise it looks pretty straightforward. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- It's possible to securely delete all the information off a hard drive before sale (or disposal or recycling). I looked at the Google cache of this (temporarily down?) page, and it has some options. It's also possible to use dd to copy /dev/random over the entire disk a couple times, which should be more than sufficient. You'd need a Linux live CD for PowerPC to do that, which shouldn't be hard to make. Paul (Stansifer) 18:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
C: Pointers to Pointers and other Pointer Issues
I'm really kind of confused with pointers in C. Let's say you malloc a blob of memory:
void * blob = malloc(sizeof(char *) + sizeof(int));
and you use the blob to hold two things like this: | a char * | integer value |
so blob would point to the memory adress of the beginning of the blob of malloc'd memory.
If you made a pointer to point to it:
void * pointToBob = bob;
Could you use bob and pointToBob interchangeably?
Or what if you had
void ** pointToBob = bob;
How could you used that?
I'm confused how you could possibly use a pointer to a pointer to change a value in the originally malloc'd blob. I'd appreciate any help with this problem and any sort of general explanations on the questions of pointers. I feel like I don't understand much more than "a pointer holds an adress to a place in memory". Thank you very much :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Legolas52 (talk • contribs) 00:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Am I safe in assuming that bob/Bob is everywhere a typo for blob/Blob? Assuming yes, the answer is that
void * pointToBlob = blob;
makes pointToBlob have the same type and value as blob. However,void ** pointToBlob = blob;
will give you a compile warning, because a pointer to a pointer is not the same type as a pointer. But a more basic problem is that your malloc line is a thing that ought not to be done. In some systems, the "int" type must be aligned in a specific way in memory space, so it may not be possible to store an int at the place you think you are going to store it. This is simply bad code. Even if it works, referring to things in memory that has been allocated in this way is so ugly that I'm not even going to try to write it. If you want to store multiple different things in a single block of memory, create a struct to hold them. Looie496 (talk) 01:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- As Looie said, your malloc statement is not a permissible way to allocate a pointer and an int, because of alignment restrictions; trying to access the int might crash your program.
- However,
void ** pointToBlob = blob;
is legal C and won't produce a warning, because C allowsvoid *
to be implicitly converted to any other pointer type (though C++ doesn't). There's no deep logic to this; it's just a special exception intended to makemalloc
easier to use. The result of this definition will be thatpointToBlob
will point to the same memory block asblob
does, except that it will "think it's pointing to" avoid *
. You could then store avoid *
into the memory block through that pointer, even though you allocated space for achar *
, because those pointer types happen to be guaranteed to have the same size. But that's probably not what you intended. If you wanted a pointer to theblob
variable itself (which is a different thing from the memory you allocated), then you should have writtenpointToBlob = &blob
instead ofpointToBlob = blob
.
- Basically, the rules for pointers are straightforward: if you say
&foo
then you get a value that points tofoo
, if you say*p
in an expression then you get the value of whateverp
points to, and if you say*p = (whatever);
then you change the value of whateverp
points to. For example, if you wrotevoid ** pointToBlob = &blob;
, then*pointToBlob = malloc(100);
would be the same asblob = malloc(100);
(they both write the result to theblob
variable). But if you wrotevoid * pointToBlob = blob;
and thenpointToBlob = malloc(100);
, you would be assigning to the variablepointToBlob
, which is a different variable fromblob
, soblob
would remain unchanged. Although those rules are simple, they're hard to think about. The reason seems to be that human beings are not good at separating the name of something from the thing itself. For example, what doespointToBlob
mean? Do you intend it to point to the variable named "blob", or are you thinking of the memory you allocated as the "blob" that it points to? This kind of ambiguity is what makes pointers difficult. The good news is that it gets easier with practice. -- BenRG (talk) 02:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- As has been said, you can't use a pointer to point to both a
char *
and anint
like that. You can, however, do it like this:
- As has been said, you can't use a pointer to point to both a
struct mystruct { char *p; int i; }; struct mystruct *blob = malloc(sizeof(struct mystruct));
- You can then use
blob->p
andblob->i
to refer to thechar *
andint
values, assuming themalloc()
succeeded. You can easily check this, because ifmalloc()
fails, the resulting value will be a null pointer. JIP | Talk 12:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- You can then use
- Pointers really come into their own when you use them to point to arrays of dynamic size (although other structures and uses are also important). Consider this (not production-quality) code:
