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September 5

Bluetooth

If two identical cell phones were fixed in place mechanically so that, to the submicron level, the relevant components were the same distance from a bluetooth headset, and the headset were then turned on, how would one cell phone acquire the headset over the other? Peter Michner (talk) 12:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Every bluetooth-capable device has a unique identification number (BD_ADDR). Using this they can unambigiously identify one another by this means alone. BD_ADDR is used during pairing and authentication so you know which headset you're connecting to, and so no-one can spoof that headset and impersonate it. If both of the headsets in your example have already been previously paired with the phone (meaning it's stored their details) and they're both turned on simultaneously, it's up to the phone to decide which it prefers. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I wrote it wrong, but I was saying if you have two phones and one bluetooth thing to which neither phone has ever been linked, how would one of the two phones get connected with the one bluetooth earpiece. I know with my Jabra bluetooth earpiece, the first time I ever turned it on in close proximity to my iPhone, my iPhone immediately showed the little bluetooth icon in the upper right corner, meaning my iPhone linked with the Jabra earpiece. What if two cellular phones were precisely the same distance from one bluetooth device that has never connected to either and the bluetooth device was turned on? Peter Michner (talk) 13:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Bluetooth has a sophisticated protocol, because it is a fairly modern form of digital communication. This is a special case of the more general problem of resolving collisions in a shared transmission medium. Each type of wired or wireless technology has a mechanism for handling this case; some similar methods are carrier sense multiple access with software-controlled re-tries that are timed randomly to avoid repeating the collision. Other schemes use address-based coding, so that the message is only decipherable to its intended recipient. In some communicaton systems, like aviation radio, voice procedure is used to handle collisions (at the "Application Level" of the OSI stack): you simply say who you want to talk to, and if the message gets garbled, you try again. For a very specific answer to your question, we'd need to dive into the details of the Bluetooth protocol specification. Often times, the solution is a mechanism designed to guarantee a strict ordering among devices, even if the individual devices are unaware of others on the shared radio channel. Nimur (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hard Disk Docking Station vs 'Portable' HDD

I am considering the puchase of an external hard disk drive (HDD) for storage/backup purposes for a laptop with a 500 GB internal HDD. (I am recording TV from a digital USB TV 'stick' and it takes a lot of space, about 5+ GB an hour!)
One possibility is a 'portable', USB powered HDD of about 1.0-1.5 TB. Another possibility is a USB interface HDD docking station, the type that takes 'bare' (uncased) HDDs, as I have a spare 3.5" 1 TB HDD available.
Any knowledge, experience, reviews etc. of the merits of such a docking device vs a more portable 'cased' type HDD? Regards, 220 of ^Borg 17:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The cased HDDs are usually nothing more than a docking device plus a normal consumer HDD, although the cased HDD may actually be cheaper than a docking device plus HDD, because they're produced in much greater volume. A merit of a cased model might be simplicity - it saves you the trouble of putting one together yourself, and (especially the 2.5" models) may be able to work off the power provided by a USB port, saving you the trouble of carrying both the drive and a power supply. Unilynx (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Unilynx, Concur that "cased HDD may actually be cheaper than a docking device plus HDD". It certainly seems to be true. However, next week(12/Sept.) my local ALDI store will have a USB 3.0 dual "HDD Docking Station" for SATA drives going for A$30. I actually have a lot of 'miscellaneous' HDD lying about, so it may be useful for purposes (ie. HDD testing) beyond backups. - 220 of ^Borg 18:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Typically docking stations do not offer any protection to the hard drive and are not intended for constant use. The hard drive will be more susceptible to damage and dust as it is exposed rather than being shielded in a case, and the interface connectors (especially IDE) are not designed to be regularly attached/detached and may break. A disk enclosure may be more suitable. Worth noting; some external hard drives such as the FreeAgent GoFlex have a detachable base so can function as both a cased hard drive and as rudimentary docking station for other SATA hard drives. I would not recommend this for constant use however, but if you only needed to access the spare 3.5 drive very occasionally it may be useful. You might also consider encoding your video into a more efficient codec such as h.264. Recordings from DVB will probably be mpeg2, so the space savings in using h.264 can be considerable as it will produce similar quality at lower bitrates. AvrillirvA (talk) 19:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually in plenty of countries DVB transmissions are in h264, the OP didn't seem to specify where they live either in the question or in their user page. Also despite the OPs choice of words, I suspect they're referring to standalone portable hard disk enclosures which still exist. However IMO such devices often no longer make sense. In a number of countries 3.5" based portable hard disks, when on special at retail stores are often cheaper then internal ones. And ironically with the terrible internal HD warranties nowadays the portable ones often have longer warranties. Anyway I have to question whether the OP has considered their requirements properly. If they only need portable within a house I would suggest they should set up a dedicated media server and use their laptop as a client. They could also use their laptop with an NAS but I don't see why you'd want to record stuff on the laptop unless you plan to take it around and still be able to record while on the move. If they want to content to be available, perhaps provide some local caching of important content? Nil Einne (talk) 06:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

@ AvrillirvA, I have one of those enclosures ... somewhere! though actually more of a slide in/out tray type for a tower PC. I have been considering the FreeAgent GoFlex as a possibility, but they seem rather more expensive per Gb. I can get the GoFlex 'dock' for 'only' ≈A$25. See also my rpy to Unilynx re "HDD Docking Station".
• I don't think I have any choice about the encoding of my saved video. It is MPEG (.mpg file extension). According to the specs it is MPEG 2. One recorded movie from GO! has a video 'Data rate' of 3135kbps,' total bit rate' of 3391 kbps, Audio bit rate of 256 kbps, if that gives you any more clues about the encoding used. The software is ArcSoft TotalMedia, bundled with a MyGica brand MY-T803 DVB-T TV stick.- 220 of ^Borg 18:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

@ Nil Einne, I am in Australia(Oz), southern end of Sydney. I would like the HDD to be pretty portable, rather than a 'Desktop' type, so a USB powered 2.5" external is what I had in mind, though noticeably more expensive. Currently JB Hi-Fi have Seagate/ Western Digital 1Tb for A$99. Very tempting, or Dick Smith has Seagate 1.5 TB available for $149. A 'desktop' 3.5" not intended to be carried around is about 2 Tb for $A135.
A media server is certainly a possibility, one which I had not considered. I have plenty of unused computer hardware lying around to build one (or even 2!). (Perhaps you can also advise me why I can get 'Gem' digital TV video, but no sound! I also cannot receive 7mate or similar channel 7 stations, and GO! channel reception can be very spotty, though sometimes it is perfect!) Oh NZ I see, thought you were in 'OZ' ;-) - 220 of ^Borg 18:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for reader-controlled highlighting in Wikipedia articles

Dear Wikipedia,

As I don't know where to put my this question, however I arrived here.

