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November 24

Someone sent me an email with a .bat file attached. What should I do?

Is there a way I can safely examine it or should I just purge it outright? I don't recognize the person but it's not an advertisement or spam from what I can tell.--72.178.134.134 (talk) 04:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A .bat or batch file on Windows/DOS is simply a plain text file, with a list of commands. They can be safely examined with a text editor. Be aware, though, that a malicious person may mislabel some other file type as .bat. For example, someone may make a Microsoft Word file with embedded macro viruses, and then rename it with the extension .bat. If someone were to open it with Microsoft Word, depending on configuration, there is a chance that Word would ignore the extension and execute the macro viruses as if it were a .doc file. Another trick is to stack extensions ("harmless.bat.exe" is not a batch file) or to alter the MIME type. Depending on the settings of your web browser/email client, it may ignore the extension, and treat it like some other file (e.g. a word file with macro viruses). - Bottom line, the only reason to look at a batch file is if you are interested in running it. If the file was unsolicited, you don't want to be running it. I'd purge it outright. (If it was solicited, e.g. you posted a question to an email help list that the batch file is supposed to help with, do look at it before running, and make sure it won't do anything harmful. When opening, use a bare-bones text editor to be safe. Notepad would be my suggestion.) -- 174.24.198.158 (talk) 06:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why even bother? BAT is not a format that is going to be used to send you something important from somebody you don't know. It's not like it contains a program that going to give you a thousand dollars or a new job or something. It's surely a virus. Just delete it and move on. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Delete the e-mail. Who's going to send you a batch file, other than a botnet? Comet Tuttle (talk) 08:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does ANY smartphone app have facial recognition? (Or is the following on the video just made-up?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OSCjbru1Gk (Video from CollegeHumor: "If All Movies Had Smartphones")

On the "Usual Suspects" scene, the detective suddenly finds "Verbal Kint's" true Facebook profile. That otherwise felt so random, that the detective's Facebook smartphone app must've done facial recognition through the smartphone's camera, as soon as Keyser Söze showed up to his office.

Does Facebook's app really have a facial recognition feature that pulls up the profile of the user whose face it recognizes?

If not, what app does?

If no app at all, then what kind of programming would it take to make that method of facial recognition work?

Thanks, --70.179.178.5 (talk) 16:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. MORIS. N/A. -- kainaw™ 13:13, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the video depicts facial recognition at all. In the actual movie, Verbal tells the detective a lot about Soze (whom the detective has never heard of before). In the clip above, the detective has just put Soze's name into Facebook and saw the photo. I don't think the clip, in other words, is supposed to be the minute Verbal shows up, but later in the interview. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, no facial recogn. implied. Very lame vid. Of course there would be neither a facebook acc, nor a photo of Soze on it. Missing the point of the movie, too. As usually collegehumor=humor fail. --92.202.85.101 (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's 3 weeks later and this question is in the archives, but I wanted to add a link to this article in which Facebook says it's going to introduce next week a facial recognition feature ... which runs on the server-side of Facebook, and attempts to use the tech to help you tag friends that are in your Facebook photos. It's not for facial recognition of people standing in front of your smart phone, though. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

a folder sharing over through a network limiting to some users in the work group

how to configure a folder sharing over through a network limiting to some users in the work group having administrator and user environment in the same computer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RAIJOHN (talk • contribs) 11:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which operating system?Smallman12q (talk) 16:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version2002 Servicepack2 --RAIJOHN (talk) 06:10, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


November 25

LAN and WAN configurations

Where can i get the detail and slide shows regarding LAN and WAN configurations and if possible ,give link there to. --RAIJOHN (talk) 06:07, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know where to get slideshows, but you may wish to read our articles on LAN and WAN. Hope this helps. Rocketshiporion♫ 06:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What DirectX is for?