int n,i;
float *a;
printf("How many questions are on the math test? ");
scanf("%d",&n); /* give scanf() a pointer to n so it can assign to n through it */
a=malloc(n*sizeof*a); /* enough space for n floats; *a is a float, so sizeof*a==sizeof(float) */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(i=0;i<n;++i) scanf("%g",a+i); /* a[i]==*(a+i), so a+i==&a[i] and we store into each in turn */
- Now suppose that we have more than one test to give. Each might have a different number of questions, so now we need a separate array for each. Each array is (indicated by) a float*, so we need a float** to refer to all of them together:
int nt,*nq,i,j;
float **a;
printf("How many math tests? ");
scanf("%d",&nt);
a=malloc(nt*sizeof*a); /* enough space for nt float _pointers_ */
nq=malloc(nt*sizeof*nq); /* enough space for nt ints */
for(i=0;i<nt;++i) {
printf("How many questions are on test #%d? ",i);
scanf("%d",nq+i);
a[i]=malloc(nq[i]*sizeof*a[i]); /* enough space for nq[i] floats */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(j=0;j<nq[i];++j) scanf("%g",a[i]+j);
}
- Of course, you could also use a struct, as JIP mentioned:
struct test {int n; float *ans;};
int nt,i,j;
struct test *a;
printf("How many math tests? ");
scanf("%d",&nt);
a=malloc(nt*sizeof*a); /* enough space for nt test structures */
for(i=0;i<nt;++i) {
printf("How many questions are on test #%d? ",i);
scanf("%d",&a[i].n);
a[i].ans=malloc(a[i].n*sizeof*a[i].ans); /* enough space for a[i].n floats */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(j=0;j<a[i].n;++j) scanf("%g",a[i].ans+j);
}
- You can use a pointer to conveniently point to an object temporarily (which often involves the structure-pointer operator ->):
struct test {int n; float *ans;};
int nt,i,j;
struct test *a,*current;
printf("How many math tests? ");
scanf("%d",&nt);
a=malloc(nt*sizeof*a); /* enough space for nt test structures */
for(i=0;i<nt;++i) {
current=a+i; /* point at the i-th element of the array; no new object is created here! */
printf("How many questions are on test #%d? ",i);
scanf("%d",¤t->n);
current->ans=malloc(current->n*sizeof*current->ans); /* enough space for current->n floats */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(j=0;j<current->n;++j) scanf("%g",current->ans+j);
}
- Finally (and this is very optional), you can use pointers as your loop variables to make idiomatic, very direct C code:
struct test {int n; float *ans;};
int nt;
struct test *a,*current,*end;
printf("How many math tests? ");
scanf("%d",&nt);
a=malloc(nt*sizeof*a); /* enough space for nt test structures */
end=a+nt; /* points just past the end of a */
for(current=a;current<end;++current) {
float *fcurrent,*fend;
printf("How many questions are on test #%d? ",current-a); /* you can still get the index if you want */
scanf("%d",¤t->n);
current->ans=malloc(current->n*sizeof*current->ans); /* enough space for a[i].n floats */
fend=current->ans+current->n; /* points just past the end of current->ans */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(fcurrent=current->ans;fcurrent<fend;++fcurrent) scanf("%g",fcurrent);
}
- Just to wedge in one more use of float **, we can apply the "convenient alias for something" idea one more time:
struct test {int n; float *ans;};
int nt;
struct test *a,*current,*end;
printf("How many math tests? ");
scanf("%d",&nt);
a=malloc(nt*sizeof*a); /* enough space for nt test structures */
end=a+nt; /* points just past the end of a */
for(current=a;current<end;++current) {
float *fcurrent,*fend,**fpp=¤t->ans;
int *ip=¤t->n;
printf("How many questions are on test #%d? ",current-a); /* you can still get the index if you want */
scanf("%d",ip); /* this assigns to current->n, so we'll have the number later, but we can also call it *ip now */
*fpp=malloc(*ip*sizeof**fpp); /* enough space for *ip floats */
fend=*fpp+*ip; /* points just past the end of *fpp */
printf("What are the answers? ");
for(fcurrent=*fpp;fcurrent<fend;++fcurrent) scanf("%g",fcurrent);
}
- Fundamentally, pointers let you access something that you get to choose (at runtime if you like). There are several reasons to choose things at runtime:
- When you don't know how much space you'll need, so you ask for it dynamically.
- When you have an array of things (dynamic or not) that you want to work on one at a time, and you make the pointer point to each one in turn (like current). (You can also work on them in any other order by writing
a[whatever]
:a[2*i*i-3*j+42]
,a[askUserWhich()]
,a[phaseOfMoon()]
,a[pickRandomly()]
, etc. Each of those uses pointer arithmetic to pick out an element for you.) - When some other code is picking an object for you; it gives you a pointer to the one it chose.
- When you're picking an object for some other code: you pass it a pointer to which object you want it to work on. This is especially important when your objects are large: you pass merely its address, and no copying occurs. (See also aliasing; this is very useful, but can also be confusing.) Sometimes "work on" means "assign a value to", like with scanf(): you tell it where to put the value it reads from the input.
- Not really about runtime but about convenience: even if everything is allocated statically, it might be useful to keep a pointer to, say, myStaticArray[3][5].structMember[2] if that long expression refers to a value that you need to refer to frequently.
