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June 3

fast lexical scanner

I'm interested in writing a fast lexical scanner that recognizes 50 or so English words. The scanner also has to be able to say "this word is not on the list" if it sees a word that's not part of the fixed vocabularity. Two traditional ways to do it are:

1. Hash each incoming word (maybe with a perfect hash) generator, and if a hit is found, use strncmp or equivalent (maybe a SSE4 STTNI instruction) to make sure that it's a real hit. I think this is what gcc does.
2. Use a hard coded state machine to recognize incoming words character by character. Tinycc and lcc do this.

I would have expected the second approach to cause a lot of pipeline stalls because of all the conditional branches, but so far I haven't run benchmarks. Before I do a bunch of work making such measurements, does anyone know if this has already been studied? Thanks.

69.228.171.139 (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes it's already been studied. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:35, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Um, thanks. Got a link? 69.228.171.139 (talk) 22:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to test character by character. You can do something like:

lodsdw              ; Get 4 characters.
or eax,20202020h    ; Force lower case.
cmp eax,"isnu"      ; Test for beginning of "unsi"(gned), little-endian.

93.95.251.162 (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2012 (UTC) Martin.

How? (video illusion)

Somebody has to tell me. I have been mystified all day. How is this done? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 04:47, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Curse you for making me listen to that music! It's being projected onto a screen, I think. Looie496 (talk) 05:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that :) But if you look at some of the other videos, the characters are on a catwalk, with people behind them. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Your answer is at about 5:15 of this video. Start at about 3:15 for a more complete answer. Dismas|^(talk) 06:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh my god those people are annoying. For the sake of everyone's sanity: it's just an image projected onto a semitransparent screen. -- BenRG (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Tupac Shakur#Legacy -> Pepper's ghost ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I made the title more useful, by adding to it. StuRat (talk) 19:35, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem with MuseScore

Hey, seems like I cannot authorize MuseScore to interact with musescore.com. The website shows me the error message which is at http://musescore.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=null. What to do? 123.24.125.166 (talk) 08:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

It was a problem introduced with the latest update. It has been fixed now and should be working fine again. Toemaz (talk) 15:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

question on VM's in Rich Internet Application

our article Rich Internet Application starts,

"A Rich Internet Application (RIA) is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered by way of a site-specific browser, a browser plug-in, an independent sandbox, extensive use of JavaScript, or a virtual machine"

Could you give me more information about or examples in practice of the last of these? (Virtual machines). The article doesn't mention a VM or the words Virtual Machine again. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:10, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Well the ref is dead, and due to the nature of virtual machines (being just another implementation of a machine), I'm not sure it even bears mention anyways. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Phishing email

Is it possible for someone to send a phishing e-mail using a personal email address, like one that you keep in your Contacts list? 173.2.164.121 (talk) 09:23, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

It's easy to forge the sender's address, if that's what you mean, and many of the email addresses they send to are taken from other people's contact lists, but most phishers will want to make their emails look as though they came from your bank, or PayPal, or Amazon, or Facebook....--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know but it is very often the case that you receive a real email ACTUALLY sent by a contact...'s virus! In fact it's one of the best ways for a virus to spread to actually physically email itself using the infested person's email client. This is physically indistinguishable from if the person had really decided to send that email with that attachment. So the receipients, trusting the send (not knowing it's a virus) open it. And repeat... (It normally has something like: "LOL check out this dancing puppy.... " and virus attaches an link "Dancingpuppy.GIF.exe" ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.6.68.250 (talk) 13:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but the questioner was asking about phishing, which is quite distinct from distributing a computer virus.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 20:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

There have also been lots of scams lately from people who actually hack into (one way or another) someone's e-mail account and then use it to send phishing e-mails along the lines of "I'm out of the country and I lost my wallet..." --Mr.98 (talk) 20:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Most of the ones I've seen are more like 419 scams than phising. They get you to send some money to somewhere via legitimate services (usually Western Union or Moneygram) and you have no hope of getting it back since it's sent to a scammer not your friend or whoever you think you're sending it to. They don't get you to log in to a dodgy site or otherwise steal your account details so they can steal your money themselves. Nil Einne (talk) 07:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Commodore 64 palette

Look at this section of the article The Great Giana Sisters. It shows two screenshots from the Commodore 64 version, and the colours look different, despite the fact that the Commodore 64 can only display 16 colours. This doesn't happen with screenshots from Amiga software. I think I know the reason for this: Although both the Commodore 64 and the Amiga use indexed colour, the Amiga knows the exact RGB hues of the colours ("index 0 means colour #07F, index 1 means colour #FFF, index 2 means colour #000, index 3 means colour #F70..."), but the Commodore 64 only knows the general appearances of the colours ("index 0 means black, index 1 means white, index 2 means red, index 3 means cyan..."). So when emulating the Commodore 64 on hardware that does know exact RGB hues, such as the Amiga or modern PCs, there has to be a mapping from palette indices to exact RGB hues, and as there is only general appearance information available on the Commodore 64's colours, this mapping varies between emulators, sometimes even in the same emulator. Now my question is first, am I on the right track here? Second, how exactly does the Commodore 64 convert palette indices to actual colours that the TV or monitor is supposed to draw? Third, is there any attempt to make a global standard about mapping Commodore 64 palette indices to RGB hues? JIP | Talk 16:52, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

MOS Technology VIC-II#Colors has a quote from Robert Yannes saying the actual colour values were set (in the analog backend of the VIC-II) by on-chip resistor settings, and not with a great deal of regard for colour theory. Given the poor control you have (as a producer of colour signal) of how it actually looks on an all-analog PAL or NTSC (the latter being unkindly nicknamed "Never Twice the Same Color") it's not surprising that only a modest effort was put into thinking about the niceties of exactly what colours they were sending. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This article, which is linked from the MOS Technology VIC-II Wikipedia article, discusses in some details the actual analog characteristics measured from real VIC-II signals, and the author of that concludes with a RGB palette he suggests is more accurate than emulators had used until that point. He also talks about the author of CCS64 producing code to model the crappiness of PAL to more accurately simulate what you'd have seen on a real TV. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the two pictures were created by different methods. One used the VICE emulator, the other uses the word "screenshot" which could mean anything from an emulator, a proper screen capture card or even to a photograph. Astronaut (talk) 18:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