Since I read wikipedia most of the times, and wikipedia pages are open for many hours a day. So when I change my tabs, I loose my sight from important lines in previous tab. So I want you guys to add some facility, so that I can highlight my important lines with some colors. ( Here I want to tell you that in a wikipedia page, you can highlight ONLY one continuous line with blue ink (as it happens in all the pages, if it is wikipedia or any other ), what if I want to highlight many lines on the SAME page.)

Please add this facility to Wikipedia, so that everyone can take advantage of it.

All for One and One for All.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.149.62.52 (talk) 17:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The place to make suggestions like this is WP:VPT. Making them here won't lead anywhere even if people like them. Looie496 (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC) (PS, I have removed your email address, as it makes you a target for possible spam.)

Here we answer questions relating to computers. For instance, if you wanted to know how to make multiple discontinuous selections on the same page in Firefox, the answer [1] is that you hold down the ctrl key.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

You might also be interested in the Awesome Highlighter, which will allow you to highlight text on many sites, not just Wikipedia. There's a Firefox extension as well as a browser-independent web-based version. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the point of LaTex?

It's nerdy, complicated, ugly (apparently like the people who love it). And on the top of that, when you submit an article to a magazine, they want a rtf or Word file. Comploose (talk) 18:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It's important to realize that LaTeX was created in the early 1980s, and TeX even earlier. If somebody was starting from scratch nowadays, they wouldn't create a system that works that way. Even so, it still has some nice features for some people: (1) it is excellent for complex mathematical formatting; (2) it still produces very nice looking output in comparison to Word. Looie496 (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It was created at a time when printers were capable of displaying fancy typography but computer displays could not display anything fancy. Think monochrome monitor and IBM 3270. Since then, various ways of WYSIWYG have become possible, but they are proprietary and incompatible. So LaTex remains as a platform-independent way to produce fancy typography. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Compared to word and similar products, LaTeX has: 1. superior looking output; 2. smaller file sizes of documents; 3. needs only a text editor to write, i.e. no need to install programs (of course creating pretty output will require installation of LaTeX); 4. encourages the writer to focus on content and the logical structure of the document instead of on the formatting, 5. free of charge; 6. wide variety of packages (from Klingon to typesetting chess boards); 7. in my experience more robust particularly if you use labels/references/citations; 8. potentially quicker for experienced users to write documents (might depend on type of documents)

As for complicated, I find it easier to use than word (which I only use irregularly). Some magazines actually encourage the use of LaTeX submissions. bamse (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Bamse gave a pretty good list, but left off a couple of the points that are most important to me:

1. The "source code" is human-readable, not a binary file.
2. The format is open and stable; it won't go away because some company decides to stop supporting some version of an application (this point may have been somewhat addressed by the XML-based versions of Office; I haven't really looked into that).
3. If you want to use the same content in a completely different style of document, it's often as simple as changing a single line in the preamble. You don't have to figure out what exactly you have highlighted, whether it's content or formatting, and worry about the vagaries of "smart paste".

The principal downside is the heavy learning burden. That's a legitimate objection. If you don't want to shoulder that burden, just say so. Don't insult the people who are willing to do it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I would throw in an additional downside, which is the immense diversity of different implementations of TeX and LaTeX from site to site. There does not seem to be, in actual fact, a "standard" form of TeX; both its toolchain and its format and layout packages vary hugely from place to place, user to user. For this reason, I find claims of simplicity dubious. As an example, ask a friend or colleague from another university to please send you their last-published paper's TeX source; and attempt to compile it on your system, without modification. It's clear to me that semantic markup has great merit, but I find the TeX ecosystem to be lacking, compared to competitors. Even HTML provides a more standardized mechanism to separate form and content. LaTeX users will quickly attack HTML because it "cannot" nicely render mathematical equations; but this is counterindicated by numerous examples. And, it is my contention that if you're actually concerned with separating presentation and content, you should not be so worried about whether your integral sign renders at full height. Thanks to the engineered precision of the Unicode standard, there are a wide array of representable mathematical symbols: "∭∮∀" and literally thousands of other mathematical symbols and operators ... which are all semantically distinct, and easily representable or renderable with the appropriate choice of font, glyph, and layout. All of those layout issues can be resolved using, for example, CSS - cleanly separating content from presentation, in a standardized format, free of any proprietary technology, and most importantly, easily readable on every modern computer platform in common use today. Nimur (talk) 20:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what you mean that you shouldn't be worried about how your integral sign looks. To address one possible interpretation of your words, of course separating content from presentation doesn't mean you don't care about presentation. It just means that you want the program to take care of presentation automatically based on the logical structure of the content, and you want it to automatically look nice. Does HTML ever do that? I haven't seen it, at least without extensions such as MathJax. LaTeX mostly does a pretty good job of it (the main exception is the somewhat awkward treatment of floats; if you really don't want them to float, which I often don't, it can be a pain to get them where you want them).

As to the proliferation issue, yes, it can be a problem if you try to skimp on what you install, but when I install full tetex or TexLive I haven't observed it being too much of an issue. At most you might have to google around for a .sty or .cls file or two, at least providing the other person isn't using some mutant version like PCTex.

To me the Unicode symbols really don't look as nice, at least on any rendering system I've ever seen. Also the relationship between two similar Unicodes is harder to discern than it is with TeX defines. --Trovatore (talk) 21:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

TeXworks automatically downloads and installs 'whatever' on the fly when you try to compile a document that has \usepackage{whatever} that is not on your system. 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:06, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I forgot one:

4. If you work on a TeX or LaTeX document in a revision control system such as CVS, the diffs are meaningful — you can see exactly what was changed between two revisions, not just that it was changed. --Trovatore (talk) 22:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, it's easy to generate or modify (La)TeX source programmatically. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

WK seems to use both html and LaTex: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Typesetting_of_mathematical_formulae. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:32, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

See here for the reason it was created. Zoonoses (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

JPG not working in a WIki

I've been uploading some files to another Wiki. Most of them are OK, but some completely fail to show up, producing a blank screen. They all look OK viewed on my PC at home, and there's no obvious difference between those that work and thoses that don't. You can see one of the images at http://www.foxearth.net/Halfway_to_Heaven.JPG. Any suggestions as to what the problem could be and how to overcome it?--rossb (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I presume that's one that doesn't work. There isn't much to go on here. Would it be possible to give a link to one that does work, for comparison? Looie496 (talk) 19:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, try renaming it from foo.JPG to foo.jpg