Resolved

I know that DX is an API for creating games for Windows and the 360. But is that all? Is it capable of creating GUI for Windows programs? And can a program developed in DirectX 11 run on Windows XP, or on Windows 7 w/o DirectX 11 supporting GPU? -- Livy the pixie (talk) 06:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See our extensive article, DirectX. Comet Tuttle (talk) 08:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My vocabulary is quite bad for reading complex IT articles to be honest. I am specialized in gaming ones, since gaming is my hobby. Translating such an article will take me a whole day for sure. Forgive me my laziness, but can you give me a quick answer? I want to re-design the GUI of the software to make it more attractive, but don't know if there's another way other than using the boring wxWidgets API. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 09:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DirectX can put arbitrary pixels on the screen, so it can be used to make a GUI. Many games have homebrew DirectX GUIs. But you would either need to write everything from scratch or use a DirectX widget toolkit, and I don't know if such a thing exists. Speaking as a user, I would prefer that you use the "boring" standard widgets, because the main benefit of a GUI in the first place is not attractiveness but usability and accessibility. -- BenRG (talk) 11:05, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Using directX to make a UI wouldn't be a novice task. DirectX is a set of API's that allow access to the framebuffer, and other graphic/hardware components. DirectX is used largely for game rendering such as in shading, ray casting, sprites, and overlays (as well as sounds). See the Microsoft devolper site for more info.Smallman12q (talk) 12:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, our software is created by wxWidgets, a cross-platform widgets toolkit, but looking at it reminds me of Windows 95. I want to make it more attractive. I tried to edit the paint function of each control but it is very difficult to me 'cause I can hardly understand what they have coded before. And at last I can see very little difference after editing. From what I see in games, I always thought DirectX is a easy-to-use tool that can make up amazing GUI in a short time. Anyway, does GUI made by DirectX looks nicer than GUI made by standard widgets API? Or it depends on the programmer? -- Livy the pixie (talk) 13:24, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're confusing DirectX with a different API (probably, you want to use the Windows Presentation Foundation). DirectX is intended to provide "direct" access to hardware acceleration - typically, things like video cards and audio cards. In case it is not clear, it is possible to use DirectX to manually draw any type of graphical object that appears on the screen, but that is not the intended purpose of DirectX - so it's going to be difficult to do it well. If you want to draw graphical widgets (that is, menus and buttons and so forth), then you should use a widget toolkit for Windows. The most common options are Microsoft Foundation Class Library or the modern version, Windows Presentation Foundation. (Select the appropriate toolkit based on your needs). These are the standard tools to make windows, icons, menus, and so on. DirectX will not provide functions to build a menu - for example, you will have to draw and manage the individual pixels of a menu, and manage the individual mouse and keyboard inputs to decide if they are affecting your menu. So, DirectX does give you a lot more flexibility for designing a user-interface, but you lose a lot of the operational conveniences, and all of the standardization. If all you want is to tune the appearance slightly, you should use a Windows Presentation Foundation design and apply a custom theme to change the way stuff looks. Nimur (talk) 14:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, use the current widgets drawing API is still the best way. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 02:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Kindel reader

Are the Anne McCaffry books avalable to download on my Kindle reader.

Deifen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deifen (talk • contribs) 10:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This page on Amazon certainly suggests that at least some are Darigan (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Calendar sharing with MS Outlook 2007/Exchange 2010/Server 2008

I have a problem with sharing calendars.

A can view the calendars of B, T and K
B can view the calendars of A,T and K
K can view and edit the calendars of A,B and T
T can view and edit the calendar of B but although T can view the calendar of A, T's Outlook crashes if she tries to edit A's calendar.

Anyone familiar with this sort of problem?

note: K is an admin on exchange, the others are regular users. All have roaming profiles, but T always uses the same PC. I have run a repair on the Outlook installation on T's PC.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks

Trugster | Talk 12:45, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PC freezing

I know it is a fairly general question I am using WinXP home editon on a PC that has suddenly started to freeze, I can't open Task Manager when this happens and the only way to get the PC working again is to hold in the power button and re boot. Any ideas were I could start looking for a cause/solution to this problem thanks Mo ainm~Talk 14:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also it is not a RAM issue in the sense that it is using all available ram as I have 4 gigs in it and it is only a 32 bit system, and I know that a 32 bit cant use all 4gigs Mo ainm~Talk 14:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What did you do before the computer froze? Any recent hardware or software changes? 118.96.155.155 (talk) 16:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No absolutly no new additions either hardware or software. The only recent event was when it becam infected with a fake anti virus software called System Defragmenter which I removed. Mo ainm~Talk 16:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any suspicious errors and warnings around the time of the freezes in the "Application" and "System" sections of the Windows Event Viewer? Also, were you using any applications around the time of the freezes? 118.96.155.155 (talk) 16:50, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Never thought of looking there yes it is giving an Error that doesn't sound good saying the source is the disk, checking further into it I am being told "The device has a bad block of memory, which Windows attempted to read. The data might be missing or corrupted." Mo ainm~Talk 16:58, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Either the disk in question is bad, the cable connecting it to the motherboard is bad or loose, or the motherboard's disk connector or controller is bad. Better check the cable first (either reseat it or replace it with a known-good cable). 118.96.155.155 (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, step 1 is to immediately make a backup of anything important on the disk, because it could fail completely at any time. (It could also keep working at the current level indefinitely, but you shouldn't take the risk of expecting that.) Looie496 (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be worth my while making a clone of my disk and then buying a new HD, or just back up important documents? If so what is a good free cloning software and thanks for the advice so far. Mo ainm~Talk 18:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's really up to you, the main thing is that you back up whatever you don't want to lose if the disk suddenly fails. If you're uncomfortable with the thought of reinstalling the entire operating system/all your applications then cloning to another hard drive would be the easiest option (but you would need another hard drive of an equivalent or greater size), but if you just want to backup specific files and you're not bothered if you lose everything else you could just copy those files to a USB drive and/or burn them to DVD or just copy to another hard drive. I can't personally advise of a particular cloning software to use, but I'd recommend looking at our articles List of disk cloning software and Comparison of disk cloning software as they can probably help.  ZX81  talk 19:20, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Video Cards

I'm thinking about buying Settlers VI for my laptop. I've been to Can You Run It?, and I have far better stats than recommended.