If it's a photograph, then it must be a pretty darned good one. Running xmag over the image reveals the correspondence between the pixels in the image and those in the original game is 100% perfect, if we don't take into account the mapping between palette indices and RGB colours. So it is obvious that it comes directly from a computer, bypassing the physical world. But that could still mean either an emulator, or a direct screen capture from the Commodore 64. JIP | Talk 19:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, further reading of the image page reveals this: Screenshot created an emulator running the original software. So it's now clear that it's from an emulator, just not which emulator. JIP | Talk 19:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

June 4

Java size (Display )

Is there anyway to change the size on an application written in java? I mean for me as an user. Can a client change the size of an applet size? 190.60.93.218 (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that's really not a comprehensible question. Can you be much more specific about what it is you actually want to achieve. What working thing are you trying to improve, or what broken thing are you trying to fix? 91.125.113.50 (talk) 15:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you trying to change the on-screen size (to do that you'd change the html that hosts it)? Or do you mean the memory size? Download size? What applet specifically? And on what browser (on some we can tell you some javascript which will let you change the size of things, but we'd need to see the specific page). 91.125.113.50 (talk) 15:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I think I wasn't really clear. Let's say that the applet is fixed on a 500x500px square. How as a client without modifying the java applet can I change it from 500x500px in my display to 200x200px. Changing the html won't work because the object won't resize, it will just crop it.

So the question is. How to resize an applet or object? (For flash would be helpful) too. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

When a browser starts an applet (creating something typically called an AppletContainer) it sets the size of that according to the HTML applet or embed tag information. Some applets read the size of this and will adapt their layout to whatever size their given. But it sounds like the applet you're talking about just assumes it's given the size it expects, and so its display is cropped, as you've observed. There's isn't a practical fix for that; applets aren't readily zoomable and you'd need to alter the applet's source code to change how the it works. I don't know anything about Flash. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there any application that allows resizing of windows? apart from a virtual machine? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.158.212.204 (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Google Chrome extension -- malware?

After installing a Chrome extension (a search toolbar) I found it worked okay. I closed Chrome for a short while and when I tried to open Chrome, it wouldn't open no matter what I tried (shortcuts, going through Explorer (this is a whole story in itself), through Run etc). I searched Add/Remove programs for a way to remove the toolbar (as I installed it as an exe, it wasn't installed through Chrome) to no avail. At this point I tried to uninstall Chrome, but it wouldn't let me do that either (nothing happens). I did a manual uninstall from the registry as per the steps on the Chrome help site. I restarted my PC but Windows Update updated something or other in the process, and when my computer had rebooted completely I loaded my Windows profile and it had, stylistically, resetted to default settings. All my programs and data were still present, but the wallpaper, internet homepage etc. had reset back to the default Asus ones. In addition, whenever I browse through Windows Explorer it crashes and reboots, particularly if I try to backspace back in the navigation.

At this point I'm thinking I've installed some form of malware or virus, so I'm over halfway through a Malware check through Malwarebytes and nothing has been found so far. A virus scan will follow, but something tells me it won't return anything positive.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm a little stuck here. I'm running a relatively new Win7 laptop.

Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  16:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I can now add to the list of things that didn't work: System restore. I'm stuck on this! Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

In addition, using a command-line switch to open chrome without extensions didn't work. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

What's the name of the extension you installed? 190.26.65.245 (talk) 17:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

ChatRT Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:55, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Real-time Windows help here: http://webchat.freenode.net/?nick=WinWoes&channels=##windows ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Excel

This is a very simple question. I have a spreadsheet in MS Excel. I want to colour certain cells depending on the value in that cell. It's a spreadsheet of exam results. Let's say I want all of the cells with a mark x such that x ≥ 80% in them to be green, all those with 70% ≤ x < 80% to be yellow, all those with 60% ≤ x < 70% to be orange and all those with x < 60% to be red. What would I have to type in to Excel to make this happen? I've already got all of the names and marks in a two-way-table with the percentages calculated at the end of the row. I just need to get Excel to colour the cells using a given criterion. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, what you want is conditional formatting. Rather than describe it in great detail, I'll point you in the direction of an explanatory picture that someone else has put online, and google image search has found. Few things to note:

1. You access this dialogue via Format->Conditional Formatting, at least you do in Excel 2003 - other versions may differ
2. You're limited to three formatting rules, but you can set another as your default by setting the background colour of the cell in the ordinary way - so you'd have the four you need
3. You can enter 0.5 for 50% (for example)

Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 23:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Excel 2007/2010 has a more sophisticated version of this called "Color Scales", under the Conditional Formatting button on the Home tab of the Ribbon. There are various built-in options, or you can tweak it to your particular needs. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

June 5

A website to send certificates ?

