Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/C

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

June 21

Computer drivers

Have Windows 7 and receiving balloons about updating my drivers. Did limited search and believe that with Norton appearing I am being directed to sign up for new costs to have them updated.Is this the case? Do drivers need updating, if so can I access any other way to do it? Beginning to learn that it is best to ask before signing up for anything! Hamish 84Hamish84 (talk) 03:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS. My thanks to those who provided previous help. Have not as yet worked out how to thank them direct!!

Drivers do indeed sometimes require updates, it's not absolutely necessary to get them, your computer will work just fine with the same drivers it has always worked with. Updates can have bug fixes, resolve specific problems, optimizations that make them run better, etc that are generally better to have then not to have. Having said that, I have never seen driver updates that require any "signing up" or payment. What you have sounds more like either a software update or a malware program that is trying to convince you that you need its services. This has become VERY popular recently, programs pop up telling you that you have viruses (which you either don't at all or the program it self has placed them there) then it tells you that you need their software to resolve the "issue". the best thing to do in that case is google the exact name of the program or "window" that you see and you should be able to find how to remove it, sometimes unfortunately it isn't trivial. If it is norton asking you to update it (frequently after a free trial period) just uninstall it and get a free antivirus program, or just use Microsoft Security Essentials which is free if you have windows 7. Vespine (talk) 05:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't need to subscribe to anything, especially anything that requires you to pay, for driver updates. Sometimes registration with the manufacturer of the computer and/or the item will let them update you, or you can often just wait until you see some problems. I discovered that updating a working driver is not always wise, when it cost me a new video board. (I won't name the manufacturer for purposes of liability reduction for Wikipedia). To make a long long story short, a couple of hours after the automatic updating of my video driver, the board died; an exact replacement was no longer made but the currently available bottom of the line board from the same video folks was something of an upgrade for my aging machine (which couldn't handle anything better than bottom of the line because of power supply limitations) but that had problems, until somebody on some online forum suggested I roll it back to the last working driver (which did work) and explained that.... since each driver handles a lot of different boards, the updates often involve making the newer boards work, and the older boards tend to get left behind for obvious reasons, so it might not be good policy to auto-update drivers always, and certainly in a case such as that I describe, rolling back to an older driver and turning off auto-update is a good thing to try. I do keep auto-update on for my other drivers, but I don't think they update as often as video drivers see to do. Gzuckier (talk) 03:44, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of female 3d figures?

Where is a list of female 3d figures for software like Daz? I was able to find a list of 3d software (Thank you Wikipedia) but I can't find a list of base female models I can buy besides the ones made by Daz. Edit: I just need a list of base females made by a company, not models I can buy from indie vendors at various indie vendor websites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.176.250.165 (talk) 08:01, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You might try Poser World, a forum that has a section devoted to Daz and Poser resources. Looie496 (talk) 18:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Erasing old hard drives before disposal...

How many times does the data realistically need to be overwritten to render anything on the drive unrecoverable? I hear/read that the Gutmann method, with 35 passes is considered complete overkill... Note: I very much doubt that any agency with unlimited resources and unlimited time in which to spend on forensic examination will have an interest in my drives. I'm just talking about sensible precautions here... Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Data remanence cites very reliable sources that say "once". There's no evidence of anyone ever recovering data that was simply zeroed once. Truly national security users are sufficiently paranoid that they have cause to worry about unknown attacks (by their counterparts), and so might require degaussing and/or mechanical shredding. But you, who surely do not have the plans for hydrogen bombs on your disks, don't. None of this holds for solid state (flash) drives, which require different methods, as that article notes. 87.115.114.119 (talk) 20:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. As a matter of interest, what is the correct/best method for permanently overwriting the data on USB flash drives? I suppose that you could just smash the thing or throw it in fire, but in terms of being able to use the thing again afterwards... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The paper by Wei et al, cited in the data remanence article, talks about various methods. Ideally they'd all implement the ATA ERASE-UNIT commands, but that paper says many don't. Without that it doesn't seem that there's a sufficiently reliable software-only way. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet. That pretty much covers it, I think... :) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very old hard drives, removable disc-packs and "floppy discs" (if anyone remembers them) had much larger gaps between tracks, and it was possible to write date between tracks (in some cases and with some drives), with this data being difficult to erase on some other drives. The paranoia about data remanence is probably from those days. Nevertheless, I've used a sledge-hammer on more than one occasion! Dbfirs 08:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are those 3.5" floppies you're talking about, btw? I found a box of them the other day that have been in one of my drawers for night on ten years. No idea what's on most of them, but interestingly a document shredder capable of taking 5 sheets of A4 at once will just about manage to consume one with a little back and forth... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of the older 8-inch and 5.25-inch floppies where there was lots of "wasted" recording space. The 3.5-inch design had a much more compressed track format, but there might still be a slight risk of data between tracks, so shredding (after removing the plastic case) or burning would be an option. Dbfirs 09:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why would any normal person need to do this? Clearly you have something naughty on your hard drives. Don't worry, I won't tell ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.144.149.58 (talk) 22:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Risk of identity theft because of any stray personal/financial details left on the HD, basically. Criminals do root through bins looking for things that they can use to get an 'in', believe it or not. It's not particularly common, but I'm pretty sure that this is how someone got ahold of enough details (likely from a paper statement that I'd carelessly discarded) to make online purchases using my credit card (which had never left my person and hadn't been used for a very long time and never online) several years ago. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:46, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the point about identity theft, it's a very dangerous argument to say "if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about". That's the path to losing entirely our protections against government snooping. I see you geolocate to Russia, so I'm not sure you've ever had such protections in the first place, but believe me, if you did, you'd want to keep them. --Trovatore (talk) 22:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about doing some preventive work to avoid identity theft? Like encrypting all sensitive data. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:13, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's better than nothing. But if you don't encrypt the entire disk, you never know whether something leaked (and it's really hard to find out). If you do encrypt the entire disk, then it's probably just with your regular login password, which you may have accidentally typed somewhere else. Used storage media aren't worth much; the safe move is to pull them out and physically destroy them (not that that's necessarily easy either...)

But even if you're planning to do that, you should still encrypt anything sensitive, and possibly your entire disk. You never know when the machine might be stolen, going through an airport or something. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

June 22

Why does Apple Inc. permit use of their Mac OS X only on their hardware?

