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July 6

10-line C++ program that would change the world

Resolved

I'd like a sample 10-line C++ program that could change the world (you don't have to include the part that would change the world). the point is, there would be one part, maybe inside the loop, that's ?????, and then I would just figure out that one part to change the world. any takers? 188.29.111.138 (talk) 23:40, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

note: it has to be possible. 188.29.111.138 (talk) 23:41, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure, just say what in the world you want changed. Shall we sit very still while you debug the code? You are really asking for the power of Aladdin's jinni (genie). The jinni met a blonde and offered her one wish that could be literally anything in the World. Blondie responded "I want Gucci sunglasses!". The jinn replied "Of course I can give you that. But don't you want to use this unique opportunity to remove all the hunger, war and suffering in the World?". Blondie replied "Yes, I'll do that instead. Let's have Gucci sunglasses for everyone". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
  int theWorld = 0;
  cout<<theWorld;
  // ???
  cout<<theWorld;
  return theWorld;
}

Strictly, I think the ANSI standard for C++ requires a newline at the end of the file; but that would make this program 11 lines. Fortunately, most modern C++ compilers are not so pedantic; this compiles in g++ and in XCode. In case it is not obvious, theWorld is changed on line 7. Nimur (talk) 00:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Put the newline at the end, get rid of using namespace std; (using is usually a bad idea anyway — why have namespaces if you're not going to use them?), and use std::cout. --Trovatore (talk) 02:20, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Honestly! You have a chance to change the world in any way you want, and the best you can do is to increment it? 188.29.86.142 (talk) 00:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

My change to theWorld is merely incremental. I've made peace with that. But of course, you still have the opportunity to change line 7 to anything you like, as you said you were going to. All you have to do is "just figure out that one part"... Nimur (talk) 01:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I took the liberty of removing your highly offensive "theWorld++;" in the middle of the program, replacing it with // ??? per your indication. I mean, come on. The world - the real world - already gets incremented in the main loop, namely the number of nanoseconds, without anyone doing anything. Hopefully we could make a more fundamental change.

I suspect I could turn it back-to-front in 10 lines. I'd like to be able to turn it upside down though, which might be harder. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thinking further, the Bible tells us that in the beginning the World was without form and void - presumably a null pointer. I think that what is required is to make theWorld point to an instance of class World. (Though personally, I suspect that the Creator programs in Java...). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:38, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

And, not to be flippant guys, but I meant actual code that would actual do something. For example:

void SUPERquickSort(int arr[], ???) {

     int i = ???, ???
     ???
     /* recursion */
     if ???
           SUPERquickSort(arr, ???);
     if ???
           SUPERquickSort(arr, ???);

}

Would be the PERFECT example of what I'm asking about... before 1960. That's because quicksort was invented in 1960, so if it were before 1960 now, then I could fill in the ???'s in the above to get quicksort. You see how that works? So, please give me the same thing that I can use today to change the world, just by filling in the ????'s. Ten lines or fewer. Thank you! 188.28.246.47 (talk) 02:19, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, you've answered your own question. Invent a sorting algorthm that's faster than quicksort.

But since you asked, here's one I'd like to see :

// Pathfinding algorithm significantly faster than A* with finite runtime in all situations.
NodeList* A_ultra_star(graph* pGraph, node* pStart, node* pEnd )
{
    if( pStart == pEnd ) return NULL;
    else
    {
       NodeList* BestPath = NULL;
       // ?????
       return BestPath;
    }
}

APL (talk) 02:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I marked this resolved. 188.28.246.47 (talk) 02:57, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

p.s. don't get your hopes up - I meant the thread! 188.28.246.47 (talk) 02:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you would be interested in List of unsolved problems in computer science? I think it is generally agreed that a significantly faster Integer factorization algorithm would have far-reaching implications. 130.88.73.71 (talk) 14:13, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

July 7

how to make Perl more random

I was trying to come up with 10 random numbers, using Perl, and absentmindedly just wrote perl -we 'for (1..10){print int rand 10000, " "} but I got the result: 21211 68448 21458 58026 25746 90499 21777 93404 86137 93633! This doesn't seem very "random" to me at all, as it doesn't have a single small number in it!

I would like a more random assortment of numbers, more like, 5, 23423, 12312, 342, 42, 1, 53, 191, 3423, 634234. How could I tweak my code to be more "random"? (and less random). Thanks... 188.28.246.47 (talk) 01:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

If you select at random a number between 0 and 99999, or whatever the limits for Perl are, the chances of it being less than 10 are extremely remote - think about it. 01:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)

The list of numbers that you want to see is very unusual. The majority of the numbers are under 500! The odds against that happening at random are astronomical.

What you need to do is think about the distribution of numbers you WANT to see.

If you don't need a smooth distribution, perhaps you could simply rig it so fifty percent of the time it gives you a number between one and a million, and the other fifty percent of the time it gives you a number between one and 100. APL (talk) 02:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

A better way to match the human intuition for randomness would be to generate a random number in the range 0 to 10 (call it X), then output 10^X, rounded down to the nearest integer. Looie496 (talk) 02:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Except the OP wants 10^X to be in the range between 0 and 10000, so X should be between 0 and 100. --COVIZAPIBETEFOKY (talk) 02:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Er, sorry, X should be between 0 and log(10000) = 4. --COVIZAPIBETEFOKY (talk) 02:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The Perl program for (1..10){print int 10 ** rand 5, " "} printed 339 35 22574 11 21 5758 590 4 2516 9 in my test, which seems like roughly what the OP wants. This is a log-uniform distribution, as opposed to the uniform distribution produced by rand by itself. There's nothing strange about it. Numbers generated in this way obey Benford's law, and so do a lot of numbers in the real world. Nature likes log-uniform (or at least log-normal) distributions. -- BenRG (talk) 06:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that's... a pretty satisfying explanation, contrary to what cracked has to say.

Although that suggests that the perturbations which impact election results in Iran must be predominantly multiplicative, to produce a log-normal distribution. Is there any explanation as to why that might be? --COVIZAPIBETEFOKY (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want a headache, you can find many papers on Google Scholar which argue about which is really more natural, log-normal distributions or Zipf-Mandlebrot distributions. I found a lot when I was looking for some good tricks to generate a pink distribution random number generator. -- kainaw™ 02:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Focus follows mouse on a mac: how to do this?