Secondly, downscale to a web-sensible size - for online display a 3448x2195 2.7MB image is unnecessarily large, and the server has to downscale it when its shown in a page (at least on MediaWiki sites) - you may be running into a conservative file size limit

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think it must be the size - I've scaled it to half the size and now it works OK. I'd been assuming that all my images were about the same size but they obviously weren't: some of them ended up much bigger than others, probably because they'd needed less cropping, and this had probably put them over some limit. --rossb (talk) 20:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

You might also take a look at your server's error logs. If it is a cheap server host, you often have a limit to processor monopolization — your site only gets 1% or so of all CPU attention on the rack, and if it tries to get more, it gets temporarily stopped. For most web stuff you don't need a heavy server load, but in my experience, anything that has to do with image processing can be a heavy load indeed. So it may be that when PHP tries to make thumbnails of those big images, it is crapping out the server, and never completing. Just a hypothesis. You should be able to confirm or eliminate this possibility by looking at error logs or CPU usage logs. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:29, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Tech help

Ok, so I realized I couldn't access http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu recently and so I sent an email to them. Apparently the IP address I was trying to access the site from (one of the University of Oklahoma ones) tripped their Denial of service filter. They sent me an error they were receiving:

Sep 5 15:59:43 iemvs104 httpd[25812]: [error] [client 129.15.139.206]
Invalid URI in request GET HTTP/1.1

I have no idea what I could be doing that would cause this (I don't even know what the error means). My best guess is running an mIRC script to relay messages from the iembot RSS feeds into my Freenode IRC channel, but I've been doing that since at least the beginning of April with no problems. The script I have been using is http://www.mircscripts.org/comments.php?cid=3585 . Is this something that could be causing the error they sent me, and if so what can I do to correct it? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I can access the site listed at the top of your post. StuRat (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

If there's a place where you entered a URL, try http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/ (with the closing slash) rather than http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu. I think this is caused by a bug in the script, specifically in the lines

     sockwrite -n $sockname GET $regml(2) HTTP/1.1

which end up sending a bogus request to the server when there's no slash after the host name. It would be worth reporting this to the author if you know how, although it looks like the script hasn't been updated in years. -- BenRG (talk) 23:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I would think that may be it except that all the URLs I have the script using are RSS feeds with URLs in the form http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/iembot-rss/wfo/koun.xml (with the exception of all of them combined, which is at the URL http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/iembot-rss/wfo/botstalk.xml). I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing, but are there other possibilities? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 00:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Shadows on green screens

My local TV weatherman stands in front of a green screen and we see the weather map digitally substituted in for the green screen. One surprising thing, though, is that his shadow appears on the digital substitution. How ? (I would either expect no digital substitution or normal shade digital substitution.) StuRat (talk) 21:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Broadcasting not being my focus in meteorology I'm not for sure, but my best guess is that the darker shade of green the shadow produces isn't replaced as efficiently by the computer as the rest of the green screen...most commonly in my local market it results in a slightly fuzzy, static looking reproduction within the shadow he casts rather than a crisp, clear map or graphic. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

One thought I had is that they may intentionally reproduce the shadow, to make it more realistic, by substituting a darker digital version where darker green colors are detected, indicating that they are in shadow. StuRat (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Now that chroma keying is performed by digital computers (in software, or in specialized image-processing hardware), it is possible to perform arbitrarily complex operations to make the image look nice. For example, a bilateral filter can be used to perform color-masking that is weighted by "amount of green-ness." Nimur (talk) 23:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I've used the hardware used for this. http://www.ultimatte.com/ is the website of the people who make it, if you are interested. 217.158.236.14 (talk) 10:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

September 6

Laptop cooling pads

Can anyone recommend some reliable brands of cooling pads? Thanks in advance. 70.52.79.25 (talk) 04:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I have no specific recommendations, but I recently fixed a friend's computer that had massive overheating issues by setting it on top of a 8" fan while I worked on it. Seemed to do the trick. Many laptop overheating issues have to do with build ups of dust on the heat-sync components, so you might start there (some vigorous canned air can sometimes work wonders). Beyond that I'd just suggest getting something small, quiet, and preferably powered by the USB on the computer. Shadowjams (talk) 06:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you clarify "on top of" ? I picture the fan either blowing away from the computer of blowing no air at all, if it's intake side is flush to the floor. StuRat (talk) 10:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

A lot of them are just short flat platforms the laptop is meant to sit upon. I agree they're not usually very efficient, but results are results. You could also get something that attaches to a side vent port and cycles air rapidly in/out, which seems much more logical to me. They're pretty annoying whether they're quiet or not, get a desktop for heavy computing. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Just propping up the laptop only helps slightly. For compute-intensive tasks on a laptop, you need something with fans (the fan usually plugs into a USB port for power). I have one by Rosewill (newegg.com house brand) and it works, but there are a lot of models to choose from and I don't have a specific recommendation. 67.119.15.30 (talk) 04:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

1. An overheating laptop will usually shut down to protect your CPU. If it is not shutting down, verify that it actually is overheating before proceeding using Speedfan.
2. Place the laptop on a flat, hard surface. That should be enough to allow air to cool the device. If the laptop still overheats, proceed to step three, below.
3. Verify the fan works. If it never runs, replace it. Laptop fans aren't always on, but it should come on from time to time.
4. Disassemble the laptop and remove any dust inside.
5. Remove the CPU, clean it off, and apply a fresh coat of thermal grease to it. Then, insert the CPU back into the socket.

Laptops often feel hot. This is normal as hard drives always get very hot to the touch -- even in desktops. The difference is that desktop hard drives aren't touching your lap, so you never know how hot the metal is enclosing them. In other words, just because a laptop feels hot doesn't mean it's too hot.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

iPhone apps exit immediately after opening.

So one day, I got a quick succession of notifications on my Facebook iPhone app, and after that, every time I try to open it or all other third-party apps, it closes immediately. Apple apps work fine however. Is there a way I can solve this without wiping it clean? Trying to close them in the multitask thing doesn't work. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Try downloading a new app or replacing an existing app. Or connect it to a computer and select the restore option in iTunes. They (talk) 17:39, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

CloudFlare: how big is the cache per free account?