- A (non-array) variable name:
x=1;
- A part of a struct:
struct.y=1;
- A dereferenced pointer:
*p=1;
a.b.c.….z=1;
, which is not very interesting. The third choice gives all kinds of possibilities because dereferencing a pointer can give you another pointer or a struct as well as a normal variable: a[4]=1;
(because that's *(a+4)=1;
), getPointer()->a=1;
(because that's (*getPointer()).a=1;
), **(*myStruct.ptrMember->memOfTarget)->mem2ndTarget=1;
, etc.int i; int *p=&i; *p=42; printf("%d\n",i);
) are so anemic that they prevent seeing the true utility of the subject. --Tardis (talk) 15:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for all of your replies! The one thing I kept seeing over and over was that I must use a struct to access this info, can't I do this instead?:
void * blob = malloc(sizeof(char *) + sizeof(int)); char * blobChar = blob; int * blob = blob + sizeof(char *); //since the integer is 4 bytes after the char *
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Legolas52 (talk • contribs) 21:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
compiling emacs
Hello. I am trying to compile emacs 23.2. After a successful ./configure, make gives me the following:
PS223:~/Downloads/emacs-23.2% make cd lib-src; make all \ CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O2 -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wno-pointer-sign ' CPPFLAGS='-D_BSD_SOURCE ' \ LDFLAGS='-Wl,-znocombreloc ' MAKE='make' make[1]: Entering directory `/home/rksh/Downloads/emacs-23.2/lib-src' make[1]: Nothing to be done for `all'. make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/Downloads/emacs-23.2/lib-src' boot=bootstrap-emacs; \ if [ ! -x "src/$boot" ]; then \ cd src; make all \ CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O2 -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wno-pointer-sign ' CPPFLAGS='-D_BSD_SOURCE ' \ LDFLAGS='-Wl,-znocombreloc ' MAKE='make' BOOTSTRAPEMACS="$boot"; \ fi; cd src; make all \ CC='gcc' CFLAGS='-g -O2 -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wno-pointer-sign ' CPPFLAGS='-D_BSD_SOURCE ' \ LDFLAGS='-Wl,-znocombreloc ' MAKE='make' BOOTSTRAPEMACS="" make[1]: Entering directory `/home/rksh/Downloads/emacs-23.2/src' make[1]: *** No rule to make target `/usr/local/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h', needed by `dispnew.o'. Stop. make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/rksh/Downloads/emacs-23.2/src' make: *** [src] Error 2 HPS223:~/Downloads/emacs-23.2%
What is going on here? It looks like there needs to be a rule to make gtk.h, but this can't be right? Anyone got any idea how to get round this? Thanks, Robinh (talk) 08:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- have you installed the gtk development headers? (Or configure without gtk). The package is normally called gtk-dev (debian/ubuntu etc) or gtk-devel (redhat/mandrake etc). CS Miller (talk) 10:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for this. I am on SuSe 11.3, and YAST isn't particularly clear (there are lots of gtk-type options, but checking them results in an incompatibility warning. How do I tell whether gtk-dev is installed? Thanks, Robinh (talk) 11:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I've never used YaST, so I'm not sure how to check what packages are installed with it. However, this [15] seems to be a useful guide. The package you want is probably called libgtk-dev / libgtk-devel, now that I think about it. CS Miller (talk) 11:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Got it! . Cheers, Robinh (talk) 11:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)Resolved
- Got it!
- I've never used YaST, so I'm not sure how to check what packages are installed with it. However, this [15] seems to be a useful guide. The package you want is probably called libgtk-dev / libgtk-devel, now that I think about it. CS Miller (talk) 11:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for this. I am on SuSe 11.3, and YAST isn't particularly clear (there are lots of gtk-type options, but checking them results in an incompatibility warning. How do I tell whether gtk-dev is installed? Thanks, Robinh (talk) 11:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Hmm, this really shouldn't have happened. The autoconf script that wrote configure should check for gtk headers (and version), and indeed when I configure emacs on Ubuntu I see it checking gtk headers, libraries, and associated things like Pango, Cairo, and Freetype. If these aren't found, or are of the wrong versions, it should be be configure that fails, not the make. If you can reproduce this on a fresh install of SuSe, that's a notifiable bug in the configure.in script. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Hello Finlay. I too thought that configure would find any problems. The behaviour is not reproducible, following a 'make clean' which may have cleared out some problem file somewhere. Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Minor problem with my LG Flatron
OK, so I've been having some non-critical yet annoying problems with my LCD display (a Flatron W1934S, to be specific). The overall image appears fine, but there are some wavy patterns jizzing up on my screen, which can be seen especially on a dark background. Is it because of an unstable AC connection or something? Blake Gripling (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Noisy AC connection (perhaps from an electric motor on the same ring), loose AC connection, loose or damaged video cable, or source of RF interference near the display or the video cable. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 11:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Apart from the above, and don't ask me how it works... but try adjusting your contrast. I had the same problem with a Dell monitor. Sandman30s (talk) 14:31, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- So to avoid interference, place any wireless emitting devices away from the monitor, and make sure that there are not that mucgh intercerence from devices from the cables to and from your computer and monitor. See if that helps. Sir Stupidity (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Blackberry 9500 Storm
Hi, I have my phone blacberry 9500 storm, was using zero line of france, turkey, I'm staying on the contract has expired, other operators çalıştıramadığımdan, mep2 code entered incorrectly 10 times, mep2 does not turn on, I can not enter the MEP code. please help. Thank you.