Why does Apple Inc. permit use of their Mac OS X only on their hardware? 117.5.15.219 (talk) 07:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apple has always been that way. Even if Jobs or someone else ever spoke on the subject I wouldn’t imagine what was said would be either consistent or perfectly logical. I have trouble imagining it being anything other than Jobs’ predisposition.
Now if you’re asking in general how a company might justify acting in this fashion, for that there are answers to be had. ¦ Reisio (talk) 08:30, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Steve Jobs thought the operating system and hardware should be to a single, high quality design and that third party equipment could be inferior and reflect badly on the Apple brand. Such licensing had been permitted at the time he was ousted from Apple and he felt this contributed to the decline of the firm over that period. He ended the practice on his return, see MacOS#Macintosh_clones. I have just finished reading Steve Jobs (book) which is very good for learning about Apple design and marketing philosophy. Thincat (talk) 08:45, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the mid-90s, Apple did license their operating system (then Mac OS) to clone manufacturers. They stopped the arrangement in 1997. See Macintosh clone#Official Macintosh clone program.-gadfium 08:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to the pertinent answers above, there are also good economics reasons for pursuing such a strategy, most notably that it creates a form of vendor lock-in. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 12:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

North American area codes with identical prefix assigned

How many North American area codes have a prefix matching the area code assigned (i.e. in the xxx-yyy-zzzz format, xxx = yyy)? Off the top of my head, I can think of area code 787 (787-787-xxxx is assigned in Bayamón Norte) and 847 (847-847-xxxx is assigned in Lake Zurich). Are there others? 98.116.65.50 (talk) 07:44, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One option for calculating this would be to use this database (which appears to be an excel file) as a starting list, and then use formulas in excel to count only the matching allocations. However, the cost of the database is slightly prohibitive. I am not sure if there is a freely available list of allocations; if there was, however, it would be simple enough to analyze. Sazea (talk) 17:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The North American Numbering Plan Administration has various freely available data on its site. From the Central Office Code Assignment Records page, I downloaded the "All States" zipped text file, opened it in Excel, then used some formulas and filters to find currently used instances where the area code is the same as the prefix. I found 9 matches:

 NPA-NXX  Rate Center  State  Company
 =======  ===========  =====  =======================================
 213-213  LSAN DA 01   CA     U.S. TELEPACIFIC CORP. - CA
 305-305  MIAMI        FL     METRO PCS, INC.
 310-310  SNMN SNMN    CA     T-MOBILE USA, INC.
 330-330  YOUNGSTOWN   OH     CLEVELAND UNLIMITED, INC.
 419-419  BOWLNGGREN   OH     LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS, LLC - OH
 626-626  LA PUENTE    CA     U.S. TELEPACIFIC CORP. - CA
 630-630  OSWEGO       IL     GLOBALCOM, INC.-IL
 787-787  BAYAMONNOR   PR     PUERTO RICO TELEPHONE CO.
 847-847  LAKEZURICH   IL     TELEPORT COMMUNICATIONS GROUP - CHICAGO

--Bavi H (talk) 01:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is the difference between a web server and a web framework?

The web framework seems to cover the same functionality as the web server (+ something mroe). OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like many IT terms, "web application framework" is terribly vague. The article we have on it seems to imply that it is the server-side software that can run various scripts or programs — e.g. the Zend Framework, which, when installed on a server, can be used to run server-side PHP scripts. As that explanation implies, it is not the same thing as the web server itself. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but can a web framework, e.g. the Zend Framework, handle http requests or does it need an extra web server, e.g. Apache? If the former is the case, then a web framework seems to me like a web server which can run server side programs. OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A framework is usually the "scaffolding" to write web based applications working. Some frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, include their own web server, but it is more normal that you need to use them on top of an existing web server. A good example is the Spring Framework. - Letsbefiends (talk) 22:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How do you jump to 0x10000 in x86 assembly using intel syntax and assembling with NASM?

I know I succeed in writing my code to that address using int 13h because I can see it at that memory location. What I can't do is jump there. I put 0x1000 (three zeros there) into es and 0x0000 into bx and I know that [es:bx] means the address calculated by (es * 0x10) + bx which does equal 0x10000 (four zeros there). But eip, the instruction pointer, never does go there. I've tried "jmp [es:bx]", "jmp 0x1000:0x0000", and a bunch of other permutations that NASM doesn't even accept. I don't know. Do you, oh geniuses? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 18:31, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This posting has some simple 16-bit real mode boot code which loads some code from disk to 1000:0000 and then JMPs there. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Still failure. My boot loader here. I booted it up in Qemu and did a memsave on the first 50 bytes at 0x10000, opened it up with tweak, and saw my "kernel" code there (simple . But EIP still refuses to be 0x10000, or reach it and then hang where I want it, is what I mean). Full images of the situation here. Sorry for the sarcastic tone, I've been trying to get this to work for too long. Thanks to whoever takes time to try to help me! 20.137.18.53 (talk) 19:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you're writing a kernel that takes over directly from the BIOS. In that case, the CPU is in real mode, so your assembler needs to be emitting 16-bit code, and the program counter is the CS:IP register pair rather than the EIP register. --Carnildo (talk) 01:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

jmp 0x1000:0x0000 assembles to the correct far jump instruction in nasm. There is something wrong with your in-memory kernel code since 63 61 (the first two bytes) is not a jump instruction. Those bytes should be EB 1B. -- BenRG (talk) 06:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that jmp [es:bx] is a near jump to the 16-bit address stored at es:bx. What you actually want would be written jmp es:bx, but there's no such instruction in x86 assembly. The only far jump instructions are immediate (jmp 0x1000:0) and indirect (jmp far [bx], where the 16+16 bit address is stored at bx..bx+3). -- BenRG (talk) 17:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OP here. Thanks for the information people, especially BenRG. It seems that the jump itself is not my main problem. When I get back to my machine this is on, I'm going to check the first two bytes of the kernelStub.bin file I dd'd to the second sector position of my hard drive img file. Speaking of other ways to do it, I got an idea from someone else who said that if I do push word 0x1000 \ push word 0 \ retf, This gets 0x1000 into CS and 0 into IP and then goes there. It's nice to know about that, but I'll probably stick with jmp 0x1000:0. 69.243.220.115 (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very weird. kernelStub.bin has EB 1B at the very beginning. hda.img has EB 1B right after 55 AA at the beginning of the second sector. The carry flag is clear in my load_mem subroutine indicating that it believes the load was good. I have 0x1000:0 in ES:BX when it runs. All the bytes are right in memory except the first two are always 63 61. And I do have mov cl, [SECTNUM] in the bootLoader.asm that gets assembled. I'm just too lazy to update the google docs document there. ?! 20.137.18.53 (talk) 12:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Process of elimination style quiz maker

Hello there,

Does anyone know of a quiz maker on the internet that allows you to make quizzes in a process of elimination style - that would allow you to ask yes or no questions that narrow down a list of possible fits for the person being questioned, until there is only one option available?

E.g. Imagine it was a quiz to determine what author the person taking the quiz might like. One of the questions could be 'are you interested in books written before the 20th Century?' If they responded yes, then the pre-20thC authors would remain on the option list until further questions, if not, they'd all be removed from the potential quiz outcomes.

I've googled for a while looking for elimination-style quizzes to no avail, so would appreciate if someone could help out on this one.