Hi. Title says it all really. macosx 10.6.7. Googling gave nothing useful. I can't believe it's not possible. Can anyone advise, please? Robinh (talk) 02:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I vaguely remember that there is a hack, but can't remember the details. I prefer sloppy focus under X11, but any kind of FFM is a mixed blessing under Aqua, since the global menu bar also reflects the application that has the focus (and, I think, it auto-raises windows). But see [1]--Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

More information on this subject than you could possibly desire. As you might guess, it's only sort of possible. Paul (Stansifer) 19:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

thanks guys. That blog by Steve Yegge just hit the spot. The bit about the BLONK! BLONK! BLONK! alarm was a perfect piece of writing. I guess every large company has its "we know everyone hates this but we are going to be utter jerks about it, and we aren't going to change it" issues. Google has left navigation, and apple has this. Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Struggling with Computer

I have a refurbished laptop (I will never buy another one after this) and I struggling with it. After running Kaspersky and deleting 4 infected files, my computer will no longer connect wirelessly to the internet. In fact, it no longer recognizes that it even once did connect wirelessly; I can't find "wireless network connections" under the "network connections" screen. Is there another way to access the wireless network connections screen? I am running Windows XP. Also, could deleting those files via Kasperky have affected the computer's ability to connect wirelessly? 24.88.86.197 (talk) 09:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, you could boot off a Linux "live CD" and see whether that found wireless connections. If it did, then you'd know that there was no hardware problem. -- Tama1988 (talk) 09:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems obvious the deleted files were something critical (network drivers?) If Kaspersky keeps "deleted" files in a quarantine area, then examine that first. Restore each file in turn and see which one(s) make the wireless network work again. Have a look and see what Kaspersky said they were infected with and search the internet (perhaps from a different PC) to see if there are alternatives to deleting the files. Of course, if they are not quarantined but have been deleted, you might get them back with Window's system restore utility. The final method might be to reinstall the deleted files, by downloading new ones off the internet (remember to choose official sites only rather than blogs or torrents) but to do that you will need to know the manufacturer of the network drivers. Astronaut (talk) 11:53, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, software problems haven't anything to do with refurbishment. ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:00, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, they could, if the refurbished computer still has bits of the old software (and maybe viruses) on it. StuRat (talk) 05:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, software problems are easily fixed and haven't anything to do with refurbished hardware, if you like. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Online maps with heights

Which free online mapping service, covering cities in England, can display elevation information, perhaps as different shades or as contour lines?  Card Zero  (talk) 12:20, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The only thing I know of is the OS get-a-map service -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:04, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I think with a bit of print screening and stitching together and picking out the contours, that might just about solve my problem. Thanks Finlay!  Card Zero  (talk) 16:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

OpenStreetMap can show you contour maps, if you choose the "Cycle Map" format (accessible via the + sign on the upper right edge). Looie496 (talk) 16:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting - can you give me an example location (or perhaps zoom level) where this works? In the city I'm looking at now, all the "cycle layer" does is display one cycle track (inside a park), and it shows no contour lines.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:19, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

A sample location where it works. Are you perhaps looking at a very flat area? Otherwise, I know OpenStreetMap is missing contour details for a few areas, but not many. Warofdreams talk 09:38, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like my mistake was to visit "OpenStreetBrowser" (the second link in the article) rather than the site you linked to. Not sure why they have two sites. (If the idea is for the "browser" one to be more accessible to casual users, it probably shouldn't have a mysterious "+" button which I didn't click on my first visit because I assumed it meant "edit", and the functions concealed by the button probably shouldn't be broken.) This is ideal, now that I'm on the main site: nice big maps with clear contours. Ta.  Card Zero  (talk) 13:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Bizarre Problem with Gmail & Thunderbird

Resolved

I have recently purchased a domain for my business, and set up Google Apps so that I now have a Gmail address, but with my own domain in the address instead of gmail.com, and everything works perfectly if I send email from within Gmail in my browser. However, if I use Thunderbird, any email I send has the name I use for online gaming in the 'From' field, rather than my real name, under which the new address is registered in Gmail. I am also using Thunderbird to download email from [my_gaming_name]@gmail.com. These accounts are not linked in any way. Is there something I should have done? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

EDIT - I can send email, but I can't receive any..... --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

USB Flash drive locks up laptop at bootup. Why?

I recently bought a regular Micro Center 16 GB USB flash drive. Odd thing is, whenever it is plugged into my computer and I turn the computer on, it will lock up at the Gateway screen and not boot into the OS at all. The only options on the Gateway screen are F2, to enter the BIOS setup, and F10, for a system setup. Pressing either of them presents me with a 'Loading... Please wait' message that never loads. When I power down the machine and take out the flash drive, everything works fine. I perplexed as to why this happens. There's nothing bootable on the flash drive that I can think of, and previous flash drives have worked fine with no problem. (Well, I did have the same problem a few months ago, but I can't remember if had the same solution of pulling out a USB flash drive...) Can anyone shed some light onto this topic? Thanks. 141.153.215.98 (talk) 14:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The flash drive might still have its bootable flag set. I'm not sure of an easy way to clear this, short of using a partition editor. However, you can go into the BIOS settings and change the boot order to HDD (drive c:) first. This will stop it from attempting to boot off another drive. CS Miller (talk) 15:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

It may be useful to try putting in the flash drive after logging onto the computer... Dubious Status ^{How's it going?} 17:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Preventing a reformat

While I'm here, another quick question: Is there any way to prevent someone (such as a thief, for example) from reformatting a hard drive? My guess is no, as any tech savvy user could find a way around it, such as booting up for a LiveCD and doing what you will. Nevertheless, I'm interested to hear any ideas. The reason I ask is being I've loaded some tracking software onto my laptop in the case it ever gets stolen, but like all software tracking the major flaw is it has to connect to the internet to work (and thus won't if the thief reformats the disk right off the bat). The Computrace BIOS solution would probably work better, yet I've yet to find an alternative (and doubt there would be one) that doesn't require payment. 141.153.215.98 (talk) 14:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

As above. Set the BIOS to boot from the hard drive first, and then set a BIOS password to stop anyone changing the settings. Hopefully the OS will protect itself from being overwritten. However, this won't stop the thief from opening the case, and reformatting the drive in another computer, or using the BIOS reset jumper. -- CS Miller (talk) 15:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

This is totally not what you want, but the literal answer to your first sentence is "yes, on some hard disks", because some hard disks let you set a jumper to actually write-protect the hard disk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

New Computer Programs

Is there a good place to read up on new programs and computer languages? Dubious Status ^{How's it going?} 18:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a very broad question. Generally speaking, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is widely regarded as the foremost organization for computer research topics. They have numerous research and industry publications, listed at their publications catalog website. New computer language topics are probably best served by the SIGPLAN, ACM's special interest group for programming languages. What sort of resource are you looking for, more specifically? Nimur (talk) 20:20, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you interested in theory or practice? Tragically, popular programming languages don't have much to do with programming languages research these days. You might be interested in learning a Lisp-derived language, since they have a The Blob-like ability to absorb new ideas and techniques. (Racket is the Lisp that I always suggest.) Paul (Stansifer) 17:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Beginner's Question - Installing Windows 7

I have a PC running Vista and have ordered Windows 7. I have read about the problems with upgrading and the advisability of a clean install. But does the install process of Windows 7 give me the chance to repartition my hard drive (it currently has C: & D: and I want only one partition) and do I get the chance to do a low level format - all this before I install Windows 7? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gurumaister (talk • contribs) 18:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the setup has the option to create, delete and format partitions before you select one to install Windows on. I'm not sure what a low level format is or how it differs from a regular format, so I am not sure if Windows 7 setup offers this. AvrillirvA (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

