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May 10

Buying a camera

I went to the store today to look at new cameras, and the one which caught my attention most was the Nikon Coolpix S6300. Is this a good camera? And is £150 a good price for it? I currently have a Samsung S1050; is the Nikon a big step up and worth upgrading? I mainly want it for HD video which my Samsung doesn't do. I also like to take close-up pictures of plants and insects, however I read that the Nikon is bad at so called macrophotography, is this true? Thanks for the info and advice! Buyingacamera (talk) 18:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Go to a local retailer and demo some. ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Right, which is exactly what I did; I went to the store today to look at new cameras (played around with them a bit within the confines of the store which glue them onto the table and start beeping loudly if you pull the security cord too much) and the one which caught my attention most was the Nikon Coolpix S6300. However, I am not an expert on cameras, which is why I am asking for a third opinion. Buyingacamera (talk) 19:30, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

If you want thorough research, go to a site like Digital Photo Review or Steve's Digi-Cams. If you want good advice from a human, go to a real camera shop, not a mass-merchandiser that has its cameras on leashes. --LarryMac | Talk 19:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your advice, however if it were possible for me to go to a professional camera shop I would have done so. There are none near where I live, and I am unable to travel long distances. Nor am I experienced with cameras, so all the massive amounts of detailed information available on the various websites really mean nothing to me because I do not understand it, which is why I am asking here on a page where people who may understand this stuff can simplify it for me and answer my 3 basic questions. I am not asking for particularity "thorough research", at least I don't think I am, just yes or no answers. If it helps, here my questions in bullet-point form;

1. Is £150 a reasonable price one would expect to pay for a Nikon Coolpix S6300?
2. Is the Nikon Coolpix S6300 significantly better than the Samsung S1050, or is the overall deference negligible?
3. Can the Nikon Coolpix S6300 take very close-up shots of things a few centimeters from the lens?

Thank you Buyingacamera (talk) 20:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

From the official Nikon technical specifications for S6300:

1. It sounds like you're quoting UK prices; here in the US, the S6300 should be much cheaper. If you have settled on buying a Nikon point-and-shoot, I would recommend the more expensive, but better S8200. It's one of the best point-and-shoots on the market. By my math, £150 is about $250 (US), which is more than I'd pay for a "middle of the road" point-and-shoot like the S6300 - especially when the S8200 costs about the same. Here in the US, you can find the S8200 for that $250; and it has a bigger screen, a better lens with sharper focus and a lot more zoom, and a few more features to round things out (better metering, better face-detection, better auto-focus). In any case, if the price is higher in the UK, it's probably more expensive across all brands and models; but you may still consider shopping around a bit more.
2. I have a tendency to look for flaws in photographic images. In Nikon's low-light sample images, I am impressed by the low noise (they use great sensors); but I see chromatic aberration (a mark of a moderate- to poor- lens). This is "expected" in a $200 (£150) point-and-shoot camera. I am very picky, and I can justify spending more on a better lens (and an interchangeable-lense camera); but you might not be so picky. Compared to the Samsung S1050, the Nikon has much better image quality. The S1050 is also almost 5-year-old technology (it was released in 2007), and it has been discontinued from new production. Samsung's latest toys in their point-and-shoot camera price-range have dual-screens (one on the front). It's a fun gimmick (especially if you're photographing portraits of kids - you can animate a dancing bear or whatever and show it on the forward-facing screen, and the kids laugh and smile when you shoot the photo). That's going to be the deal-breaker for "image quality" to many consumers - but doesn't affect actual image-quality of the Samsung device on technical merits. I have not found many great full-sized Samsung S1050 images to compare, so I'll decline from commenting on its image-quality specifically.
3. For S6300: the close focal point is approximately 50 cm, when at minimum zoom; approximately 1 meter when fully zoomed. This is not bad for a point-and-shoot lens (though it is not competitive with specialty macro-lenses, or even, say, the iPhone 4S). There's also a "macro mode," with a purported 4-inch focus distance; but I'll mildly suggest you accept that number with caution. Even if accurate, you have a 10x optical zoom - so... unintuitively - you will get a "closer" shot by standing at a farther distance and zooming to maximum-telephoto zoom on the S6300. If you stand close and zoom out, your image magnification will be less (see some explanation, and magnification for some math). You should not expect the point-and-shoot to compete with much-more-expensive DSLR cameras equipped with specialty macro lenses. Those lenses have large apertures, primary (fixed) focal-lengths, and very tight close-focus-points; but one Nikkor macro lens costs more than your entire camera; a good Nikkor macro like the AF 60mm is about $600 (~£400 to £500? I apologize, I don't know how Nikon sets its market prices for products sold in the UK; it's not as straightforward as a direct dollar-to-pound conversion).

Hopefully this will provide some perspective. You should get the camera that is most suitable for your needs. "Good camera" is very subjective. Personally, I am a fan of the iPhone 4S; but I also carry my Nikon D90, which is too bulky and heavy for most casual users. Nimur (talk) 00:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! Thank you so much Buyingacamera (talk) 11:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It seems like a good price considering that amazon.co.uk, which normally has lower prices than retailers, is selling the camera for almost £8 more. A quick glance at some online reviews for the S6300 shows that its minimum focusing distance of 10 cm and its light weight makes it very challenging to get good macro shots. In other ways it appears to be a good point-and-shoot camera, though if ultra-portable isn't a critical factor and you want passable macro capabilities, it would probably be worth continuing the hunt. P.S. I think in exchange for the advice you should upload your photographs to Wikipedia! ;) Julia\^talk 20:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Either the size/quality looked good to you or not. The technology is advanced enough that there is a lot of room for preference alone. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Networking - ICMP

Is the ICMP protocol in the same layer as IP or is it encapsulated in IP? --TuringMachine17 (talk) 20:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Internet Control Message Protocol says "Although ICMP messages are contained within standard IP datagrams, ICMP messages are usually processed as a special case". -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The reason I ask is because I have a general understanding of networking and I know that a protocol in one layer should only communicate with thos directly above/below it. Wikipedia and other sources describe ICMP as being in the network layer (as is IP) and seem to be used together as I have seen when using wireshark. Is this because TCP/IP dosn't follow the OSI model strictly. --TuringMachine17 (talk) 21:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, TCP/IP doesn't map very well to the OSI model (and it only gets more complicated when more levels of encapsulation are used). And lots of network equipment sneaks a peek at other layers (e.g. ethernet routers may examine the IP headers of the packets they're forwarding and do "helpful" things) which again breaks the neat OSI layer-by-layer view. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:57, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