Recommended
What I have
CPU
3.0 GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 3400+
Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3400 @ 2.16GHz
CPU Speed
3GHz
2.16GHz Performance Rated at: 3.24GHz
OS
Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Sound Card
Needed
Intel High Definition Audio HDMI
DVD-ROM
4x or faster DVD-ROM drive
TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632H ATA Device

The only problem comes with the video card. The rocommended is 256 MB DirectX 9.0c-compliant, Shader 2.0-enabled video card (NVIDIA GeForce FX+ / ATI Radeon 9500+), when I have Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family. I don't understand any of that. The site says that my video card doesn't meet this requirement. But when I look at the subsections of the video card check I see that the recommended figures are

Recommended
What I have
Video RAM
256GB
358GB
3D
Needed
I have
Hardware T&L
Needed
I have
Pixel Shader
2.0
3.0
Vertex Shader
2.0
3.0
DirectX
9
10

What's the problem with my video card? It passes all of the sub-tests. Do you think that this game will run, and why is the site saying I can't run it? Thanks in advance. — Fly by Night (talk) 17:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most likely you would be able to run it but might get jerky and erratic graphics because of the limited computational power of your graphics setup. You might be in a position of having to choose poor graphics quality in order to get acceptable rendering speed. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand, why is that? I have 102MB video RAM than required. — Fly by Night (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd recommend trying the demo http://www.ubi.com/UK/Downloads/Info.aspx?dlId=2331 (intel graphics chips are not usually very powerful, I'm not familiar with the 965 - but I'd guess it's only good enough for low settings)83.100.211.26 (talk) 18:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've struggled to find comparisons but it looks like the 965 intel is of around the same power as the recommended type, so it could work. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=Mobile+Intel+965+Express (but in general a bit lower)83.100.211.26 (talk) 18:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You don't actually have any RAM on your video card - the Intel GMA series use the memory of the computer itself, so that 358Mb (which is a rather strange number...) is being taken out of your 2Gb of system RAM and there's a performance penalty because it has to share the RAM. But having sufficient memory and/or pixel/vertex/etc functionality isn't enough, if the card itself isn't powerful enough then you end up with slow jerky graphics as mentioned by Looie496 above. Put simply, the graphics card is just another processor and like the processor in your computer, they come in various speeds. Hope this helps to explain!  ZX81  talk 18:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, that "video memory" is system memory that's allocated to graphics. It is faster than if it were system memory accessed by the GPU over PCI (because the chipset does have a relatively high bandwidth interface for it) but it doesn't compare well with a real GPU. That Intel GMA bus runs at 12.2Gbit/sec; the dedicated memory bus for a high-end GPU like GeForce 500 Series runs 10 times as fast, or more. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're all very helpful. Thanks a lot. Besides buying a new computer, what can I do to improve the video processing? I've got an Inspiron 1525. Can I upgrade it? — Fly by Night (talk) 18:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but no. Very few laptops are designed to be able to upgrade the graphics card (after it's left the original factory) and the Inspiron 1525 is no exception. Your graphics "card" is literally soldered to the laptop's motherboard and can't be swapped to something else.  ZX81  talk 19:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Some laptops have upgradable graphics adapters, but the service manual for the Inspiron 1525 says it doesn't. Even if it did, doing so is very rarely a cost-effective idea. But try the demo 83.100.211.26 linked to; you might be okay. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Afaik, all Intel graphics cards (except for possibly the really, really new ones) are integrated chips and like ZX81 said above, their chips are completely integrated into the motherboard. Just a word of advice from my own experience: if you want to play games on a laptop, don't get anything other than ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards and make sure they have at least 1GB of dedicated video memory (it should say how much it has on the page for whatever card you're getting). Also, I highly recommend looking up the card on http://www.notebookcheck.net and look at the benchmarks on it before you buy the laptop. If you don't know what the numbers by the tests called "3D Mark 06" or similar mean, just look at the results for individual games. (for example, if a card can run Crysis on high settings at greater than 25 frames per second, you will almost definitely be able to play most games out there now). Also, and this is just a personal preference, but I normally get my laptops from Dell because to some extent they let you customize what chips are installed. My laptop's model is the Studio XPS 1640 w/ an Intel dual core processor @ 2.93GHz with 4GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 4670 graphics card with 1GB dedicated video memory and I can play pretty much all newer games with no problem (I can do Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 at around 40-45 frames per second on standard settings). A caevet to this though is that you will probably have to spend at least $1400-$1700 to get a laptop that is capable of this so you will have to decide whether you think it is a worthwhile investment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thingg (talk • contribs) 21:08, 25 November 2010
Thanks a lot for your comments. I was amazed to read the prices at the end. I looked on the Dell UK website. They have a Dell XPS 15 Laptop, with Intel® Core™ i3-370M (2.4Ghz, 4Threads, 3M cache), up to 8GB dual channel DDR3 memory, and a 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420M Graphics Card; all for £580, which is about $915. I guess they must be cheaper in the UK? — Fly by Night (talk) 20:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Dell's website quotes prices before VAT; UK VAT is 17.5% (shortly to be 20%). And they don't quote shipping either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Finlay McWalter (talk • contribs) 20:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even after 20% VAT it's about $1100. I doubt they'd charge $300 for delivery. Maybe they work out cheaper because of the exchange rate or something. I don't know. — Fly by Night (talk) 22:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In my personal experience, the Intel(R) 965 is even (if I don't want to say "far more") weaker than the ancient GeForce2 MX 400 with 32 MB of video RAM, simply because all Intel graphic chips are integrated. You should first check out the GPU article. But in short, integrated GPU is just a solution to cut out producting cost for non-gaming PC. They "steal" memory from your system RAM, which is much slower, and even steal some processing power from the CPU. I'm not sure 'bout this but 4 years ago, when I played Audition Online with the integrated GPU, it ran jerkily with 100% CPU Usage. But after I pluged in a GeForce2 MX 400, it run smoothly with 80% CPU load. Among all Intel integrated GPUs, only the Intel HD which is included in Core i3, i5, and i7 desktop version is quite powerful to be compared with GeForce 7 (the mobile version is weaker, about 60% speed. I can say that because I have both). In general, you should get a discrette video card for gaming. But do note that not all GeForce and ATI GPU are dedicated. The ATI Raedon HD 3200, Raedon 4200... are examples of ATI integrated solutions, even though their speed is quite good compared to Intel ones'. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 06:46, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Printing or screencapping Google News Archives scans, easily...