All the best,

--Celinmairir (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a classic animals quiz, where it asks questions, then guesses the animal. If it guessed wrong, it then asks what question would distinguish between the correct animal and the one it guessed, and adds that to the list of questions to ask. It's a very elegant programming example, but I forget the name. StuRat (talk) 20:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've always called that game just "Animals". There's an online version at animalgame.com.-gadfium 23:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, Sturat - that's an interesting example. The asking questions bit is the bit I need - it doesn't need the sophistication of guessing more than once - it just asks questions until it's narrowed down to 1 of a list of 10 or so, and then gives the verdict. It'd be Q1. Do you like ____? [If no: remove possibilities 8 and 9] and so on. I'm surprised I can't easily find something of that nature on the web. If you remember the program, I would be interested. All the best, --Celinmairir (talk) 21:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gadfium provided a link above, but that's just to play the game, not to see the code (although I didn't log in, so maybe they do show you the code then). StuRat (talk) 03:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, what do you actually want to do, write your own program or use a program written by others ? In the latter case, I could write it for you, but it would have a command line interface, no fancy graphics. (I'm assuming your operating system is Windows, BTW.) Would that be helpful ? StuRat (talk) 03:13, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Getting files from a bricked Droid

I have an HTC Droid Incredible that was in my pocket when I went in the pool last weekend. Despite letting it sit in rice for a few days, it is completely dead and won't boot up. Is there any way I could get any files off of the hard drive? —Akrabbim^talk 18:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the phone CPU itself is inoperable, the trouble would be getting at the data stored in the flash memory. The phone doesn't contain a readily removable flash card, which you could extract and plug into another phone or into an adapter. Looking at disassembly videos, it seems the phone has a Hynix H26M44001CAR part, which seems to be a ball grid array package implementing eMMC on a single chip (I can't be sure, as Hynix don't make that part any more, and are very unforthcoming about info or datasheets). That's surface-mounted to the phone's circuit board. Prising it of would destroy it, and because it's BGA this means all the connectors are buried underneath it in a very inaccessible way. I'm sure a specialist data-recovery company could either un-mount the device or could figure out the manufacturing test points on the circuit board and access the device that way (assuming the pool didn't break it too). But that's an exceptionally specialised, technical, and time-consuming task, which would surely cost an eye-watering sum. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:41, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I guess that's a no-go then. I'll just have to settle for only recovering whatever files I had stored on my micro-SD card. Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 21:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Monitor jitter

Im using ATI Radeon Xpress 200 card and Dell E193FP monitor. Ive tried various screen resolutions/refresh rates but still get noticable horizontal jitter. Any suggestions as to what the cause is?--92.25.110.216 (talk) 19:45, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's an active matrix TFT-LCD monitor (to save everyone else the trouble of looking it up). Here are the specs: [1]. The highest preset resolution is 1280 x 1024 at 75 Hz, is that how you have it set ? That should provide a horizontal frequency of 80 kHz, which shouldn't have any noticeable flicker. Setting a higher resolution might result in flicker. BTW, by "jitter", do you mean flashing on and off ("flicker"), or wiggling back and forth ? StuRat (talk) 20:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic interference is one possibility. First try turning off anything electrical in the area. If that doesn't work, try moving those items farther away, since some electrical devices still use electricity (and generate interference) even when off.

Another possibility is a loose connection. Pull all the cables out and plug them back in, and, if that doesn't work, pull out the card and reseat it (with computer off, of course). StuRat (talk) 20:03, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Capacitor has gone! Typical tell-tail symptom.--Aspro (talk) 20:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What capacitor and how do they fix it (permanently or workaround) ? StuRat (talk) 20:18, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Is the picture half way up from the bottom – or half down from the top- pinched? If not ...capacitors gone. Its an electrolytic big one, so you can't get away with winding a bit of cooking foil and greaseproof paper around a loo roll. You need to pop down to Radio Shack with your piggy bank. Its part of the fly-back oscillator thingy circuit.--Aspro (talk) 20:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that was a local colloquialism. By Loo Roll I mean the cardboard tubes found inside one of these popular household consumables.--Aspro (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(OP)I define horiz jitter as wiggling left and right. My ATI graphics is integrated on the board so I cant unseat/reseat. Tried all StuRats suggestions. Found out tho that its ok at 1024X768 but no higher. Is that a clue?--92.25.110.216 (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The capacitor is braking down. It will get worse with time – if your eyes can stand it.--Aspro (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find its circuit diagram, it will state the V's and F's but they should be visible on the capacitor itself. Look for 'horizontal' on the diagram and the value of the 'big capacitor.' Take it out. Get a new one. Be happy in the knowledge that you're depriving some Chinese coolie from feeding his family for a day by fixing your monitor, that you would otherwise have take to the dump/refuse centre/etc., and exported to China for recycling.... You owe it -to this planet. --Aspro (talk) 20:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aspro, its not a CRT monitor so doesnt have a timebase controlled by a capacitor like you think. Its a TFT LCD monitor.--92.25.110.216 (talk) 10:30, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

June 23

firefox malware

The latest version of firefox is gross malpractice.

I started up firefox a few days (maybe a week) ago on my home computer. I got something saying "updates" were being downloaded and a firefox window would come up in a few minutes. When it did, there were some differences in appearance of the window. There was also a difference in behavior: Google still works normally when I'm not logged in, but not when I'm logged in. I click on something and I see a page for a few seconds. Then it turns to a blank white page and says "loading...". The "reload" button doesn't help. And stays there. The only way to get out it to go back to Google's main page and log out. I cannot use gmail on my home computer.

Such is the latest version of firefox.

Is there a way to revert to the earlier version or some other course of action to deal with the problem?

Is there a way to contact a responsible person at mozilla about this? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You could uninstall Firefox, then go to their website (using another browser like Internet Explorer), then reinstall the version you want. Unfortunately, you're likely to lose your bookmarks, etc. StuRat (talk) 04:56, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try restarting with add-ons disabled. If it still doesn't work, file a Firefox bug in Bugzilla. If it does work, re-enable the add-ons then disable them individually until you find the one responsible. -- BenRG (talk) 05:41, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, StuRat and BenRG.

I haven't done anything yet, and tonight it's working normally again. I've used bugzilla only for Wikipedia software issues; it hadn't occcurred to me to use it for firefox. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great, can we mark this Q resolved ? StuRat (talk) 01:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is back. Major malpractice. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest filing a bug in bugzilla. - Letsbefiends (talk) 22:39, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like malware or virus behaviour. Chances of it orginating from Firefox is next to zero. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Showing gratitude

How do I thank the volunteer/s who provide me with help?

Hamish 84. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamish84 (talk • contribs) 07:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Thanks" is traditional. ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:25, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Leave a message on their talk pages?--92.25.110.216 (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, don't do that. This thread is thanks enough, regulars will see your message. If you really want to you could delve into the archives, find your old question and put a thank you message there. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 10:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If, however, you want to thank a specific Wikipedian, you can leave a message on their talk page as 92 said above. To do so, click their username in any signature. If you can't find a signature handy, you can use the search box. Type "user:" (without the quotes) and then their user name. Press enter and you are taken to their user page. Now click 'discussion' at the top, which takes you to their talk page, and finally click the '+' link to add a new section. You can now leave your message of thanks. Most users are set up to receive a notification when their talk page is changed, either by seeing it on their Watchlist, or by receiving an email, so this way you can be sure they will see your message.