Hi, I'm a synsop in Arabic Wikipedia. To encourage users to become much more active, I'd like to send a king of encouragement certificate on behalf of the Arabic wikipedia community (and not Wikimedia) to users that reach a number of edits and/or a level of quality. I haven't found a website that offers to send all over the world created professional certificates or at least send me the certificates in Canada then I send them to the active user by mail. I just need a list of sites that may offer that kind of service. Thank you a lot. It's the first time that I don't find google usefull ! --Helmoony (talk) 01:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Best version to make a game

Hi, i plan to do a text-based game for educational purposes in Python and Pygame but I don´t know which version of them are best for such project. Could you guys help me? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.214.116.35 (talk) 05:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Pygame is simply an extension of Python, so you would have to learn Python either way. As I understand it, Pygame deals mainly with graphics, so it would probably not be very useful for a text-based game. Looie496 (talk) 05:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

But i want to download it anyways, but i need to know which versiona work best, because some seem incompatible, i can´t use Python 2.7.3 with pygame 1.9 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.214.116.35 (talk) 09:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

If you are using Windows, you can try some of the links at [1]. But before downloading pygame, run python and this code:

import platform
print platform.architecture()[0]

If the result is "64bit", then you should use one of the links that contain "amd64". →Στc. 20:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I´m using windows Xp professional — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.214.116.35 (talk) 21:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

From the pygame website, it looks as though the current version of the library is compatible with all recent versions of python, from 2.4.x to 3.2.x - though the website doesn't exactly give a lot of detail. If you are expecting to use any other libraries, check those as well - just about everything is compatible with recent 2.x releases like 2.6 and 2.7, but some major libraries haven't been ported to 3.x yet. If that isn't an issue, I would go with the latest release (3.2 for now). There were a few fairly fundamental changes to the language in 3.0, and it probably isn't worth learning an older version unless you have a good reason. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 21:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

CPU overloading

I've been having a problem with my PC for a while now. It's cnfiguration is thus- 2 GB memory, 2.8 GHz Core 2 duo prcessor and a 1 GB NVIDIA graphics card. The problem is that when I'm playing games like FIFA 12 and CoD6, they terminate abruptly resulting in a blue screen which complaints about overloading. I work on Windows7 and have Ubuntu installed on the system as well. What coud be the problem and how can I fix it myself ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.4.104 (talk) 08:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, not got an immediate answer - but a couple of questions/ideas:

• When you say a blue screen, do you mean a Blue Screen of Death? What is the exact wording of the error message
• Do your BIOS setup screens include a screen which shows various system temperatures? If so, try restarting as soon as you get the blue-screen, enter BIOS setup and take a note of these temperatures
• You could try running Memtest86 [2] and let us know how you get on.

Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 09:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, my computer has 4GB memory (3GB usable coz its 32-bit), 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 Processor and a 1GB NVIDIA G105M. I also have Windows 7 and Ubuntu installed. So I suppose we have two very similar computers! I never played COD6 on my computer, but I did play Fifa 12 in the past. After playing for around 10-20 minutes, however, my computer would shut down by itself as a precaution against overheating. I managed to extend the time to 50-60 minutes after I sent my computer to have its fan cleaned (after all, the fan in my model cannot be cleaned by the user and I have not sent it for cleaning for... 3 years?). So I would suggest you either clean out the fan in your computer yourself or send it to your dealer for cleaning. However, to tell you the truth, I never encountered a CPU overloading error in my life. Hope this helps. ★ Oliverlyc ★ ✈✈✈ Pop me a message! 04:41, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

CPU overloading? You should close all other programs running on your computer before run a performance-consuming software like games. If it does not, try a high-end laptop. Actually, I am answering this on a laptop too...117.5.13.6 (talk) 08:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Quel peut être l'impact des ondes wifi sur le cerveau des jeunes enfants ?

Bonjour, Je suis un peu inquiète à propos de tout ce qu'on entend aujourd'hui à propos des ondes émises par les bornes wifi et leurs effets sur la santé, notamment des enfants. Je suis maman de 2 petites filles de 10 et 7 ans, et que j'emmène à la bibliothèque au minimum 1 heure par semaine, bibliothèque qui fournit un accès Internet wifi aux lecteurs qui le souhaitent. Je suis donc à la recherche d'informations sur les impacts réels de ces ondes sur mes filles. Quels sont les risques pour les consommatrices "passives" d'ondes qu'elles sont en allant à la bibliothèque? Je vous remercie par avance de votre réponse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.214.201.98 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 5 June 2012‎

Google translate output: What might the impact of wireless waves on the brain of young children?

Hello, I'm a little worried about all the talk today about the waves emitted by wireless terminals and their health effects, including children. I am a mother of two girls 10 and 7 years, and I took him to the library at least one hour per week library that provides wireless Internet access to readers who wish. I am looking for information about the real impact of these waves on my daughters. What are the risks for consumers "passive" wave they are going to the library? Thank you in advance for your response.

88.8.76.5 (talk) 14:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell scientific consensus is that wireless radiation has no health effects at the levels emitted by household electronics. The type of radiation used for wireless communication is only dangerous at very high powers (industrial equipment, leaking microwave ovens) because it can heat up tissue (especially the eye). The talk about the dangers of wireless terminals is just ill-informed talk. Staticd (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, dangerous at high power, but harmless at the power of home or library equipment. I can remember being allowed to play with microwave transmitters at school (transmitting music across the classroom). They are probably much less harmful than mobile phones (similar power but much closer range), and most parents allow their children to use those. When radio waves were first transmitted, there was fear over their effects on the brain, but none have been discovered so far at the usual power levels. It would not be wise to spend a long time directly in front of a commercial long-distance wireless transmitter, or a mobile phone mast. Dbfirs 16:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(in French) Il y a beaucoup d'information disponible sur ce sujet. Voici une page qui inclut un vidéo de 16:9 (TV series), une émission canadienne de télévision. Le vidéo est principalement en anglais, avec une durée de 14:31. En bref, la réponse est que le danger est réel, avec risques des maux de tête, la nausée, est le cancer.

(in English) There is much information available on this subject. Here is a page which includes a video by 16:9 (TV series), a Canadian television program. The video is mainly in English, with a duration of 14:31. Briefly, the answer is that the danger is real, with risks of headaches, nausea, and cancer.

Children Vulnerable to WiFi Health Risks - Optimum Health Tips

—Wavelength (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(in French) Voici un lien externe vers une page en français. (in English) Here is an external link to a page in French.