ICMP is encapsulated in IP. It's at the same level as TCP and UDP. I have no idea why the Wikipedia article groups it with IP instead of TCP. Probably that should be fixed. -- BenRG (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

ICMP is really the control plane for IP (it would have been better if it had been called IP-CM instead) rather than a layer above it. IP needs ICMP to function - ICMP manages reachability, flow control, and route advertisement and redirection - all for IP datagrams. Internetworking with TCP/IP by Douglas Comer puts it well "It is important to keep in mind that even though ICMP messages are encapsulated and sent using IP, ICMP is not considered a higher level protocol - it is a required part of IP. The reason for using IP to deliver ICMP messages is that they may need to travel across several physical networks..." This built-on-but-somehow-irrevocably-wedded-to problem is an artefact of the very layering worldview that OSI espouses. When folks talk about the same stuff in ATM they wisely use a three-dimensional view like this which acknowledges the reality that for each layer there is an in-layer control plane sending management traffic along side the normal "user" traffic of that layer. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Here's what I hope is an apt illustration of ICMP's incestuous relationship with IP; how ICMP echo-request packets are handled by intermediate hosts. If I send an ordinary IP packet to google.co.uk(74.125.132.94), I'm making a one-off end-to-end communication through IP (where I can afford to be ignorant of the route) and I'd expect only to receive a response from 74.125.132.94; intermediate IP routers are expected to only read the IP headers of my packet, and to route it accordingly (or just drop it on the floor if they can't handle it) - in a strictly layered view, they've certainly got no business inspecting the data encapsulated in that packet and changing their behaviour on that basis - and they certainly don't have any business sending me a reply. But if I send 74.125.132.94 an ICMP_ECHO packet with a TTL of say 7, I do get a response from one of the intermediate machines:

  > ping -t 7 google.co.uk
  PING google.co.uk (74.125.132.94) 56(84) bytes of data.
  From 209.85.253.92 icmp_seq=1 Time to live exceeded

Who is this 209.85.253.92 character? I've never send him anything, yet he's sending me an ICMP reply packet. If ICMP was layered strictly on IP, 209.85.253.92 wouldn't have looked inside the IP packet as it passed him (just as he doesn't look inside TCP or UDP packets). But to response it's clear that 209.85.253.92 did look inside the packet at the encapsulated data. In fact, when he received a packet with its TTL of 1 (which means it would be decrementing it to 0 itself) he checked the ip:protocol field, saw that it was 0x01, which he knows specifies ICMP. Then he broke the encapsulation to open the ICMP header and read the icmp:type field. In this case he saw that value was 8, an ECHO REQUEST packet. So he dropped the packet (which a pure IP system would do anyway, as the TTL was expired), but he also generated an ICMP Time Exceeded packet and sent that back to me (other IP packets, and other kinds of ICMP packets, wouldn't). So this shows that ICMP isn't layered strictly on IP, but that it gets special sideways access to the IP layer, which real users of IP like TCP and UDP don't. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Except that ICMP Time Exceeded, as the article itself indicates, can also be returned for TCP and UDP packets. So the routers really don't need to looke 'inside' the packet just for this. traceroute (except the Windows version, which uses ICMP if I'm not mistaken) and tcptraceroute are built on this principle. Unilynx (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

May 11

Microsoft Office Live/Office 365

I've been using Microsoft Office Live Small Business to host three small websites (and that's all). Now that is going away and being replaced by Office 365. But at that page, I don't see anything about it hosting websites (which is all I want to do). Will it host small websites? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The comparison page at [1] says that all the plans at level P1 and above will have web site hosting. RudolfRed (talk) 04:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

And a follow-up question: I registered two of the domain names through Microsoft Office Live. Will I have to move them to a different registration site? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. [2] RudolfRed (talk) 05:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

thank you. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:46, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

International Galaxy Nexus in Canada

Dear Wikipedians:

I am thinking of buying an international unlocked Galaxy Nexus smartphone available on Google Play (google.com/nexus) and bring it to Canada (Toronto, Ontario) to use. The specific Canadian carrier I have in mind is Telus Mobility (http://www.telusmobility.com/en/ON/home/). I am wondering if the phone can be used with the carrier?

Thanks,

70.31.158.164 (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Customized Mac sorts for searches in finder?

Hello all. So I was wondering if there is a way to make a customized sort for finder searches. I currently have "name", "kind", "date modified" and "last opened" in finder as the default sorts. In other words, once I do a search for foo, I can then sort the results by these sort criteria. But what would be vastly useful is combining some. Let me give an example. I'd love to be able to sort by name, but only of documents modified in 2012. Is there any way to do this?--108.14.206.103 (talk) 16:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

There are a lot of (not well documented) ways to make Spotlight do more complex, advanced searches. Check this page out for a list of them. I don't think you can advanced sorting, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:50, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

May 12

Lines appearing on zoomed-in photos from my camera

Whenever I take a photo with the optical zoom set at maximum, my Canon PowerShot A540 camera creates faint lines on the resulting images; see the full-resolution version of File:Glendale Ridge Archaeological Site.jpg for an example of this phenomenon. Why is this the case, and what (if anything) can I do about it, aside from taking photos at reduced zoom? It's definitely only happening at that zoom and not at others; you don't see it at File:Epsilon II Archaeological Site.jpg or File:Ice on washed-out old road in the Hoosier National Forest.jpg, taken a few days later, but I uploaded the Epsilon II panorama that I did instead of a more zoomed one specifically because the zoomed one displayed the same lined effect as the Glendale Ridge image does. Conversely, the phenomenon hasn't been going on forever; I've had the camera for four years (and bought it used from a friend), and I don't remember this "effect" showing up in pictures from when it was substantially newer. I took File:Kintner-Withers House from the road.jpg about a year before Glendale Ridge, and due to the extreme distance of the subject from the public right-of-way, I zoomed in all the way, but the lines don't appear. Nyttend (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure you don't have some type of special effect turned on ? It rather has the look of being printed on rough paper, where you can see the grain of the paper, which might be what this special effect is supposed to do. StuRat (talk) 01:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Truly amazing! If I had to posit a guess, I'd say you have a "defect." What in the world might cause that? Without tearing apart the electronics or connecting up a software debugger, or grabbing the raw data (which would invariably require proprietary tools)... it's nearly impossible to know... but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd gravitate towards these few possibilities:

• The power-supply might be aging. It might be injecting noise into the photo when the lens is fully extended; perhaps when fully mechanically extended, the zoom motor is still drawing power and causing electromagnetic interference. This may have changed since the last year, because mechanical parts and contacts tend to age poorly, compared to electronics. Or, a capacitor may be dying; capacitors can slowly change over long periods of time, and that can manifest as a slowly-degrading PSRR. A camera's imaging sensor, being "sensitive," will naturally pick up on even a very miniscule change in the power-supply noise.
• The sensor might be aging, but why the symptom should only manifest when fully zoomed is a mystery. CCD sensors, like the one in your camera, read out interleaved lines (similar to interlaced video, but commonly implemented using between 2 and 6 fields); and it looks like you're dropping one entire CCD field. It's possible that in telephoto mode, the firmware sends a new set of sensor configurations (generally that would be done to improve quality and tune the sensor for the optics); but if the firmware is buggy, that "tuned sensor configuration" might be going haywire ... but why don't we see this in your first photo??
• A software (or firmware) bug is possible. Between Glendale Ridge and Kinter Withers House, your device changed its reported focal-plane resolution in its EXIF data (despite the same focal length, same focus point, and arguably the same sensor). This suggests that you updated the camera's internal software. Knowing anything about the complexity of image processing that goes on inside a camera, but lacking the specific details for your Canon A540, it's nearly impossible to diagnose... but "a software bug might be responsible" is almost tautological in this case; unfortunately this insight doesn't help fix it! You could check for a new updated firmware from Canon.

Absolutely fascinating "glitch." Any other information or symptoms you can provide might hint at the root-cause, and possibly hint at a solution; but realistically, the probable fix will be "replace the entire unit." Nimur (talk) 02:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, throw in one more possibility. The final CCD field might not be "dropped" - perhaps it's just exposed incorrectly. If so, that could be caused by a timing bug, (a software race condition, for example - though why it occurs only recently is still unexplained); or it might be a defect in the autoexposure metering algorithm (which would also explain why it's only occurring at maximal zoom - autoexposure metering depends on the optical characteristics). Nimur (talk) 02:12, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Comparing your old (fine) and new (problematic) files, the following differences can be found in the exif data…
Digital Zoom: None
Digital Zoom Ratio: 1
Digital Zoom Ratio: 2.8
Digital Zoom: x5.5
Focal Plane Horiz Resolution: 12515 dpi
Focal Plane Horiz Resolution: 34417 dpi
Focal Plane Vert Resolution: 34366 dpi
Focal Plane Vert Resolution: 9372 dpi
Image Created: 2011:03:03 10:48:29
Image Created: 2012:02:06 11:33:15
Image Height: 1584
Image Height: 2112
Image Size: Large
Image Size: Unknown
Zoomed Resolution: 1024
Zoomed Resolution: 2816
…suggesting a comparison with another file would probably be more telling. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

... or try disabling digital zoom completely, and try to reproduce. Nimur (talk) 02:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I see a problem there. It says it's doing digital zoom, which often produces crap, as it must interpolate between pixels. You need to find a way to prevent it from doing digital zoom. StuRat (talk) 03:13, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

See Digital zoom for a comparison (although it doesn't have the horizontal lines). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:40, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry for providing confusing information; I thought my camera did digital zoom by reducing the image size (simply cropping the edges), so I interpreted the identical file sizes as an indication that the house photo was only optically zoomed. I can testify that I didn't knowingly change anything with the camera's software; as far as I know, the settings haven't been changed, as both landscape and default modes (which are the only things I use for long-distance shots) have very few changeable settings with which I'm familiar, and I do my best to keep them the same, except for issues such as flash and image resolution. I'm not a fan of digital zoom, so I avoid it when possible, but whenever I go to the maximum optical zoom, it both moves the lens and gives me a little notice on the viewfinder telling me what the zoom is; this appears when I'm unambiguously on digital zoom and doesn't appear on reduced optical zoom levels. This is precisely what happened with this image, which I took today; you can see the lines somewhat against the fenceposts on the left side, but they're not as clear elsewhere; perhaps that's because the camera wanted to do flash, as it was cloudy and in a rather wooded neighborhood near dusk. Most of the more clearly "lined" photos have a greater contrast between light and dark; for example, you can see it more clearly at File:Epsilon II Archaeological Site zoomed.jpg, which I've just uploaded. Nyttend (talk) 04:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, so are the lines purely a problem with digital zoom ? If so, you can be careful to avoid using that and we can mark this Q resolved, right ? StuRat (talk) 03:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it happens when I do my best (1) to zoom in all the way optically and (2) to avoid digital zoom. The "little notice" is something telling me how much it's zoomed in (I think 4x, but I'm not sure), and if I go into digital zoom and then get out of it, the little notice still appears once I'm done with digital zoom. Since the physical lens doesn't move when you go from maximum-optical-zoom-only mode to digital-zoom-mode, I expect that the notice is there to allow users to know that digital zoom is no longer there. Nyttend (talk) 03:36, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Unusual behavior by Agama Navigator 535

Hello there, I am having trouble with my mouse pointer for the past two months. The mouse has suddenly become unusually fast. It's clicking speed, scrolling and moving is way too fast that I can't work with it properly. For example, if I drag and drop a file/ multiple files, instead of moving the files, mouse pointer forces them to open immediately. In browsing, I can't easily select texts or sentences by moving pointer over them. It takes multiple strike to select that text and sentence. If there is a web link in sentences, it opens that link instead of selecting it. I lowered the pointer overall speed from its driver (dpi range is 800 to 2000). Even reinstalled the driver. But it did not work at all. I tried updating its firmware but failed due to the unsupported hardware version. I went to control panel to lower its speed, unplugged it from usb port and re-plugged it. But no changes seemed to appear. I am using Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit version. How can I rectify this problem?--103.10.77.226 (talk) 11:10, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding obvious, have you tried a different mouse old boy? Could be a hardware rather than a software problem. You should also try a different USB port if you haven't already!. Quintessential British Gentleman (talk) 22:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry, I don't have different mouse. I tried in different USB port with the same result.--180.234.194.218 (talk) 23:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

• Well, get one. They're under $20. I'm almost certain that will solve the problem. If not, return it. StuRat (talk) 00:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• I can't return it. Because I bought it 1 and 4 months ago. The warranty is expired.--180.234.87.61 (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• I was talking about buying a NEW mouse and returning that mouse if it doesn't work. StuRat (talk) 20:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• • What is the best brand and mouse for FPS and third person shooter/action game? I am not worrying about price. thanks--180.234.87.61 (talk) 21:10, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• I won't recommend a specific brand, but do have some general recommendations:

1) Don't use a wireless mouse. They use batteries, and nothing is more annoying than having to change the batteries mid-game. Many also have a very short range, maybe 2 feet, and go nuts at the range limit.