By the way, there is a Wikipedia Help desk whose volunteers answer these sorts of questions all the time. If you have further questions about the best way to use and edit Wikipedia, you might find better and quicker answers there. Also check out the Teahouse, a new project set up specifically to help new editors find their way. You can drop in there and find experienced editors who will take the time to show you about anything that's unclear. You might also find that you are able to pass on your knowledge to someone else, so it's definitely worth taking a look.

Best of luck, and happy editing! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can also award a Barnstar to users who you want to thank or recognize for their efforts. RudolfRed (talk) 19:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

nrg files

I used frostwire to download an application and it saved as a .nrg file (never encountered this before). How do I access the application in windows 7. Also the .nrg file is a single 2.6mb file, not a folder containing multiple files.Any ideas?101.112.123.43 (talk) 14:46, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It might help if you told us what the application you downloaded was. 87.114.24.83 (talk) 14:56, 23 June 2012 (UTC)autocad2007, but why should it matter?[reply]

Entering .nrg in the search bar above would have taken you straight to our article on the file format. AJ Cham 15:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

autocad 2007. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.112.114.171 (talk) 10:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC) You really think I'm so stupid I didn't try that. I found lots about audio CD's and other irrelevant stuff. Arrogant PIG. thanks for nothing.I'm not interested in how much YOU know about .nrg files, I want to use an application. If you can't answer the question. keep your ego to yourself.[reply]

The second paragraph in our NRG article which you were directed to tells you which programs can mount these files. Use daemon tools or similar to mount the file, and stop being so rude. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.158.236.14 (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The second sentence of our article on the .nrg file format has a list of software that can open it. However, if you downloaded something that is only 2.6mb it is definitely not a copy of Autocad 2007. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 14:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC) My mistake it's 2.6gb[reply]

The Art of Computer Programming and algorithms

What is the difference between The Art of Computer Programming and common algorithm courses held at universities? OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Art of Computer Programming is a set of books, not a class. Looie496 (talk) 19:35, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They refer to the content, not the format. StuRat (talk) 20:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TAOCP was used for such courses and may still be used. Compared to most textbooks used in algorithms courses, TAOCP is heavy on the analysis of algorithms and is more complete, in that it examines many algorithms for a problem. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

June 24

Norton thinks eBay is a fraudulent site

Resolved

On one of our computers, Norton Security Suite thinks that eBay is a fraudulent website. You can login to eBay, but if you do any search it comes up and blocks it as a fraudulent site. We double-checked that the right URL was entered, and we don't have the problem on another computer. Is there a fix for this? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:38, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I found that others had the problem with older versions of Norton starting June 20, so I'm updating the software, which will probably fix it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:00, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest abandoning Norton products. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could malware have edited your hosts file to map ebay.com to a fradulent site? — Preceding unsigned comment added by YoungAspie (talk • contribs) 03:36, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, two of us double-checked the URL. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Updating to the 2012 version of Norton fixed it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:56, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, what're the odds that paying Norton more "fixed" it. ¦ Reisio (talk) 07:03, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We get Norton free from the ISP. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

recomendation for Windows backup

I've used several programs for backing up on Windows, but I haven't been happy with any of them. I want to be able to select which folders to back up (not the whole disc) and schedule the backup to run once a day. Does anyone have recommendations? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:02, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite easy to use xcopy and Windows scheduler to do this.--Phil Holmes (talk) 09:53, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Robocopy offers many more features than XCOPY, so may be more useful. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I use Robocopy for copying some very important files, but a good backup program can make an image of the entire HS so if it dies, you can boot from that backup and restore to a new HD and be back up. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In your original question, you said "not the whole disc". The answers you were given would backup up selected folders and sub-folders, but would not image the whole disk, as you requested.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I do both. I make backups of my most important files but I also want whole-disc backups. Robocopy makes a file-by-file copy, which is good for some things. But there are also benefits to making one file and compressing it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Backup, that's built into vista and 7 will do exactly what you're asking. I'll leave it to you to decide if Microsoft's removal of some functionality from the home versions is annoying enough to cause you to find something else. You might also check out rsync. There's a project called rdiff-backup that will also do what you're talking about, but the configuration will be more difficult than Windows Backup. Shadowjams (talk) 21:48, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have Win7 Home Premium and I'm trying it right now. I got biased against MS backup years ago because the third-party programs were better. But lately I have not been satisfied with the third party ones. However, I don't see how to define more than one backup set in Windows Backup. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:02, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I accidentally made a backup of my C drive to my second internal HD instead of the external HD. So I made one to the external HD and then wanted to delete the incorrect one. I can't find a way to do it. If I go to "manage space" it only shows the new one. If I "browse" to the old one and select the folder, it asks if I want to restore those files. There is no delete, and it doesn't change to this one under "manage space". Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?}

Can IMEI blocking be abused?

If someone blocks an IMEI which does not belong to him/her, is it detectable? 123.24.99.159 (talk) 07:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Detectable by whom? If your phone is blocked, it's rather detectable. Mobile phone companies have security measures to stop random strangers accessing people's mobile phone accounts, and that includes IMEI blocking. I'm sure in theory you could impersonate someone and have their phone blocked if you knew their number, account details, security questions, etc, but this could be quickly reversed. It's probably also possible for mobile phone companies to incorrectly block an IMEI or block the wrong IMEI by mistake; in such a case you'll have to deal with them. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:27, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Detectable by network providers. Is it detectable? 117.5.15.50 (talk) 02:47, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Computer can't find home broadband

Resolved

We have a new wireless router on our Virgin Media broadband (UK). It's a D-Link DIR 615. One non-urgent question is whether this is the best kind of router or whether we could get faster speed if we can get Virgin to lend us an updated router. Anyway, urgently, we have one computer that now can't find the network. It's running Windows XP Home edition, and has a TP-Link Wireless Client Utility, newly installed, which I understand to be an N-dongle, and that it should be compatible with the router.

I've opened the wireless connection item and then Refresh Network List, but then all I get is an error message "Windows cannot configure this wireless connection". I do not see a list of networks in the area including neighbours' networks, which I do normally on machines in the house.

The connection is working fine with the other computers in the house, which are laptops. Thanks for any pointers. If I need to supply more information, please say and I will try. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:06, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The issue seems to be that both Windows and the TP-Link utility are trying to configure your wireless for you. You can use one or the other, but not both.

I would suggest that you let Windows do the work for you. This is one of the things that Microsoft has managed to make work perfectly adequately, whereas manufacturer-specific tools often seem to either take over your machine, or fail to get updated.