my adres= [email removed] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.224.127.41 (talk) 13:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I've removed your email address, to prevent you getting spam on it. People will answer here, not by email. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I expect it's not likely to be easy [16]. It's usually a rather bad idea to hit the limit with phone unlock codes. If you haven't actually entered the MEP2 code incorrectly 10 times then I'm not sure what's wrong. It may be worth calling your operator. As your contract has expired, they may be willing to provide any unlock codes for free perhaps even with instructions. BTW just to emphasise you should stop typing anything in until you know what to do Nil Einne (talk) 05:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
tsql
Hi! Why doesn't exist the 'end tran' keywords? the rollback statement must always immediatly follow the trasnsaction to rollback? t.i.a. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
motherboard
where is the rt clock and how the quartz is deformed in order to produce the regular square wave? t.i.a. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 14:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- The real time clock can be positioned anywhere on the board, and may be integrated to some other ASIC on the board. Our article lists some examples; you can check your motherboard for one of those chips. You might want to read crystal oscillator; the quartz is an electromechanical resonator in the form of a piezoelectric crystal. Nimur (talk) 15:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- thank you, I read "When the field is removed, the quartz will generate an electric field as it returns to its previous shape, and this can generate a voltage. " But thus voltage is sinusoidal or square? --217.194.34.103 (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- It is a complicated waveform; it is not perfectly sinusoidal because in real life, crystals are not simple harmonic oscillators; but it is really close to sinusoidal. The exact waveform shape depends on the perfection of the manufacturing process and physical properties of the crystal. Digital systems usually need a square-wave. For this reason, a crystal oscillator will usually be connected to an active circuit with a power source. This circuit includes a transistor amplifier (or a more sophisticated IC) to "clip" the sine-wave into a square-wave, and often one or two external tuning capacitors. A simple clip circuit with two diodes is shown in our article. More complex circuits exist to shape the waveform, but for most purposes, an "approximately" square-wave signal is good enough. The particular parameters to worry about would be the rise time and the jitter - a well-designed circuit will have a "fast" rise-time and a "small" jitter (by using a good tuning circuit and a very high gain). Exactly how fast rise-time and how tiny the jitter will be determined by cost and requirements. Many RTC clock ASICs will contain all/most of these analog circuit elements, plus some digital logic, internally. Nimur (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- thank you, I read "When the field is removed, the quartz will generate an electric field as it returns to its previous shape, and this can generate a voltage. " But thus voltage is sinusoidal or square? --217.194.34.103 (talk) 15:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Internet Usage
I've just downloaded a program called NetMeter to keep an eye on my internet usage. I'm in a hotel and have a daily limit of 1 GiB. I'm looking at the program now and my upload and download figures are increasing. Even though, to my knowledge, nothing is uploading or downloading. It says that I'm downloading 36 KiB/sec at the moment, and that I've downloaded 21 MiB in the last 30 minutes.
- Why are the upload and download figures increasing when this is the only web browser I have open?
- Does that amount of use sound plausible?
- It's WiFi, so could that figure be the whole router's traffic and not just my laptop?
Some internet sites say that 5 GiB per month is enough to use Skype and YouTube. But according to NetMeter, I'd use 10 GiB a month just by leaving the machine connected to the internet for six hours a day; without even watching a single video or making a single call. What's going on?! — Fly by Night (talk) 15:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Consider using a system program like netstat to see what programs have open socket connections. Lots of programs use a network connection - this is very irritating if your network usage is being monitored. netstat -b will tell you the program name for each process that has an open connection. It's also possible that your NetMeter program has an internet connection open, and relays monitoring data to some server Nimur (talk) 15:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- My laptop runs on Windows Vista. I've just typed netstat -b and it says that "The requested operation required elevation." What does that mean? I typed netstat -no and it returned a table whose column titles were Proto, Local Addresses, Foreign Address, State and PID. There are currently three different local addresses connected to different foreign addresses.
- What does all of that mean?
- Are the other local address other people using the same router?
- Does that mean that the Netmeter stats were for the router and not just my laptop?