Is there any way to capture a ginormous news article on Google News Archive? I find it annoying to screencap three times, and stitch together the pieces, I'd love it if there was a plug-in or something. (And by ginormous, I just mean that there's more than one screen's worth.) -- Zanimum (talk) 21:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This Firefox addon is what I use for that sort of thing :) ╟─TreasuryTag►First Secretary of State─╢ 21:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


November 26

Java web start

Getting this pop-up error "microsoft jscript compilation error" "syntax error" - it seems to be associated with .jnlp files. Googling shows similar problems going back a few years. This appears to be a new version of the bug. eg I think I've fixed it by selecting 'direct connection' rather than 'use browser settings' in the java console>>network settings .. though to be honest I don't really know what I'm doing. (XP, chrome, java 1.6.22) Consistently happens with any web start, applets so far appear ok.

Can anyone expand on what's going on here.. I don't really know if it's a bug I should report to sun/oracle, or to microsoft. Thanks.213.249.248.176 (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find a smartphone app for ChatRoulette?

Pretty often, popular web services port themselves to the mobile realm by releasing apps meant for smartphones.

Where can I find phone apps for ChatRoulette (or Omegle, or any other competitor of ChatRoulette?)

If those apps don't exist, why the heck not? You'd think their services are popular enough to make mobile apps out of, right? --70.254.193.68 (talk) 07:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Considering what the ChatRoulette article you linked to says (which somewhat concurs with what I expected) I'm sceptical Apple would approve of a ChatRoulette app. Not sure about Android though. Nil Einne (talk) 11:20, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well a simple websearch for the most obvious term 'chatroulette app' easily found [1] and other things confirming my belief a chatroulette like app isn't going to last long with Apple. Nil Einne (talk) 11:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In fact it's even specifically banned in the guidelines now [2] Nil Einne (talk) 12:01, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mac Wildcard Character

Hello, anyone know how to perfom a *.* search on MAc OS X? Ideally without resorting to the Terminal, but needs must. Thanks. FreeMorpheme (talk) 11:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What do you want to search? List all files whose name contains a period ("ls *.*")? List all files in a directory ("ls")? List all files in a directory and its subdirectories ("find -print")? Search something inside files ("grep ..." for text files)? Something else? Captain Hindsight (talk) 11:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


I would like to list all of the files and folders in a folder in one window. *.* works on the PC as it shows everything with a filename and an extension. FreeMorpheme (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just view a folder's contents as a list? At the top of the folder's window, on the left there should be icons for different views - depending on what OS you are running. These are 'icon view', 'list view', 'column view' and 'cover flow'. Or you can choose View>as list from the Finder menu bar at the very top of your screen. Does the list view not do what you want?  pablo 15:09, 27 November 2010
Your confusion lies in the fact that (under DOS) the extension was seen as a necessary part of the filename: so to list all files with all names and all extensions, you would type "*.*". Under Unix, including OS X, the dot is just another character (in other words, the idea of a "filename extension" is an interpretation humans put on the filesystem, not something built into it). So under Unix, searching for "*.*" means searching for all files with a dot in their names. But the answer to your question is a simple "*". Marnanel (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes, but the OP states that they would prefer not use Terminal. All the files and folders within a particular folder should be visible in that folder's window in the Finder. pablo 21:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see I wasn;t quite clear enough, apologies - I need to see all of the files and folders, but all of the files in the subfolders also. So if I have a folder with three subfolders each containing 20 files, I want to perform a search on the top level folder which will reveal three folders and 60 files, all in one window 195.60.20.81 (talk) 11:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