I assume free accounts are unable to use infinite amounts of cache-space, so I was wondering, is there is an upper limit to the size of the cache-space used per site (for free accounts)? My website is well over 300 gigabyte... They (talk) 17:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The terms of use says:

SECTION 10: LIMITATION ON NON-HTML CACHING

You acknowledge that CloudFlare's Service is offered as a platform to cache and serve web pages and websites and is not offered for other purposes, such as remote storage. Accordingly, you understand and agree to use the Service solely for the purpose of hosting and serving web pages as viewed through a web browser or other application and the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) protocol or other equivalent technology. CloudFlare's Service is also a shared web caching service, which means a number of customers' websites are cached from the same server. To ensure that CloudFlare's Service is reliable and available for the greatest number of users, a customer's usage cannot adversely affect the performance of other customers' sites. Additionally, the purpose of CloudFlare's Service is to proxy web content, not store data. Using an account primarily as an online storage space, including the storage or caching of a disproportionate percentage of pictures, movies, audio files, or other non-HTML content, is prohibited. You further agree that if, at CloudFlare's sole discretion, you are deemed to have violated this section, or if CloudFlare, in its sole discretion, deems it necessary due to excessive burden or potential adverse impact on CloudFlare's systems, potential adverse impact on other users, server processing power, server memory, abuse controls, or other reasons, CloudFlare may suspend or terminate your account without notice to or liability to you.

Exactly how this section should be interpreted probably strays into legal advice territory, and hence is unsuitable for discussion here. Contact a lawyer if you need to be sure how this affects you and your site. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

4G LTE = simultaneous voice + data?

Does 4G LTE technology allow simultaneous voice and data? If so, do all US mobile carriers features simultaneous voice and data on their 4G LTE networks? I'm coming from a 3G phone, where only AT&T's US network has this functionality (Verizon and Sprint cannot do simultaneous voice and data on their 3G network). --157.254.51.253 (talk) 18:29, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't give a precise answer, but can provide some relevant background. LTE and 3G handle voice in a fundamentally different way. In 3G it's carried on a dedicated circuit. In LTE, it's just regarded as another form of data, and is carried as VoIP. So there's no fundamental reason why voice and data can't be carried simultaneously on 4G - it would simply depend on the 'phone's capabilities and how the network has been designed.--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Downloading website

I've been informed that a website containing lots of information, which I use daily, is going to close down shortly and that I should download as much of it as I can before it goes. Is there a simple, non-geeky way to do this? I should make clear that I have the owner's permission to do this by the way. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Do a Google search for "website grabbers" or "website rippers". If you are using a Mac, check out SiteSucker. --157.254.51.253 (talk) 18:49, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

httrack is probably the best option. The filter system is quite complex, and if you do not specify the filters correctly it may start downloading other websites as well, or miss the pages that you wanted to download. If you post the website I can post filters which should ensure a good download. AvrillirvA (talk) 19:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

www.aetw.org is the site. Thanks for the offer, I'm really totally ungeeky. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Download this and extract the folder contained in zip file. Open notepad and copy the following;

Extended content
@echo off httrack.exe -F "Mozilla/5.0" --footer "" -#L20000000 --sockets=2 -%%c35 -T60 -R3 -s0 -C0 -I0 -z -v --near http://www.aetw.org/ -O ".\download" "-*" "+http://www.aetw.org/*" "-*?*=*" "-http://*http://*" cls & echo Download complete! & pause

Save this file to the httrack folder with "download.bat" (without quotes) as the filename and "all files" as the save type. Then double-click the "download.bat" file and the download will start. The site seems relativly small so the download should not take long, maybe half an hour depending on your connection speed. And that's it! The entire site should now be saved in the "download" folder AvrillirvA (talk) 19:51, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! --TammyMoet (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Image processing question

I have 92 PNG images that I have taken as screenshots from my computer. Every single one of them contains the same window at the exact same position and size. I want to mass process these images, taking only this window in the resulting images. In other words, I want to mass process 92 PNG images, cropping a rectangular area, which has the exact same coordinates and size in every single image, as 92 resulting PNG images. Can, for example, ImageMagick do this, and how? JIP | Talk 20:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I usually resort to chopping off edges, but there are many other ways you could go about it. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

No personal experience here but sounds like Irfanview can do that sort of thing.. Vespine (talk) 23:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

It won't help with your current problem, but in Windows Alt+PrintScreen will just take a screenshot of the current window, not the whole screen. It could help you avoid needing to do this step in the future. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 12:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

& in Unixland you could use gtk-recordMyDesktop et al.. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:27, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

It’s sound like a problem to resolve with photoshop …

In photoshop, open one of the pictures and look for the toolbar “actions”, in the window menu

Then in the actions toolbar click in “create new action” … put it a name that you can easily remember and identify and click “record”

The next step is to crop your image just the way you want, and save the image with a different name (in case that you want to replace each image instead of keep the originals, just save it whit the same name), and when you finish click “stop” in the action toolbar.

Now that you have your action, you can go to the “file” menu and click in the “automate” submenu and once here click in the “batch” option.

The first thing you’ll see in the batch window give you two options, I don’t remember very well, but you only have to change the one with the “action” label; click in the list and select the action that you have just created:

Below all this, is the “source” label, make sure that the “folder” option is selected and then click in “choose”, to… choose the folder where all your images are, click in “OK” and all your images will be automatically cropped.

How do I post a link on Facebook?

How do I post a link to a webpage on Facebook these days? Earlier, entering a URL in a Facebook status automatically added an extra box in the status update offering a link to the page, with a preview of the target page, including part of the text and one image. Earlier still, there was an explicit "add a link" option. Now, entering a URL in a status update only adds the URL (which Facebook automatically turns into an HTML link), and adding any text after it adds the text as normal. Of course, there is no explicit "add a link" option any more. It seems still possible to post links from external sites who have a "post on Facebook" option, but do I have to create an external web site and install "post on Facebook" functionality just to post a link on Facebook? JIP | Talk 21:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

My Facebook does the "automatic" conversion you mention in the beginning when pasted into the status bar. Sometimes the AJAX fails to recognize when I've pasted in a link, but usually a refresh fixes that. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:31, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

As Mr. 98 said, I just add the link in the status box and FB autogenerates the link and, usually, a thumbnail. (Though sometimes I'm flummoxed as to where it gets the image) After the link and thumbnail are generated, I generally delete the URL in the status box and put in my own comment. After hitting Post, both my comment and the link are posted. I don't know why there needs to be a paste and delete step to the process but that's the way it is. Dismas|^(talk) 01:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Just as an aside, the image is either some image on the page (typical outcome) or an image specified in the metadata of the page as the image Facebook should use that may not display on the page at all. So some of the weirder images are actually ones that the site master have suggested FB use, though perhaps unwittingly. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Recovering deleted songs on iPod