Wifi : dangers, risques et effets pour la Santé

—Wavelength (talk) 17:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The UK Health Protection Agency(HPA) has a page on Wi-Fi here, which says "There is no consistent evidence to date that exposure to radio signals from Wi-Fi and WLANs adversely affects the health of the general population." Another HPA page on Wireless Local Area Networks is here, which says "On the basis of current evidence, the HPA does not consider there to be a problem with the safety of WLAN."
Relevant WP pages are Wireless electronic devices and health, Mobile phone radiation and health and Electromagnetic radiation and health which basically agree with the views expressed above by User:Static and User:Dbfirs, but User:Wavelength has a source that is less optimistic. - 220 of ^Borg 17:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(in French) Voir aussi ces articles de Wikipédia en français. (in English) See also these French Wikipedia articles.

• fr:Risques sanitaires des télécommunications, fr:Pollution électromagnétique.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(in French) Vous pouvez poser votre question à fr:Wikipédia:Oracle.

(in English) You can pose your question at fr:Wikipédia:Oracle.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Wavelength, as usual, does not know what he or she is talking about and has no apparent ability to critically evaluate external websites for their veracity. If there are any health effects they are indistinguishable from the baseline. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

How to show all blog posts in Firefox?

If I navigate with Firefox to a blog like this blog from the NYTimes, it shows me the last 7 posts. How can I pass a parameter to show the posts from x to y or the last 50? It would be the equivalent to anyblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=30&max-results=70, that shows from 30 to 70. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

There isn't, as far as I'm aware at least, of a standard for requesting RSS or ATOM content beyond just getting the feed from the link. Some servers do support query strings to specify the kind of things you're interested in, but I can't see any documentation on NYT's website about what, if any, theirs does. They do offer an API. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Spotify troubles

Hello all! I'm an avid Spotify user, and I was wondering why on earth I periodically can't listen due to very loud and annoying "scratchy" sounds. I've been assuming that this is due to my crappy internet connection. Is this correct, and is there anything I can do to remedy it? Thanks! Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I haven't used Spotify, but that sounds like radio static, which is associated with analog audio transmission. It sounds like, in those places and times, at least part of the transmission path is still analog. (Note that digital also has problems, but they manifest differently, as cutting out when signal is weak, rather than static). StuRat (talk) 18:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Getty Images Program

Can someone explain in simple terms that even an airhead blond could understand: What would be the advantages of having your images licensed under the Getty Images Program I have noticed in Flickr? Can one make money this way? How lucrative? --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

If they accept your picture, they put it on their website and in their index (with various tags that describe its content, much like on Commons). And there's an additional "Licence me" tag added on Flikr. Magazine editors, graphic designers, newspaper picture editors, and the people who do graphics or set-design for movies or tv programmes might then chance upon it (via the themed search engines on either site). If they like it, they pay Getty for permission to use it in their thing, and Getty pays you some of that. If your pictures are good you can make money like this. But if they're not exceptional, probably not much. Getty also owns iStockPhoto, which supplies cheaper stock photos. In general this business is described in the stock photography article, and the Getty/Flickr thing specifically at Flikr's page. Many of the kinds of images that people want for commercial stock photography (generic smiling attractive people in business meetings, signing contracts, reading documents, looking at plans, carrying purchases, holding tools) are probably not the kind of photo you'd normally take, so a lot of photos on these sites are taken by people who are specifically creating stuff for the stock photo market. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:00, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing most stock photography involving identifable people requires a model release too. At least it seems to be the case if iStockPhoto [3] but I would assume it's the norm considering even in countries where it isn't a legal requirement, no company is going to want the controversy when someone makes a fuss after they come across their photo used to illustrate a library website or some political parties brochure [4] or whatever or becomes the next everywhere girl. Nil Einne (talk) 14:10, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It's very common for stock photography licences to exclude either political uses or uses that might suggest the model or photographer endorses or supports something. Getty's terms and iStock's terms both prohibit use like that (e.g. "in a manner that implies endorsement, use of or a connection to a product or service by that model"). This didn't stop the British National Party, as reported here, in a deliciously ironic manner. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

June 6

Computer Novice Help Identifying Downloads

I am an older, disabled person doing my best to just survive using a computer. For some reason I found a CD among my 'computer stuff' named "nero8essentials" and "Linus 3 Essentials". I have no idea where/how I got this. In trying to search the web using Internet Explorer I somehow landed on Adobe website. It seemed to instruct me to download AdobeFlashX. (I checked my List of pre-installed software and found Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash.) I tried to download AdobeX and all sorts of things happened.....leaving me with the impression that the download was unsuccessfull. But then when I checked my "Downloads" I swear I saw Adobe Flash but when I clicked on its name (from the list of downloads) I think it was unavailable or similar phrase. Then, I tried to download Adobe FlashX for the second time and I received a message that computer could not run two versions of same download (words to that effect). I've lost time, I'm in physical pain and I now really only want to know if I 'hurt' my computer - because of the conflict between AdobeFlashX appearing on list of downloads but not accessible.

If this mean nothing to anyone - I will understand as my vocabulary is technically limited and I did not transcribe every darn message I rec'd. tonite (didn't think I'd need to.