STV iPlayer

I have just watched a fascinating series of programmes on the above and wonder if there is anyway I can download them to a DVD on my AppleMac laptop. Any ideas out there please? Thanks in anticipation.--85.211.132.205 (talk) 12:24, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be helpful if you specify (perhaps a link) to what you mean. I don't live in the UK but AFAIK iPlayer is a exclusively BBC thing, probably trademarked. 'STV iplayer' also doesn't find any iPlayer for STV. Do you perhaps mean the STV player [3], BBC iPlayer or even the ITV Player [4]? Nil Einne (talk) 06:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I mean STV Player, that is Scottish Television.--85.211.227.216 (talk) 08:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well in that case official it's not supported [5]. Unofficially if you can watch it there's obviously some way to record it. Worst case scenario you could probably use some sort of screen capture program or even a camera recording your monitor. However I suspect it's not necessary to go this far although using Mac OS X probably doesn't help. There's very little discussion of recording/downloading STV player I could find (much more of ITV of course). [6] is one of the only ones and it doesn't sound hopeful although it's somewhat old (while not Mac OS X per se, it's discussing open source tools which would could probably made to work with Mac OS X).
In Windows there are plenty of commercial and some free programs for this sort of thing. I normally use Orbit Downloader [7] which works for most things I do but I tried it with the STV news website (don't live in Scotland or even the UK nor do I have a proxy so can't try on the player website) which is linked from the player website. And it doesn't work (catches the URLs but downloads seem to fail) although I didn't really try that hard. I read some suggestions from [8] and other players that Replay Media Catcher [9] may work. It didn't work at all (didn't catch anything even Youtube) on one of my Windows installs I guess because it didn't manage to hook in to the network stack properly (from what I've read I think it does something like this) because of the odd stuff I had installed. On another Windows install it seemed to work for downloading from news.stv.tv (also youtube of course).
Once you have a stream, converting it for a DVD-video (if that's what you want) is relatively trivial.
I would note your message is somewhat ambigious on what you want to do with the content. Downloading it to keep indefinitely and watch as often as and whenever you want is likely of questionable legality (the same as recording a program off air) although as long as you can still watch the program online from where you live it perhaps doesn't make a difference when you downloaded it. But if you do want to keep it, you may want to see whether the documentaries are available in commercial DVD or other formats where it's intended for you to keep it (e.g. legal video download services like iTunes).
Nil Einne (talk) 14:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all, have just noticed that STV player says it is not possible to download the programme; shame since they are only available on line for 30 days.85.211.136.83 (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

scanmem for Mac

Is there a program like similar to the linux scanmem utility available for Mac OS X (specifically 10.6)? If one doesn't specifically exist, could the linux tool be adapted for Macs? Horselover Frost (talk · edits) 13:21, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although the commonplace Unix method of viewing another process' memory via /proc isn't available on OS-X, that doesn't mean there isn't another mechanism to do so (otherwise things like debuggers and profilers couldn't work). On OS-X one can access memory piecemeal with ptrace or wholesale with mach_vm_read. The latter is substantively the same as opening a process' memory by calling read(2) on the relevant /proc/PID or /proc/PID/mem entry. So it surely could be written. Note, however, that (I think uniquely among Unix-like OSes) OS-X has a special option to ptrace, PT_DENY_ATTACH which allows a process to prevent itself from being ptraced, dtraced, and I think having its VM manipulated with the Mach calls - so memory of a process like iTunes that uses this mechanism won't (readily) be accessible (but that mechanism can be circumvented, I read). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Google

Resolved

Is there a limit to how many google email accounts you are allowed to have? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be some legalese about it here, however ,I believe that you will probably get the full terms in that box you have to tick to say that you have read the Ts&Cs to set up your initial account. The content I've linked to suggests that the creation of multiple accounts to do naughty accounts is a bad thing, but does not appear to mention anything about the innocent use of multiple accounts. Not quite a complete answer to your question I'm afraid. Darigan (talk) 14:42, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
edit - better link - seems to be ok to use multiple accounts as long as you don't violate the terms of use Darigan (talk) 14:45, 26 November 2010 (UTC)re[reply]
Thanks 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:18, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although I would note Google does require some sort of verification in some countries (well I think the OP knows that). SMS to mobile phone is one in some. I'm pretty sure there's a limit to the number of accounts you can register using one number as verification (think I've read people complaining before) and I'm not sure how easy it would be to convince them to let you around the limit even if you've been doing nothing untoward with your accounts. Nil Einne (talk) 05:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Semi supports that idea [10]. I realised I forgot to note there's of course nothing to stop you using some other number of some other method where available. Nil Einne (talk) 05:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft Timershot

Microsoft have a "power toy" called Timershot for Windows XP, but it doesn't work on Vista. Is there any way to make it work on Vista, or any other free alternatives? Please don't tell me to google it, I already have and all I have found is pages and pages of other people asking the same question and being told to google it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.192.175.138 (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a new section for you, to make your question stand out from the previous one CS Miller (talk) 16:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well a simple search for 'windows webcam software' finds [11] as the first result and [12] as the 4th. Really there's probably so much software I suggest you just choose one at random which seems to do what you want and try it. If it doesn't work the way you expect uninstall or rollback the install and use something else. I myself when looking for something of the sort a few months ago (not a timershot replacement as I never used timershot) found something at random and it seemed fine although ironically I can't find it again now Nil Einne (talk) 04:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Found it via 'windows 7 webcam time lapse photo' at [13]. Avacam. Nil Einne (talk) 05:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

November 27

.tar.gz is a compressed file in a compressed file?