I attempted to sync a friend's iPod to my computer, completely forgetting that doing so requires erasing the songs on the device, as my intention was to transfer the files from the iPod to the PC. Since it's been so long since I used iTunes for that purpose, I couldn't even figure out how to sync it, it would only play the music from the iPod while it was connected. I thought this was an error on iTunes' part, so I uninstalled then reinstalled the program several times, then finally gave up on it. So I turned to Windows Media Player and installed MGTEK dopisp on it to enable syncing with an iPod. I did the whole process, it asked if I wanted to erase everything on it, and I specifically selected NO. So after it finished syncing, all the songs showed up in the Media Library and played fine. Well, I unplugged the iPod, then replugged it again as soon as I noticed that the playlist disappeared when it wasn't connected, then to my horror saw that the music on the device was completely gone. I don't know how that happened, but I have to rectify this error quickly as it isn't my iPod. 70.52.79.25 (talk) 21:46, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure the audio isn't on the computer? Sometimes those iPod syncing apps can really hide the data well. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

September 7

Domain name pricing

Someone has made an offer for a domain name that I own and I'm trying to guess a fair price. I haven't found much useful online. Okay, it's interesting that sex.com was sold for $13M, but I'm not in that ballpark. More like soccerballs.com or thursday.com. Any suggestions? Charles Horse (talk) 01:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do not trust sites like buydomains.com, they are crazy, they list AAdIThyAaTravels.com for $280. My advice would be to try and figure out how much they depend on this particular domainname to make their dreams come true. Some people write a whole businessplan about their brand before discovering that the domain was taken by someone else. Other people are more flexible. In order to determine how much it is worth to them you should try and figure out what they would use it for, and how much it would make if that was done correctly. But if it is any good, why sell it now? Selling a domain without a website is pretty stupid. By building even the most basic website you can inflate the price and sell them something they don't need at the same time. Artificially inflating the visitor stats is childsplay, and of course you present the facts as favorable as possible. Forget the fact there is a difference between hits and unique visitors. Invite all scrapers/spiders to your site. Tell them that 15.000 people visited the website last month, but don't mention the fact you hired a xrumer service. If the URL contains a productname or productcategory and you want to make the domain even more expensive you can consider becoming a "competitor" to them by having a site that looks like it offers the same product/service. They (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC) p.s. Calling their competitors and asking them if they would like to own the domain and, if so, how much they would be willing to spend on it may also get you valuable data.

Offering to sell a domain to a specific party can also get you sued for extortion, I've heard; it's much safer to put it up for auction. —Tamfang (talk) 03:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you joking? Please read the articles extortion and coercion. I don't know where you've heard that, but it sounds like nonsense. Are you aware we are not allowed (and not able) to give legal advice? They (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I think Tamfang is referring to cybersquatting. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 10:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

More precisely, to accusations of domain squatting. You say to Company, "I have this domain that I'm not using; you seem the most likely to have a use for it, so do you want it for $X?" Company goes to court alleging that you registered the domain for the purpose of getting money out of Company, and the proof is your offer. Court transfers your domain to Company without compensation. I have no idea whether this has happened often .... —Tamfang (talk) 21:31, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

A fair price for a domain is how much you spent on it and nothing more. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely WRONG. A fair price is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller when neither is forced into the transaction. Reiso's position is best summarized as "there's no such thing as value added."

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You've confused a price that you can legally get away with and a fair price. Selling something for the maximum you can get for it is rarely fair. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

How about buying something for the minimum you can get away with? —Tamfang (talk) 07:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

That would usually be the cost of obtaining it in the first place (plus some kind of profit, typically [however minimal]). Someone selling something at a loss is (essentially) no one's fault but their own. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Whereas if someone buys at an "unfairly" high price, it's always someone else's fault? —Tamfang (talk) 00:58, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

@Reiso: Are you joking? Its hard to tell over the internet. They (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Nope. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

OK. The difficult thing with the word 'fair' is that it is a matter of opinion. A long time ago I made up a brandname that I liked. I never used it, because I never needed it, but I did register the domains. In my POV it is fair to reward me for having the bright idea to register those domains before someone else did. I do dislike domainsquatters and typosquatters, but I think it can be fair to ask a higher price than the amount you spent registering the domain (a couple of bucks). They (talk) 21:39, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a matter of opinion, but there is broad consensus. :p While realistically asking a couple of bucks more than what you paid on a domain, for example, is not really going to piss anyone off, as a percentage a couple of bucks is a massive profit from what you originally paid (what, $10, conservatively?). And no, you don't deserve a reward for buying and monopolizing something you never used. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I think Reiso has a good point to make. When I was looking for a domain name that I liked and reflected my interests, pretty much every name I could think of was already taken - not by an organisation of that name, not by someone with a personal website, but someone who had registered domains in their thousands and was willing to sell me the name, with or without hosting, for prices well in excess of the registration cost. And these weren't even close to the names or well known brands/celebrities that cybersquatters might snap up hoping to turn a huge profit. To the OP; if you do sell, I implore you, try to sell to someone who actually wants to use the domain rather then simply park a page saying this "domain is for sale". Astronaut (talk) 13:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

If you put it up for auction, you can assume that the buyer will be someone who actually wants to use the domain, if there is such a someone. Squatters won't bid more than they think any user will pay! —Tamfang (talk) 01:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Computer keyboards with brightly colored keys used for video editing

I've seen computer keyboards with brightly colored keys that are used for video editing. The keyboards look like they have regular qwerty-layout. Do these keyboards have a specific name? (I can't find any images of them in either Computer keyboard or Linear video editing nor on Commons so if anyone has an image they'd be willing to upload, that would be appreciated.) --Bensin (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I usually call them video editing keyboards or audio editing keyboards. You can simply convert your regular boring keyboard to a video editing keyboard by using stickers. There are different stickersets for different programs: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 - Final Cut Pro 7. Some of those things with brightly colored keys are more than just a regular keyboard (see pictures). The habit of making certain keys brightly colored in order to more easily remember shortcuts is very old, and not restricted to audio/video editing, for example stockbrokers and gamers do it too. They (talk) 02:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC) p.s. Do not click here.

images
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
CMX-IMG 9559 Stockbrokers use 'em too, read Bloomberg Terminal Stockbroker in action Old hardware More old hardware

Thanks They! I also found this image. --Bensin (talk) 12:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Some of the primary schools that I work in use these sim computers 2/280-7472471-6129949 --TrogWoolley (talk) 13:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Parsing guides.

I want to know how it's possible to parse something, If I search for 'parsing tutorials' I usually get non-useful results. I'm talking about parsing Starts and ends. when they're stacked. I think the best way for parsing them is getting them into arrays. So for example if I have.

Start content content content Start content start start end start end end end start end

Or something similar, if I want them to get into arrays, how/what should I do?

Your example contains 6 "start"s and only 5 "end"s. You should explain what you are trying to do with that example. Do you want nested loops ? StuRat (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you want to create a nested data structure? I don't understand how you want to parse them given your example.

However you want to split up a flat list though (this would be like taking any delimited file) you probably can do it fastest using some regular expression to split where you need to. Shadowjams (talk) 06:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The question is not very clear, but one way or another, parsing something like that should give you a tree structure -- arrays won't work. The specific algorithm you use will depend on what sort of tree-representation you want, but any useful algorithm is going to be recursive. Looie496 (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Arrays certainly aren't the optimal way to store a tree structure, but, if you aren't concerned about efficiency, they could be used:

US President   US Vice-President
------------   -----------------
Washington     Adams
Adams          Jefferson
Jefferson      Burr
Jefferson      Clinton
Madison        Clinton
Madison        (vacant)
Madison        Gerry
Madison        (vacant)

The deeper the tree structure and the more items added at each level, the less efficient this approach will be. StuRat (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

But to answer the general question: You need to understand your language, probably describing it by a formal grammar and design data structures that can represent your data. Then you need a parser that can translate the text into the data structures. The format you seem to describe is a quite simple context-free language that can be parsed by e.g. a recursive descent parser into either a tree or nested lists. Typically, a practical parser has different layers, the most important ones being lexical analysis and syntactic analysis. I think its useful and fun to write your own parser, but there also are plenty of tools. Flex can generate the lexical analyser, Bison the syntactic parse. Parsing has an overview. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Most comfortable NC headphones

Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I'm in the market for the most comfortable noise cancelling headphones. Comfort is the primary attribute because after about 30 minutes or so, my ears start to hurt. I'm not sure why this is, but I've had this problem all my life. Ideally, I would like to be able to wear them for more than an hour without worrying about comfort. I'll be using them for listening to academic lectures and podcasts (iTunes university, news, etc.), jazz, classical music, and for apps like GarageBand, etc. If possible, I would like to be able to use them on both my desktop and my iPhone/iPod, but primarily for my mobile devices. Viriditas (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

And what noise are you trying to cancel ? Also, have you tried traditional (noise damping rather than noise cancelling) headphones ? (Those are the big headphones that enclose your ears.) If so, why are they unsatisfactory ? StuRat (talk) 03:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Outside noise. Cars, trucks, and of course, use on airplanes. I've worn them so I know how big they are. The unsatisfactory part comes from the shape of my ears, possibly due to their anatomical structure. I need a pair that are known primarily for their comfort. Viriditas (talk) 03:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always used Bose headphones and can wear them for an entire evening (quality comes at a price). Don't know about NC with that brand but their simulation of ambient sound is amazing. Anything else makes my ears hurt after a few minutes. Sandman30s (talk) 10:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Mmm. I use Bose QuietComfort 15 NC headphones; the ear pads grip the skull around the ear rather than compress the ear; I find them comfortable enough to wear all day & night. Suffice to say I'm on my second pair, my last ones having disintegrated after years of harsh use. (And when that happens, the Bose people let you buy a new pair at about 30% of the normal price :). --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that is pretty much my only choice, isn't it? Viriditas (talk) 01:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

For the penultimate in noise reduction and comfort, you have to shell out for the Bose A20 aviation noise-cancellation headset]. It combines the active electronics available on the stereo headsets, with extra passive noise-reducing padding; it has per-ear volume controls, and a main volume control, and a noise squelch control; and is among the most comfortable and rugged headsets I've ever used. The fit is snug but adjustable. It's a little bit pricey, and it you plan to connect it to a computer or stereo, you'll need at least one (possibly two) adapter cables to convert from aviation-jack to quarter-inch, and then to 3.5mm standard audio connector. But, the request was for most comfortable, not most reasonable choice. Nimur (talk) 15:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Those are nice, but I'm going to be using them for mobile devices, and that means running and jogging. Viriditas (talk) 01:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

When you say your ears hurt, are you talking about the area around the ears where the headphones rest, or are you talking about pain in the ear canal? I know that active noise-canceling headphones cause ear canal pain for some people (I'm one). If that's your problem you might consider passive noise-attenuating headphones instead. I have Sennheiser HD-280 PRO headphones and I like them a lot: they block a surprising amount of noise and I can wear them for over an hour without pain (but they definitely do press around the ears, so your mileage may vary). Another possibility is in-ear monitors, which are basically earplugs with speakers in them. For a few hundred dollars you can even get them custom-molded from an impression of your ear canal. -- BenRG (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, I guess this isn't your problem... -- BenRG (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

From their description of the problem above, it sounds like they just have big ears or they stick out, so they really need a rather large set of earphones that won't pinch them, whether they use active electronic noise reduction or simply passive sound insulation. I suppose some ear plugs/ear buds might solve the problem, too, although I've never found them acceptable. They seem unsanitary and uncomfortable, to me, although they do prevent another problem with full-sized headphones ... sweaty ears. StuRat (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I need a large set of earphones that allow the ears to sit comfortably within. Which reminds me, has anyone made earphones that look like your ears, but just slightly larger so that you ears fit inside them? I would buy those in a minute. Viriditas (talk) 01:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I think an air gap is desirable, or else you can get anaerobic bacteria growth and contact dermatitis. Reducing the area of contact lessens both of these effects. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Something that also occurs to me is, how come there is no way to tell if you are listening to music at a safe volume? Would that entail installing sound meters in the headphones? Viriditas (talk) 01:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

This is actually discussed at Headphones#Dangers and volume solutions. -- BenRG (talk) 01:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I would expect a human to be a better judge than electronics, in most cases, because of the complexity of sounds. For example, a sound with all of the volume at one frequency may be more damaging than one with the volume evenly dispersed across frequencies. On the other hand, if the loud frequencies are ones you can't hear (such as high frequencies we all lose the ability to hear with age), then they aren't a problem. Also, sound which varies dramatically in volume might be more of a problem than sounds at a steady volume. StuRat (talk) 01:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Problems playing a Windows 98 game on a Vista computer

I am attempting to play Impossible Creatures on my Vista computer, and keep getting an error where we can't create a profile, it says "unknown error." We own a very old hard copy, but after this wouldnt work we even tried an online version. Strangely, the demo version available on the official website works perfectly, though it appears to have been a very different game when that demo was made.

We've read the threads on the internet detailing this problem, and we can't figure out what exactly they want us to do with ICconfig. Every other solution has not worked. We have tried disabling anti-virus, editing in all forms the Profiles folder, reinstalling, and running in Compatibility Mode. We'd appreciate any solutions that don't involve ICconfig as well, as ICconfig works in the demo. 174.253.245.104 (talk) 05:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Try right-clicking on the application and choosing to run it as an Administrator. Also, are you using the 32- or 64-bit version of Windows Vista?—Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You are the best dog ever! Running as Administrator worked! :D 174.253.245.104 (talk) 06:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the oldest web site still in continuous operation but that has not been updated since it started?

What is the oldest web site still in continuous operation but that has not been updated since it started? 15:27, 7 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neptunekh2 (talk • contribs)

This Telegraph article suggests that the title-holder is a page entitled Hypertext Links, written by the high priest of the internet himself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It's reportedly the last remaining unmodified fragment of the birth of the World Wide Web. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course, it depends what you mean by "not updated." That website contains very old HTML (even the syntax is archaic); most of the content was updated a very long time ago; but the web server is (reportedly) running Apache 2, released circa 2010. It is quite probable that the original web-server software and hardware is/was so esoteric that it "wouldn't work" - most users would not be able to connect to it unless they had a NeXTcube or a SPARCstation. Bear in mind that the WorldWideWeb originated on NeXT machines, with NeXT text-encoding (NSNEXTSTEPStringEncoding), wacky network byte orders, and draft versions of the HTTP protocol and HTML markup languages. No doubt, the files were stored on disk with a NeXT file-system. Even around here, it's improbable anyone can still load such data from disk, let alone deliver it via the web. It is very probable that the HTML-format page contents were repeatedly copied and hosted on much more modern systems spanning the several generations of computing standards since their creation. Nimur (talk) 17:14, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Favorites in Order

I am planning on transferring my internet favorites over to a new computer soon, but I want to have them arranged in their current order instead of alphabetically. I have favorites on the Internet Explorer browser, the Google Chrome browser, and the Mozilla Firefox browser. Can anyone explain to me how to export the favorite files in a way that keeps their order? Thanks. Rabuve (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Each of the programs listed can export bookmarks to an HTML file, keeping their customised order (I think - I have been able to test this in Chrome and it worked). Here are instructions for Chrome, Firefox and IE. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Why not try Firefox Sync and you can do much the same from the settings menu on Chrome. Of course you would have to choose how much you trust them with your passwords and I usually don't bother with the open tabs. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 03:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

iMac is generally slow

I have an Apple iMac desktop computer which is several years old. I do realize it needs replacing – I'm waiting for Apple to update the range. In the meantime, though, I'm getting frustrated by how slowly it performs. I'm not talking about network issues, I'm talking about things like firing up applications, fast user switching, putting it to sleep and so on. I get the "spinning beachball" all the time. Everything seems to take a lot longer than it did when the computer was new. What are some possible causes of this? Is the hard drive being almost full one of them? (I have 132gb used and only 16gb free.) Would freeing up some of that space help, and is there anything else I can do to speed the machine up? Thanks. --Viennese Waltz 15:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yup, a hard drive clean up is normally a good place to start. It might not make a massive difference, but it will definitely make things better and not worse. http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Speed_Up_Your_Mac shows other tips which seem sensible, though personally I'd leave upgrading hardware until having tried their other suggestions. You might want to pay particular attention to cleaning your startup items, given the slow boot process you mention.

If this were a PC I would heavily recommend giving the inside of your machine a good clean - removing dust and hairs from the fans can often give a substantial speed boost. However it seems like getting at the gubbins of an iMac is a little tricky. However, if you're handy with a screwdriver a guide can be found here - that's specifically for a 20" model but you can search for others. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You might also take a look with Activity Monitor and see what's going on with the memory. In my experience, Macs start to grind to a halt when their available memory (RAM) is low, and they start swapping stuff in around the hard drive. It becomes a nasty one-two punch with old machines and old hard drives. Sometimes a RAM upgrade can be very cheap and do a world of difference in this respect. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree very much. MacOS-X is, mostly, a UNIX, and the general rule of thumb is to give any UNIX as much RAM as you can afford. Swapping becomes more and more painful as machines become faster. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

MayI ask what OS are you running and please do not say "Mac". I mean the version of the Mac OS. 220.239.37.244 (talk) 01:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

List/notification mail reevaluation and filtering

I receive automated notifications and list mail from a lot of individually-infrequent sources in my Gmail account, and I need to reduce the rate in a hurry. Are there any software tools that can assist in the process of finding distinct frequent mail sources/types, identifying those worth keeping, and filtering/unsubscribing the rest? NeonMerlin 17:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Creating a "pretty" ASCII PPM file

I've been able to convert other graphics file formats into PPM ASCII, using ImageMagick, but I don't like how they look. Specifically, let's say I want a 2×2 PPM ASCII file. I want the body to be separated by line, and, ideally by pixel, like so:

R(1,1,R) R(1,1,G) R(1,1,B)   R(1,2,R) R(1,2,G) R(1,2,B)  

R(2,1,R) R(2,1,G) R(2,1,B)   R(2,2,R) R(2,2,G) R(2,2,B)

Or, with actual data:

255   0   0     0   0 255
  0   0   0     0 255   0

What I get is them all run together, which makes it hard to read the file:

255 0 0 0 0 255 0 0 0 0 255 0

I realize that the pretty version will take up considerably more space, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for increased readability. Any suggestions ? If not PPM ASCII, how about other human readable formats ? StuRat (talk) 20:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Insert a tab character after every third number? Insert a line-break after (width x 3) numbers? This task can be implemented via a shell script, or even written in FORTRAN. sed or perl would be well-suited to the task; you can install either of those on your system. Here's Perl 5.16.1 for Windows. Nimur (talk) 20:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and that's what I'll do if I must, but I was hoping some utility exists which outputs the ASCII PPM file already in the right format. And note that each column is right-justified, which is important for readability, since the number of digits in each column is variable. Also, I'd prefer blanks rather than tabs, as they sometimes cause problems. StuRat (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, while my "bad" example above shows the body all on one line, in reality it does seem to eventually hit the end of some line length limit, and start a new line. Unfortunately, this may be in the middle of an R,G,B set (not sure if it actually is or not). So, fixing it may not only require adding spaces and lines breaks, but removing line breaks that fall mid-R,G,B set. StuRat (talk) 00:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Web animations/games