Thank you GretchHass (talk) 04:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

If it was truly adobe.com, you should have little to be concerned about. It sounds like you might be possibly using a rather old version of Microsoft Windows, and for various reasons associated with that your attempt to install Adobe Flash 10 (X) has failed.
You can get help debugging Microsoft Windows issues much more rapidly in a chat room, such as this one: http://webchat.freenode.net/?nick=GretchHass&channels=##windows. They can be raucous and messages can seem to zoom by, but if you explain your situation clearly, the more reliable chat room regulars will give you plenty of patient assistance. (Not that you won't get assistance here, it will just take incredibly longer). ¦ Reisio (talk) 05:22, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

"Nero 8 essentials" is a reduced-functionality version of the Nero Multimedia Suite cd and dvd burning software. It probably came bundled with a DVD writer. "Linux 3 essentials" is a Linux operating system version of the same Nero tools. Neither of these is the latest version. You only need these if you burn DVDs or CDs, and you will not need the Linux version at all unless you plan to use that operating system.-gadfium 22:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Technological mind manipulation

There are available technologies used to control computers with minds, but are there available technological approaches used to control minds with computers? Is it possible? 117.5.13.6 (talk) 09:47, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

We can't even control our minds at all, we can control computers because we know how they work, we made them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.26.65.245 (talk) 12:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It's called online advertising. --80.112.182.54 (talk) 15:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

See José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado. His method was relatively crude, but there's no reason that electrodes couldn't be used to stimulate the brain in a more controlled fashion with more complicated results. It's pretty common to remote-control bugs by implanting electrodes and zapping them in a controlled manner [5]. Obviously, ethical issues exist for doing this to people. Buddy431 (talk) 00:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Instead of electrodes, you can also use a strong, highly localized magnetic field to stimulate brain neurons. It's still rather crude, though. StuRat (talk) 01:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hotmail Phishing?

Hi all.
I've had a hotmail account for going on 15 years. As of a couple of weeks ago, when I log in, I get this message:

Your account has been blocked. ... We'll ask you to provide us with a mobile phone number where we can send you a verification code and we'll add this phone number to your Windows Live profile for future use. After you enter the code, you can change your password and sign in.

No frickin' way am I going to add my cell-phone number. (The Internets already has more than enough to identify me, my car, and my Social Security number.)

Am I being Phished? Or do I just just need to put in some random cell-phone number to get my hotmail access back? --Shirt58 (talk) 14:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, are you sure it's Hotmail? Double-check the URL. If it's really Hotmail (and not a random e-mail), then it's likely two-factor authentication, which many e-mail providers are now moving towards because they drastically increase account security. (Hotmail began implementing it a year ago, though I thought it was optional; perhaps something went wrong with your account — e.g. someone actually did try to hack it — and they've decided that you need to upgrade your security. Or maybe you're just accessing it from a new machine, which sometimes triggers various sites requiring this sort of information; Facebook in particular now requires it for unusual logins.)

Putting in a random phone number won't work — they will text you a code and you will need it to log in. The goal here is that if someone hacked your password from a different computer, they wouldn't actually be able to access your e-mail account unless they ALSO had your cell phone, which is unlikely. I use two-factor authentication with my Gmail account, though it is optional there. It adds a hassle, but your e-mail address is the skeleton key to your identity — once someone is in that, they can do all manners of nasty things, including getting into pretty much any site that you used that e-mail address to register with. This blog post explains the real value of two-factor authentication. Yes, it is sort of a hassle... but a lot less of a hassle than having your e-mail compromised, which is increasingly common.

Again, this assumes that it's really Hotmail that's doing this, but it doesn't sound unlikely to me that they might start that. If they start asking for your bank account information, then it's a scam, obviously... --Mr.98 (talk) 15:04, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Cooperating

I am looking for a simple (easy to operate, easy to set up, ideally free) system which allows to share files and perhaps other information among a small group of people. Requirements are:

1. should run on a linux server
2. should be accessible from windows, linux (perhaps even mac)
3. should be usable by people with relatively little computer literacy
4. revision control is not necessary

A typical scenario could be: User A uploads some image files and pdf or text documents to the server. User B views these files, ideally without downloading them to her computer first, i.e. on the server. Would be good if there were some editing functions as well such as delete/copy/move files or edit text documents. Any suggestions on what to use for such a setup? bamse (talk) 15:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Google Docs has lots of document-sharing, cross-platform options. Dropbox is another common way to accomplish this sort of thing. Both of these are pretty dead-easy to use. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:18, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

If you want to operate the server yourself, how about MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia? You can set up your own private wiki, the software installation procedure is fairly straightforward. Nimur (talk) 15:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all suggestions. Will have to check out google docs (apparently soon to be google drive) which I have used only occasionally so far. I used dropbox only for backups as single user so far and to share single files, but indeed I could share whole directories with it. Don't know much about mediawiki, but it seems too powerful for this simple task. bamse (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I've used DropBox a lot to share lots o' files, including with non-tech savvy people. The main problem is that the non-tech savvy (and sometimes the tech savvy), drag the files out of the DropBox directory onto their desktops (or flash drives, or wherever). The problem is, that actually moves it out of the DropBox folder and deletes it for everyone else. It's not irreversible (deleted files are stored in a backup for a month, and the interface is pretty easy to use if you want to restore one), but it is kind of a pain. My experience has been that the very non-tech savvy somehow cannot keep this straight and this is a recurrent issue. I wish there were ways to say, "please make the default 'drag' action a copy and not a move" in DropBox (for other people), or at least being able to "lock" shared files in some way so they can't be overwritten or deleted accidentally. If you could do that, it would be pretty ideal. As it is, it works, but not quite as seamlessly as I'd like. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The standard approach is to set up your Linux machine to be a Samba server. Looie496 (talk) 23:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

How are the list of suggested pages (articles) for Help:Books generated?

On the page Help:Books, it says "After selecting a few articles, you can click on "Suggest pages" and you will be presented with a list of articles that are related to your selection."

What are the technical details as to how are the list of suggested pages/articles generated? Is it using link structure? bag of words models? Is it deterministic? non-deterministic?

Thank you. --Rajah (talk) 15:10, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's the latest source-code that's running on Wikipedia: the Collection extension suggest feature. The authors of that code publish a Google Group and frequent an IRC channel, so you can contact them directly; their documentation does not provide a high-level overview of the "suggest" feature, but the code is commented. You could request that they add a highlights summary of the feature to the extension's documentation. From my (very superficial) reading of the source-code, it appears to generate a list of linked articles, weighted by their frequency of appearance; and then cross-reference those articles against a manually-generated "blacklist" of articles that should not be included in a "suggestions for related articles" query. Nimur (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

June 7

Graphics card causing reboots?