2) Use a laser mouse, not a ball mouse (I probably didn't need to say this, as ball mice are quite hard to find these days, in any case).

3) Don't get a mouse bristling with buttons. I find it entirely too easy to hit the wrong button on those. Stick to the basics, maybe 2 buttons and a wheel.

4) Make sure it's supported on your O/S.

5) Use a proper mouse pad, not your pant leg or chair armrest. StuRat (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Capablanca Chess (10x10 version) vs Go:Which is more complex?

Capablanca experimented with at least two larger boards...I'm asking about the 10 by 10 board here. The snap (and perhaps correct)answer is that Go is more complicated than Capa chess, but I'm not so sure. Thanks in advance for your responses.Rich (talk) 11:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I just now put this in hopefully more appropriate Miscellaneous reference desk.Rich (talk) 12:03, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Apple's "Numbers" Spreadsheet

I find this a very unsuccessful and complicated programme which replaced Apples AppleWorks spreadsheet. Is there a basic spreadsheet programme, (free or cheap!) that anyone can recommend please?--85.211.154.241 (talk) 12:15, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

LibreOffice Calc / Category:Spreadsheet software ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:22, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

For Apple, this should probably be NeoOffice, the marriage of OpenOffice and Aqua. I don't know how far native MacOS-X interface support for the other OpenOffice variants has come. I don't, as a rule, use spreadsheets.¹ But from my experience with other iWork programs, I always found them useful, and much easier to use than the corresponding tools from other office suites. I can actually write something in Pages without cringing all the time, and Keynote's consistent rendering of everything, including PDF, is beautiful. So I'd be interested in what is wrong with Numbers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

¹ Either they are just lists of numbers, or incredibly error-prone spaghetti programs. In either case I prefer simple ASCII files and my own error-prone spaghetti code that is at least written sequentially, and does not consist of a two-dimensional global array and code smeared out over all the individual cells.

Another alternative is to just ask us what you're having trouble with in Numbers. The odds are that there is an easy way to do what you want, but you just don't know how to do it. (Which I sympathize with.) The only trouble I've had with Numbers is that you can't really customize charts to the degree that I'd like — in trying to make it "easy", they remove a lot of control (like many Apple products). --Mr.98 (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the sympathy! My problem mainly relates to printing. I have quite large spreadsheets which will only print on the one page, VERY small requiring a magnifying glass to read, or over a number of pages which are then difficult to read since part of the information is on separate bits of paper. The old AppleWorks never gave the the same problem. I am trying 'OpenOffice' but that seems no better.--85.211.154.241 (talk) 06:16, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. That seems to be a fundamental problem - if you need to cram too much content onto one page, things will necessarily get smaller. But you can try to hand-optimize the sheet. Select all columns, then go to Table->Resize columns to fit content to automatically make the columns as small as the data suggests. If that is not satisfactory, go to Table->Allow border selection, then rearrange the borders to fit onto one page. File->Show print view will show you how Numbers will currently distribute content to print pages. For more advanced tips, use the Inspector, as described in this Mac Observer article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Great stuff, thanks for the ideas, shall give them a try.85.211.154.241 (talk) 08:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Tools to sort and filter academic papers

I'm subscribed to e-mail alerts for several subjects at arXiv and am receiving more than I can keep up with. What text mining and text classification tools, if any, are available to help sort and filter the new papers and help decide which ones to read right away? NeonMerlin 12:47, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Why not read the abstract of each, and use that to decide ? If you get so many you don't even have time to read those, then I suggest you unsubscribe from some of the less interesting ones. StuRat (talk) 22:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I am indeed only reading the abstracts (about 100 per month of them). The reason I don't unsubscribe is that I'm concerned I might be "the last to know" about a paper that totally changes the course of my work (like this one, which I only heard about because someone happened to report it on Engadget, which my stepdad reads). NeonMerlin 03:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Skimming 100 abstracts a month doesn't seem like much, more like a day's worth. I suppose you could use some type of keyword search, but that really isn't as good as reading the abstracts yourself and deciding which academic papers are worth reading in their entirety. (A keyword search might fail with false negatives because they refer to something by another name, or you forget to enter some keywords, etc. And false positives occur if your keywords are too common, have multiple meanings, etc.) If reading all the abstracts is too much, how about if you read all the titles, and only read those abstracts where the title sounds relevant ? StuRat (talk) 03:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Battlefield 3, 32-bit v 64-bit

Battlefield 3 is a 32-bit game (on task manager, is has a *32 and it installs in the x86 Programs files folder). Is there any advantages on installing it on a 64-bit Win 7 machine vs a 32-bit Win7 machine? Thanks Acceptable (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Everything else being equal, I don't think so. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

32-bit Windows has a 4 Gb limit on address space (excl some server variants which can make use of PAE). Of this address-space, some is used for memory-mapped devices, then Windows itself uses a chunk then so does anything else running (e.g. Antivirus, etc) - so there may be 2-3Gb available for the game.

In a 64-bit OS the 4Gb limit still applies to 32-bit apps, however each 32-bit process can address 4Gb.

Whether or not this improves real-life performance depends on many factors, not least whether the machine has enough physical memory for this to make a difference, and whether the game itself uses that much. Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 20:45, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to explain this more clearly, your 32-bit win7 install only allows your computer to see about 3.5G of memory. So if Windows and other processes are taking up a lot of this memory, this leaves less available memory for your game to run in (and Windows will have to start swapping between available memory and disk). The 64-bit install will ensure that your game uses all the memory it needs to run efficiently, provided you have enough RAM in your computer. Shortage of RAM is one of the worst performance hogs in computing. Sandman30s (talk) 12:17, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Just for further clarification, AFAIK, there are actually 2 limits here. One is the amount of physical memory addressable by Windows which is limited to 4GB on non server x32 variants of Windows.. But another is the amount of virtual memory available to user mode processes. By default this is split 50/50 meaning only up to 2GB is available to user mode processes and 2GB is available to the kernel. You can adjust this to make 3GB available to user mode processes, at the risk of causing problems because of the kernel being limited to 1GB. Even if you have PAE which isn't available to none server variants, this limit still applies. So if you have a single process that needs to use more then 2GB, even PAE doesn't help on Windows x32 unless you enable the 3GB switch and all that comes with it (or the process supports Address Windowing Extensions which is unlikely for games]]). Of course if our need to use more then 3GB you're SOL. In other words, with a potentially memory intensive game, if you have at least 3GB RAM and definitely 4GB, there is a potential advantage. Of course if the program is not large address aware, then there's minimal advantage (will still likely be some advantage without PAE since you can't remove other processes completely). But I think many modern demanding games are anyway. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] (Besides memory, I guess there's also a possible advantage due to the x64 drivers but it's unlikely to be significant.) Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

video editing

anyone know any programs I can download to speed up a video of mine, such that when I change the frame rate the sound gets faster too?