AvrillirvA - thank you very much. I am much releived. By the way, a low level format is the format done at DOS level such as when you install an operating system. Any format done afterwards BY the operating system is . . . . (excuse me, I am not a techie) it is less thorough shall we say. Thanks again. Gurumaister (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thoroughness has nothing to do with it. I think your confusions is that certain operating systems are unable (or unwilling) to permit a format of the disk partition that the operating system resides on. An operating system can deny access to formatting its own partition for safety reasons, to prevent accidental self-destruction; or it can deny such access because of its own technical limitations, such as an inability to place the entire operating system resident in main memory so that the entire disk (including swap space) can be written or erased. This is not a hard limit to all systems; for example, many small distributions of Linux permit formatting of the entire hard-disk while the system is up and running. And, many bootable instances of disk utility programs constitute a "very small operating system," yet they clearly permit formatting of the entire hard-disk. Nimur (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

True low-level formatting is not normally possible, but Disk partitioning is an option. Are you wishing to erase all traces of files previously stored so that they cannot be recovered? If so, then the article on Data erasure might be useful, though normal overwriting of the sectors after a high-level format or just file or partition deletion is considered sufficient to destroy data on modern drives. Dbfirs 21:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't so much the deletion of the files I am interested in but 1) to be able to put the disk back to a single partition where it currently has two, and 2) to erase all trace of the Vista OS before I install a clean version of Windows 7. Thanks for the help. Gurumaister (talk) 06:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

One of my laptops had Vista on it - one partition with the OS on it, and another 'for me', so to speak. I put Ubuntu on it to remove Vista and join the two partitions, then wrote over that with Win7. Now the laptop has only Win7 and essentially one partition (except that it has a tiny 100MB partition with nothing on it). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:30, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Win7 setup has a partition manager that lets you create, delete, format and resize partitions. I don't know whether it will merge two partitions, preserving the files on both. One gotcha is that when you create a new partition on an empty drive, it will insist on creating a second, small boot/recovery partition also. If you really want just one partition, you can work around that by letting it create both partitions, deleting the big one, then resizing the small ("system") partition to fill the disk.

You can also press Shift+F10 once the setup GUI appears to bring up a command prompt from which you can run a bunch of command-line utilities including diskpart. If you wanted to, say, delete the Windows folder while preserving other files, you could do it from there. -- BenRG (talk) 01:01, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

July 8

Google Search

Recently I am finding an extraordinarily high number of instances of Google's little feature where it displays search results for something similar to what I typed, instead of what I actually typed. It is getting to be about 1 in 3 searches I am getting "Showing results for [something irrelevent]. Search instead for [my original query]" and as I use Google in my work, this is slowing me down a bit. It may be a Firefox extension acting silly, or it may be a legit Google service being over-zealous (after all, this is Google). Does Google have any option to turn off these alternative searches? Or is it possible to prioritize my original search and have the alternative one appear as the, well, alternative? I don't go into a shop to buy a cake and expect to get confronted with a room full of cars, after all. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

This may be too much typing for what you want, but preceding the word you want with a plus sign (+) should make it use that exact word in the search. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

That actually does seem to work - cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I prefer to type my Google queries in "quotation marks", because the search 'feature' You mentioned, KageTora, is in 95% of my search cases rather unhelpful. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I could do that, but that's sometimes troublesome, as I often switch between Japanese and UK keybord inputs, which makes the " and @ keys swap places - not visibly on my keyboard, of course, so I don't know until I've typed it. For this reason I try as much as possible to avoid using these keys. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:04, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Legitimate reason, I understand. --Ouro (blah blah) 14:41, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the responses above - Google now does weird things that makes it difficult to use, including usually finding results for words that you never typed. I suspect the chances of Google actually fessing up and reverting back to the much better previous version are rather low. 92.29.112.188 (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

My OR experience is that Google's feature of "Here are the search results for what I think you meant" is actually exactly what I wanted 95% of the time; and I expect that since KageTora works as a translator in the legal field, he or she often searches for things that are not often searched for by a large amount of the general public; hence Google's inappropriate suggestions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, it's actually not just in my work I'm finding this. It's happened many times today already, and for the two or three hours I was working I didn't use Google (except to search for company names, and then it was spot on). I could give examples, but each example would probably have a pretty straightforward explanation, leading me to give more examples, each of which would have straightforward explanations too. Maybe it's just me, but I really do think it is happening far more than it used to. Also, I'm not counting typos, of which I do make my fair share and do allow Google to help there (it's faster than retyping) - this is why it stands out in my mind when Google 'auto-corrects' something which I know to be correct in the first place. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

My OR experience is that 95% of the time they are things I don't want. It has a nasty habit of ignoring the full word that you typed, but just taking the first few letters and returning the results for what it guesses from that. So whats in the search box and what you actually get are unrelated. Another thing it sometimes does is just returning a blank screen. The option "Remove Google Annoyances" can be used in the Firefox add-on "Google enhancer" , but it turns off every Google script not just those of the (not) "improved" recent version. Is there anything that just turns off the (not) "improved" version? 2.101.12.198 (talk) 12:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Nokia N95 Battery Spare

Does anyone know where I could get a replacement battery for my Nokia N95 mobile? I would prefer a shop I can physically walk into, buy the battery, and walk out with it (and possibly take it straight back to them if there are any issues with it), rather than somewhere online, and would therefore be looking for somewhere in the Merseyside region. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought about doing this for my aged Motorola RAZR. However, I found that the price of batteries in bricks and mortar was far higher than online (about 4 times the price). I therefore bought one online and it was eactly the job. I would, at the very least, invest a small amount of money in an online purchase.--Phil Holmes (talk) 09:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe KageTora's experience is like mine, in that all the "100% genuine" phone batteries I've bought online have turned out to be fakes, but it's not worth the cost and hassle of returning them and trying to recoup the money. There are phone shops on every high street; if you can't buy it through them then I'm afraid the genuine and reliable article is probably no longer available. This seems to happen all the time with phone batteries.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Shantavira - I don't mind buying some things online, but fake phone batteries are notorious, from what I've heard/read. Anyway, as it turns out, my mate has got a spare battery. I'll get the charger from Nokia. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:33, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

July 9

Unicode 6.0

At the risk of sounding like a total idiot, how do I go about installing/running Unicode 6.0.0? I can't seem to get it up and running on my computer (I use Firefox 5.0 and IE 8, if that's any help). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:33, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Unicode is a standard, not a software package. There's nothing you can install to force any program (such as Firefox) to follow any particular version of the standard. -- BenRG (talk) 01:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

That's what I suspected, but I wanted to make sure. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:05, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Dual video cards and gaming

I have a Dell XPS 15 laptop with 2 video cards, an integrated Intel HD card for low-intensity things and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M card for high-intensity things, like games. When I installed PES 2011, it seems to only be able to detect the integrated card, so it won't run on high settings, even though it will use the NVIDIA card when it actually runs. Any ideas on how to fix this? Simeon24601 (talk) 03:24, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but are you 100% sure about the 2 video cards part? It's just that I've never heard of a laptop having 2 different video cards (the lack of space being the main reason, but a graphics card can easily be underpowered to save battery as well as scaled up to full speed when needed for games etc). I went along to the Dell website just to be sure though, but I couldn't see anything that suggested it has two cards. The basic configuration does have an Intel HD graphics card, but the majority of configurations of the XPS 15 laptop seem to come with various NVIDIA cards instead (not in addition). So to answer your question about improving the performance of the game, you said it's using the NVIDIA card (which makes sense as that's probably the only card in there) so as long as you're using the latest video card drivers, I'm afraid the performance is probably about as good as you're getting to get. Although laptop video cards are considerably better than they used to be, they're still nowhere near the performance of graphics cards that fit in desktop computers. Obviously it depends on what exactly it's doing, but I looked up some benchmarks for the GT 540M, but in comparison it's under half the speed of a GTX 260 that I have in this machine which is over 2 years old now (which in turn looks terrible compared to the latest GTX 580). The only other things you can try are making sure you have plenty of system RAM (not usually much of an issue these days with new computers, but worth mentioning anyway) and also just make sure you don't have anything processor intensive running in the background whilst you're trying to play.  ZX81  ^talk 04:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It is now quite plausible for a laptop to have multiple graphics cards. Right now, I am using a 2yr-old Lenovo W500 that has integrated Intel GMA4500 and a discrete ATI FireGL V5700. I can switch between them without restarting the computer, so it is quite effective for power management.