Hello! I bought an nVidia (evga) GTX 550 Ti card close to the start of May, installed it, and it was working fine. Games played well at 1080p at full frame rate with no problems. Then, about a week and a half ago (so three weeks after installing the card), my computer would start randomly rebooting...at first just one freak occurrence, then once every few days, up to the point it couldn't be up and running for more than 5 minutes. I was using a 500 W PSU, so I replaced it with a 700 W model...same problem. I've now removed the graphics card and have been running smoothly for 3-4 hours so far. The card specs recommend a minimum PSU of 400 W, so the 500 W and current 700 W should be more than enough to support it.

I dualboot to Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8 CP...same problem in both. In fact, a reboot was triggered even just being booted in memtest86+, so I doubt this is a driver issue. I was, however, able to run a pass in memtest86+ failsafe mode, but I don't know if that's significant, or just dumb luck that it stayed on for that after rebooting twice in non-failsafe mode of memtest86+ (no memory errors). Besides rebooting, it would occasionally just freeze the display in Ubuntu and Windows, and not reboot by itself. There was no useful information in the Ubuntu logs, which acknowledged the kernel was going through the boot process again but did not log any shutdown. These reboot problems happen even if I'm not doing any CPU- or GPU-taxing operation; simply browsing in firefox or even being away from the keys has triggered a reboot.

The CPU is always in a suitable temp range, and there are no thermal problems logged in Ubuntu. I strongly suspect the graphics card and am about to RMA it, but I figured I'd check here to see if anyone else might offer some other diagnostic advice. Unfortunately, I don't have access to another computer where I can pop this gfx card in and see if the same problem occur, nor do I have an extra graphics card to check if the motherboard pci-express slot is bad (there's only one pcie slot on my board). Looking online, I find most people with defective gfx cards get them dead on arrival or get some obnoxious BSOD that points to the gfx card (I've never gotten a BSOD), and I was surprised that this card worked so well for a few weeks and then suddenly brought on these problems, so I wanted to check here and see if that sounded plausible. Thank you very much for any advice you can give on this matter. I will update you if I have any problems with the card now removed, but so far, this is very much longer than I've been able to go without a reboot.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 00:46, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Have some paragraph breaks, on me: ¶ ¶ ¶. :-) StuRat (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the possibilities of a bad slot or bad graphics card. Another possibility is that the card just wasn't seated properly in the slot. Did you put it back in all the way to check this ? StuRat (talk) 01:21, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Following your advice, I reinstalled the gfx card inside the machine, and made sure it's secure (screwed into the case and mobo pcie latch flipped to hold it in), but still have the same issue. I was able to get a good 2 hours out of it, but it rebooted again. However, as I was messing around with it after its self-provoked reboot, I found I could trigger hangs and reboots manually by applying a bit of force onto the top of the card with the tip of my index finger. To further explain: If I pushed down on the graphics card with my index finger (pushing it in the direction of the mobo), sometimes giving it a gentle shake with just the index finger (as if you're making a smudge on a piece of paper with your finger), this action will often trigger the reboot process, leading me to believe it's a gfx card or pcie slot issue.

Sometimes this action doesn't work, but it seems if the computer is up for about 2-3 minutes and I try this, that little bit of agitation usually acts as a way to trigger this problem. Of course, not doing this, the system eventually reboots on its own anyway. I've checked and checked again, and the gfx card is certainly secure, firmly held in the pcie slot...there's definitely no feeling of looseness when I use this finger tactic. Maybe this can be diagnostically useful. Also, what's the best way to test for a faulty PCIe slot? FWIW none of the components in this build are older than January 1st of this year.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:23, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, we seem to have narrowed it down to an intermittant connection, but it's still not clear whether it's on the card, in the slot, or between the two. The best way to test the slot is to try a new card in there. At this point, assuming you can't borrow another card to try, or borrow another computer to test the card, I think you need to bite the bullet and buy a new graphics card. (Keep the receipt just in case that's not the problem, though, and you want to return it.) StuRat (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I also added paragraph breaks to both my posts above to make them more readable.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Update: After removing the graphics card, I noticed that giving the whole computer case a gentle shake also triggers this problem, so it must be a loose connection somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it. The obvious point of interest was the PSU connection to the motherboard, but I've checked that and it's secure. Again, I've tried two different PSUs, so it's not a problem with the connecting wires themselves. I'll probably have to resort to taking it apart and reassembling it, since no loose connection is visually obvious. If that doesn't work, though, what are some diagnostics I can do to see if the problem is embedded in the motherboard itself? Thank you.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:48, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Have you got automatic restart disabled in windows? This will tell you if the computer is 'crashing'(blue screening) or actually rebooting. If it is actualy rebooting, my guess is it's most likely a RAM issu. How many ram chips are you using? If it is more then 1, simply try taking each out one by one and seeing if your problem stops.(source: ten years in IT support). Vespine (talk) 01:47, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

If you get the problem only when using the graphics card (it disappears completely using the built-in graphics), then I don't see how it could be the motherboard or ram chips. It's the graphics card, the slot, or the connection between the two. StuRat (talk) 04:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

PHP Function.

I'm learning php, so I did a "proxy" to test my 'skills', I showed it to someone experienced in netwroking. He managed to acess my computer files (He even downloaded some files, and pasted them as a proof) and access my network.. I asked him several times how he did it but he didn't show me..

Anyway here Is the function that get's the files, as you can see, the function that gets everything is file_get_contents, how he managed to do it?