As it is, I'm editing in avidemux, which doesn't change the sound, so I have to export the sound file, speed that up too, then join the two together in windows live movie maker, since for some reason if you import a sound file to avidemux it reverts back to the original as soon as you close the menu. it's worked so far, but just this one time, movie maker refuses to open this file, saved in the exact same format as all the others.

Kitutal (talk) 23:40, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Question: Do you just want to speed up the sounds, which will increase the pitch and make everyone sound like chipmunks, or do you want to compensate for that and bring the pitch back down to the original ? StuRat (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

same pitch, just taking less time. except it turns out I can do that in windows movie maker, for as long as that keeps working, somehow missed it all this time... Kitutal (talk) 10:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

May 13

mixing drive types in a raid

I'm thinking of getting one of those 4-bay usb/esata RAID enclosures and would be using drives of similar capacity but several different brands. The enclosure comes with a Seagate drive and I have some existing Samsung and Hitachi drives that I want to put into it as well. Is there likely to be a problem? Also, is it ok to use so-called "Eco" drives in a raid for personal use? I don't care if that makes it operate a little slower since it's mostly for archival storage on USB, but I wonder if it could impact data integrity. I do know the usual reason for "raid" drives is they time out faster in case of media errors, since they don't want to degrade server performance and they expect the raid itself to take care of error recovery. This would be RAID 5 (unless someone thinks I should really burn a drive worth of space and use 1+0) if that matters. Thanks. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 05:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Is QR code really free for all to use?

The fact that the QR code technology is legally open-to-use is obvious, since it's patent has been expired (and Denso Wave has ignored the patent rights if it was still valid). However, ISO distributes the specification for a great fee. More than that, the spec is fully copyrighted and cannot be distributed without permission from the ISO (which you do not get any license in most cases). That means you must buy a "license" to use the work from ISO and it is technically impossible to implement QR without payment. Or you will have to use a library (you will have to comply to the license of the library, most are copyrighted). Or even traveling to 70 years after ISO's death - when the technology is out-of-date. What do you think? 123.24.100.217 (talk) 10:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

QR is "free" in that you can build and distribute applications that use it without paying anybody. The ISO standard is not free. In the same sense, I can make and distribute copies of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, but that does not give me the right to freely use English textbooks to learn the language. You can use other sources for than ISO for QR, just as I can choose to learn English from other textbooks or people. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

There are two things to distinguish between here. One is the technique for making/using/reading QR codes. The other is the expression of the standard as a document sold by ISO for $225USD or so.

The technique of making the QR codes is not synonymous with the expression of the standard. Techniques are covered exclusively by patents. Exact expressions are covered by copyrights. (There is mucho fuzziness in these definitions, but let's ignore them for now.)

If the patent is expired, there is nothing to prevent one from re-expressing the technique of how to read/make these through either the use of the patent or the use of the ISO standard. You just can't distribute the exact ISO standard expression itself. Re-writing it in your own language, however, is completely cool by the standards of copyright.

Is it true that it is technically impossible to implement QR coding without the ISO standard in front of you? I doubt it very, very much. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Here are links to 10 archived discussions which are more or less related to this discussion.

• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2010 September 1#QR Codes
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 October 25#Reading QR codes manually
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 July 25#Question (Quick Response Code)
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 August 23#QR codes for Wikipedians
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 December 16#Bar Code.
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 May 28#Data matrix "bar codes"
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 January 8#Cameras in cell-phones
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 April 14#Patterns
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 June 30#What product is this ?
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 December 24#Mystery image

—Wavelength (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes I can't tell if you're a bot or just confused about what the OP is asking about. Not one of those links come anywhere close to answering the OP's question. This is not a helpful response. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes it's certainly possible to implement QR libraries without reading the standard, since there are many existing implementations you can refer to, among other things, so you can reverse-engineer the spec. You might have to read the standard if you were implementing some kind of certification suite for standard compliance. In practice most users will just care that your library works. It's also of course possible to read the standard without purchasing a copy, for example if your library has it. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 15:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like we need a project WikiStandards where people could write up a standard that is more standard than the ISO standard, which is the first and final resource for all developers. Wnt (talk) 16:11, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

There are Open standards. I don't see the advantage of using Wiki software; the whole point of standards is that you freeze them from editing after they are finalized. Anyway, the amount of money we are talking about here is not very much as far as I can tell (a couple hundred dollars is peanuts in the scale of things). I don't think access to ISO standards is any real barrier for development. Patents are much more problematic. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Getting more in to the patent issues, Data Matrix mentions some patents covering Data Matrix which I guess which would apply to QR code which are expired, I presume these are what the OP was referring to when they mention 'patents expired'. I would note I don't see any suggestion in QR Code that Denso Wave's patents have expired, simply that they've chosen not to exercise them which is supported by [9]. I didn't look in to the patent filing dates of grant dates but the history shown in the page of the first standardisation being in 1997 suggests it could be a few years before they've expired everywhere. However the terms of this 'not exercised' is unclear/unspecified, there may be more information somewhere, if it matters to you that what you're implementing is open and free, you'll likely want to look in to these. There is a reason why there's controversy in cases like Mono (software), Office Open XML or in general Microsoft Open Specification Promise and the case of Java [10] [11] about the terms of the patent grant and while complicated licences or grants like in those cases can complicate matters (e.g. only applying for implementations which comply with the standard), it can also provide assurances (e.g. making it clear it's for the lifetime of the patent i.e. irrevocable). The fact that QR Code is an ISO standard and that I presume Denso Wave may have made some guarantees there as well, at the very least to licence their patents on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms. Of course as history has shown you can never be sure when some patent troll or whatever is going to come out of the woodwork so even if you have assurances from Denso Wave, you can't really be sure you want have problems. As Mr.98 has said, patents are generally the biggest problems. Nil Einne (talk) 02:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there is some confusion about what standards are for. They are, in general, almost useless for developers, except in the last steps of checking an implementation for conformance to the standard. They basically represent agreements between developers/vendors of already-existing implementations, who want their products to interoperate with each other, so they write down what various features are supposed to do. As such, their essential characteristic is sign-off by the vendors. In some cases the committees rather ruthlessly strip out any info about how to implement anything: they just say what what the output of something should be, not how to make the output (which can be difficult). E.g. the standard for something like mpeg video would give enough info to write a decoder (since it says what video output should result from mpeg input) but says absolutely nothing about how to write an encoder (the complete specification of an encoder is basically that it produces something that the decoder can play back, so the standard only describes the decoder). Also, some standards (not QR) are secret (only paid-up industry members can see them under confidentiality agreements): DRM schemes are a typical example.