If so, why? ----Seans Potato Business 00:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The .tar on its own usually does not use compression. .tar#Compression_and_naming explains in detail 82.44.55.25 (talk) 00:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) tar doesn't compress files, it just archives them, i.e. concatenates them together along with some metadata like file names, modification times, and so on. -- BenRG (talk) 00:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
".gz" files are GZIP files - see http://www.gzip.org/ Exxolon (talk) 04:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, tar on its own can produce a significantly larger file than the original, because it was designed for writing to tape (that's what the t stands for) and writes in multiples of 512 bytes at a time. However, since disks these days are written in larger blocks than that, the actual disk space consumed by an non-compressed tar file is likely to be no more than that of the constituent files. --Anonymous, 06:10 UTC, November 27, 2010.
The other important thing is that a .gz is a single compressed file, unlike a .zip file, which compresses many files. Paul (Stansifer) 21:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unix philosophy ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ceci n'est pas... Marnanel (talk) 16:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
O tempora… ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:18, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Briefly, in unix philsophy the goal is to break functions down so that each logical step has it's own program. This way unix commands can be combined in ways the original programmers never thought of.
In this case zipping a file has two steps, putting all the files into one big file, then compressing the big file. The "tar" file is the one big file, and when it's compressed the ".gz" is added. (Sometimes the two extensions are shortened to .tgz so as not to freak out certain older filesystems.) APL (talk) 21:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

darknet search engine

i remember reading this article on search the deepnet and this article dwelt on how advertisers and companies were using it to spy on people and discover habits. one thing i remeber of one these sites is that they offered to delete the info in the stuff uve done if u give them ur email id . does any one know any thing about the site.Metallicmania (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at Ixquick and Criticism_of_Google#Privacy.Smallman12q (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Copy and paste problem with emails that are not plain text--solved!

Referring back to this question, I have been having a problem with text that included symbols and other items that I copied and pasted into emails that were not plain text, ever since the introduction of Internet Explorer 8. Today, the text copied just fine.

I know of one thing I did in recent weeks. Java has been nagging me for months to do an update. I was always scared to add new software because it might cause problems, but I decided to go ahead this week.

One other thing is different. For some reason spaces between paragraphs didn't copy in the past. They did today.

Something else is happening and I'd like to know how to reverse it. On one of those sites with the symbols and other stuff, I no longer see "[FONT="San Serif"]text[/FONT] or [COLOR="Blue]Text[/COLOR]. I can only see what was done, not how. But if I don't know the name of the color, or the font or its size, I don't know how to do this. I want to be able to see these items again.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

œ

æ is included with the accented characters in Unicode, so why isn't œ? Between accented "o" characters and accented "u" characters, there's even a space used for the division sign. Why did they put that there instead of œ? --75.33.217.61 (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify your question: are you asking why the specific code-points for æ and œ are not near each other in the Basic Multilingual Plane? I think the concise answer is "because" - and the elaborate answer is that there are literally tens of thousands of code-points for various glyphs; the BMP attempts to place the "most common" glyphs in one single plane (a grouping of 65536 code-points); and attempts to sub-organize these as contiguous blocks of "related" code-points. Æ falls into the C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement block and Œ falls into the Latin Extended-A. So, at some point in history (probably before Unicode was even formulated), some engineer or linguist decided that Æ was a "supplementary" Latin character and Œ was an "extended" Latin character. Why? For the same reason that dž is assigned to code-point U+01C6 instead of being placed near the regular letter "d." There's no possible way to make a linear "alphabetical listing" of all possible code-points, while preserving all possible similarities between all possible glyphs. Unicode is not intended to place "similar-looking" glyphs near each-other. It's intended to provide a consistent encoding, representation and handling of character-points that represent the most common forms of human writing. It inherits some legacy code-point organization from ASCII and earlier ISO standards, too; and those were not as well-thought-out as Unicode. For further reading, see ISO/IEC 8859-1 - which is the specific legacy-encoding that is superseded by BMP U+0000 to U+00FF. Specifically: "Languages commonly supported with nearly complete coverage of their alphabet - French – missing the ligatures Œ and œ as well as the very rare Ÿ (they are generally replaced by digraphs OE and oe, and Y without the diaeresis) (Windows-1252 and ISO-8859-15 do contain these))." In other words, in a previous era, somebody decided that Œ was unneeded. Nimur (talk) 20:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The short version is that the first 256 code points of Unicode were copied from ISO/IEC 8859-1 (Latin-1), which contains æ but not œ. I'm less sure why it was omitted from Latin-1. There are some odd inclusions/omissions in Latin-1 and, for that matter, in ASCII. The placement of × and ÷ in Latin-1 is interesting and makes me wonder if they were a last-minute substitution. -- BenRG (talk) 21:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
8859-1 was intended to support western European languages and it was decided that œ wasn't needed for any of them. What I've read (but I don't know where, to cite it) as that at that time the French considered that "coeur" and "cœur" were just typographical variants of each other, like "fit" and "fit" in English, so there was no need to take up a valuable code point for œ. Later they changed their minds and the result is ISO 8859-15, which was meant to replace 8859-1, dropping such handy characters as ÷ and ½ in order to add œ and a few others. Then Unicode, of course, included everything. --Anonymous, 04:00 UTC, November 29, 2010.