 

$url = $_POST['pageurl'];
$opts = array(
  'http'=>array(
    'method'=>"GET",
    'header'=>"Accept-language: en\r\n" .
              "User-Agent:php"
  )
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$contents = file_get_contents($url,false,$context); 

Thanks for reading 190.158.212.204 (talk) 01:52, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I discovered how the vulnerability works. how can I filter it? 190.158.212.204 (talk) 04:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The vulnerability (as you have probably figured out) is that the URL doesn't have to be a real URL — it can also be a file path on the server, and you haven't filtered it at all, so unless you are really careful with how your PHP's permissions are set, you can put in all sorts of nefarious paths like "../../../Users/YourUserName/Desktop/SecretFiles.txt" and so on. The base lesson here is "be careful when you take user input and use that in a function like file_get_contents which can access local files." How to fix it? Sanitize the user input — if you only want it to refer to URLs, make sure that the string starts with "http://" or "https://", and if not, add it to the front of it (http://../../../etc would not resolve to a valid URL, but it won't access your server filesystem, either). If you need it to access local files (or relative paths), reject any paths that include double periods (..). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

What is the price to put video ad on youtube (the video ads that plays before the video start)?

What is the price to put video ad on youtube (the video ads that plays before the video start)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.132.208 (talk) 05:35, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

http://google.com/search?q=youtube%20advertising ¦ Reisio (talk) 07:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Memory Space

Whenever I but a pendrive or a portable hard drive - say 1000 GB portable hard drive, I dont get to use the entire space in it. In the case of the 1000 GB hard drive, I am able to use only 930 GB. So is the case with pen drive - around 95 % of the space is only usable. Why is it so ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.139.99 (talk) 08:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

It's likely you are in fact using all (or at least most) of the space, but that the capacity as printed on the device and the capacity as given by your operating system are arrived at by using different measurements, specifically: the device manufacturer has measured in base 10, and the OS (for historic reasons) has measured in base 2. ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

In addition to base-10 vs base-2, a file system reserves space for metadata - file names, modification time, ownership, permissions, and such. This space will be unavailable for file contents. 88.114.124.228 (talk) 16:34, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

gmail

Resolved

How do i delete a pre-existing email address which is remembered by gmail "compose"? Kittybrewster ☎ 10:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you have to delete the email from your "contacts" list. Heck froze over (talk) 13:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

it isnt on it. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:37, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

You probably have multiple contacts lists. Click on the red "Gmail" top left of screen, and select Contacts. If you see multiple contacts lists, you will need to work through each of them to find the one you want to remove. Also turn off "Create contacts for auto-complete" in your general settings options.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks Kittybrewster ☎ 15:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Email SMS alerts.

Does anyone know of such a service reminding a user that he/she has email via a text message. I know there is one, but it's only available for subscribers in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, but not in the Philippines. Blake Gripling (talk) 10:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

All implementations of such service (which i have used), consisted of email to SMS gateway (email address which forwards received emails as text messages to specific phone) and ordinary email forwarding (which is set up at mail server). First part (SMS gateway) depends on cellphone operator (they owns it), second part (email forwarding), depends on email server. -Yyy (talk) 09:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Scorewriter licensed under BSD License or similar licenses

Are there general-purpose scorewriters with extensive functionality and licensed under BSD License or other copyfree licenses? 117.5.13.6 (talk) 11:01, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a list of scorewriters that should answer your question.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Computer security

Hi all, I remember back in the 90s people used to tell me you couldn't catch a virus just from being connected to the internet, and you couldn't catch anything from a webpage unless the owner of the page had put one there (or, say, unless a virus on his computer had put one there). Nowadays all you hear is that a (Windows) computer only has to be connected to the Internet for a few minutes to catch its death of cold. What has changed in the meantime? Is it that I used to listen to people who didn't know what they were talking about? What is the situation for Mac and Linux? It all seems rather strange to me, and it sounds like a rather basic thing to be able to prevent a computer from catching a virus except in the case of downloading and running software. Note that by "downloading" I mean in the sense of being able to run downloaded software from the start button, rather than in the controlled environment of a webpage, as happens with javascript. IBE (talk) 13:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Nowadays, hackers (I shall refer to them as crackers from now on, and crack instead of hack), and they also crack for very different reasons. It was technically possible for a cracker to spread viruses just because you were connected to the internet in the 90s. However, most crackers then cracked due to their own mischief, they do not expect to earn money out of it, they only want to see people's computer crash and the feeling of invincibility. Because of this, they mostly did not bother making their virus spread in such a way that even those connected to the internet without doing anything else would also get infected. Therefore, people just ASSUMED that virus cannot spread just because you are connected to the internet. Unfortunately, times have changed. Crackers now crack because of economic reasons, that is, they want to earn money. They code viruses that stays rather dormant in your computer, slowly logging your personal details such as credit card numbers and sending them back. Since it is credit card numbers and other personal details they want, it means that the more they have, the merrier. Therefore, more energy is spent on making sure that every, or at least, nearly every, channel for the virus to spread is exhausted. Therefore, we have viruses that can spread, for example, to all computers in a LAN from just one computer connected to it. Thus, we come to assume that viruses now can spread just by being connected to the internet. Cheers! ★ Oliverlyc ★ ✈✈✈ Pop me a message! 14:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Well technically you can't get a computer virus just by being connected. You may get a computer worm. More seriously, what you're saying is only really true for a preSP2 Windows XP that isn't behing a NAT or firewall. PostSP2, the firewall does a decent job provided it's properly configured (and of course enabled). Also, I don't know what people you listined to, but the risk of services open to the internet was well recognised even before Windows 95 let alone Blaster (computer worm). (There were of course a number of Internet Information Services vunerabilities that predated blaster and were fairly widespread like Code Red (computer worm) although most Windows users didn't/don't run IIS.) Think of OpenBSD's mantra for example (which wasn't before Windows 95, but you get the idea). 2001:0:5EF5:79FD:20CB:1C04:833A:FA41 (talk) 15:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

You can't get a virus just by being connected, but a Windows computer that detects an internet connection will do some things automatically. For example, it will automatically download updates. Looie496 (talk) 03:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting answers - thankyou. So does that mean the only true vulnerability with Windows is the checking for updates? If you configured it so as not to check for updates, would it be safe, at least until you visited a dodgy porn website? It just strikes me that it should be simplicity itself to protect a computer from unsolicited code. Stuff you download and run can obviously be malicious, as with anything (even offline) that asks for your private information, but stuff just jumping onto your system looks preventable. Does anyone know the situation with Macs? IBE (talk) 05:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The chief thing that has changed since the 90's is that programs are expected to interact with each other in to a much larger extent today than what was the case 15 years ago.