In the ANS standardization process (at least sometimes), the standardization committee produces a series of drafts that members vote on until they reach a version that they submit to ANS as the official standard. That means the last draft and the actual standard in practice say the same thing. In some cases, the drafts are allowed to circulate online so people can see them for free (I think the ANSI C draft standard is online like that). The main reason to pay for an official copy is so that you could certify compliance, but it's quite possible to develop an uncertified but working implementation based on drafts.

It might be worthwhile to write some on-wiki specifications for stuff like QR, but "Wikistandards" is not needed for that--just write a Wikibook about QR codes. Wikibooks is a good repository for that type of info, and it's actually a better editing environment than Wikipedia in all sorts of other ways too. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough; but there's a difference between a standard document, and a reference implementation. They fulfill different roles; and there are all sorts of reasons why a standards committee might choose not to provide a reference implementation (a few legal-ese issues spring to mind). For example, there is the JPEG standard, and there is the unofficial cjpeg/djpeg reference implementation that just happens to be unofficially written by the same group of people who sit on the standards committee. Officially, they are the "independent JPEG group" - "an informal group that writes and distributes a widely used free library for JPEG image compression." As their disclaimer officially states, "IJG is not affiliated with the ISO committee." It just so happens that most of the IJG people are also conveniently participant to the ISO and ITU committees.

For QR codes, there is at least one standard: ISO 18004:2006. As far as a reference implementation, at least one implementation is available under the LGPL: QREncode, with documentation. Nimur (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

cyber crime involving January Makamba

please let me know if the above mention person who has been appointed as a ministry of Tanzania goverment is wanted by home land security of USA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikemike2012 (talk • contribs) 10:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no hint of anything like that online. Note that we have an article January Makamba, although I would not put any great reliance on it. Looie496 (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow, our access to news from that part of the world is not good. I just barely found a source describing his appointment. [12] Google News indexes some articles about him though [13] none of which sound like he's on anybody's hit list. Wnt (talk) 20:16, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

internet 300 yards away

Okay so i gots me a friend who lives on a ranch. His only interweb options includes the following:

• satellite

Satellite is too expensive/limiting/slow to be a real option for his internet needs. He has on his property another house roughly 300 yards away which does high speed cable internet. The house is not in line of sight due to trees. I want to get internet from that house to the other house someway. I have already considered running a line for Ethernet but i think that requires a power line to follow it for repeaters - which is costly.

I had an idea that i wanted to bounce off y'll - drop 1 line from the house with internet to the house without internet (300 yards away) and then directly connect a wifi router to one end and a wifi receiver (like a USB card or something) to the other end. I have no idea if this can be done while maintaining a stable internet connection that is low latency that can be used for online gaming like World of Warcraft. Any other ideas out there would be great - thanks 98.238.132.145 (talk) 22:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a long-shot, DIY sort of thing, but I wonder if this isn't actually an appropriate place for a cantenna? --Mr.98 (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Dont think a cantenna will work due to the wall of trees filling the space between the houses. 98.238.132.145 (talk) 22:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right. Googling around suggests heavy trees are pretty impervious to WiFi, probably due to their water content? Either way... --Mr.98 (talk) 23:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

…or run a wire from one antenna to another around the tree… one takes decades to grow and one is manufactured in a matter of minutes (or even dig a ditch and bury a cable, the exercise will do you good, and the physical cable will improve the connection no end). ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Something like Free-space optical communication on a tall mast? or cut one of the trees down? Vespine (talk) 23:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

How does the other house have high speed internet? If it's cable/phone, can you extend the cable/phone drop from the house with internet to the house without internet? And then both houses could get high speed service. RudolfRed (talk) 01:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The house 300 yards away has cable internet but your friend can't call the cable company and get the same thing? how odd. Anyway, yeah, some wifi hack sounds doable. 300 yards is pushing it for ethernet but there are some other wired schemes that allow longer reach. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 07:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I would go for a wired system unless you can erect a tall mast to gain line-of-sight. Trees block WiFi-type microwaves. (I know that because this reply is being transmitted by microwave over trees!) Dbfirs 08:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You must be strong to throw microwaves over trees! ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Who mentioned ovens? I did have to raise the micro-dish a yard higher because twigs from the highest tree were getting in the line of sight. Dbfirs 07:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Or RFC 1149, with enough of them and only 300 yards to cover, it could be about as good as 56k! ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Ethernet extender mentions some options, like back-to-back SDSL modems over a copper pair. If you can find some old 10BASE5 nics and cable that's long enough, that would be another option Ssscienccce (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

(EC) Have to agree with others wired sounds like the best option. It won't be cheap but I don't think it'll be extremely expensive. You shouldn't need additional power cables, just use power over ethernet although since you're installing the cable anyway, it might be worth looking if it'll be more effective, we're obviously only considering low voltage power here. From a quick search, something like [14] may work (not sure how weatherproof they are though) and it looks like there are options for under US$400 (not including the ethernet cable cost or cost for you to install the cable). You may be able to do something cheaper, particularly if you can build your own sufficiently weatherproof enclosures and look around for cheaper more hackish options (remember a ethernet switch can function as a repeater). From your earlier comments, I presume installing a cable is doable, there isn't a river or road between the houses or something like that. You can look in to other ethernet options although I'm not sure if anything will be cheaper/easier. Nil Einne (talk) 14:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

For high-speed gaming, an optical fiber would be ideal (and not too expensive for the fiber alone), but the cost of the boxes at each end, and the expertise needed to terminate the fiber properly, makes this suggestion a non-starter unless you know someone in the trade. Dbfirs 07:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

May 14

Free online GIF program...