If you agree, you can uninstall the TP-Link utility. Click Start then Control Panel then Add/Remove Programs. In the 'Currently installed programs' box, scroll to the entry for 'TP-Link Wireless Client Utility', click it, and choose Remove.

Once the program has been uninstalled, you should be able to connect to your wireless through Windows in the way you described. Let me know if it still doesn't work.

If you don't want to uninstall the TP-Link utility, or are unable to without administrator access, you can still use the utility to connect. Click Start then All Programs then the folder TP-LINK and run TP-LINK Wireless Configuration Utility. Instructions can be found at http://www.tp-link.com/en/article/?id=351 starting at section 2 (Connection).

As for the router, it's Wireless N, meaning you can get up to 300Mbps (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=565). This is almost certainly way faster than your Virgin connection (up to 100Mbps is the max I think). Unless you notice the router is not working as it should (e.g. connection dropping frequently, limited range) then you probably won't notice a difference with a new router. One thing you could try is going to http://www.speedtest.net/ and measuring your speed. Do it a few times, and if possible try doing it both over wireless and by connecting your PC to the router with a cable. If you notice a big performance difference by cable as opposed to wireless, it is possible that a new router might help. Otherwise, though, I wouldn't bother. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:18, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This was really helpful and after a couple attempts I have reinstalled the adaptor's driver without the utility, and Windows has found the network. Now I am caught in another set of problems, in that I don't know how to find the WPA key. There are four sets of numbers/letters on the back of the router and I have tried all of these with no joy. I set a password for the router (some weeks ago) and that doesn't seem to be what it wants either. Now Windows is not even looking for a password but automatically says that it "cannot find a valid certificate" for the connection. On top of all that I can't remember our Virgin Media password. I asked to reset it on the website, but it doesn't want to do it on this (laptop) machine, is looking for the computer that belongs to the account holder. Which is the one that we can't get online. I'm starting to get that Kafka feeling. Have been on the phone to VM so long that my neck is aching from holding the phone, and their trashy pop is clashing with the proper music we have on. Why do we consumers put up with this stuff? (That's not the question I'm asking, the question is Where am I likely to find the WPA key? If I have thrown the box away, what then. The router belongs to Virgin). Itsmejudith (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On some routers supplied by ISPs (e.g. Sky) the router's password and the WPA2 key are written on a sticker on the outside of the box. It sounds like Virgin work the same (I've never seen a Virgin box in person) but that you've changed them (and then forgotten them). In the worst case, there's usually a reset button on the box (which one sometimes has to jab with a paperclip) which returns it to the factory setting (hopefully what's written on the sticker). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you could log into the box (from another, connected, machine) you'd typically find the WPA2 key visible in a text field in the network-settings or wireless-settings screen. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:03, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a potential way forward. There isn't a sticker with the WPA2 key, but there is a sticker on the top where I wrote the name of the network I set up, which is OK because the desktop can find it, and the password that I decided on. There is also a reset key which indeed would need a paperclip. I am on a connected machine (the laptop) but I don't know how to start logging into the box. Do I start from Control Panel? You can answer in half time or after the match :-) Itsmejudith (talk) 19:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Generally one points a web browser at the gateway's own address (usually one of 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1, or 10.0.0.1) and login from there. Forza Italia. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:45, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Details on how to login on some of the (dlink) routers that Virgin supply are here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the end I spent two hours on the phone to Virgin. They logged into the router using my laptop remotely, and using the username admin and password blank, which they could have just told me to do. After a while we were at the point where no computer could communicate with the router, and the technician wanted to end the call, promising to send a hub that would arrive in a few working days. I insisted that we had to get the laptop back in connection as it had been when I started the call. So she hit on the idea of renaming the network, which we did, and since then it has been straightforward and everything is online again. I think it was the utility that came with the adaptor, as you said, and then for some reason Windows wouldn't recognise the password. And then because I tried using all the different long numbers printed on the back of the router, Windows ran me out of chances to enter the password. Many thanks for your help. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unrefresh ?

I often find myself wanting to see the state of the current web page, before I refreshed it. The back arrow doesn't do this, it takes me to the previous page, not the previous state of the current page. Here are some examples:

1) I'm viewing the weather at WeatherUndergound.com, and refresh the page, but they often remove the forecast for that night's low before that night is over. So, I want to go back and see the forecast low.

2) More generally, I refresh a page, and just as the old page disappears, I see something on it I want to see, which is absent from the refreshed version.

3) I refresh the page and get some type of error explaining why the page can't be displayed. I'd prefer to go back, since the old page is better than no page.

So, is there any way to do this ? I am on Windows XP SP3 and use Firefox, but also have Opera and IE. StuRat (talk) 17:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Short of some extension (which may well exist), you can try to cultivate a habit of opening a duplicate tab instead: CTRL+l, ALT+ENTER ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:36, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding md5 format in jmeter

Identical question asked below. Please respond to below question rather than this one

In my project there is a scenario that

user will log in  -> browse some pages -> then he will click on the logout link .

to test this scenario in jemeter , i used csv config so that i can test this scenario for 50 users. during login to the system password are not sent in md5 format but during logout ,each user passowrd is sent as request in the md5 format.

so can any body tell me how can i sent the password in md5 format in jmeter.

if i use the the same variable which i used for passowrd during login , with encode option clicked , will it work.

Please advise me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.110.65 (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to grant right to 'allow log on through Terminal Services' on Win7

I have two accounts on my Windows 7 Home Premium desktop. One is my admin account and the other account, I would like to log into via remote desktop from a thin client running Windows XP Embedded. I can log into my admin account from the thin client but when I try to log into my Kitchen account, I get the following error:

To log on to this remote computer, you must be granted the Allow log on through Terminal Services right. By default, members of the Remote Desktop Users group have this right. If you are not a member of the Remote Desktop Users group or another group that has this right, or if the Remote Desktop User group does not have this right, you must be granted this right manually.

On Windows 7 Xtreme it would be a relatively simple procedure using gpedit.msc (the local group policy editor). The working classes however don't have this snap-in. It was suggested to me that the settings might be stored in registry keys but I'm not sure that's true. I've read it's possible to make a registry backup, change a setting and make another registry backup to compare automatically with the first in order to find out what keys changed. Is there anyone who could do that for me (need Windows Pro or Ultimate)? 94.1.194.66 (talk) 17:55, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a working-class Windows install to test on at the moment, but I think you can do this from an elevated command prompt with something like net localgroup "Remote Desktop Users" "The Other Account" /add. -- BenRG (talk) 18:51, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's amazing, BenRG! But Alas! Bill Gates is always two steps ahead of me:

System error 1376 has occurred.

The specified local group does not exist.

I don't suppose creating the group would help? Could it be that Microsoft simply don't want the likes of me remotely logging into non-admin accounts? I'm going to try creating the group now (also at the command prompt.

C:\windows\system32>net localgroup "Remote Desktop Users" "Kitchen" /add System error 1376 has occurred.