Switchable graphics are much more common on workstation / desktop replacement laptops, which I am quite sure includes the Dell XPS. Freedomlinux (talk) 07:45, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh cool, I stand corrected on that part then! Thanks, learnt something new today! :)  ZX81  ^talk 15:02, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

As Freedomlinux wrote, you need to look up how to set your laptop to use the high-performance, high-power-using Nvidia chipset instead of the low-performance, lower-power-using Intel chipset. Unfortunately, at least some laptops with dual video chipsets do not let the user configure this. I bought an HP Sharp laptop within the last two months which had dual chipsets, and *the software* on the laptop decided when to switch. When playing my game of choice, the idiotic laptop decided to always use the Intel chipset rather than the fancy Nvidia chipset, so I could only play my game of choice with slow graphics. Amazingly, HP Sharp did not include an option for me to manually switch between the chipsets. I returned the laptop to the store immediately. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Edited: Not an HP laptop, but a laptop from Sharp. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that tip. I have done that; however, the game seems to think that my video card isn't good enough to run the game, when I'm pretty sure it clearly is. Also, I can't manually override the settings. A GeForce GT 540M should be enough to run PES 2011 at fairly good graphics, right? Simeon24601 (talk) 21:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you identify the country location in mail addresses on the Internet?

Hi I always thought that you could identify a country location by addresses on the Internet e.g. .uk (United Kingdom), .cy (Cyprus), .au (Australia), .tc (Turks & Caicos), etc. I have been trying to identify .cc with no luck. Is there a listing anywwhere that lists all the .??s against country location? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjamdog (talk • contribs) 12:43, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

.cc is the top level domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The islands only have a population of ~596 people, and almost all the websites and email providers that use .cc are from other countries. So it's overwhelmingly likely that an email you get from a .cc address are in fact from some other country; you really can't figure out much about where such an email comes from. But then you can't tell much about the geographical location of any email sender - just because someone has a .com email address, or even an email server located in the US, doesn't mean the original sender is the US - they can be anywhere. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:48, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Here is a Country code top-level domains AvrillirvA (talk) 14:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Modem Too Far

Hello. If I wire my computer, which is 15 ft from the nearest phone jack, to the modem, my Internet connection is unreliable. My computer cannot connect to the modem wirelessly. What should I do? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 19:04, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

What kind of modem do you mean? How long is the cable you are using to connect your computer to the modem? Are you sure that the cable isn't broken? (Cheap Ethernet cables can break pretty easily.) Looie496 (talk) 22:08, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Move the modem nearer the computer. In the UK its easy to buy an extension cable that you plug in to the phone plug or "jack", so that the modem is near the computer and only needs a short cable from it to the computer. Don't know if you can do that where you are. 2.101.12.198 (talk) 10:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Voice-picking program

Is there a software which allows to pick the voice pitch from a song and them make a new phrase from that voice sample (and probably replace some part of the song with the words I want)?--46.204.100.73 (talk) 21:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

There are programs to remove vocal tracks entirely, but those only occasionally work. (It depends how the song was mixed.)

But if you're looking to extract the voice, use it as raw material for a speech synthesizer, and use that to make a new song with new words? No. There is nothing that can come close to doing that. APL (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

To do this type of extraction using existing technology and software would require lots of manual editing of the waveform. It might take several hours (not to mention, years of audio signal-processing expertise) to produce a few seconds of useful, extracted audio. The reason this process is not (and probably never can be) automated is similar to the reason that audio signals can not be easily converted to MIDI. See this archived discussion for some detailed explanation why the audio-extraction problem is theoretically hard. Nimur (talk) 00:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

July 10

User agent string spoof

How do I spoof user agent string in Internet Explorer 9? 123.24.106.106 (talk) 00:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not a supported feature of IE 9. Could you explain why you want to do that, and we can help find another way of attacking your issue? i kan reed (talk) 13:37, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

If you must use Internet Explorer, but insist on pretending that you are not using it, there are other solutions. You can always proxy your web connection, and write a proxy-side script to modify HTTP headers. Here's the official Squid Cache manual section for replacing HTTP headers; (don't forget to specify header access) and here's a fun "hacker" website that instructs you how to randomize your user-agent string using Perl.

As the Squid manual makes abundantly clear: intercepting and modifying HTTP headers "...VIOLATES the HTTP standard. Enabling this feature could make you liable for problems which it causes." In other words, using this feature may (will) break your web browsing experience in interesting ways. Nimur (talk) 00:19, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Corrupt master file table

Hello all, I have a 2 TB external hard drive from Seagate, a FreeAgent. This drive is a tertiary hard drive that is only used for file storage (two others are a 60 GB primary with XP, and a 1 TB Seagate). Yesterday it wouldn't let me do anything with it, XP popping up a systray bubble saying something about $MFT being corrupt and unreadable, and to try chkdsk. I set it to run and fix errors. I left it running overnight, and it was on 23% of Stage 2 when I left early this morning. When I got back home (~12 hours later) it was still at 23% on Stage 2. I decided to exit chkdsk and try again, but now chkdsk tells me:

C:\Documents and Settings\[censored]>chkdsk F: /F
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is FreeAgent Drive.
Corrupt master file table.  CHKDSK aborted.

It had detected some errors before I exited chkdsk but unfortunately I didn't copy them down.

Any ideas? -- MegaGuy (talk) 01:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert but someone in the comments here http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-data-recovery-file-undelete-utility.htm recommends Test Disk for a corrupted disk. As it is not your main HD, then you don't need to use a LiveCD. 2.101.12.198 (talk) 11:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

SATA drivers

Hello,

I'm trying to install Windows XP (Pro, 32 bits) on one of the partitions of my main HDD (Hitachi 5450 something). However, the boot CD crashes because I apparently don't have the required SATA drivers. I tried incorporating the XP version chipset drivers with nLite to no avail. My Samsung laptop's mobo is a RF711.

I want to do this to troubleshoot my two iPods who have started freezing during sync at specifc points. HD Tune shows bad sectors but it seems odd that this happened so suddently. CHKDSK doesn't find anything, neither does CopyTrans Doctor. Since I heard iTunes has problems with Windows 7 64 bits, this is pretty much what I haven't tried. Reset, restore, quick format (low-level doesn't work, drive is protected), can't do in-built HDD scan because some dimwit removed the feature for the iPod classics, tried shutting down Zone Alarm and all other security thingies, aso tried downgrading iTunes (reinstalled/uninstalled as well) and trying other .mp3 files and putting the devices on cooling pads during sync, without forgetting compatibility mode and running as administrator, disabling UAC. Tried using Winamp and Media Monkey for sync too.