I have created a string of GIF animations that I would like to join together. I've used free online software so far, but I don't know of any free programs that allow you to join multiple GIFs. Each of the GIFs that I have created have different timing speeds, so I don't want to upload them to a website that will force one timing speed on all of them. Suggestions are welcome. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 01:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe a single animated GIF has the ability to vary the speed. So, that leaves you with the options of keeping them separate, or using some other format. StuRat (talk) 03:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Depending on how long you want the animated GIF to be, maybe you can repeat frames to alter the length they each appear? The alternative is to make them into a slideshow with something like open office impress. Vespine (talk) 04:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I just realized what you're saying, you have mutiple GIF animations, not frames, so my 1st suggestion won't work, however my second suggestion might still work. This post on the openoffice forums seems to suggest making slideshows out of animated GIFs should work. Vespine (talk) 04:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Each frame of an animated GIF has an independent delay value, so there's no need for hacks like duplicated frames. Gifsicle with the --multifile option may do what you want. I'm not sure, and the documentation is not very clear. -- BenRG (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

convert *.gif w00tpie.gif ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that the ImageMagik convert statement can join multiple animated GIFs, and maintain the different time intervals within each ? StuRat (talk) 20:31, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

See ImageMagick docs [15]. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Folders like this

Windows folders with names like: C:\3a8039561e532edd33c74b are temporary and can be deleted, right? I have one but when I try to delete it, it says that I can't because it is shared with someone else. I am the only user on this computer, so how can I be sharing it? (I do have a second user account on it.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You can delete it once whatever process created it has finished. It may not have finished. You could try rebooting. -- BenRG (talk) 05:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a known issue with a recent Windows update. The files created in this directory are supposed to be temporary, but end up being marked as system files. Google for the exact folder name and you should be able to find a solution to delete it (such as killing Windows Explorer first, or deleting it in Safe Mode). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

about autorun.inf

Some days earlier I asked if the file autorun.inf is executable by itself, and the answer is no because computer will only check it when a CD or USB is opened. Is there a chance that something being run when the autorun.inf is checked? Because the content of my autorun.inf look like something in a dll file, and is it possible to have any influence on the system running?--Noname67097 (talk) 06:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It is got 86 KB in size and I am doubting if it just functions like an lnk file--Noname67097 (talk) 08:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

That's probably something evil. Tricking AutoRun on USB drives is one of the more common ways for viruses to propagate themselves. If your Windows version is up to date, it shouldn't be able to run unless you give it permission, though. Looie496 (talk) 17:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

lost IE from desktop, etc

In Windows 7, I was messing around and lost the IE icon from my task bar and desktop. It is not in the start menu either. I tried downloading it, but that didn't work.

Is is still on my computer because I can enter ie.exe at the search and it comes up. But I cannot apply windows updates either (they fail). I did a system restore and got the icon back to the task menu. Then I unpinned it, thinking that would get it to the desktop, but it went away. I tried the system restore again, but then all of the networking and access to the internet went away. I restored to a different restore point and got networking and the internet back, but IE is gone from the task bar, desktop, and start menu (although the command still works),but updates don't work.

How can I get IE and updates back to normal? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, when I typed in ie.exe, it showed a shortcut that I was able to drag to the desktop. And from there I was able to pin it to the task bar. But Windows Updates are still failing. Any ideas? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

What happens when you try to run Windows Update? Do you get an error message? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Could be a virus. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 14:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I deleted some files that I shouldn't. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Facebook page

Can a page admin delete(remove) the owner from the page..... AND TAKE OVER THE PAGE COMPLETELY.... 115.117.245.205 (talk) 07:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

They can find ways of doing so, though I did not check if there is any report of such thing.--Noname67097 (talk) 08:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, because the admin has the same page access as the owner. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 14:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

How can I ensure an Adobe Flash Player updater is a true one but not a Trojan?

Recently I have just heard about the Mac virus that disguises itself as an Adobe Flash Player Updater. I use Windows and updated my Adobe Flash Player for several times. How can I know if it is a true update or not (and also some Trojan disguises as Windows upgrade)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noname67097 (talk • contribs) 08:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You can always just update from Adobe's website if you are unsure. If you are using Windows you should definitely be running antivirus all the time anyways. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

And be very wary if you click on a website and it displays a message saying you need to update Adobe - unless you 100% trust the website, don't accept its offer and instead update yourself from the Adobe website (or use the automatic updater for Flash). --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Monobook/vector

Morning! Idiot question here.

I had a nice set up in my monobook whatsit where I had a good script for adding refs, where I could add the URL and the rest of it would self-populate. A while ago it stopped working, and now when I added a new link to AfC categories in my toolbox list it's now stopped working altogether. Can someone who knows about computers fix it for me? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 09:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Uhh… not without seeing it. ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, please post the script here. StuRat (talk) 20:28, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

What product (name & version) did Steve Wozniak use to program the ROM of the very first Apple Is made in Steve Jobs's garage?

20.137.18.53 (talk) 13:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The excellent apple2history.org website has a section on the Apple I here, which seems to say that Woz coded a lot of it on an HP computer that ran a 6502 emulator written by a friend of Woz's. Other parts, he wrote on the Apple I itself by hand-assembling the code and typing it in using the Apple I's Monitor, a 256-byte program that he had already written. Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Programming a ROM means burning the bytes into a (programmable) ROM. The device you use to do this is called a programmer. According to the page you linked to, "Wozniak used two 256 x 4 PROM (programmable read-only memory) chips to create a 256 byte program (called a 'monitor') that looked at the keyboard when the computer was turned on." 20.137.18.53's question seems to be asking what programmer device Wozniak used to program (burn) these ROMs. --Bavi H (talk) 03:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Connection issue

So, I have this issue. This happens about once a day on average...I lose the ability to make new Internet connections. If I have Skype or Team Fortress running, they'll keep going without a hitch, but if I try to access a new web page, or sign into another online program, or play a different game, I won't be able to. I have to reset the router...which fixes the problem. But I shouldn't have to do that daily, right?