Polling (Mouse)

I have purchased a gaming mouse which has an option named "polling". The configuration of this feature is: 100 T/S, 500 T/S and 1000 T/S. However, I have set it to default state, 500 T/S. I have no idea about "polling" feature. What is it for and what function does it do? What if I increase the number to 1000 T/S? thanks--180.234.51.95 (talk) 21:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It it is the Times / Second the mouse updates its position. So higher should be better with regards to lag, but I guess there's some kind of a trade-off since it's customizable. --85.76.87.120 (talk) 22:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See Polling (computer science). It would probably increase the accuracy of the mouse...though the default windows setting is 125 T/S. Increasing past 500 won't do much unless you're in gaming/art or other related programs where a pixel might make a difference. Past 500 would be wasting cpu cycles.Smallman12q (talk) 22:04, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

November 28

Saving a Flash Picture

Is it possible to save a picture on a website that appears as a flash? If so how? Whenever I right-click on the picture it just gives a sub-menu that has play or loop options, how can I save that picture as a bitmap or jpg or in paint when those options aren't even available in the save as dropdown box? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.254.113 (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Take a screenshot. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Using Firefox with the Page Info or CacheViewer add-ons works for me. 92.15.14.132 (talk) 23:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Slow computer and unknown IP connections

My computer's been running really slowly for the last couple of days. My CPU usage is boucing aroung between 9% and 30%, even though I only have this Firefox window and Task Manager open. No anti-virus programs ar running. I ran a full scan an hour ago and it didn't find any threats. I opened a DOS window and typed netstat -b to see what was connecting to the internet. Firefox has 56, yes 56, active connections at the moment. I only have one tab open; this tab! When I Geolocate the Foreign IP address I get, amongst others, addresses in Kansas! (I'm in France). When I close Firefox, all of the connections go away. But as soon as I open a web-browser my computer starts making lots of noises like it's working really hard, the CPU usage jumps up and I have 50+ connections again. It's the same with Google Chrome and IE too. What's going on? It never used to be like this. I asked a question a while ago about internet usage and was told to use the netstat -b command. When I did, I had about five or six web-browser connections; not 56! Please help. — Fly by Night (talk) 01:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are there multiple instances of Firefox running? General Rommel (talk) 09:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There was one Firefox window, with a single tab; yet Firefox had 56 connections. Today, my computer is running normally, the CPU usage is right down, and there are only three browser connections. Why where there almost 60 last night? — Fly by Night (talk) 14:20, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I spoke too soon. The number of connections has jumped right up again. Although I'm not connected to American corporate IP address anymore (could that by spyware?) I have lots of connections to ww-n-fxxx:http where there xxx are three digit numbers. — Fly by Night (talk) 14:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"content blocked" IE message

Hi,

In the following Internet Explorer message, does anyone know what "other content" might refer to?

"Pop-up blocked. Also, to help protect your security, Internet Exporer blocked other content from this site."

(I understand the part about "pop-up blocked". I'm not asking for an explanation of that.) 86.184.31.210 (talk) 02:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Probably the "other content" being Active X controls. Although it depends on your security settings, you may want to check out what they are by going through Tools>>> Internet Options>>> Security tab. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 03:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fibre Optic Strands

Hi,

How many fibre optic strands connect Australia to the United States? Is there a diagram somewhere which shows all the international fibre optic links?

Thanks, --58.175.32.62 (talk) 10:51, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here List of international submarine communications cables? Not a diagram unfortunately - but a huuuuge list. Do remember being in a pub in Cornwall as a child (for a family meal) and there was a map showing all the comms-cables for the atlantic which fascinated my easily fascinated mind. ny156uk (talk) 14:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Modern images of the undersea cable network are here and here, although they're not terribly easy to get detailed info from. Ny156uk may have visited Widemouth Bay or Porthcurnow, both of which have cable landing points. A map of the 1901 telegraph cable network is here. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that telegeography.com site I linked to above has a more detailed version as well, which is very informative: [14] -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also [15] although not as detailed and from 2009 Nil Einne (talk) 20:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[16] may be interesting Nil Einne (talk) 18:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(DOM)(HTML5)(JavaScript) Checking the size of a canvass element

The origin of the canvas element is on its upper left side. However, in mathematics, the origin is usually placed on the lower left side (1st quadrant). Now I have several canvas elements of various sizes. I wan to write a JavaScript function that maps the math coordinate system to the screen coordinate system. The first thing it needs to know is the height of the canvas it's working on in pixels. Certainly I can store the canvas dimensions in an object whenever I create a piece of canvas. If I am not doing this, can I get the size of a canvas from anywhere?