- — Fly by Night (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- If you're getting 'The requested operation required elevation', try opening netstat or the cmd window if you're using that as administrator. Either right click on the program in start menu and choose 'run as administrator' or rather then pushing enter use ctrl+shift+enter. Nil Einne (talk) 15:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Here is the Windows netstat documentation. Local address is your computer's address - specifically, which address the network socket is connecting into. It can help you diagnose the purpose of the connection. Foreign address is the IP of the server on the other end. State is the socket status - which is explained here - but basically tells you if the connection is "active." PID is the process ID for the responsible program that owns that socket; using "-b" tells you the program name so the PID is redundant (unless you are running multiple copies of the same program). Nimur (talk) 16:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- If you're getting 'The requested operation required elevation', try opening netstat or the cmd window if you're using that as administrator. Either right click on the program in start menu and choose 'run as administrator' or rather then pushing enter use ctrl+shift+enter. Nil Einne (talk) 15:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- My laptop runs on Windows Vista. I've just typed netstat -b and it says that "The requested operation required elevation." What does that mean? I typed netstat -no and it returned a table whose column titles were Proto, Local Addresses, Foreign Address, State and PID. There are currently three different local addresses connected to different foreign addresses.
Windows Update maybe? I disabled it on my computer, but I think if you have it enabled it will automatically download new updates. Also, check which network interface the program is monitoring; if it's set to "all interfaces" it could be seeing network activity which isn't related to the internet, or could be seeing double the amounts depending on your setup. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 15:55, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- NetMeter's network inteface is set to All interfaces (no loopback, no duplicate). I've used the netstat -b command. I had to run it as an administrator as Nil suggested. I closed down all of my windows and ran netstat -b, the only thing running in the background was justched.exe which is a Java update checker. I stopped that. Then I ran netstat -b again and nothing was accessing the internet. But NetMeter still said that I was downloading 9 KiB/sec! — Fly by Night (talk) 16:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Sigh, for "computer experts" you're pretty incompetent. @OP; netmeter is not designed to work with wireless, so it's picking up on every network packet between your wireless adapter and the router. The excess bandwidth you're seeing is just the two devices communicating with each other. A program designed to work with wireless would filter this out. 72.95.222.173 (talk) 16:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- 72, perhaps you would like to explain what communication the device is sending to the router? If there are no open sockets, there is no IP traffic. Are you suggesting that netmeter is capable of monitoring lower-level packets than IP (link or phy data)? Do you have a source for that? Nimur (talk) 16:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- That's a very good point, 72.95.222.173. It did seem far too high. — Fly by Night (talk) 17:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure that 72.95.222.173 is wrong. -- BenRG (talk) 05:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- While not necessarily agreeing with the
OP72, I wonder if this is being approached from the wrong way. It's been a while since I've used bandwidth monitoring programs on Windows but can't you find some which will tell you more details about what connections the bandwidth is being used on rather then the complexity of trying to working out from netstat? [17] may work although may also be unnecessary complex for the OP Nil Einne (talk) 17:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)- What have I said that you don't agree with? — Fly by Night (talk) 17:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry for the confusion as I was thinking about this discussion rather then the thread so by OP I meant 72. Nil Einne (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- P.S. Other then per IP, from memory some programs may also tell you per program which may be more useful Nil Einne (talk) 05:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry for the confusion as I was thinking about this discussion rather then the thread so by OP I meant 72. Nil Einne (talk) 19:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- What have I said that you don't agree with? — Fly by Night (talk) 17:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- While not necessarily agreeing with the
The usage graph in NetMeter has changed now that I'm using Skype. It was all red. Now there is a yellow sub-graph. It looks like the yellow is my usage and the red is something else. Maybe other people's usage or traffic between my computer and the router. I've just ended the call and the yellow part has vanished. Does anyone have any idea how to change the settings? — Fly by Night (talk) 19:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Red is download, green (and yellow) is upload. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- According to the key, red is download and green is upload. There is no green representation in the graph. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Yellow and green are the same. The green turns yellow when it's in front of red. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 21:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- According to the key, red is download and green is upload. There is no green representation in the graph. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
php
Say in php there was
echo "There are $number pages";
how could you get the script to put that into a .html file? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 18:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- If that is in a php script, accessing it through a web server will produce HTML. If you mean "I want to save this to a file", you need to open a file pointer and write it like:
- $fp = fopen("your_file.html","w");
- fputs($fp, "There are $number pages");
- fclose($fp);
- Then, you will have a file with that text inside of it. -- kainaw™ 18:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Or, if you meant you wish to run from the command-line, you may want to use PHP Command Line Interface. Nimur (talk) 18:44, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- Or, perhaps, the questioner has a command-line script and wants to put it in a web page. Assuming the web server can parse PHP, you add to your HTML document the text: <?php echo "there are $number pages"; ?> -- kainaw™ 18:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Spreadsheet of irregular payments
I have a long list of rent money paid, and the dates they were paid on. i.e. the spreadsheet has two columns. The tenant was supposed to pay a fixed amount on the 1st of every month, but actually paid the rent very irregularly. Some months were missed completely, some were paid late, a few may have been paid early. The tenant has to pay x percent compound interest on late payments, if they are paid more than fourteen days late.