Is update checking the only vulnerability? No, definitly not, any program that downloads code or content that can contain code can be a vulnerability. So the updates are necesarry in order to plug those holes.

In principle it is possible to prevent attacks by blocking anything that could contain code. However the current trend is that content and presentation should be synchronized with the cloud and with a users several devices (Phones, pads, other PC's). So content will be downloaded from outside of the computer, and this will reach (or have reached) a volume that means that direct user inspection would be annoying. Also content is becoming more complex and thus the need for content that can contain code is increasing.

Mac is currently somewhat safer than Windows, arguably because Mac is a less atractive target (they still have a smaller userbase). Wether this will hold as mobile devices gets more important remains to be seen. Mac might have an advantage over Windows because of tighter control on third parties. OTOH Windows might have an advantage because there are several compaines developing antimalware for the platform. Taemyr (talk) 11:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

iPhone charger

I think that I have asked this before but mislaid the answer. Can I charge my iPhone with my iPad charger please?85.211.222.224 (talk) 14:07, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you try searching the archives (there's a box at the top) but AFAIK you shouldn't have a problem. Charging your iPad with an older iPhone charger may not work however. 2001:0:5EF5:79FD:20CB:1C04:833A:FA41 (talk) 15:15, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this, found my earlier post and links, and the answers seems to be 'Yes'. Thanks again.--85.211.222.224 (talk) 15:49, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

wow, that's the first ipv6 I've seen here 190.158.212.204 (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Java compiler

Can you suggest me some good compilers to make Java software? Cambalachero (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The Java Development Kit, which you get from Oracle, comes with javac, the standard Java compiler. For a general developer, this is the first and most obvious choice. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

And if you are more into a GUI environment, Eclipse (software) is a popular free choice, though not the only one; there are links to others in the Eclipse article. A common answer to this is to play with javac first, then graduate to a GUI, in the spirit of "learn to walk before you run". 88.114.124.228 (talk) 16:18, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

BlueJ is also a very good developing environment for beginners. It's good because it automates a few tasks (like the compiling process) and has basic syntax highlighting, but doesn't have any advanced feautures like auto-completion, thus forcing beginners to get very comfortable with Java and not rely on features that do too much of the work for them. Oracle's javac seems like the way to go.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

June 8

"Gateway timed out"

I keep getting this message in a pop up box in the center of my screen while I try to access Wikipedia and the whole screen behind it darkens. I click on "okay" and it goes away but it's annoying and I want to know what's causing this. Can anyone explain? Thanks.--108.46.98.134 (talk) 01:40, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I'm on a iMac 10.6.8, using Firefox, latest version--108.46.98.134 (talk) 01:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting the same error tonight. Though, I'm on a MacBook with 10.5.8 and using Safari. It's been every time that I click on something on my watchlist. We should probably take this to WP:VPT. Dismas|^(talk) 02:05, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I see there's already a discussion there. What that confirms for me this that it is NOT ME--this take away my mild worry that it was a problem with my computer. Thanks for responding.--108.46.98.134 (talk) 02:24, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Need help troubleshooting computer with corrupted HDD

One of my computers has a crashed/corrupted hard drive. Windows fails to boot normally, but can boot into some recovery mode. One of the options is "repair your computer" or some such, but no OS is listed in the dialog. It says that if no OS is listed, I'll have to load some drivers. The computer didn't come with a restoration disc. Not sure if the recovery discs I burned post-install would have the needed drivers. Tried Linux-based SystemRescueCD, but couldn't mount any of the (NTFS) partitions. Tried a diagnostic CD from the HDD manufacturer. It said the HDD failed some important diagnostic test. There was a longer test that identified a screenful of sector read errors (all excerpt one had the same LBA address--it's weird) and offered an option to repair them. Didn't try the repair option for fear that it might make the problem worse. Don't know how many more screenfuls of error the tool would find if I continued.

I'm looking for info on how to troubleshoot/fix the problem. The primary goal is data recovery. Recovery without reinstalling all software would be a plus. My first objective is to determine, without disturbing the HDD content, whether I have a hardware problem or just bad sectors in some critical places. Assuming I don't have a hardware problem with the drive, my next objective is to determine whether the file system can be repaired, and get a sense of how much of the data can be recovered.

I could use some advice on what tools to use, what procedures to try, and in what order. Thanks in advance! --98.114.146.239 (talk) 04:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you need to install the O/S and drivers on a different hard disk, first, and make that the boot disk, so you can get the computer up and running. If you don't have the necessary backup disks to do this, you might be able to download them (using another computer), assuming you have the validation codes. Once you get the computer running, you can try to repair the bad hard disk and copy over any data you can still save. There are also places you could take the bad disk, which will attempt to recover the data, for a fee. StuRat (talk) 05:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Phones are smart afterall!!!

Why do smartphones switch themselves on when you switch them off? Difficultly north (talk) 10:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Yahoo Live Chat

Separately, is there a way to permanently disable Yahoo Live Chat (which is not the same as Yahoo Messenger as it is only located within Yahoo mail) instead of just being signed out? Difficultly north (talk) 10:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC)