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July 20

Java Security (Quick fix for hosting a local file?)

Resolved

I am developing a java applet for independent research. The file is intended to read the directory the applet is running from, using the code:

String currentDir = new File(".").getAbsolutePath();

.... after that it flushes an image buffer to png image format. However, i forgot that, unlike java applications, java applets are highly restricted. As expected, the code above causes the applet to throw a security exception, because my applet isn't signed. I was reading this page:

http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/Programming/JDCBook/signed.html

... there seem to be many steps just to allow access to the local file system. Is there any easier way to just tell the browser that the applet it is loading is MINE and that i accept its use of my files? I would rather not go find out how to make a public key, a certificate, and a security policy. Thanks in advance!

172.163.3.207 (talk) 03:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's usually a simple task to adapt an applet into a standalone application, e.g. switching from a JApplet to a JFrame with a static main(String[]) method that properly instantiates your JFrame and invokes your init and start methods. Of course if you're only running the applet locally, then you probably have some reason why you need it to stay in applet form. Could you upload the file to a LAN server and have the applet fetch it? BigNate37_(T) 04:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

So.... Container pane = getContentPane(); becomes a JFrame instead? Would the class still extend JApplet, or something else? Also, once i figure that all out, how do i run the thing? Your suggestion seems the best way to go. I don't need it to be an applet, so long as i can still display and interact with the graphics in the same way (mouse, button listeners still work i hope) :) 172.162.254.31 (talk) 12:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

You can exploit the fact that Applet and JApplet are subclasses of java.awt.Container by simply adding them to a frame (so you don't need to change the applet code to be a frame). Add the following main() to your applet's class:

    public static void main(String[] args) {
	JFrame f = new JFrame("Applet");
	f.setSize(600, 450);
	JApplet app = new swingapplet(); // CHANGE THIS
	f.getContentPane().add(app);
	app.init();

 	f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
		public void windowClosing(WindowEvent w) {
		    System.exit(0);
		}});

	f.setVisible(true);
	app.start();
    }

and change the class swingapplet to the name of the applet class (I did write some code to figure this out automatically, but it was pure evil). At the top add some extra imports:

   import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
   import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;

And you've wrapped the applet up as a JFrame-application. Or you can use appletviewer, as I discussed below. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The JDK comes with a program that allows you to run applets (as if they were applications) already - it's called appletviewer. Assuming you already have an html file index.html with the applet tag in, you just say

 appletviewer index.html

And that works for lots of simple applets. But if you try that with your code, you'll still get a security exception, because the appletviewer installs its own security manager, which checks signatures and limits permissions, just as the equivalent code in a web browser does. What you can do is create your own java security policy file which allows you to grant exceptions to this security sand box just for this invocation (so it's a safer and cleaner thing to do, rather than messing around with the equivalent for your browser, and then forget to undo that, leaving your browser very vulnerable). Here's a minimal security policy file (call it my.policy) which grants total access (so it's the same as a java application gets)

 grant {
   permission java.security.AllPermission;
 };

Now, with that in place, and your index.html and .class files in the same directory, you can invoke appletviewer and have it use that special policy file:

 appletviewer -J-Djava.security.policy=my.policy index.html

Which should allow total access. Naturally you have to trust the code (which is fine if you wrote it, and you trust yourself), so it's obviously not a wise thing to do in general with code you didn't write and whose source you don't have good reason to trust. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I used the wrapper option. It works wonderfully, thank you all for the input! 172.162.132.72 (talk) 01:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Texniccenter

When I type things like \begin{equation}, how do I make it automatically give \end{equation}? Money is tight (talk) 05:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

TFT monitor colours

Does anybody know why colours displayed on a TFT monitor are darker at the top of the screen than at the bottom? Suppose I have a small window containing a simple graphic (eg a blue arrow). If the window is at the top of the screen, the blue is much darker than if the window is at the bottom of the screen. If happens in both Linux and Windows XP, so clearly it is something the monitor is doing. It does it in both daylight and artificial light too. It makes getting the colours right when editing graphics very tricky. Thanks! --TrogWoolley (talk) 09:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not believe that holds true to any monitor.~It certainly isn't true to mine. Maybe yours is defective. 188.76.169.66 (talk) 12:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually poor LCD viewing angle is the likely cause, see [1] or this old source [2] for example. Or try these tests [3] on a bunch of cheap LCDs and you'll probably see the problem yourself. I thought perhaps things had advanced since I last looked but it sounds like cheap LCDs still often have TN panels and so aren't great if you're planning to do serious graphical work, the CRT some random person is giving away is probably better from a colour standpoint (it may not be anywhere near as sharp particularly since it's old). Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks for the links; the first one was very useful. My monitors at work and at home both have the problem, and it looks as though the solution is either buy a more expensive monitor (can't see work doing that) or live with it.--TrogWoolley (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

PS3 games: PAL and NTSC

Hi, I live in Australia, and I'd like to buy some PS3 games from overseas, cos you know, gaming outlets love to overcharge us Aussies. Anyway, I'm wondering what the differences are between the Australian and UK PAL versions, as well as PAL versions from other countries, and whether they'd cause any significant changes in gameplay. I've been given to understand that NTSC games are also compatiable with my PAL PS3 provided that I've got HD connection with my TV (which I do) -- can somebody confirm this? Also, can somebody point me to an official article that explains the differences between: the PAL regions; and between PAL and NTSC versions? It'll be great if people can respond to my queries. Thanks --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 10:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Our Regional lockout article suggests the PS3 has the technical ability to regionally lockout games but the only time it was tried, it was abandoned due to complaints. However it also suggests you may have prolems if you want to buy content from the PS3 store. Whether Australia is in a different region from the Europe when it comes to the PS3 I can't say. In less complicated regions systems Australia and NZ usually end up with Europe. Nil Einne (talk) 11:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's links with space instead of underscore

Why (I think) only Wikipedia's addresses can have a space instead of a underscore? Even if it gets converted, why other web-sites don't perform this trick? Persominus (talk) 13:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Strictly, your browser is performing the conversion ("percent-encoding"), not Wikipedia's server software. Space characters are not valid in a URL query string. Wikipedia's software - MediaWiki - has an intelligent mapping between spaces and underscore characters because wiki syntax is designed to streamline the conversion between human-readable and machine-readable text. Other websites that run MediaWiki automatically use these conventions. Other server-software may use a similar convention, at the discretion of the web designer. Nimur (talk) 13:49, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Most other websites do perform that trick, at least for links to webpages within the same website. If you are seeing a "Contact_us" link instead of "Contact us", for example, it's very poor webpage design.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

You're referring to simple URI remapping, Apache HTTP Server would do it like so, for example. A lot of websites using Content Management Systems that weren't designed by total goobers (not as many as you might think) promote such remapping. A lot of websites have no content management system or back end to speak of, and operate much more simply. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

To really understand this sort of issue is confusing, because there are a lot of different things going on.

1. Strictly speaking, URLs (web addresses) cannot contain spaces.
2. Spaces must be encoded in URLs as %20.
3. Since spaces in names and URLs are a nuisance, Wikipedia arranges that actual article names do not contain spaces, but rather underscores. But that would be a huge nuisance, too, so Wikipedia automatically does the right thing. Article titles are printed at the top of the screen with spaces instead of underscores (although you can still see the underscores in the URL in your browser's address bar). If you refer to an article title using spaces, Wikipedia automatically assumes the underscores. For example, this page's name is Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing, but it appears as the top of the page as "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing", and I can refer to it in wikitext as either [[Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing]] or [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing]]. It shows in my browser's address bar as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing.
4. Most browsers jump into the DWIM act, too. If you type a space into the address bar, most browsers automatically convert it into %20 for you.

So what actually happens if you construct a URL for a Wikipedia article by hand, containing a space, is that your browser converts it to %20, and Wikipedia's web server translates it back to a space, and then the higher-level Wikipedia software converts the space into an underscore when looking up the article name in the database, but displays it to you as a space. Over the river and through the woods (and twice around the barn), to Grandmother's house we go... —Steve Summit (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

wikiasari

what is the domain name for wikiasari — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.194.140.253 (talk) 15:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

http://www.wikiasari.net Tombo7791 (talk) 17:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Video "prt sc"

I know there is such a thing a "prt sc" to print whatever there is on the screen and save as a JPG. Is there such a thing as a video "print screen" that will capture the video on the screen (e.g. mouse moving around the screen, clicks and different screens produced; YouTube video presentations on the screen) and save as a MPEG? I have a newer HP laptop with Windows 7. Is there something in Windows Live Movie Maker that will capture video on the screen?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 18:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you want to make a Screencast - that article and Comparison of screencasting software should get you on your way. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Finlay got there before me. If you're into using MS products, apparently Microsoft Expression Encoder does it. I haven't used it myself. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The "PrtSc" thing ("print screen", variously written PrntScr, PrtScr, and so on on keyboards) is called a "screenshot", and the video equivalent is (as Finlay McWalter pointed out) a "screencast". There are a number of other programs capable of producing these; among them are Fraps, which is especially well-liked by people who make videos of games, and Camtasia Studio.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 02:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. You all have given me good leads.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

July 21

Double buffering in Java fails?

I am trying to reduce flicker in a java applet, by using a double buffering method mentioned here.

I have a slightly different set up, of course, so i did the following:

In the main method i have class members

• private Image buffer;
• private Graphics bufferG;

at the bottom of the init() method i do these

• buffer = createImage(500, 500);
• bufferG = buffer.getGraphics();

on the last line here where i say bufferG = buffer.getGraphics, i get a null pointer exception, why? The example on that website clearly has no issues like this! 172.162.132.72 (talk) 05:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, you've found a defect in my wrapper, I'm sorry about that. Move the call to app.init() down to after f.setVisible(true).

If you want an explanation, here it is: although I can't immediately find a formal definition, it seems (at least appletviewer does it) that init() is called on a realised widget (that is, there's a real corresponding window in the host graphics system, which isn't the case until a control is shown or attached to a shown container). The documentation for createImage() says "The return value may be null if the component is not displayable", which it won't be until its owning java.awt.Window is setVisible(true). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:17, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I may have already found a solution to this. I have not modified your wrapper, rather i moved the above definitions to the update() function of the applet. The basic definition does not throw null pointer now, so i am working on migrating my graphics back to the buffer and writing code to refresh the original graphics object. I'll let you know how i come along.

PS: I agree with you. I was made aware of the return value being null and we did concede that the call was being made too early. :)

172.129.34.113 (talk) 12:18, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a bit wasteful to call it in update(). update is called every time the applet needs to be redraw, which can be many times per second. createImage() is a fairly heavyweight operation - not something you want to do so often if you can avoid it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems that this may be something that requires code sharing. I tried the fix my friend suggested and it "worked" but still flickered. I prefer, if possible, to share my source privately. Is there any way i can grab some sort of contact detail from you, Finlay?

172.129.34.113 (talk) 12:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

wiping personal information from a phone

I want to recycle my old smartphone, but I am concerned someone could recover personal information from it. Please tell me if these steps are adequate:

• Run the feature called "restore phone to factory conditions"
• Pull out the SD card

ike9898 (talk) 12:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

What sort of phone is it? The instructions will probably vary from model to model, OS to OS. Generally, information is held in three places: the SIM card, the internal memory, and the removable memory (SD card); wiping these in the way you describe would normally be sufficient. There are various guides available, here is a selection for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Like cucumber says it's critical to know what kind of phone it is. But as for the iPhone, there is a built in wipe feature that should overwrite most of the volatile memory (you'll probably still want to remove the SIM card). I don't know if there's been any in depth discussion of how good that wipe is, but it should suffice for most people's purposes. Shadowjams (talk) 19:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments in Google Blogger

I'm setting up a blog, and struggling with the really nice intuitive interface, because I'm no good at these things. I thought I set it up so anyone could comment, even if not logged in. But when I log out and then try to comment on a post, it seems to require a login of some kind, whether Google or Open ID or a number of others. But no guest option. Can you give me a lead? I may be back for more help soon if that's all right. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Whether anonymous comments are allowed seems to be a per-blog setting. This video discusses how you, as the blog owner, can change that setting. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how to get to the page where the video starts. Perhaps it has changed recently? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It had. I got in via the old interface. It is definitely set that Anyone, including anonymous users can post. But they can't. Do you know of a forum where I could get help from users? Itsmejudith (talk) 08:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Try this: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/blogger --My Ubuntu (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)::::

the same question as mine, with no helpful responses and they wouldn't let me post to the forum ;-( Itsmejudith (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

sorry, didn't notice that --My Ubuntu (talk) 22:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Levels in computer languages

Does the JVM work by input of Java code and output of machine code? Or is there any additional layer there? Do other interpreted languages (Perl, Python, javascript) also work like that? Why would you need an additional layer of abstraction? OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:46, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

No, the JVM is a virtual machine. It works by input of machine code and output of actions. The distinctive thing about Java is that instead of being compiled into machine code that is specific to the type of computer a program runs on, it is always compiled into machine code for the same machine, the Java Virtual Machine. If you don't understand what machine code is and what it means to "compile" a program, this explanation may look like gobbledegook, but those are not things that can be explained in a short answer. Looie496 (talk) 00:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Does it work by "by input of machine code and output of actions"? It takes a Java bytecode file as input and perform some actions. Is that machine code? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Java bytecode is the machine code for the Java Virtual Machine. Looie496 (talk) 16:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As Looie pointed out the advantage of having the additional abstraction is portability. However, there are situations where the python/java virtual machine will perform Just-in-time compilation on to convert the bytecode to manative machine code. This is reserved for highly called functions/loops where the performance gains of native code outweigh the cost of compilation. The android DVM and certain python modules support this.Staticd (talk) 03:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Machine code is the instructions that are present as voltages on the pins of the microprocessor at the instant that the processor reads in an instruction. Virtual machine instructions are data that are read while a program that emulates a virtual machine is executing and are handled by the program in a manner analogous to the way a hardware processor handles machine code. So virtual machine instructions are treated as data, not instructions, by the actual hardware. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:04, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

So, the java bytecode is an 'as if' machine code? A kind of virtual machine code for the virtual machine? But no real machine code, unless in the cases pointed out by Staticd. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think what Jc3s5h said is quite correct. A machine code is a code that attaches a number to each possible machine language instruction -- it doesn't intrinsically have anything to do with voltages and pins. Java bytecode is the machine code for the virtual machine. There have actually, by the way, been several attempts to build a physical machine whose machine language matches the Java Virtual Machine instruction set -- they are known as Java processors, but none has been commercially successful, as far as I know. Looie496 (talk) 18:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Java is not always compiled to the JVM. gcj compiles directly to machine code. Android apps are programmed in Java but compiled to Dalvik code, which is different from JVM bytecode.

The JVM is not a necessary part of Java. Java was in fact defined as both a programming language and a bytecode VM for that language, but there are tons of Java-like languages that are defined without a VM. You don't even need the VM for portability in the usual meaning of that term. Java programs are relatively portable because Java specifies a lot of things that are left unspecified in other languages, such as the exact size of integers, and because it has cross-platform libraries for practically everything. These benefits still exist if you distribute Java as source code or if you compile it to machine code for every platform you care about. Javascript (an unrelated language) is distributed as source code. What the JVM buys you over source code is a certain amount of obfuscation (important to people who don't want to distribute their source code) and a bit of time savings since you don't have to parse the source code when you run it. -- BenRG (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The OP asked "Does the JVM work by the input of Java code and the output of machine code?"; the answer depends on what you mean by "Java code". There is Java source code, which (practically) no JVM executes, and there is Java byte code, which is a set of instructions that are executed by the JVM. You could say that the JVM takes java byte code and executes (not output) the machine code on the CPU where the JVM is running. So the answer to the question you meant, if my assumptions and interpretations are correct, could be a qualified "yes".

"Machine code" usually refers to the binary code executed directly by a CPU (whether you think of it as a collection of numbers or a collection of voltages); it can have other meanings, but usually is used in a context where speed is being referenced. CPUs typically execute their code faster than any interpreter on a similar machine, and it is only by delegating the CPU-intensive parts of programs to machine code that allow Java programs to run as fast as their machine-code equivalents. This intends no denigration of the language, only pointing out the reality that interpretation consumes CPU cycles by itself and is therefore inherently slower than equivalent machine code. (It USED to be that you could count on a Java program to run slower than a "natively compiled" program -- this is no longer true at all; I think the differences these days have more to do with the team of programmers and their design, not the language).

As to layers of abstraction: Java was originally intended to be used on different devices (kitchen appliances, for example), and so the layer of abstraction was useful for allowing different CPUS to run the same program through a JVM. It melded nicely into the then-new World Wide Web, with its different CPUs and browsers, and the Web is where it gained its popularity. rc (talk) 02:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Can I show "My Documents" as "Documents" in Windows 7 GUI?

In Windows 7 (Enterprise), in the GUI windows explorer one of the folders always shows as "My Documents". In the command shell, that folder (DIR), shows as "Documents". Is there any way to change the GUI so that it shows that folder as "Documents" and not "My Documents"? RudolfRed (talk) 22:27, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You should be able to simply rename it from Explorer. Eg, right-click "My Documents" and rename it to "Documents" (or whatever...) Mitch Ames (talk) 03:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't even try that before asking. I simply assumed it was special in some way and that normal renaming wouldn't work, but I just did it and it seems to be okay. Thanks. RudolfRed (talk) 01:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It is "special" - it contains a hidden "desktop.ini" files (as do other "special" folders) which tell Explorer how to display the folder. That file gets updated when you manipulate it with Explorer, and many of the "normal" Explorer actions still work as expected. Eg you can drag/drop the folder somewhere other than under "c:\users\yourname", and Windows will still find it from the "Documents" item on the Start menu. (Be sure to do a backup before you try this, though, just in case.) Mitch Ames (talk) 12:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

How to show just ONE taskbar button per InternetExplorer9 window in Windows7 (Instead of one per tab)

Resolved

I can not find the option anywhere ;-(
How can I limit the taskbar to show just one button for each open InternetExplorer9 window? (Instead of one for each TAB from IE as it is currently showing)
--89.9.192.43 (talk) 22:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid i don't know how to do that in IE, but i know that FireFox has the behavior you want by default. :)

172.163.3.37 (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

[4] 92.233.64.26 (talk) 23:19, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Problem resolved. Thank you both! :-)
-- (OP) 89.9.211.153 (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

July 22

removal of antivirus

It turns out I have some rather nasty adware on my computer, which is rather strange, because it is the sort of thing that is supposed to save me from this sort of thing. It's known as McAfee, and it keeps prompting me to buy. It was, of course, shipped with Windows Vista, but now it has well and truly outlived its useful lifespan, because there is nothing so irritating as a constant popup ad on your desktop. It used to be just once when I fired up the computer, but now, just in case I didn't get the message the first 3 million times, it is telling me about 4 times a session to upgrade. I have the free version of Malwarebytes (which interestingly, is telling me my trial has expired, but I don't remember any trial, and my understanding is that this will revert to the free version anyway). With the free version of Malwarebytes, is it safe to remove the McAfee? I've really had enough of it, and I just need to know if there is anything it is doing in the background that is not provided by Malwarebytes. If so, is there a free alternative? I wouldn't mind paying, but it seems the paid stuff is the stuff that comes with advertising - imagine if cable tv was full of ads, and free to air had none - would you buy cable? IBE (talk) 02:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have always bought my computers from one of the best in the city. They have always installed http://free.avg.com/ca-en/homepage in them when I ask to have the best free one they know of. The free one has protected 3 of my systems well for close to 10 years.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I too suffer from a similar 'adware' problem but from the 'trial' version of Norton Internet Security that came on my laptop. I also use AVG Antivirus free version and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and they seem to keep the overwhelming majority of viruses and malware at bay. If you install AVG you should be safe removing the McAfee software. - 220 of ^Borg 10:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Most things that come preinstalled with Windows are going to end up annoying you. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Including Windows. Thanks for the advice. IBE (talk) 01:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Weekly menu planner

I need a program that will help me plan weekly menus for a child developement center. using my meals and not having any repeats for 2 weeks. breackfast, lunch and snack. is there one i can download for free or cheap? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hughesmarni (talk • contribs) 04:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you want it to do anything besides listing the meals, like counting calories, making sure each meal is balanced, etc. ? If not, I expect a spreadsheet would work. If you have a Windows operating system, the Microsoft Office suite includes a spreadsheet program. You will have to manually verify that there are no repeats. I imagine just having 2 weekly menus which alternate and repeat is the easiest way, with perhaps something special substituted in on holidays. StuRat (talk) 05:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

You could also just use a text editor, and set it up like this (adding weekends if you have meals then):

            +----+----+----+----+----+
  Dates     | M  | Tu |  W | Th |  F |
+-----------+----+----+----+----+----+
| BREAKFAST |    |    |    |    |    |
+-----------+----+----+----+----+----+
| LUNCH     |    |    |    |    |    |
+-----------+----+----+----+----+----+
| SNACK     |    |    |    |    |    |
+-----------+----+----+----+----+----+

Your version will be larger, of course, and you would need to use a fixed size font (mono-spaced), like courier, to get the columns to work out right. StuRat (talk) 05:30, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

jpg pictures

I have around 4,000 jpg pictures taken by my digital camera. They're around 2MB each, and thus consuming quite a lot of hard drive space, and as I keep taking more pictures this is only increasing.

I did some tests and found that the pictures still look okay when saved as low as 800KB (with the same dimensions).

I am therefore considering reducing the quality of all the pictures to this level to save disk space.

Some questions;

1. There is almost no noticable difference (but obviously some) to me when looking at the original and the compressed versions. Is there anything I am missing here, something I haven't considered that would warrent keeping the originals? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.87.101.44 (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No, you're not missing anything, other than that hard drive space is ridiculously cheap.

As you probably know (and as our JPEG article explains), "lossy" compression algorithms like JPEG can do a very good job of compressing pictures, since (a) there's a lot of order and redundancy in most pictures, and (b) it's really not a problem if you lose a little bit of information (indeed, as you've seen, one tends not to notice at all). So you can dial down the image quality, i.e. dial up the compression, i.e. dial down the file size, and save a lot of disk space, and not lose much of anything in return.

Mostly what you'll lose is time, doing all the re-compressing and re-saving! (Although there are programs which can automate this task for you, on lots of images at once.) Also, if you ever decide to print the pictures out on a high-resolution photo printer, or expand them to full screen, they may then look noticeably worse, and you may wish you'd kept the original, less-compressed versions.

Finally, when you say "a lot of hard drive space", are you speaking in absolute or relative terms? Yes, 4000 x 2 meg is 8 gig. But a modern personal computer is likely to have hundreds of gigabytes available (the one I'm typing on, which is about a year old, has 465), so you might be talking less than one percent of your available space. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:08, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

(ec)And 8Gb of hard drive storage costs, at desktop scales, less than $1.50. So spending the time to downscale all the pictures, and check them, will save 90 cents. That's a lot of work (even if you automate it, you need to set up the automation and check the results) to save a tiny amount of money. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you mean "Gb" (Gigabits) or "GB" (GigaBytes) ? StuRat (talk) 18:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, bytes. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Something else to consider is storing them on an external device, like a USB flash drive. This costs slightly more per GB but is much simpler, as it doesn't require you to open up your computer to add a hard drive (or, even worse, replace the hard drive, which involves moving everything else from the old one to the new one). This will free up the entire 8GB on your hard disk. You can also use multiple flash drives, if you prefer to separate your pics in some way. If so, be sure to label each one. One advantage to this method is the portability. If you don't need portability, you could go with an intermediate solution, by getting an external hard drive. However, while those cost less per GB, they come in larger capacities than USB flash drives, such that the total cost may be higher. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that an external hard drive (3.5" based one) can actually be cheaper per GB then internal drives in places like the US and NZ when on sale at bigbox stores. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

"hard drive space is ridiculously cheap" What he said. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Another alternative to downsizing them is compressing them with something like 7-Zip. I'm not entirely sure what kind of ratio you'd get on jpgs but it's worth a try My Ubuntu (talk) 04:13, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You won't get any noticeable compression with 7-Zip. You will with recent versions of WinZip and StuffIt if you use their JPEG-specific algorithms, but the savings are not all that large (less than 25%, I think) and it's very slow both to compress and decompress, so it's really not worth it. -- BenRG (talk) 04:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Using generic non-lossy compression on already compressed sources (like mp3, jpeg, mpeg) won't give you any discernible improvement and may add size due to overhead. Shadowjams (talk) 21:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The Connection Machines

Is it possible to do a quick comparison of the Connection Machines to modern day technology? Is a laptop or smart phone able to match these devices from the 80's? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.155.250 (talk) 14:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Benchmarks aren't easy to meaningfully compare over generations. But we can see that FROSTBURG could perform around 65.5 gigaflops; for a modern comparison, check the GFLOPs column of the table in GeForce 500 Series. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Gigaflops#Hardware costs contains some interesting metrics of cost-per-GFLOP. It doesn't have a CM, but does have a broadly comparable Cray X-MP. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Also worth saying: although there were compilers for other languages, the only meaningful language Connection Machines understood was a weird variant of Lisp. So, really, unless your task is well-suited to be implemented in Lisp, it's not really even fair to compare gigaflops to gigaflops. I would surmise that a Connection Machine would perform very poorly at decoding an H.264 video, such as a Youtube clip, in real-time - even though that task is both parallelizable and highly limited by numerical calculation performance; whereas your modern mobile digital computer can do that on battery power. You could, in theory, try to code up a modern video toolchain for benchmarking on such a machine - it could even be ported to Lisp... but that is prohibitively difficult for a casual comparison. The thing to keep in mind is that for many specialized applications, modern computers get a lot of their performance from application-specific CISC-like hardware acceleration; so gigaflops of video decoding aren't comparable to gigaflops of wave equation calculation. Nimur (talk) 21:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

ring device from script

I have a "Voip Voice V653SK" [5] device with no manual or software. When I plug it into the computer via USB it recognizes it as a microphone. I want to make it ring loudly (using the devices built in ringer) on command from a batch script, but I cannot work out how to do this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you 92.233.64.26 (talk) 15:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Here's the quick start manual: [6]. It requires the CD, though, so you will need to find that. StuRat (talk) 18:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks but that only explains how to set it up to take calls, which isn't want I want to do. The drivers for it have already been automatically installed so the CD isn't needed. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That's not necessarily so. The phone advertises itself to the OS as a "composite device": a collection of audio devices and a single human-input device (the keypad, which I imagine also includes the on-hook detector as a "key"). When you insert it into a modern Windows machine, Windows recognises the speaker and microphone on it and adds generic sound drivers to these (there's plenty of info in the USB device enumeration for this). But the keypad (a "HID" device) isn't a generic device (the different keys map differently on different phone keypads) and the concept of a "ringing" channel isn't generic either (some devices have a "ring" command which buzzes a piezoelectric sounder, others have another audio channel into which a "ring ring" tone must be played, and one or several MIXER and SELECTOR units which control where the audio goes). So with the generic driver you should get basic phone function (speak and hear) but the keyboard will be dead and the phone won't ring. Ideally you'll find a decent driver that supports both - but my experience (a few years ago) with a similar model from the same manufacturer was that their driver was poor. If memory serves (it's been 4 years since I plugged it into a Windows computer) the driver could get the keypad working and the ring-lights flashing, but I don't remember it actually making a ring noise. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The keypad seems to work with the generic drivers, the top lights up blue when I press the answer key and I can turn the microphone on and off via it (maybe that's an internal function of the device though, and not being processed by the computer). It doesn't seem like there is an easy way to achieve what I want, so I guess I'll just give up with this idea. Thanks for the replies anyway 92.233.64.26 (talk) 19:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

How can I quickly and easily get to the first comments posted on this 'New Yorker' article (or others like it)?

The obvious link is to the newest comment but I would like to follow the debate from the oldest.

80.90.168.166 (talk) 20:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The abomination that is http://www.newyorker.com/js/pluck.min.js injects ten comments at a time. If you figure out the function that's being called, you can do pretty much whatever you want, including swapping "Sort":"TimeStampDescending" for "Sort":"TimeStampAscending" and start with the oldest comments first. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:05, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how to even start doing that, but at least I've learned there isn't a way in the normal user interface. I presume your assessment of the 'New Yorker' is unrelated.80.90.168.223 (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Merely commenting on the terrible JS they use. ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Learning C++

I am nearing the end of my first book on C++ (C++: A Beginner's Guide, Herbert Schildt) and wish to advance my studies still further. Can anyone recommend a suitable second book? Thanks. asyndeton talk 21:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Good third books are Koenig and Moo, Rumnations on C++, and Cline et al., C++ FAQs. I'm not sure about a second book.

Oh, wait: how about Meyers, Effective C++? —Steve Summit (talk) 00:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You might consider starting over with another first book, based on how well known Schildt is at being wrong. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Schildt's books are terrible. Please try to forget everything you "learned" from this book, as a large fraction of it is not true at all. I think Steve Summit's recommendations are decent. Even if you don't like the style of those books, the authors do at least know C++. -- BenRG (talk) 04:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I find this news to be rather unfortunate. I have just started learning C++ from Schildt's book. I'm pretty near the beginning though and this is something I would very much like to get right the first time round if possible; could someone please recommend an appropriate first book on C++ (for an almost complete novice programmer)? Thanks. meromorphic [talk to me] 21:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Well, the only way to advance your studies that really works is to start writing actual code. Looie496 (talk) 01:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I highly recommend Code Complete ed. 2 by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press ISBN 978-0-7356-1967-8). It is an amazing book, it is not language-specific, and assumes you already know how to program. It teaches you how to program properly, which in my personal experience is a rare skill. I've read it cover-to-cover, and it's worth re-reading every so often. Our article on it does it no justice, but it's a fantastic book which changes the way you think about programming. I really can't emphasize enough how much it's helped me improve as a programmer. Beg, borrow or steal a copy so you can see for yourself, and then go buy it. After that, if you want to deepen your programmer's toolbox, I recommend learning Design Patterns by the gang of four. It's on a more sophisticated level, but it makes an excellent reference even if you don't get a lot of immediate value from it. Pretty much anything by the GoF is worth looking at. BigNate37_(T) 04:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me make clear that my recommendations, while written on topics which are important for any seasoned programmer to know, are not C++ references. If you're not finished learning the ropes, McConnell is still worth a read but Design Patterns won't be helpful until you've got some object-oriented programming experience already. BigNate37_(T) 04:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

July 23

HTTPS

Is there a way to make Firefox use https instead of http, and is there any point? — Fly by Night (talk) 01:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

There is an extension/plugin you can use with Firefox (https everywhere) to get HTTPS by default. The article at HTTPS has a link to it, and an explanation of why you might want it. RudolfRed (talk) 01:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you can use https unless the server you're contacting is prepared to handle the https protocol, though. Most are not. There are tricks for securing parts of the pathway, but you can't secure the whole pathway unless the server is secure. Looie496 (talk) 02:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Upgrading a TOSHIBA Satellite A215

A friend has the above mentioned laptop, and the ATI Radeon X1200 Series graphics card. They are unable to play the game Borderlands, because this card will not support Cell Shader 3.0. According to this, someone else who has the same model and wanted to upgrade their graphics card can not. Is this true? Are there any options out there? and decently priced i hope, perhaps around $60 that fit in the laptop, work with what slots it has, and can run borderlands?

Thanks for the help!

74.117.245.62 (talk) 07:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The usual answer is no; the graphics card fitted inside your laptop is one thing you cannot upgrade. And a search seems to confirm this. For example, the first post on this forum from 2006 seems pretty emphatic. However, a very small number of laptops do support upgradable graphics cards, but I'm afraid the rather old Toshiba A215 almost certainly isn't one of them. That said, maybe this article has a possible, though rather expensive solution. For the $330 or more price tag (and that was in 2008 prices) you might be better off getting a new laptop or buying a cheap but better specified desktop machine just for playing games. Astronaut (talk) 16:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft Research autobiography tool

I read somewhere that Microsoft Research has (probably within the last few months) released a tool that can be used to generate an autobiographical timeline from e-mail records etc. What's it called? NeonMerlin 10:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for the Microsoft Research LifeBrowser? The Verge has links to more sources. --Kushal (talk) 20:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

about live chat for website

how can insert a live chat box on a webpage?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.178.144.3 (talk) 13:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Well.. it depends on what kind of chatbox, you want.. Do you want to host the chatbox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.49.68.173 (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Googling live chat widget gives a lot of results, though I can't personally recommend any. --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:20, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Same MAC

If someone changes the MAC of his computer and uses the same as an AP or other computer of a WLAN network, would he be disrupting this network (even if he's not logged on it)? If no, how does the network ignores him? If possible, WLANs would be pretty susceptible to disturbance. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's very disruptive. An ethernet switch remembers to which of its ports a given MAC wired, and only sends traffic for that device out to that port (ref Radia Perlman Interconnections). Most modern OSes will notice if another station uses the same MAC as they do, and will alert the user, and managed switches can report likewise. I don't know about WLAN. There is no shortage of easy ways to disrupt a WLAN. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean that there are lots of way of jamming a WLAN without extra jamming devices? I really mean, is that simple that someone sits with his laptop somewhere, fakes his MAC and a network near him is disrupted? OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's that easy. Because WLAN works as one big hub though, it might actually still work for each client. You'd have some weird effects though. This would depend on the OS of the router mostly. What Finlay's referring to are other attacks that are entirely software based... like sending REAUTH notices, or the Wifi equivalent of JAM signals... which can disrupt everyone on the network segment. Shadowjams (talk) 21:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Hexadecimal objects at python

In python something like this

import os
print os.walk

outputs <function walk at 0x004D2DB0>

What 0x004D2DB0 means? 65.49.68.173 (talk) 19:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You're printing the value of the function pointer to Python's os.walk utility function. That is not the same as executing the function. Nimur (talk) 19:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(ec)When you try to print anything in Python, the runtime has to ask that thing to produce a string representation of itself. For objects (and other things) those override the __str__() method, and they return whatever their designer thought appropriate. But other things aren't defined in Python, but are created by the python runtime system itself. Different python implementations might chose subtly different ways of printing those. In the case of functions, the cpython system (which is what you're calling python, as its the most common python runtime) prints a hexadecimal string, as you've observed. I don't think they make any claim about that string, other than its unique to that function (at this exact moment in time); there's nothing you can meaningfully do with it (until you get to some pretty advanced coding) - it's a little implementation detail leaking through, and one you can safely ignore. Just for comparison, on my 64 bit linux system, in cpython your code prints:

 <function walk at 0x7f23cb643cf8>

but in pypy (a different python runtime system) it prints:

 <function walk at 0x00007f01699e6f98>

What it's actually doing (probably) is printing the address in the cpython process's memory into which that function has been loaded. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

A good illustration of why there numbers aren't necessarily "pointers" is this code:

     def a(): return
     def b(): return
     def c(): return
     print a,b,c

If I run this on cpython or pypy the values clearly are pointers (they're 120 apart from one another). But on jython, another python implementation, the result is very different:

 <function a at 0x1> <function b at 0x2> <function c at 0x3>

So obviously on that implementation they're just indices into some internal table. So the moral of the story is "it's just a magic number; don't worry about it". -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

If the intention when using "print" was to get information on the function, try:

help(os.walk)

instead. You might also find:

dir(os)

useful to list the functions in a module.

help(os)

is also useful but much more verbose than the dir command.-gadfium 22:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

July 24

Copying and pasting in java-based formats

Hello everyone. I was wondering if there is any solution to this minor but nevertheless very annoying issue. When I am in java rooms--chat rooms, Yahoo! games, etc.--I cannot copy or paste any text into the dialogue fields.--108.54.25.10 (talk) 01:32, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It's often considered a bad idea for external web pages and scripts/programs running on them to have access to your clipboard (which holds the data for cut-and-paste) because you may have been cutting and pasting some important private information which they could then steal.[7][8] So your browser may block access to the clipboard. Other programs don't always provide full cut-and-paste functionality because they use their own text-entry routines rather than the operating system's. So I don't think there's an easy fix. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree somewhat. The main thing is that your ability to paste into the text field is a function of whether or not the designer of the java program made it possible. If you cant right click and hit "Paste", try using the shortcut for it with "Ctrl + V". This may sometimes work even though menu based pastes don't work.

There ARE some nice java programs for IRC that allow full copy/paste functionality, but it seems this doesn't help you because you are talking about being specific places, like Yahoo.

Another option i have thought of is that if you really quite want this ability, i could try to write a short little program that would let you paste into IT instead, and it would type the info into the desired window very quickly, at almost the same speed as a paste. :P

172.162.124.190 (talk) 10:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Why do iPads sold at the online Apple Store] are SIM locked to AT&T or Verizon, even iPads bought without contract?

Go to http://www.apple.com/ to understand what I mean. Or it is just that I have misunderstood the web page? 27.66.133.220 (talk) 07:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Various web forums say they're not SIM locked in the USA (although they do use Apple's micro-SIM not standard SIMs)[9][10][11][12][13]. iPads on Vodafone in the UK are reportedly sometimes locked, and it may vary in other countries. Also note that the 4G iPads are somewhat network-specific because different networks use different forms of 4G, so if you change network you may no longer get 4G speeds.[14] Incidentally, I can't see anything on your link that says they might be SIM locked - could you point to where you saw that or quote what it said. You should contact Apple online or ask in an Apple store to be certain. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Just click on "Store" and then "iPad". 171.225.113.143 (talk) 10:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Excel lists

Hi there,

I've got two lists of email addresses in Excel. For example, I'm going to call them "List A" and "List B". Some email addresses are on both List A and List B. What I need to do is merge the lists, and indicate on the merged list who is on each one:

Email	Tags
example1@hotmail.com	ListA
example2@yahoo.com	ListB
example3@gmail.com	ListA,ListB

Is there an easy way to use Excel to combine these lists, and flag up which people are on list A, which are on list B, and which are on both?

Thanks,

JanuaryFebruaryMarch (talk) 08:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I would just do this manually — Excel is very quick about this sort of thing. Create a new worksheet. Paste List A's e-mails into Column A. Then write "ListA" in the first cell of Column B. Copy that, then select the entire row of column B that corresponds with List A's addresses. Paste. Paste List B right underneath List A, then also label it List B.

The only trick is in finding the duplicates. This is pretty easy. First, sort the list so that the e-mail addresses are in order alphabetically. Then, in cell C1 (assuming no headers, yet), make a formula that looks like this: =IIF(C1==C2,"!!!!!!!!",""). This basically says, "If C1 and C2 are equal, make it really obvious to me.". Copy and paste that formula all the way down (Excel should automatically change it to say C2, C3, C4, etc.). Now you should be able to quickly see exactly how many there are to delete and merge.

This approach is the easiest presuming the total number to merge is not prohibitive. If it is terribly large, then Excel is probably not the best way to handle this... --Mr.98 (talk) 11:11, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Small correction to the formula - that should be IF, not IIF. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You are right — I always get IIF (SQL) and IF (Excel) confused... --Mr.98 (talk) 12:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so can I just check - this method will create a big double list, with the ones that are duplicated flagged up with a big "!!!!!!!!!" sign? And then can I then get a second formula that replaces the contents of the B cell with "ListA,ListB" if the C cell says "!!!!!!!!!"? (assuming I copy the C column so it's no longer dependent on the contents of column B), thus flagging up the doubles and marking them as such?

So for example, if "ListA" = "People I normally write to about hats", and "ListB" = "People I normally write to about dogs", I'm able to flag up all the people I normally write to about both hats and dogs, and flag them up as "ListA,ListB"?JanuaryFebruaryMarch (talk) 11:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That's how I would do it, for a relatively small list. There are more elegant and complex ways to do this sort of thing, but one of the virtues of Excel is that with a little bit of clever sorting and flagging can you usually make the data work out without too much effort. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick word of warning. Once you have created 2 columns (Column A with all the email addresses, and column B with either "List A" or "List B" depending on the origin of the address), make sure you select both columns for your sort. It is very easy to sort one column and leave the other unsorted; resulting in you having to start again.

So you avoid going from:

Email	Tags
bill@yahoo.com	ListA
johnd@hotmail.com	ListA
bill@yahoo.com	ListB
test175@aol.com	ListB
girly@gmail.com	ListB

to this, where the second column didn't get sorted at the same time and you lose the correspondance between address and which list they are in:

Email	Tags
bill@yahoo.com	ListA
bill@yahoo.com	ListA
girly@gmail.com	ListB
johnd@hotmail.com	ListB
test175@aol.com	ListB

Astronaut (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest the vlookup command would be a great place to start. It enables you to search for a match in a list, which is exactly what you wish to do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

DHCP connection

How do I enable DHCP and disable MAC filtering2602:30B:82C1:979:A131:55AA:92A2:EFD1 (talk) 15:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That would depend on what operating system you are using. hajatvrc @ 16:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Events in C# 2010

I am trying to program the Pokemon Trading Card Game using Visual C#2010 but I ran into a little problem. I have three objects:

Game: Handles all of the game’s data and rules.

Form1: The window shown to the player. Displays all the info the player is allowed to see about the game and allows the player to interact with the game.

ComputerAI: This object tracks what the computer is supposed to know and holds the AI’s logic.

To keep things moving, the game raises a “PriorityChanged” event, to let both the player and the AI know that priority has changed and which one received it (in the EventArgs). The Form reports this info in a log and displays the messages: “Waiting for you” and “Waiting for opponent” as appropriate. The computerAI uses it to decide if it should run its logic or not. The problem I ran into was that when the event was raised the AI was told and ran its logic (playing cards etc), this caused the player to get priority and raised another PriorityChanged, which the AI got and did nothing with (which was correct). Then the Form got both PriorityChanged events one after the other but in the wrong order.

To fix this I split the “PriorityChanged” event into two “PriorityChanged” and “PriorityRecieved”. The Forms updates the display on the “PriorityChanged” event, and the AI runs on the “PriorityRecieved” event. This solution worked, but it strikes me as wrong. Is there a better way?

Thanks 86.45.219.24 (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You may wish to consider the observer pattern or the state pattern. BigNate37_(T) 22:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Firefox jumping to the wrong spot on a web page

Firefox 14.0.1 on Windows XP SP3 here. When I navigate to a section of a web page (say by clicking on the arrow for the section on my Wikipedia watch list), it seems to go to the proper place, then jump someplace else on the page. This also happens when I finish editing a section, and seems to be a result of me enlarging the text on the screen (View + Zoom + Zoom In). Apparently it can't properly calculate the new spacing of the enlarged text. Has anyone else had this problem, and is there a fix for it ? StuRat (talk) 21:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It happens to me sometimes and I use default font sizes. I notice it most when there's odd markup on the page, or on sites that hotlink images from a slow server. BigNate37_(T) 22:40, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Old problem, more frequently encountered, I would say, with img elements that haven't been given explicit dimensions for the browser to know. Try searching http://forums.mozillazine.org/ or the like. ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

July 25

Verifying Android app publishers

Hi, at the Android market, or Play or whatever it's now called, the apps' publishers are all listed under the app name, but how do I know that these are genuine? For example, if I see the publisher "XYZ Inc.", then XYZ Inc. may be a company that I know and trust, but how do I know that this is the "real" XYZ Inc. and not someone masquerading as them? Who does that checking, and is it reliable? 86.129.16.51 (talk) 02:25, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

There is hardly any checking. You give Google your $25, think up a name, and you're in. (In contrast, Apple requires developers to send in some proof of (corporate) identity) Unilynx (talk) 06:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

So I could pay $25 and publish apps under the name Adobe, for example? 86.128.4.88 (talk) 11:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

You could try, but Adobe would certainly protest~this trade mark infringment. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:16, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

But only if after they noticed or found out, and even then such things can take ages to resolve. Meanwhile, there could be a fake app that purported to be from Adobe sitting there for weeks? So basically I can't trust any publisher names on the Google app store? When it says "Adobe" or "BBC", or any other well-known name, the app could actually be made by any impersonator, assuming the peeople impersonated have not yet noticed and managed to successfully go through the process of trying to get someone to remove it? 86.128.4.88 (talk) 13:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I would personally suspect Google to have some sort of automated process to weed out the odd names, because that's what they're good at (automating everything to avoid the need for human intervention) - hopefully they block auto-approval but forward to the relevant department any attempt to "use a company name where any part of the name matches a .com name in our top 10000 of sites", which should probably block your attempt from signing up as Adobe Inc. But if even the SSL certificate providers can't get the process of vetting people right , I definitely would view a mostly-automated system like Google Play's developer approval with suspicion. Unilynx (talk) 17:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

ISO = VMware?

If some software (Backtrack, for example) is offered in an ISO version and a VMware version to download, can you just download the ISO and use it through VirtualBox? OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:12, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

If you mean .iso extension, no it's not vmware, iso it's just the image of a CD, see ISO_image — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.49.68.173 (talk) 13:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to know if they are equivalent. Now it's clear that VMware have its own file format. But I can run this ISO through VMware?OsmanRF34 (talk) 15:46, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Virtualbox supports the .vmdk format which VMware uses, so you should be able to use both the ISO and the VMware version with virtualbox. You would need to create a new virtual machine and have it use the .vmdk file as its hard disk. AvrillirvA (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Why does VMware have its own file format? Isn't the program meant to mount ISOs? Wouldn't issuing an ISO be always the best choice? If you don't have VMware or prefer to use Virtualbox or prefer to run it from the live CD, the ISO would work just fine. OsmanRF34 (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

VMware does mount ISOs, but .vmdk is a different format. An ISO is a CD image, but .vmdk is a hard drive image. The .vmdk is presumably for testing how the OS behaves when installed to a hard disk, which is different from running it as a live CD. They are offering both the ISO and the VMware version, so if you don't need the VMware version then just use the ISO, it will still work in VMware AvrillirvA (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

They are different things.

The VMware version is a complete installation of Backtrack in a VMware virtual machine (done by someone else). If you have the VMware product installed, you can then bring it up and running with the minimum fuss, without having to do any installation, although you will be stuck (maybe at first) with the virtual hardware configuration and OS configuration that the person who created it decided on when they installed it.

With the ISO version, you will need to do your own installation whether on real or virtual hardware. You then get to choose all the settings (language, keyboard, disk partitioning, and so on). It will take a lot longer to get going but might be more suited to your intended purpose. Additionally, some virtulization software is able to mount an ISO file as if it was an optical drive; otherwise you will need a disk burner to create the physical optical media.

Astronaut (talk) 17:23, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

What is this bar?

When you type

 lspci -v | grep Network

in Linux, how do you call this |? OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The vertical bar is generally known as a "pipe"; see pipeline (Unix). Incidentally, you've been asking a lot of questions -- could you try to limit yourself to one or two per day, please? Looie496 (talk) 16:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Can't you count? Just look at my contribution and you'll discover that if I ask 1 or 2 questions/day that would INCREASE the number of question that I'm asking. If you don't feel like answering there is no need to it. Besides that, you should know by now that such comments belong on talk pages. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

32/64 bit problem when running an ASP.NET web application in Microsoft IIS

I faced an interesting problem today at work. I had been developing an ASP.NET web application on Windows 7 on a 64-bit computer. When running the web application directly from Visual Studio, everything worked fine, but when I installed it under Microsoft IIS and accessed it from there, I got an error about an invalid architecture or something. It turned out that setting "Allow 32-bit Applications" to True in the application pool properties in Microsoft IIS solved the problem. I thought that this was because the web application was 32-bit code, but the computer was 64-bit, so IIS had been set to run 64-bit code by default. But now my coworker said that it's not because of that, .NET code should be compiled to MSIL and run under an MSIL interpreter, so it should be bitness-agnostic. He said that the reason was that a server process, which the web application communicates with through WCF, is 32-bit code, because it calls Managed C++ libraries compiled as 32-bit code, which in turn call Windows native C++ libraries. But isn't WCF communication simply sending SOAP messages through TCP? There isn't a direct procedure call involved anywhere. This way the client and server processes can even be on separate computers. What is the reason here? JIP | Talk 18:06, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Windows seven start menu replacement

I replaced my old XP machine with a Windows 7 box about six months ago. I'm mostly happy with it, many improvements, but I sorely miss the user-customizable XP start menu, i.e. being able to edit the Start-menu folder, and create a logical folder hierarchy with links to the applications that I have installed. It is especially those applications that I use rarely that are difficult to locate in the "improved" start-menu. Now I have to resort to creating a folder on the desktop with subfolders "Audio", "Graphics", "Internet", etc., with links to the applications. I've tried to find out if it is possible to activate this functionality in Win 7, and the answer apparently is "No": In this thread, Microsoft support engineer Diana D says that "Unfortunately, there is no way that you can customize the Start Menu in Windows 7 to have Windows XP like functionality".

My question: is anyone aware of an application that can be installed in the system tray or pinned to the taskbar, which implements XP-like start menu functionality? Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

aa3

Will aa3 run on win 7 64-bit with intel pentium 2.7 ghz and 5 mbo/s internet and intel HD graphics card.TheAnnoymousUser (talk) 18:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)