The specified local group does not exist.

C:\windows\system32>net localgroup "Remote Desktop Users" /add /comment:"Members in this group are granted the right to logon remotely" The command completed successfully.

C:\windows\system32>net localgroup "Remote Desktop Users" "Kitchen" /add The command completed successfully.

C:\windows\system32>

Edit: Curses! Foiled again! I'm still getting the original error when trying to log on with 'Kitchen'. My guess is that simply creating the user group, as I did, does not give the group all the rights and so on that it has on a Windows Pro or Ultimate installation. Any ideas? 94.1.194.66 (talk) 19:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to add SeRemoteInteractiveLogonRight to the group, which you could do with the NTRights utility, if you can find it.

What about Control Panel → System → Remote settings → Select Users? Does that exist? -- BenRG (talk) 20:56, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alack, there is no 'Select Users' option in the 'Remote' tab of 'System Properties'.

I have found ntrights.exe available here but it appears that it is intended for Windows Server 2003. Do you think it will work for Windows 7? 94.1.194.66 (talk) 21:32, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it does.

(Assuming this works, you can just add the privilege to the user and dispense with the group. The group was only useful if it already existed and had the right.) -- BenRG (talk) 21:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

C:\windows\system32>ntrights -u Kitchen +r SeRemoteInteractiveLogonRight

Granting SeRemoteInteractiveLogonRight to Kitchen ... successful

C:\windows\system32>

I will now attempt to log on from my kitchen computer and see if it really was successful...

Edit: Okay, so now instead of the original error message, it says ::::The requested session access is denied. I hate my life. :'( 94.1.194.66 (talk) 22:21, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Googling that error message I notice that several people suggest running the client without the /admin parameter. Your thin client might have the equivalent of that option set by default, so you could look through the client settings. You could try connecting from an ordinary Windows machine using mstsc to see if that works.

You could also try adding the user to the group as originally planned, on the off chance that something is checking for that group by name. And you could check the local event log to see if it has more information than "access denied", assuming the local event log exists. If none of that works, I'll try to think of other ideas... -- BenRG (talk) 00:05, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ben, thanks again. I've pasted the contents of my RDP file here. It doesn't have any mention of an admin parameter. There's also no -admin switch being applied to the shortcut I use to start the RDC interface.

I forgot my laptop today so I will try logging in from a regular Win 7 machine tomorrow.

I actually added Kitchen to the group Remote Desktop Users (which I granted permissions using NTrights.exe) already but to no avail.

I have the "Event Viewer" open and will need some time to comprehend it. Thanks again for your help. Sean. 90.202.221.214 (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

June 25

how unsigned store negative number

Hi sir!My doubt is on unsigned integer.I know that unsigned integer ranges from 0 to 255 for 8 bit integer. But I am not able understand the how unsigned integer stores negative numbers. 1)in c negative numbers are stored in 2’s complement form. If I write int i=-5; Then -5stored in 2’s complement form.i.e 11111011(for 8 bits).if we convert it to decimal we can get -5. 2)But if I write like below Unsigned int i=-127; ->how -127 is stored in i? ->in my book I read that the above -127 is equal to 128.how it is possible? ->What bits are stored in i so as to get 128? I hope you help me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 02:11, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unsigned integers do not store negative numbers. The "sign" in "unsigned" is the negative sign, so unsigned numbers can't be negative. The -127 and +128 have the same eight-bit pattern, so the way it is interpreted is whether it is a signed or unsigned integer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, but to clarify, the numbers are neither positive nor negative, they have no sign at all. You could then add a sign, say by assigning a separate bit to handle this, but you'd have to manage this yourself, giving you the equivalent of 9-bit signed integer. StuRat (talk) 04:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right. And in programming languages that are not strongly typed, you can get in trouble mixing them (getting results different from what you would expect mathematically). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Live Mail

Why does Windows Live Mail warn you that images will be removed if you send this Email? Do you want to send it anyway? There were no images on the Email to start with!!

Hamish 84Hamish84 (talk) 07:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS. To all who provide me with help please take it as read that I am grateful.

I'm afraid I don't have a copy of Live Mail to duplicate the message, so this is a bit of a guess, but I expect that you are sending emails in 'plain text' format - that is, with no formatting, special characters, or indeed pictures. There's an article about the benefits of plain text emails here: http://www.mail-list.com/why-plain-text-email-messages-are-best-in-todays-internet/.

What will be happening is that Live Mail sees you sending a mail in plain text, goes 'OMG! The recipient won't be able to see that lolz-full picture you might want to send! Must warn you!' - basically it is warning you that the message is not capable of sending pictures, whether or not you asked it to.

One way to remove the message would be to send your messages in HTML format, which allows pictures. Find this option in the settings. Alternatively, get a better email client. Many exist; Mozilla Thunderbird is one of the most commonly mentioned free examples. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 06:54, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

why checked,unchecked exceptions in java

hi!In java some exceptions are checked exceptions,some exceptions are unchecked. Java compiler checks in compile time whether some exceptions are handled or not.such type exceptions are checked exceptions. ex:IOException The exceptions whose handling is not checked in compile time are called unchecked. Ex: ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException

Now my questions are

-> why some exceptions handling is checked at compile time(checked exceptions)? ->what is the use by checking whether some exceptions are handled or not at compile time? ->if we leave with out checking whether some exceptions are handled or not ,what is loss to us? If you consider the checked exception “IOException”,compiler only knows whether the input given by us is valid or not only at run time.then why should it‘s handling should be tested at compile time?

All the above questions for unchecked exceptions.but in reverse. -> why some exceptions handling is not checked at compile time(unchecked exceptions)? -> what is the use by leaving whether they are handled or not at compile time? ->if we handle unchecked exceptions’ handling at compile time ,what is loss to us?

I hope you help me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 10:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the great checked/unchecked exception controversy. You might want to have a look at Sun's (now Oracle's) POV on this here. IBM also has a good article about it here. - Letsbefiends (talk) 22:34, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Waking a disk drive that's gone to sleep due to inactivity / power saving

I have a couple of Windows PCs (one XP, one 7 Ultimate) with hard drives that put themselves to sleep (eg stop spinning) to conserve power after some period of inactivity. One is an internal SATA drive, one is an external USB-connected drive. For various reasons it is either not possible or not desirable to disable the power saving function. I would like to be able wake the drives - ie get them spinning again, ready for instant use - on demand, under the control of a command script, and without writing anything to the disk. The simple approach such as "dir d:\" does not work, because typically the computer (or the drive hardware) has some data cached, and simply returns the data from the cache without spinning up the drive. I need a method that is does not depend on knowledge of what might be in the cache (ie previous use of the drive), and does not take very long (eg "dir/s on a drive with many directories/files works, but takes longer than waking the drive automatically).