Sorry for formatting I'm writing on my Kindle. Things I haven't tried include running with everything disabled except required Apple services and processes, CHKDSK during boot through O&O defrag, opening the devices and playing with the HDD wires and shooting both iPods with my Glock, but I'm at work ATM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.18.145.160 (talk) 06:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure the "chipset" download contains the SATA driver. Try the download called "Intel Rapid Storage" (for Windows 7), or this. You can probably set the SATA interface to compatibility mode in the BIOS and avoid the need for a driver entirely. CHKDSK won't scan for bad sectors unless you give it the /R option. I don't think I can help you with the rest of your problems. -- BenRG (talk) 09:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Java Class

Suppose i have class named Vehicle. whats the difference between the following two:

Vehicle scooter;

and

Vehicle bike = new Vehicle();

117.201.249.207 (talk) 08:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

scooter and bike are both references (of type Vehicle). bike is a reference to a new concrete instance of Vehicle, but scooter is null (it doesn't refer to any instance). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 09:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that was helpful. I have another question :D:
Do i need to always define the main method as static. if yes, why? 117.201.249.207 (talk) 10:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. The answer, which is a tad unsatisfactory, is "just because". When you start the java interpreter with a class to run, it looks for a method called main that takes a String[] and is static. That's just the way they defined it when they created Java (I think for some wrong-headed notion of symmetry with C). There's no reason at all that Java couldn't have an abstract base class Application and your application would be a concrete subclass of that (and that's how things work for every other kind of Java program). So "just because". -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 10:13, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Finlay is absolutely correct: Java's inventors decided to make the program-entry-point static. The benefit, though, is that a Java program may begin execution before the heap is fully initialized. You can read more about JVM internals, and implementation-choices: The Structure of the Java Virtual Machine. Some of these implementation details are specified by the Java language; for example, every Java program will start with a public static method named main whose arguments are an array of strings. Other details are not required by the spec, but are merely common amongst the most popular implementations of Java VMs and compilers. For example, the language requires starting execution in a static method whose offset in the classfile bytecode is trivial to calculate. The language doesn't require, but does allow, that the execution of main() can be executed in parallel with (and before the completion of) the initialization of the heap. Nimur (talk) 17:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Home routers with good IPv6 support

Just a few months ago, I read that many home routers had poor support for IPv6 despite being advertised as supporting it. Has the situation changed lately? Are there home routers that are known to have good IPv6 support (and performs well in other respects)? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.11.217 (talk) 09:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

New Partition On Ext HDD

I have an external HDD, and I am wanting to put a new partition on it and put Win7 on there as a bootable backup/recovery (in addition to the Ubuntu I am currently using for the same reason). The HDD is used alternately between two laptops - one already with Win7 on it, and the other with Vista. Now, I have a couple of questions:

• Will it be possible to partition the HDD and put Win7 on it, using up 100GB on the partition?
• More importantly, will this be possible without deleting existing data on the HDD (there are 670GB left on the disk)?
• If I boot into this new partition, will my data on the existing Vista/Win7 partitions be accessible?

The tools I currently have at my disposal are Vista and Ubuntu (as the Win7 laptop is upstairs being used). Cheers! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Creating a new partition using unassigned sectors of a hard disk is simple, but shrinking an existing partition to make room for a new partition is not. If that's what you want to do, it may be possible, but this may involve moving data around on that partition, or even copying the data off it, reformatting, then putting it back (there are utilities that do this). As for accessing data on the non-boot partition, that's easy, as long as the partition is in a recognized format. Note that you will need to run a boot manager to select which boot partition you want, each time you start a computer. StuRat (talk) 20:07, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Scrolling

My cat has just walked across my keyboard and now I can't scroll using the arrow keys. I don't have a scroll lock button. Any ideas how to fix this (the cat is of no help)? Bradley0110 (talk) 11:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Is one of your Ctrl keys perhaps stuck down? (Probably not, because that would interfere with typing too.) Details of your system and software would help.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Try pressing the NUM LOCK key. If that doesn't work try the SCROLL LOCK key.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both. I managed to fix it through Firefox options (would love to know what shortcut the cat managed to trigger to get it like that though!) Bradley0110 (talk) 14:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It might have been F7 ("caret browsing"). There's a list at " http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Keyboard shortcuts ". (I'd like to link to that directly, but the URL contains an unencoded space, which I didn't think was even possible. The wiki software has now automagically created the wrong link - you have to add "shortcuts" to the end.)  Card Zero  (talk) 14:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Keyboard%20shortcuts

URLs containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20.

sp	"	,	'	;	<	>	?	[	]
%20	%22	%2c	%3a	%3b	%3c	%3e	%3f	%5b	%5d

Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's how you do it. I knew about percent encoding and originally tried adding the %20 in the address bar, which didn't work because that's not what the page is called on the server.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

In case you didn't know this, original poster, the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in Computing was won by a guy who wrote some software that detects when your cat is walking on your keyboard. It displays a dialog box saying CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED and waits for you to click a mouse button. Comet Tuttle (talk) 12:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Email address left on guestbook problem

Good afternoon, I have a problem (I don't know if you can help me here). I have put a message on the guestbook of somebody with the help of my e-mail adres. Everytime now I go to goggle and I write my name (my name entirely), the beginning of the page and the beginning of the message I have sent appears because I have used my name in my e-mail adres that I needed to send the message. Now everybody can read my message. It attacks my private life. I would like to remove it by my own but it doens't work. Must I wait until (with the years) due to others messages on the guestbook I 'll be put backward (in the last page) and then disappear but it can take years. Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.241.70.217 (talk) 13:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I gave your post a title. Tips: next time, click the "ask a new question" button instead of "edit", and put four tildes at the end to generate a time-and-IP-number signature.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

:Try clearing your history and cache. You will find that this is actually your browser auto-completing. Use a different browser, if you want to test this. Ignore me. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:43, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest you politely write to the admin of the site asking them if they could kindly take down the message or at least obscure your name. Of course there is no guarantee they will respond in the manner you wish, particularly if your original message was rude or attacked them. In that case there is probably not much you can do other then to wait it out (the site may disappear and in any case most people aren't going to hold a single thing a person said 15 years ago against them if they've changed significantly since then). Also take this as a lesson to be more careful in the future when posting on the internet, particularly when using your real name (although many would say often if you don't want people associating what you are writing with your real name you probably shouldn't be writing it in the first place) or any other identity that can be associated with your real name. Of course if you establish a more positive online identity which people link to and admire then this will likely push the unwanted result down in the search results. Nil Einne (talk) 18:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

using a proxy

I am at a loss. I am in Singapore, and I want to watch shows on websites that do not let me, e.g. formula 1 from the BBC iplayer and Daria from the MTV USA website. Both tell me that I cannot watch in my country/zone. So I hear about proxies, and how people use them to watch whatever they want from whatever website. So I read about them, follow the instructions, and paste in the URL. I try again and again with a bunch of the most popular proxies, but instead of the video playing, no player appears on the screen at all. The rest of the BBC or MTV page is present, but no video player. Can someone please explain how to use these cursed proxies!?! Also in case it's relevant I have a macbook OSX 10.6.4 using safari (I have tried with chrome also to no avail)

Cheers Ballchef (talk) 14:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Publicly advertised open proxies are overloaded with traffic from people like you as well as people who want anonymity for various reasons. You'll never get good service from them, even if you get them to work. It's possible that the operators of the proxies have deliberately blocked high-traffic sites like the BBC in an attempt to avoid overload. And the BBC and MTV may monitor the same open proxy lists you used and block those IPs.

I'm afraid you will probably have to pay a monthly fee if you want a proxy (or VPN) that doesn't suck. -- BenRG (talk) 17:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Disk enclosure

Apparently, it is much cheaper (on a 1:2 relation) to buy a disk enclosure and a HDD to build your external HDD (instead of buying a ready to go external HDD). Is there any recommendation against doing it? Any details to consider? I already know I have to check the type of connection (SATA, IDE, ...) and the size (1T, 2T) of the HDD that the controller can handle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiweek (talk • contribs) 16:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

You can get a 2TB internal HD from Amazon for about $80 or an external for about $100. Building your own only makes sense now if you already have a drive. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not really cheaper, I'd only do it if I already had the drive (ask Gadget said) or wanted a very particular setup. With an external that comes with its own enclosure, someone has already (potentially) considered the problem of heat and various other things for you. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

It might be that I got the prices wrong, and that simply at different places, the DIY version was cheaper. Gadget850 must know something about gadgets. Wikiweek (talk) 01:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Can't delete a corrupted folder

Resolved

Yesterday, I created a file folder and placed a few images into it, and slightly more than an hour ago, I changed the names of the images in the folder. Just now, I tried to look at the images, only to receive the following message:

[path from C: to the folder] is not accessible.

The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

Figuring that there's no point to keeping a corrupted folder and images that I can't access, I tried to delete it, but was greeted by the following message:

An unexpected error is preventing the operation.

"Error 0x80070091: The directory is not empty"

Any ideas how I can delete the folder or uncorrupt the images? I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium; to my surprise, I can't figure out how to find what edition of Windows I'm running — my customisations to restore the look of previous Windows editions means that the Windows Help features tell me to try features whose functions I've changed. Nyttend (talk) 16:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

After I posted this request for help, it occurred to me that I'd not restarted the computer. To my surprise, after the restart I'm able to view the images without difficulty, and I've now uploaded them: 1, 2, and 3. Nyttend (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

If something like that happens again, Unlocker might be able to fix it without having to restart. AvrillirvA (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

defence

why defence depatment is not using advance technology for storing ammunitation as land are becoming costlier and less day by day and away from civil socities ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.245.134.7 (talk) 17:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Which defence department, advanced technology and ammunition do you have in mind?  Card Zero  (talk) 17:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

In the United States, Joint Munitions Command is the coordinated service command (operated by the Army) that supplies ammunition to all services of the United States armed forces. They take safety and security very seriously. As far as advanced technologies, numerous facilities that use a variety of technology to stay safe, stay secure, reduce cost, and preserve the environment. All of these potential hazards must be addressed; and the United States has a pretty solid record for preventing major ammunition safety incidents. You can read more at http://www.jmc.army.mil or in our article. Do you have a question about a specific technology? Nimur (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

SFTP double hop

I have an SFTP (and SSH) machine that I use a lot. However, it isn't connected to the Internet. So, I have to SSH into another machine which is connected to it and then SSH into the machine I want to use. I often open SFTP sessions with servers like this one, but I cannot do it with this particular one because I have to SSH to one server and then SFTP to the one I want. Is there some trick to get a double-hop for SFTP - tell it so ssh to one machine and then sftp to the next? -- kainaw™ 20:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Say you're going from A to B to C. You should be able to ssh from A to B with a tunnel set to forward to C:

   ssh -f kainaw@A -L 9999:C:22 -N

Then you can run the sftp on A directed at the forwarded port on B, which should forward it off to C:

   sftp -P 9999 B

I've not tried this particular thing, so let me know how this works out. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:22, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Haven't tried it yet, but I know it will work. I've used port forwarding before, but not for this task. Sometimes the obvious stubbornly eludes me. -- kainaw™ 12:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Pushdown Automaton Formal Definition

In the formal definitional of pushdown automota it describes the transition function as a mapping from the Cartesian product of the set of states, the set of the input alphabet and the set of the stack alphabet. In my textbook it says the this is because it will pick the next state and new stack based on the current state, input and what's at the top of the stack. But why do we just have to input the value at the top of the stack, surely it should be a function from a list of elements of the stack alphabet, otherwise how does it know what else is on the stack (e.g. when it pop's, how does it know what's below, if that wasn't an input). — Preceding unsigned comment added by SlakaJ (talk • contribs) 23:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean that the transition would depend on the entire contents of the stack? Yes, that would make the machine more powerful, but it would actually not be a very useful model: since the stack can be arbitrarily large, the description of the transition function could get very complicated. But the idea of the pushdown automaton model is to make a simple machine that can do complicated things with the aid of a stack. A stack is simple to implement and very fast to use... provided you don't have to go through the entire contents of the stack on every transition step.

However the main problem is that a pushdown automaton that can make a transition on the basis of the entire contents of the stack is just as powerful as an arbitrary function: consider an automaton that simply copies the input to the stack, appends an end-of-input mark, and then looks up the correct result by using the transition function. (Cleaning up the stack afterwards is also easy to arrange.) The interesting thing about the pushdown automaton as defined is that it is a simple machine that is realistically implementable (as long as you don't run out of stack space, but that is another discussion) and that can do more than a finite state automaton, yet less than a Turing machine, or an arbitrary function.

By the way, it is also important to note that a stack element can be defined as a list of a fixed number of input elements (say, the 10 latest input characters). This is useful in practice, does not require unbounded storage space, and does not increase the theoretical power of the model. 188.117.30.209 (talk) 05:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

July 11

How do I get gtk working?