The question is: how do I work out on a spreadsheet what the tenant owes, including interest? The problem is that the data has irregular and missing dates, so it will be much harder to calculate than if the dates were just regular dates one month apart. Not a homework question. Thanks. 92.15.29.194 (talk) 20:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- charge them simple interest, not compound. Sorry, it's not right of you to charge them the 15% you feel confident you could have made on the stock market either. Charge them 8% simple interest. 85.181.49.255 (talk) 21:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- I think you might have to put in a third column with the dates that each rent payment should have been paid on - ie the first of each month. You may have to add rows in for the months that the rent was not paid - for these months, you should manually insert the amount of rent into the the rent column and put
N/A
in the date column. Then, assuming that we're starting on row 2 and that column A has the date the rent was paid and column B has the rent amounts and column C is the one you added in, put the following in cell D2:=IF((A2-C2)>14,B2*(1+Data!A$1)^((A2-C2-14)/365.25)-B2,0)
. This deals with the months when the rent was paid. For the months when the rent was not paid, put the following into E2:=IF(A2="N/A",B2*(1+Data!A$1)^((Data!A$2-C2-14)/365.25),0)
.
- The sheet Data has the annual interest rate in cell A1 and today's date (or the "as-of" date) in cell A2. I can't check if this works since I don't have access to Excel on this computer. You'll get errors in column D for the months where no rent was paid (you can get rid of them automatically by selecting column D and pressing ctrl+G) - then add up columns D and E. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- When the rent was paid for a particular month, was it always paid in full? If so, that makes the calculation much easier. Work out a daily interest rate. When you simply subtract 2 dates in Excel, it calculates the number of days. So, suppose the due date is in column A, the paid date is in column B, and the amount due is in column C, then column D could contain the number of days paid late as B2-A2, and column E could contain the interest due as '=IF(D2>14,(D2-14)*C2*daily_interest,"")'. Calculate a sum at the bottom of column E and request they pay that. However, if they are already struggling to pay the rent do you really think asking for the interest is actually going to make them pay more quickly in the future? You might just be dumping further despair on your tenant. You also need to consider what to do if they refuse to pay the interest, do you persue them through the small claims court? And if they are a benefit claimant you might eventully get the money at the rate of £1 per week. Your local Citizens Advice Bureau will almost certainly be able to provide you better advice, for free. Astronaut (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- The former tenant is quite well off and rented the place as part of a business. 92.29.125.8 (talk) 11:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- When the rent was paid for a particular month, was it always paid in full? If so, that makes the calculation much easier. Work out a daily interest rate. When you simply subtract 2 dates in Excel, it calculates the number of days. So, suppose the due date is in column A, the paid date is in column B, and the amount due is in column C, then column D could contain the number of days paid late as B2-A2, and column E could contain the interest due as '=IF(D2>14,(D2-14)*C2*daily_interest,"")'. Calculate a sum at the bottom of column E and request they pay that. However, if they are already struggling to pay the rent do you really think asking for the interest is actually going to make them pay more quickly in the future? You might just be dumping further despair on your tenant. You also need to consider what to do if they refuse to pay the interest, do you persue them through the small claims court? And if they are a benefit claimant you might eventully get the money at the rate of £1 per week. Your local Citizens Advice Bureau will almost certainly be able to provide you better advice, for free. Astronaut (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm wondering how to deal with a missed payments. Supposing the tenant missed one payment in January but paid all other payments that year in full and on time. Should I calculate the interest due from the January until the present time; or should I regard the February and subsequent payments as late payments for the previous month? 92.29.125.8 (talk) 11:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- The 14 day interest-free period causes both methods to give different answers. Note that if you go with the second approach (which seems like the likelier option), then my answer above would not be right. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- The 14 days is not interest free. If the rent was paid on day 13, no interest added. If it was paid on day 15, then 15 days of interest are added. I'm wondering if this would make the two modes of calculation equivalent, if all the late rents were more than 14 days overdue. 92.15.28.203 (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
As the comments above note, there are multiple ways of calculating compound interest when the debt is being sporadically incurred and repaid. If this is just an academic question, then the answer depends on the method described in the hypothetical credit agreement that both parties entered into at the beginning of the contract and (depending on whether the debtor is a consumer or a limited company, several acts of parliament). But your post (as ip 92.29.125.8) strongly suggests this is a real scenario, which means this question is veering off into the territory of legal and professional advice, which the reference desk absolutely does not provide. You should speak to a qualified accountant. I'm reluctant even to tell you which laws you might be breaking (lest I help you self-help yourself to Pentonville) but I definitely would not go sending an invoice or a demand until you've spoken to a qualified professional. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
This is about manipulating data with a spreadsheet and maths, no legal stuff involved. I could re-write it if you wish as a scenario in Cuckooland, where the teddy bears trade Smarties. 92.15.28.203 (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
October 22
tsql what is for keyword go?