Is there a simple and reliable way of forcing Windows to spin the drive up and get it ready for action? Mitch Ames (talk) 12:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have such a sleepy drive to try this, but you might try reading something that definitely doesn't exist (and so can't be in cache) - e.g. d:\4334234\4695469643\23232, where the numbers are randomly generated (so the next try won't be cached either). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As always, things can get more complicated. Here's a whitepaper from Microsoft regarding idle power detection: Windows Disk Idle Detection, which is part of an entire series on ACPI and power management. Ideally, you want to send an ACPI event informing Windows that the disk is in use, not simply assume that reading a file will wake or reset the idle timer. In practice, reading an uncached file will usually reset the idle-timeout or wake the disk if it's already asleep, but that's an indirect way to accomplish the goal (telling the system that you want the disk to remain powered). In the whitepaper, detailed explanations are provided, but here's their example of overriding the power profile for the current disk:

C:\>powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_DISK 80e3c60e-bb94-4ad8-bbe0-0d3195efc663 0
C:\>powercfg -setactive SCHEME_CURRENT

You need to find your disk's guid, as explained in the whitepaper. And of course, your script should query, store, and reset the original powerstate when finished. Nimur (talk) 15:02, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding recording md5 format in jmeter

In my project there is a scenario that user will log in -> browse some pages -> then he will click on the logout link . to test this scenario in jemeter , i used csv config so that i can test this scenario for 50 users. during login to the system password are not sent in md5 format but during logout ,each user passowrd is sent as request in the md5 format. so can any body tell me how can i sent the password in md5 format in jmeter. if i use the the same variable which i used for passowrd during login , with encode option clicked , will it work. please help me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.90.110.220 (talk) 17:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no clue what 'jmeter' is, but any system that sends md5-hashed data over an unsecure connection would seem to be badly broken to me (or at least not understand the purpose of MD5). What is a 'csv config' and what are you trying to accomplish? Unilynx (talk) 19:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is testing of a Web service, it probably refers to Apache JMeter. Neon Merlin 20:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-supervised text classification

What algorithms for semi-supervised text classification, and what methods of validation, are suitable for ongoing use on an evolving body of text, with little or no ongoing input of new labelled examples? Neon Merlin 19:45, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't understand your Q:

1) Does "semi-supervised text classification" mean the computer first tries to determine what kind of text it is, and then a human checks it ?

2) What "evolving body of text" ? Are these existing documents being automatically scanned ?

3) "Ongoing input" ?

Basically, I think you should rewrite your Q without any assumptions or jargon, telling us exactly what you are trying to do, in simple English. StuRat (talk) 20:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat, the question is very specific; it seems you're just unfamiliar with the subject. (1) In machine learning, supervised learning is the term for an algorithm that is trained on pre-processed data. (2) In natural language processing, a corpus is the body of text fed into the algorithm; the question is asking for an algorithm that can meaningfully process incremental additions or changes to the corpus. (3) New additions to the corpus would be unsupervised learning.

NeonMerlin, maybe the best place to start is with a textbook on text classification: here are a list of several good NLP books. I seem to recall Jurafsky and Martin better than any of the others. Information Retrieval is also available for free online, and includes entire chapters on text classification using Naive Bayes, and the infamous Support Vector Machines. (We also have an article in Wikipedia: support vector machine, if you're unfamiliar with them). Nimur (talk) 00:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I still think a description of the problem with less jargon (or perhaps links to explain the jargon, like using "supervised" to mean "labelled") would have been helpful (and it sounds like this area is very jargon heavy). I've always suspected that academia uses unnecessarily complex jargon to make what they do sound more impressive than it really is. StuRat (talk) 00:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

June 26

background programs slowing computer down

A few months ago, I purchased a new HP netbook (running Windows 7 starter). Over the past month and a half, it has been getting slower and slower to load programs and webpages. I suspect that there are some programs running in the background (and, yes, I have done some downloads of programs). I have tried to find an answer in the archives but have not had any luck. So, my question is: how do I determine what, if any, programs are running in the background and how do I get rid of the ones I don't want/need? 99.250.103.117 (talk) 00:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Task Manager would be a good place to start. Look for any applications taking up an unreasonable amount of resources, and list them here, and we can help identify them. However, computers can also slow for other reasons, like hard disk fragmentation, a registry full of cruft, etc. Something to keep in mind is that everything you download will slow your computer down a bit, but, of course, some are far worse than others. The worst offenders are applications that feel the need to keep processes running all the time, whether you are using them or not (AOL and RealPlayer are two examples). StuRat (talk) 00:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks StuRat. I have checked the defrag and it is not necessary. I checked the task manager and took a screen shot. I have no idea how to paste it to this message. There are quite a few things there and I am a very poor typer. Is it possible 9or wise?) to attach the screen shot here as a jepg? 99.250.103.117 (talk) 00:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Follow the link near the top of this page, on the left side, that says "Upload file", give it the unique name REF_DESK_TASK_MANAGER_SCREEN_SHOT.jpg (upload to Wikipedia, not Wikicommons). It should then appear right here:

File:REF DESK TASK MANAGER SCREEN SHOT.jpg

Screen shot.

StuRat (talk) 03:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

wget not downloading index.html files when link points to directory

I'm new to wget, and I'm trying to download a specific directory from a website and everything it links to that is below it in the hierarchy. The closest I've found to the right options is "wget -r -np -p -k". But when a link on one of the pages points to a directory name instead of the corresponding index.html file, wget doesn't download that index.html file. (Using "wget -r -np -p -k --default-page=index.html" doesn't make a difference, which isn't surprising because the man page implies it should be assuming index.html anyway). I tried "wget -r -L -p -k", which does download the index.html files, but instead of naming them index.html, it gives them filenames equivalent to the name of the directory they're in. Then it doesn't download the resource files for that page, presumably because there's no directory to put them in (i.e., instead of /example/, I have /example, which is a text file containing the contents of what was originally /example/index.html). Also, of course, the -L option isn't really what I want because sometimes the web developer uses absolute references even when linking within the hierarchy. Any tips? (I'm interested more in understanding what's going on than in actually solving the problem. Also, apologies if this has been asked already; there have been quite a few wget questions asked here and I may have missed something relevant.) Thanks! --Allen (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Be aware that when interpreting links, there's a difference between /abc (which suggests a file) and /abc/ (which suggests a directory).

Consider this senario: Imagine there is a directory called abc and no file called abc. If you send a request to the server for /abc, many servers will redirect you to /abc/. However, some servers may return the same response as it would for /abc/ with no redirection.*

If your links contain cases like /abc, and the server doesn't redirect to /abc/, then wget has no clue it's a directory, and will save the file as /abc instead of /abc/index.html.

You can use wget --spider as a quick way to confirm if there's redirection. For example, try:

wget --spider http://www.google.com/services  301 Moved Permanently then 200 OK

wget --spider http://www.google.com/services/ 200 OK

wget --spider http://superuser.com/questions  200 OK

wget --spider http://superuser.com/questions/ 200 OK

--Bavi H (talk) 01:30, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Clarification: After thinking about it, I think the only time a server would respond to /abc and /abc/ the same way is if the pages are dynamically created from a database (like Superuser's questions page above). If the server's documents are stored in a normal file system, the redirection from /abc to /abc/ is important for relative links to work properly. --Bavi H (talk) 02:02, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changeing words on websites

Is there any downloadable program avaliable that is capable of changing any instance of one word into another word whenever i surf the web, for example if i am browsing through random wikipedia pages the program automatically replaces any instance of the word "robin" and replaces it with the word "bird"? 72.235.221.120 (talk) 01:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's something that can be done with a Greasemonkey script (such as this one) but one needs a bit of JavaScript knowledge to get it doing what you want. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 01:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Aw I suck at scripting :( Are there any more simpler or other options avaliable? 72.235.221.120 (talk) 07:00, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you need patent licenses to implement GSM and W-CDMA and UMTS?

Do you REALLY need patent licenses to implement GSM and W-CDMA and UMTS, as well as other telecommunication standards? 117.5.15.50 (talk) 03:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably going to dislike this answer but even just reading this one section of the GSM article hints that it is not a very black and white issue. You obviously don't REALLY need a patent licenses to implement it, but whether you REALLY need a patent license to do implement it LEGALLY, or at least without getting sued, is a request for legal advice which is against ref desk guidlines. Vespine (talk) 04:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My question is, are GSM, W-CDMA and UMTS free of patent protections? 117.5.15.50 (talk) 04:41, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What components can I swap out to customize a laptop?

http://pastebin.com/J7gm1zys
See, this is the gaming laptop I'd like to get. However, as you can see towards the bottom, it is rather overpriced.
http://originpc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=647 <-- That is where I made my customizations. Go ahead, give it a try if you wish.
To start off, I know I can swap out hard drives. I'd rather choose the cheapest option and later trade off those drives for the cheapest 512GB SSDs I can find.
I don't wish to spend more than $3,000 on my new device (anywhere between 14" and 15.9.")
So besides the hard drives, what else is swappable? I know laptop components aren't as easily swappable as desktops, but I know some components are.
I want to have the most powerful mobile gaming machine out there (that'll still do academic and other essential work) but I want the best deals on them too. --70.179.170.114 (talk) 04:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go to a "build your own computer" website, where you can specify each component individually, and they then build it and ship it to you.  Much cheaper than buying a computer and extra components and swapping them yourself, both because you end up paying for low-end components you don't use, and because you don't get their bulk discount when buying the high-end components.  This also avoids the risk of getting an incompatible component or installing it improperly. StuRat (talk) 04:36, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry Stu, but OriginPC is already a build-your-own-PC site. What other gaming system site allows me to choose components with the same power, but for a better deal than OriginPC? Thanks. --70.179.170.114 (talk) 05:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be lots of unnecessary, expensive items, to me:Hard Drive One: 512GB Crucial M4 - Solid State Drive$672.00How about a regular hard drive, instead ?

External Optical Drive:  SAMSUNG USB 2.0 External Slim Portable Blu-ray Writer 6X BD-R/8X DVD+/-R/24X CD-RW No Blu-ray Playback Software Included

$121.00

Why do you need two optical drives ?  Do you intend to use this laptop to copy DVDs ?  And an external drive obviously makes it less portable.

Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D$142.00That's a lot for a sound card. Won't a cheaper one suffice ?TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950Q USB HDTV Tuner with Remote$90.00

You didn't say you wanted to watch TV on it.  And, how do you plan to get the signal ?  An antenna or cable wouldn't make it very portable.

Warranty: 3 Year Part Replacement and Free Shipping Warranty with DVD image and Lifetime Labor/24-7 Support$269.00Do you need this at all ?Bags and Carrying Cases: ORIGIN Backpack Black/Red$49.00Buy a backpack off the shelf for half that.LoJack: Absolute Software LoJack for Laptops Premium Edition - 3 Year$100.00Unless you think theft is likely, skip this.

StuRat (talk) 05:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
StuRat has a lot of good suggestions for things to trim. Since you mentioned using this to do academic work, I assume you're planning on using it at college. In my experience, going for the most powerful laptop you can get isn't always the best solution. Remember you'll be lugging this to class and running it without being plugged in. That system sounds heavy and like it will eat through your battery. If I were doing it again, I would buy a nice gaming desktop that will outperform that laptop and be much, much cheaper, then get a smaller laptop with a longer battery life. You'll spend less in the end, have a better gaming computer, and a better laptop for school use. You can get a laptop that can still run most games reasonably well in the $700ish range if you still want to game on it occasionally. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Automated Exploration

Suppose I'm a robot stuck inside an unknown maze, and can see only a radius r around me.  My goal is to fully explore the maze while minimizing the total distance (or time) traveled.  Are there any standard algorithms for doing this?  I know that adapting graph searches like depth-first search will work, but that seems terribly time-inefficient.  --140.180.5.169 (talk) 05:38, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One standard way to get out of a maze is to always turn right (or left), til you get out.  If neither works, then you'd need to go to a more complex strategy.  Generate a map as you try both turning right and left, and you can tell each didn't work if you return to the same point, headed in the same direction.  That map can then be used as the start of the more complex strategy (going down unexplored halls outside the area already mapped, and mapping those, too). StuRat (talk) 05:48, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The simplest maze where the always turn right (or left) strategy fails is this (with R being the robot's initial position):

+ - -   +
|       |
| | R | |
|       |
+ - - - +

StuRat (talk) 06:12, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I didn't express myself clearly.  When I said "maze", I really meant the inside of a large building with complicated interconnected rooms (not necessarily rectangular), hallways, and obstacles.  The robot can only see a finite radius around itself, and the radius may not be large enough to see all the space between opposite walls.  --140.180.5.169 (talk) 08:18, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than always turn left, the normal maze defeating strategy is to imagine you place one hand on the first wall you encounter, and always move so that the hand on the wall stays in contact with the wall.  Eventually, in normal interconnected mazes, you will have travelled the entire maze, including the exit. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This fails in the same cases as the always turn left strategy.  Including the case that StuRat showed.  Taemyr (talk) 13:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of a specific solution to this problem that is considered optimal for traversal time. I would guess that just performing a depth-first exploration would be reasonable. Your exploration will end up building a spanning tree of the area (loops are okay - once you run into somewhere you've already seen, treat it like a dead end). The optimal route has to cover everything once. This algorithm covers everything at most twice, so you end up within a constant factor of the absolute lower bound. I can certainly think of a few simple setups where any strategy (except maybe some probabilistic method that works better on average) would require 2 passes over an arbitrarily large portion of the maze. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 11:48, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Maze solving algorithm for an overview of many algorithms and their ups and downs. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reading tzinfo binary files in Java or .NET

Is there an API for use in Java and/or .NET that can interpret tz database binary files? - Letsbefiends (talk) 11:13, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]