My uncle thinks it's an issue with my router. A classmate thinks it's a DNS issue and I should switch to OpenDNS (about which I know nothing). Would anyone here be able to shed some more light on the issue, or my options? Thanks in advance. 90.193.232.159 (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Is this a cumulative issue ? That is, does it only happen after you've been on awhile ? If so, it sounds like it might be failing to close connections after the apps close. At some point it then hits the maximum open connections limit and needs a reset. StuRat (talk) 20:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It has happened the moment a computer gets turned on. Sometimes, I'll go to bed when this happens (all computers get turned off at night), turn on, and it's sitll the same way; other times, it'll be fine when I go to bed and broken in the morning. On the other hand, if the router never gets turned off, and that's what's failing to sever the connections, I'm not sure there would be any way to determine if the effect is cumulative easily, would there? 90.193.232.159 (talk) 22:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Does it ever happen right after your reset the router ? (I notice ours automatically resets once a day, presumably as a kludge to handle problems like this.) StuRat (talk) 23:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Like your classmate, I also suspect DNS problems: When you connect to a name address, you computer actually contacts a DNS server first to look up the number address for that name, then it connects to the number address. When existing connections continue to work fine, but new connections fail, there may be a problem with the DNS lookups your computer is performing before every connection.

Some routers run a local DNS server that acts as a middle man between your computers and the ISP DNS server. You might investigate your router settings to see if it acts as a local DNS server. If so, you might disable the router's local DNS server as a test. If you disable the router's local DNS server, you should release and renew your computer's IP address (or restart your computer) so the computer will get set up with the ISP DNS server to use for new DNS lookups. --Bavi H (talk) 00:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

StuRat; I don't think so. I only ever reset the router immediately after this happens, and it clears it up almost every time.

Bavi; is this safe for a novice to do? I'm not even 100% sure how to access the settings on my router (although I could probably find this information out); is disabling some of its settings safe if I don't really know what I'm doing? 90.193.232.44 (talk) 01:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I can understand you don't want to cause worse problems. Of course, you'll want to read the router manual to find if there's one specific setting that could turn off the router's DNS server before attempting any changes. You typically log into the settings page of your router using a number address like 192.168.1.1 or similar, so even if DNS isn't working correctly, you can always log into the router and change the setting back. (Connecting to a number address doesn't need a DNS lookup.)

Are you using the same internet connection to post to Wikipedia? The IP addresses shown in your signatures are owned by Sky. If you use a Sky router, I briefly looked on their website, but didn't find any router manuals. If you've never logged into a router settings page before, you might not want to experiment without a manual. However, while on the Sky website, I did find this service status page that suggests there may be known internet problems right now. Perhaps you might go to that page, enter your postcode and see if there's additional information. --Bavi H (talk) 02:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Before you consider logging into the router, you can check what DNS server your computer is currently using. On a Windows computer, click Start, Run, and enter nslookup. If you see an address like 192.168.1.1 or similar, your router may be acting as a local DNS server, and you may want to see if you turn it off as a test. If you see an address that looks like it's from your ISP, that suggests your DNS lookups go directly to your ISP. --Bavi H (talk) 03:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

CSS: fieldset and div automatic width difference

Question to follow:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<body>
<div style="width: 220px; height:300px; float:right;">&nbsp;</div>
<fieldset style="background:black;">&nbsp;</fieldset>
<div style="background:black;">&nbsp;</div>
</body>
</html>

Why do all major browsers apply different widths to the fieldset and the second div? Or rather, how can I make that div the same width as the fieldset that precedes it (without wrapping it in one and preferably without relying on the fact that the width of the right hand column - 220px - is a known figure)? The same effect occurs even if I copy styles such that the only "computed style" difference Firebug reports is width. Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 20:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably quirks mode from not starting your source with <!doctype html>, for starters. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Well yes, obviously my actual code does actually have a doctype, the addition of which to my test code does not unfortunately resolve the issue. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 21:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, you're making assumptions about the default styles of the fieldset vs div tags - it's likely that the fieldset gets default padding (see the html doc). In general, excepting div and span tags, you can't assume browsers will give them the same default style, and have to either set them yourself or use a stylesheet that zaps all the css. Secondly, if you want two block level elements to have the same width, you have two choices - explicitly set the width of both to be the same, or wrap them with another block level element. You can't, in CSS, say "make me the same with as otherblock N". You can do it in JavaScript, but that's dumb. 87.115.21.67 (talk) 21:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Actually, the solution I found here was to use "overflow:auto; padding:2px;", which prompts the div to begin a new Block Formatting Context (whatever one of those is), which makes it behave in the same way as a fieldset (i.e. respecting the confines of that div on the right. I don't pretend to understand, but it works, anyhow. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 22:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

hacking cell phone number

I'm not sure if I should be asking this in this forum or another one but here goes: If I text someone they can see my phone number. My question is: can a scammer hack my cell phone number based on recieving a text from me? 99.250.103.117 (talk) 20:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "hack" means here. They will know your cell phone number, unless your phone has the option to hide your phone number, and this is the setting when you send the text. StuRat (talk) 20:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. I should have been clearer. What I am asking is if I text someone and they then can see my cell number, can they then send texts and/or make phone calls using my cell number via their own phone? 99.250.103.117 (talk) 22:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

That's called spoofing. See that article for a discussion of when this is possible. (Of course, they already have your number, if you didn't block it, as mentioned in my previous post.) StuRat (talk) 23:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Bear in mind that if you do manage to hide your number on outgoing texts, your texts will be a) probably blocked by the network as spoofed (ie, they think you're doing exactly the thing you're worried about other people doing), and b) impossible for the recipient to reply to. :) FiggyBee (talk) 01:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Windows 7 network problem

I've been having some networking problems. I'm on a Windows 7 (W7) computer, with two W7 computer on the network. One I can't access now. The other one has two internal hard drives, and I can access both of them. I moved a printer and an external HD to that computer. The printer can be accessed fine. The external HD cannot - it says "Windows cannot access ... you do not have permission ...". When I click on that computer in Network, all of the drives are shown, but only the external one gives that message.

The external HD has exactly the same sharing options as the two internal HDs that work. I checked the general sharing options, network detection, etc, and they seem right too. Why wouldn't the external HD be shared properly? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Check the permissions by right clicking, security. Make sure that they are set correctly. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 12:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

May 15

Repair IE by uninstalling

I read that a good way to repair IE is to uninstall it, then reboot, and the computer will prompt you to download it. Will the computer be able to download it without IE installed? (I also have Firefox installed.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The first question would be how are you going to uninstall IE? AFAIK, Microsoft has made that unpossible. --LarryMac | Talk 11:38, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It is possible to uninstall it. Go to control panel, Windows componants, and untick Internet explorer. You can download IE via Firefox after a restart. MrLittleIrish ^(talk) 申 12:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)