if it's followed by a number >1 it's useful but otherwise.. t.i.a.--217.194.34.103 (talk) 09:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/transactsql/thread/b9813ad0-6053-4723-8516-87cf27ebcf35 --Sean 17:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
List of software licenses used in a particular Ubuntu/Debian installation
Hi, I'm aware that the package vrms will list all non-free/contrib software, but I'm looking for a tool to list all licenses of installed packages by name, including the free ones. After all, just because they're free, doesn't mean they all share the same distribution terms (think Public Domain vs. BSD vs. GPL2-only vs. GPL3, for example). Is there a way to compile such a list, other than by doing it manually? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 14:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think that info is captured in a well-formed way either in the .deb package format (it would be in the control file, but I don't see anything there) or in the standard file layout that's deterministically parseable. It's a standard feature of Debian packages that they create a file called /usr/share/doc/packagename/copyright, but that's human readable (to the extent that lawyers can be considered human), not a readily machine readable format. And I'm not sure that every package has such a copyright file, and that they always put it where they should (the Debian guys are pretty thorough, but are non-free packagers so careful?). Beyond that, you can list all the installed packages with dpkg-query -l and for a given package list its constituent files with dpkg-query -L packagename, so (if you really needed this info) you could use this to examine every file in a given package, and then you're reduced to grepping the files for things that resemble copyright messages. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Clarification: I know the licenses of those few non-free packages I have installed, in fact, I even have one system where vrms detects no non-free/contrib software. It's only the different free ones that are troubling me.
- Sadly, comparing the output of dpkg --get-selections|wc -l (332 lines) and of find /usr/share/doc -iname "*copyright*"| wc -l (320 lines) shows that even the Debian guys didn't include a copyright notice with every package. :-( -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 14:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)On further inspection, quite a few don't have a copyright file:
- If I run dpkg-query -l | wc -l that reports 2934 (really 2934 minus a few lines for lines of header)
- dpkg --get-selections doesn't produce a header ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 15:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- If I run ls -R /usr/share/doc | grep -i copyright | wc -l that reports 2466 (they're almost all copyright, but there's a few oddbods with other copyrighty names, so I've included them)
- So that would suggest about 16% of packages don't have a /usr/share/doc/packagename/copyright file. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)On further inspection, quite a few don't have a copyright file:
Is a Storage Area Network head a Server?
Hello.
I want to know what exactly a Storage Area Network is - I am aware that a SAN contains HDDs which hold volumes which are attached to servers via logical unit numbers. My question is rather whether a SAN head is considered a server. And I refer only to the SAN head, not the DAS arrays connected to the SAN head, and I am also not referring to SAN switches or storage routers.
Best regards to everyone. Vickreman.Chettiar 14:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- A SAN device speaks a SAN protocol like FC or iSCSI and in essence pretends to be a big disk drive, so it should be considered a "storage device" and nothing else. I can't definitively say that some daft person won't consider all expensive enterprise electronic boxes to be "servers", but they shouldn't, and manufacturers to make both (like IBM, Sun/Oracle, and HP) don't. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Just to clarify - since a NAS head, which serves files, is considered a file server; could a SAN head, which serves volumes (i.e. LUNs), be called a volume server? And as an aside, though it's just a matter of semantics, what is with the Area in Storage Area Network? Wouldn't it suffice to call it a storage network? I don't really understand the Area part... Vickreman.Chettiar 20:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Is "SAN head" really a term in any use? If by that you mean a SAN device that aggregates a number of other SAN devices and presents them to a user on a single connection (something like a Brocade Fibre-Channel Switch), then I don't agree that it necessarily serves "volumes"; SAN is a block-level thing, so it serves blocks. Those blocks might just be direct-mapped from volumes in the downstream SAN devices, but such a device can remap and aggregate blocks (and devices, and connections) in more complicated ways. I think the A is there for symmetry with LAN, and to make it a word (rather than calling it an "SN"). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Is "ARC relationship" an Oracle term or generally accepted computer term?