Hi, I'm using Fedora 4 and trying to do some gui programming. Certain websites say to use the header #include <gtk/gtk.h>, but the compiler doesn't recognise it. I have gimp, and I at least have a folder called gtk (I actually have /etc/gtk and /etc/gtk-2.0, both of which contain a handful of files, all of them small), but somehow nothing is working. Is there a path variable I need to alter so the compiler picks these things up? I have the same problem if I do #include <gnome.h>. I even used the line at the command prompt (for <gnome.h>): g++ -o hello2 hello2.cpp `gnome-config --libs gnomeui` but to no avail. What can I do? I just want to do easy graphical programming, like using gui windows for inputting simple data. Many thanks, It's been emotional (talk) 01:09, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know Fedora (rather than Ubuntu) but you'd expect the headers to be in /usr/include/ and the libraries in /usr/lib (/etc/gtk-2.0 is for configuration). To generate the necessary -I and -L commands that gcc wants (which tell it where to look for headers and libraries) the gtk tutorial) says one should use pkg-config rather than gnome-config (my system doesn't have anything by that latter name). If, for example, I directly run pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0 at the command line, it reports a hefty swathe of -I -L and -l (and a few other) gcc options. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 10:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you really using Fedora Core 4 (from 2006)?; if so then my reply is probably wrong, as things will have changed over the last 5 years. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 10:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Even if you have gimp installed, the gtk dev files maynot be. do a search for gtk.h; if you find it you can use the -I option to add the directory to your gcc call. good luck. Staticd (talk) 10:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It is really beating your head against the wall to do Gtk programming without using Autoconf and Automake. There is a serious learning curve involved, but without them the dependencies are just too hairy to manage. It's also, in my view, beating your head against the wall to do Gtk programming with an out-of-date OS. Looie496 (talk) 21:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Formalizing a rule

What does that mean when a programming teacher tells you to 'formalize a certain rule"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiweek (talk • contribs) 01:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I imagine it means write the rule in a computer language. 92.24.187.78 (talk) 14:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me give an example. Let's say the rule is "Each person has a gender". To formalize this for programming, we need to decide the following:

1) Are people allowed not to specify their gender, say if they are worried about discrimination ?

2) Are "male" and "female" the only allowed genders ? What about intersex people, can they select both "male" and "female", or neither ?

3) Do we mean their genetic gender in the case of people who've undergone sex-change operations, or their current apparent gender ?

4) Same question for transvestites.

5) What should people with extra sex chromosomes put as their gender ?

So, you can see that even the simplest question can become quite complex, once you think through all the possible implications. StuRat (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Special help for access 2007

Please i need help !

I do not know if this is possible , and cant explain with acceess word so i will use drawings. I have these two tables:

this table is for the dog , and some values of him (medical values).

Header text	minimal	maximal
Value A	10	20
Value B	15	30
Value C	30	40

this table let say is for the cat and some medical values for it .

Header text	minimal	maximal
Value A	10	20
Value B	15	30
Value C	30	40

IN ANOTHER TABLE i want to make this :

type of animal	Value A	Value B
dog (or cat)	input value	input value

In this finale table , is my question . With a combo box i will select the type of animal (dog cat ect).

After i select , the values in columns should take the min and max values from the two first tables.

Examlpe : When i select dog , it takes values from the dog table .

And when i write a value greater than max or lower than min it should turn red AUTOMATICLY .

I have tried hard , using relationships or referncig some columns to other tables.NOTHING

Can it be done with codes or scripts , or i can use the interface of access 2007 ?

Sorry for the long question everyone , i hope someone knows this . Thank u in advance 95.107.197.68 (talk) 08:05, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

This can be done, but it will require quite a bit of work setting up the interface. I'll be doing some Access programming later today (lucky me) so I'll take a look at exactly how I'd set this up. I believe it can be done without using VBA, though VBA is in some ways the easiest answer to this (there is no question you could do it with VBA scripting in Access). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's one way to do it, using VBA. This is the easiest way that I know of. There is some of what you are describing that is ambiguous to me — what kind of forms you are thinking about. Below is one interpretation. If it is incorrect, please feel free to clarify what you mean.

This assumes that your cat data above is in a table named tblCat, and your dog data is in tblDog, and that your min/max values are in fields named "Min" and "Max".

Create a new form. On it, create a new combo box control, and give it the name, "cbo_select." Give it the values of "cat" and "dog".

Create a new text box control, and give it the name "txt_value". Make sure the Properties window is open. Select the text box (txt_value) and then go to the Event tab in the Properties window, then to the On Change event. If you click on the white space next to "On Change," an ellipses button (...) appears to the right of it. Click on that button, then select "Code builder," and it will open up the VBA editor.

This will put you into a subroutine called Private Sub txt_value_Change(). Paste in the following code:

'prepare some variables
Dim theMin As Single
Dim theMax As Single

If cbo_select.ListIndex <> -1 Then 'first we check that a table has been selected
    Select Case cbo_select.Value 'figure out which table is selected
    'note that DMin and DMax are funtions that return the min or max of a given column in a given table
    Case "cat": theMin = DMin("Min", "tblCat"): theMax = DMax("Max", "tblCat")
    Case "dog": theMin = DMin("Min", "tblDog"): theMax = DMax("Max", "tblDog")
    End Select

    'now we see if the current text is outside of the bounds.
    'note that we use the .Text property and not the .Value property, because
    '.Value assumes the control has already "registered" the value, where .Text
    'means "whatever text happens to be in there right now."
    If Val(txt_value.Text) < theMin Or Val(txt_value.Text) > theMax Then
        If txt_value.ForeColor <> RGB(255, 0, 0) Then 'if it's not already red...
            txt_value.ForeColor = RGB(255, 0, 0) 'make it red
        End If
    Else
        If txt_value.ForeColor <> RGB(0, 0, 0) Then 'if it's not already black...
            txt_value.ForeColor = RGB(0, 0, 0) 'make it black
        End If
    End If
End If

Then you can save and close out of the VBA editor.

And that should do it, so that if you start to type in a value into your text box, it will change color if it is within the bounds of a given table. If that's not what you wanted, let me know. The code above is pretty straightforward but let me know if you have questions about how it works, how to modify it, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Like Mr 98 says this can be done via forms and queries (relatively easily just the exact syntax is a pain). If the data in your two table is uniform you can use a UNION query to merge the data tables and then run a SELECT query on those results filtered by the choice you make in the first form's drop down list. I don't have MS Access on this machine so can't say for certain how i'd build this but this was something i've built many times without needing to use VBA (though it can be more flexible in VBA). Anyhoo here's a link to the syntax for referencing the form field's value (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa223116(v=office.11).aspx). Good luck! ny156uk (talk) 17:22, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Ignore my answer - teaches me for not reading the whole question! Sorry! ny156uk (talk) 17:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

single left click in e speaking software

I have downloaded and used e speaking voice and speech recognition software. I have read the mouse commands, as mouse up ,mouse down and others.but I can not get how to use single mouse click using this software. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.187.18.164 (talk) 08:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

what is cloud computing?

what is cloud computing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.144.62.18 (talk) 11:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

See Cloud computing as a start. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

A marketing perspective: cloud computing is dynamic, it is liberating, it is empowering, it is efficient, instead of wasteful, it is amazing, instead of agonizing, it is massive, social, user-centric, and colossally world-wide in its scope, power, breadth, and depth. It is your key to the door to the window. 188.28.228.34 (talk) 15:44, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

VBA unicode

I have made a VBA program that gives output texts in english.I have to change the code so that the program gave output in Unicode font other than Latin alfabets.How can it be done? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.159.35 (talk) 15:23, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I've Googled a little and apparently it is quite a pain in the neck. What kind of output is it? It is apparently different if you want it to output to the screen or to a file. It is not something that VBA does very well with, shamefully enough. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

My question is how to type unicode alphabets from other languages in VBA codes with taxts and comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.90.230.202 (talk) 10:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not, not, not easy. It requires using the ChrW$() function for each and every character that requires unicode. See this post and program that is meant to make it a little easier. It seems pretty awful to me. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:25, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

pipelinks

I have read the section and have pipe-linked other words but cannot, for the life of me pipelink this:

the earl of Oxford - link to John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford

Can you tell me what I am doing wrong. It comes out that I lose the first mention i.e., the earl of Oxford but what appears and appears ONLY is the linked John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford.