I tried document.getElementsByTagName('the id of my canvas'). It doesn't work. -- Toytoy (talk) 11:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The HTML canvas object already knows its own dimensions, and these are available in the JavaScript DOM via attributes:
<input type="button" value="Click Here" onClick="dosize();" />
<br />
<canvas id="mycanvas" style="border:2px dashed;" />
<script>
  function dosize(){
    var c = document.getElementById("mycanvas");
    alert("width is " + c.height + 
          "\nheight is " + c.width);
}
</script>
-- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Message Rules

Hello. I implemented two message rules for the same sender:

  1. Move email to "some" folder if sender's address is "john.doe@gmail.com"
  2. Forward email to "john.smith@hotmail.com" if sender's address is "john.doe@gmail.com"

My email applies the first rule but not the second. How can I fix this? How can I merge these rules if I use Hotmail? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 17:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Both rules are trying operate on the same message when the message arrives in the inbox. If rule 1 runs first, then rule 2 won't see the message in the inbox because it would have been moved to another folder. Try switching the order of the rules. Astronaut (talk) 20:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hotmail moves emails before forwarding. I can't reorder the rules. --Mayfare (talk) 22:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using an email client, and if so, which one? Or is this purely via Hotmail? pablo 00:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I check my email in Windows Live Mail but my message rules are controlled from Hotmail on the web. If I configure my rules in this manner, does it matter? --Mayfare (talk) 03:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with my laptop?

Hello. A few days ago, my laptop suffered a fall which resulted in its battery and bottom cover falling off. Before putting them back into place, I checked the hardware inside and could see no apparent physical damage.

Since then, my laptop has acquired the stupid habit of spontaneously resetting itself without warning. I have accessed files on all sectors of my hard disks without any problem, so I suspect my laptop's problems are caused by possible damage to its fan. Nevertheless, it's never especially hot or even hot at all when it resets itself, so that seems to eliminate the theory of overheating. I'm at a loss to explain what the problem is.

What is the problem with my laptop then? I can provide further details if needed, just ask. Thank you a lot to anyone who can help identify the root of the problem.

This does sound like a failing hard drive, though. Even if you can access all of the files, the hard drive could still be damaged and causing the computer to restart. Any blue screen errors? Have you tried safe mode? Logan Talk Contributions 18:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried safe mode, but it still restarted. I got no blue screen errors. Let me make a list of what seem like important details:
  • I've run the Disk Defragmenter on unit C:\ with no problems at all.
  • One of the times, Windows was unable to boot and a diagnosis screen appeared. It restored the computer to a previous restore point and, since then, the frequency of restarts has greatly diminished.
  • I've run a registry cleaner (Glary Registry Repair) with no problems at all.
  • If the computer restarts and I later try to restore the file I was using, it often restarts again.
  • The laptop has become unable to "wake" from hibernation mode.
  • The computer worked perfectly fine the first time I used it after the fall. It only started bugging later on. Leptictidium (mt) 18:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I experienced a similar issue with an old laptop many years ago. The RAM chips had come loose and taking them out and then putting them back properly fixed the problem. It's worth a try, especially considering the hibernation issue (doing that might void the warranty though, so if it's covered by any free repair schemes or warranties go to them first) 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Almost all laptops do not like being dropped. You seem to have been lucky in that it seems to be mostly still working. However, perhaps you have cracked one of the circuit boards, dislodged memory cards or loosened one of the connectors inside, and under some circumstances, perhaps when it warms up, contact is lost with unpredictable results. Check your insurance and warranty. Alternatively, take it apart -very carefully- noting where everything came from, and see if there is anything obviously loose. I goes without saying, you should back up your stuff before any repair attempt. Astronaut (talk) 21:20, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OpenVPN remote issues

Hello! I set up a simple point-to-point VPN on my home network with OpenVPN. When I connect from my LAN, it works fine, but when I connect via my router's IP, it seems to fail; even though it claims it completed the initiation, I can't ping the server. Below is the output (removed some digits of my IP). Note that the only thing I've changed between both tests is the "remote" directive in the client's conf file, from the local IP to the router's remote IP. At first, I suspected it's a problem with the router (Linksys WRT54G, latest firmware, and the VPN port is open and set to forward to the server), but I don't understand why it would forward local VPN traffic but not remote traffic.

Thank you for any advice or suggestions!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 19:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

November 29

Add-ons

If I uninstall an add-on on the beta version of Firefox 4.b7 due to incompatibility issues, will it also be automatically uninstalled in the 3.6.12 version? 24.189.87.160 (talk) 03:59, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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