Is "ARC relationship" an Oracle term or generally accepted computer science term? If it is Oracle only what is the standard name of this relationship. (If it is a general purpose term we should have an article on it!) -- Q Chris (talk) 15:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Wipe out a USB stick
I've got a USB stick with some promotional material on it that resists deletion. It is within a partition disguised as virtual CD-ROM, which is read-only. The permissions cannot be changed. I also tried to remove it with a 3U removal tool and also deleting the whole thing with "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/scd0". Everything without success. Does anyone have an idea of what can I do? Is there something which would reset the USB stick completely? (mtab output: /dev/scd0 /media/NEW iso9660 ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,utf8 0 0 /dev/sdb1 /media/disk-1 vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush 0 0)
- Have you tried bringing it over to a Windows or Mac machine that doesn't understand the partition table, and have it format the device as a FAT32 or NTFS or ext3 (or whatever) volume? Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- The problem persists in a Windows machine, Windows also consider this thing to be a legit CD-ROM, which cannot be formatted... Mr.K. (talk) 15:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- What happens when you use disk partitioning software to delete the partition? Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- GParted does not see the partition that is a virtual CD-ROM. It sees only the other free partition.--Mr.K. (talk) 15:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- That's sort of awesome. My next step would be to use disk partitioning software on a foreign machine (meaning Windows or Mac) to try to delete the partition. Or use some sort of embedded device, like a USB-stick-accepting camcorder, to try formatting the stick. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Well, actually it was their intention to be awesome difficult to remove. Mr.K. (talk) 16:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- That won't help. The controller on a U3 device manufactures a virtual CD-ROM volume (and a virtual usb hub) from flash blocks on its device that it does not normally export as part of the normal usb-mass-storage device that it also presents. The protocol for manipulating this (to reserve some blocks and present them as a virtual CD, and to undo that) is proprietary and trade-secret; I'd imagine it consists of some vendor-specific commands sent to the virtual device hub. The U3#Removal section discusses a Windows program that the U3 people implemented which does the "remove" operation (I guess you had to pay them $$s to get the "create" software). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- (I never knew about this — thanks.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm aware this is not the answer you are looking for, but: USB sticks are cheap. Send it back to whoever placed the advertisement junk on it, with a cover letter saying that you'd rather give it back than being forced to watch their promotional junk in order to use it, and that any promotional efffect they were hoping for was negative. If enough people do this, maybe they'll think a bit about their next ad campaign. -- Ferkelparade π 16:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Can I change the font of a .pdf file?
Some authors have a really poor taste for fonts...--Mr.K. (talk) 15:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- What software do you have? Adobe Acrobat Professional can do lots of modifications (although whether it can change fonts I don't know) that other programs can't. Nyttend (talk) 20:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure this is impossible in general, and would require grody hacking in the few special cases where it might be theoretically possible. Even if you could change the font, the spacing parameters would not change, so the result would probably look pretty bad. Looie496 (talk) 20:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
ubuntu help
i have ubuntu 10.10 .it takes an extremely long time for me to shut down the system or to log out ..why might this happen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metallicmania (talk • contribs) 17:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Probably because some program or daemon is taking a long time to shut down. I'm not sure this will work, but try hitting the Esc key during the shutdown. If I remember correctly, this will kick you into text mode, and you should be able to see a line saying what the OS is doing at that time. (I'm sure somebody will correct me if I have this wrong.) Looie496 (talk) 18:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
im quite new with linux so i do dont think ill be able to figure out that stuff —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metallicmania (talk • contribs) 18:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- Basically what I'm suggesting is that you hit Esc while the computer is slowly shutting down, look at the bottom line of text which tells you what the computer is doing, and tell us what it says. Without that information it's pretty much impossible to guess what the problem might be. Looie496 (talk) 20:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Click here
Many pages on the Ohio Historical Society website, such as its profile of the Kirtland Temple, have a little note at the top: "Click here for a new search". Having read our click here article, I'm confused — in specific cases like this, why is "click here" a bad idea? For example, people printing offline won't be able to use a search page, no matter how well it's described. Nyttend (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- The "accessibility" section of click here says "Screen readers, used by the visually impaired, can read out only the hyperlinks on the page as a quick method of navigation." The other links on that page (those in the menu down at the bottom) read sensibly when presented like this ("calendar", "places", "about", etc.), but this link will just read "here", with no context. If the link text was "new search" then it would be fine. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- And while not as bad as the accessibility problem, if you printed that page (say to hand out to people on your historical society's trip to that building) it does look kinda daft having "click here" on a bit of paper. We're so used to seeing stuff like this because so many web authors take no care at all over what a printout of their site should look like (so it ends up as a screendump, full of useless navigation cruft that makes no sense on paper). Smart websites (of which Wikipedia is a good example) take the effort to strip screen-only content from the print (mostly using some deft CSS) so that the printout makes for a sensible free-standing paper document. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
- I usually just highlight the content on a webpage which I want printed, click File and select Print Preview, then select the As selected on screen option, and hit Print. Sometimes I have to adjust the page size as well before hiiting Print, so that the edges of the webpage don't get cut off. At times the page margins also need to be adjusted (in Page Setup). Rocketshiporion♫ 20:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)