I only want: the earl of Oxford to show in the text of the article (but for it to be linked to John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford) which I do not want to show in the article.

thankyou. Mugginsx (talk) 16:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Do you want to do this: the Earl of Oxford?  Card Zero  (talk) 16:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The underscores in the wikisyntax are not necessary, they are optional. More examples can be found on the Help page for links. Nimur (talk) 18:43, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Here: the Earl of Oxford. Or is this not what you want? --Mr.98 (talk) 15:41, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

how do i download a file online to itunes for free

how can i download south parks La reststance song to itunes for use in the iphone for free. i dont whant to pay $12 for the whole album — Preceding unsigned comment added by UltraJosh97 (talk • contribs) 16:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "download." iTunes uses the terms Add to Library, Import, and Convert to describe different iTunes functions.. "Choosing File > Library > Import Playlists allows you to import playlists and other data files into iTunes." Nimur (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like what your wanting to do is commit copyright violation. The music you want is not free, and there is no way for anyone on wikipedia to change that for about 90 years. There is lots of music available on the internet that IS free, but not the song you're looking for. I'm going to avoid suggesting places where you could illegally acquire this song, but they do exist. i kan reed (talk) 21:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=la+resistance + http://winff.org/ ¦ Reisio (talk) 06:31, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I want to note that in some cases you can usually only buy one song in the album. However you will not able to get legally for free. If you do wish to 'be illegal' please consult other means. Sorry, but this is not the place to ask for illegal stuff. General Rommel (talk) 08:53, 12 July 2011 (UTC) If anyone believes this is too harsh, please discuss on my talk page

Laptop adapter

I will be traveling from the United States to Ireland with a Dell Latitude D620. Will I need to purchase an adapter for my power cable? If so, what type? Thanks. 151.204.184.212 (talk) 17:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

This article on the VisitIreland website may be of use (http://www.visitireland.com/planning/electricity.asp). Unfortunately it suggests most electrical items from the US won't work in Ireland (though above that it mentions that most laptops should be fine as they're likely dual voltage). Hopefully someone will be along with an answer based on experience soon enough (it may also be worth moving this to the Miscellaneous section to get more responses)ny156uk (talk) 17:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Nearly all modern laptops come with a multi-voltage power supply. Check the label - it should say something like "Input: 100-240V, 50-60Hz". In this case, it's compatible with most power outlets in the world, and certainly with power in Ireland (both Northern and the Republic of). You will need a plug adapter. Ireland uses a three-pronged outlet/plug. You should be able to get it for about US$ 5 from Amazon (but see many related products), or pick it up, at the usual absurd markups, in most airport electronic shops. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to be spending a while in Ireland (or the UK, or other places with the same power outlets) then it'd be worthwhile buying a C5 <-> BS 1363 cable (I'm almost certain the power supply on your Dell will have a C5 "mickey mouse" connector). Any computer or electrical shop in Ireland will sell one of those. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It looks like I'll only have to get a three-prong adapter. Thanks for the help.151.204.184.212 (talk) 19:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I used to have a Latitude D620 and travelled from the UK to work for a few weeks out of our US office. The power block itself said "Input: 100-240V, 50-60Hz", so I had no problems just using a UK/US plug adapter. If you are going to visit for business, the company's local IT guys might be able to fix you up with a suitable adapter. Astronaut (talk) 10:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Step by step explanation of internet processes

Hello everybody, does anybody konow where I can find a step by step explanation or a good diagramm that shows all the steps that take place before a web page can be displayed by a browser. Things like first, you enter the URL wikipedia.org, then the computer looks up the IP adress of Wikipedia at the name server and so on...Just a little overview where things like HTTP or TCP/IP are explained. It would really help me if somebody finds me something like this. Thanks a lot! --87.173.106.57 (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

You could read Douglas E. Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP(vol.1) which covers all the layers from ethernet to IP to TCP to HTTP and ancillary stuff like DNS, BGP, and ICMP. Or you could set up Wireshark, set it tracing, view a website, and then spend the rest of the day analysing all the packets that went back and forward. Really every tutorial or book you see will try to view each level of the transaction with the lower layers abstracted away; if you really care to see the totally of the thing, down to the individual ethernet frames that are exchanged between your PC and your home router, you can't do much better than Wireshark. It's kind of drinking-from-the-firehose, as there's all kinds of other stuff going on at the same time, and stuff like retries and fragmentation can make the lower levels rather confusing at first, but if you really want to see what's going on, I really recommend it (and having a copy of Comer around so you can figure out what's supposed to be happening). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

That goes well beyond the "little overview" that was requested. Also beyond what was requested, but not that deep, would be browsing the relevant RFCs, like RFC 2616 (start at section 1.4), or just browsing our Hypertext Transfer Protocol article. That is not the whole story but it's a significant part of it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Our main articles are Protocol stack, OSI model, and TCP/IP model (which contain many diagrams). I would recommend that you begin reading about HTTP version 1.0, which is significantly simpler than the version 1.1 protocol used by most browsers. Once you understand HTTP 1.0, 1.1 will seem like a trivial and logical extension to take advantage of server-side and network- parallelism. When you understand the streams transport, you may then dive down to understand TCP, which packetizes the streams. And finally, if you are very interested, you can dive down to understand IP, which is used to route the packets. At that layer, you will understand the need for a DNS server. If you are a hardware-minded person, you may choose to continue learning about specific PHY ("physical") implementations that convert and encode data into electromagnetic signals for transport by wire, by fiber-optic link, or by radio.Nimur (talk) 21:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

July 12

backup firefox address bar search

I'm currently preparing for a re-install and am wondering if there is anyway to backup the database used in the firefox address bar search?

Cheers, --124.180.216.146 (talk) 11:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

All your settings are stored in a profile folder. The location of this varies depending on your OS, but you should be able to save this folder and copy its contents back. See here for more info. It probably helps if you re-install the same version of Firefox as you had before, but I don't know how essential that is.

There are also various tools/plug-ins that claim they can back up all kinds of settings including your history and bookmarks (which are what the address bar search uses). I can't recommend any, but two are FEBE[2] and MozBackup[3]. But copying the profile folder is probably sufficient. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

This page on the Mozilla website explains how to back up your info. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Text Converter

Hello, a long time ago on the internet you used to get all sorts of sites that would convert a website / some text into certain dialects or styles, for example you used to get one that turned it into the A-Team, so if you wrote "Me and Bobby went to the shops to get some ham", it would make it say "Me and Murdoch modified the crazy damn shops to not get on no plane, fool!", and you also got them so it would turn ordinary language into porno talk so it would be "Me and ****ing Bobby went throbbing hard to the fisting shops, ****ed some ham in the ***", or similar. What were these things called and do they still exist and where can I find them? Jeremy Wordsworth (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

There's such a translator here. I think there may also have been some proxy servers that did it more transparently, but I can't find any now. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Multiplication and addition of arrays using foreach() loop

I would like to know the code/program for multiplying and adding two 3x3 arrays in PHP using the foreach() loop. I've tried many things but nothing seems to work. Somebody HELP!!!