Hi, what is the technology used to create the interactive animations/games on Google's front page? They do not seem to be Flash, as far as I can tell. 86.128.4.124 (talk) 20:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

The content featured on Google.com today uses HTML5 and JavaScript, a modern form of dynamic HTML. Google intentionally obfuscates the script source to make it difficult for casual users to analyze, study, or copy the script code. Nimur (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about that, I think they're just into minimization, and their code is pretty ugly already. :p Source? ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. 86.128.4.124 (talk) 22:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Basic webdesign tutorial

I have a website which contains text of varying length which is taken from a database. I would like to arrange these text elements on the page without breaking the layout. So I guess a fairly common problem. Are there any good tutorials or other help available that explain various methods to tackle such problems? bamse (talk) 23:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What you likely need is a tutorial in Cascading Style Sheets, which allow you to do quite a lot of manipulation to content without changing the content at all (or doing tricky things with scripts). You might also look into jQuery, which makes the tricky scripting bits (which gives you a lot more power, like sorting lists dynamically) a lot easier. But the short version is, I'm really not sure what it is you're trying to do — a more concrete example of what kind of text you're talking about and what you want to do with it would really help — so I'm just giving you very general suggestions as to what to search for tutorials for. If you want something more specific, be more specific in outlining your problem, so that we can best direct you to the places that would be most useful to you. A truly basic webdesign tutorial likely would not cover the specific sorts of manipulations you're talking about, because dealing with existing data structures that you can't modify (or don't want to) is something of a specific constraint on webdesigning. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

You may want to play around with overflow: auto; (combined with a width [and possibly white-space: pre;]). ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I know it's important to you to show the world that you know many things about computers, but telling someone who wants a "basic webdesign tutorial," but doesn't seem to know any of the relevant terminology or technology, that they should "play around with" various CSS selectors is not extremely helpful to the OP, nor does it impress those of us who know CSS, either. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mr.98 ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I'll have a look at overflow: auto. I am maybe not an expert, but understand the basics of html and css. So I am not looking for a general css introduction. To give an example of what I want to do: Say, I have three text elements (strings) which are pulled from a database. I don't know their length beforehand but would like to display them in one line (e.g. #1 left aligned, #2 centered, #3 right aligned). The problem I have is that on small resolution screens or for long strings the rendering will likely be broken and I might get a horizontal scroll bar or perhaps a linebreak. So my question is how to make it look good at most screen resolutions and for long string lengths. For instance I could think of automatically cutting the strings adding "..." or perhaps allowing for "good looking" linebreaks somehow or perhaps making some reasonable assumptions on the number of characters of the strings in the database. Also (if possible) I would like to learn whether there is any correspondence between number of characters in a string and the displayed width of that string. The exact layout (wireframe) of the page is not fixed yet, as it will depend on what options there are for cutting/arranging long strings/texts. bamse (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The simplest way to predict length of a string is to use font-family: monospace;. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. bamse (talk) 09:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Video effect that mimics something being recorded off of a TV screen with a video camera?

Is this actually a thing? I've seen this sort of thing cropping up on YouTube recently - as though the uploaders have intentionally done something to a video to make it look as though it was recorded from TV by someone holding their camera in front of the screen (so the thing sways and wobbles back and forth and pans up and down). It appears far more 'clean' than it would if they'd actually done this for real - and looks absolutely idiotic, IMO. Is this a new 'feature' that's recently been added to a popular video editing software title? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Somewhat related: I've seen hand-held camera work many times, such as in The Blair Witch Project and in some previous US Republican political commercials. In both cases they were trying to fool the audience, in the first case to make it look like an amateur documentary, and in the second case to make it look like a grass roots message, not one from a billionaire contributor. Deception was the goal in both cases. StuRat (talk) 23:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the point, in the first case, of calling it deception? Deception is a part of fiction, fiction is deception. Qpl87 (talk) 12:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, in the case of The Blair Witch Project, they claimed it was a real documentary, not fiction, right down to having fake info on their website. This was the deception. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm almost positive this is a post-effect. I remember seeing it last year. Viriditas (talk) 01:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It’s very easy, for example in Adobe After Effects, you only have to track the motion of the TV’s screen, with something called “perspective corner pin” in the animation menu, don’t remember exactly where but it’s easy to find, and once you finish the tracking, you can apply the perspective transformation to the video and it looks just like it’s right there. If you have A.Effects cs6 then there is a real 3d camera tracker that automatically interprets the scene and lets you to put the video in whatever place you want. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs) 05:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

September 8

i want tcs current details

hi ! iam going to attend tcs india interview.i want tcs current details.like its achievements,clients,services,employees ,revenue etc.i tried in net.but i am getting old information.can any one provide? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 01:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Care to tell us which TCS from that link you mean, if any ? Tata Consultancy Services ? StuRat (talk) 01:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Which is the actual benefit of a Tesla card in rendering?

We have a very little little render farm (actually it’s just nine core i7 connected by LAN) and we render mostly in ‘mental ray’, ‘scanline’, and ‘quicksilver’ (all autodesk 3ds max 2012) Each pc consists of an i7-2600 + an Asrock p67pro3 + 16 gb ram + GTS450 (with quadro2000 drivers) + etc… and all linked by LAN Having in mind the rendering motors that I use, my question is… how exactly a Tesla would affect my rendering times? Sure I could buy one and then give it a try, but these things are too much expensive, I mean real expensive… that’s why I’m asking. Other thing… someone knows if there is the possibility of transform a GeForce card in a Tesla equivalent?? (Kind like I did with the gts450-> quadro2000 but for rendering instead of modeling proposes) Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 05:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

Rotate Google Map?

I'm looking at a Google map where the street names I need to read run vertically. Is there an easy way to rotate the Google map 90 degrees to put the names upright? (While remaining in the Google Map program)

Thanks. Wanderer57 (talk) 12:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Sagemath in LaTex

If you have something like:

\begin{sagesilent}
G=Graphics()
H=Graphics()
var('x')
G+=plot(cos(x),(x,0,pi))
H+= text("$\cos(x)$", (1, 1), fontsize=16, color='black')
\end{sagesilent}
\[ \sageplot{G+H}\] 

into a tex file, how can you tell Latex to place it on the left or right, and to make it smaller, or even to show it vertically? Note: the whole thing is showing correctly, but just too big in the middle of the page Qpl87 (talk) 12:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Turing test for human scoring

I'd eventually like to get myself copied into an AI, but I'm concerned about whether I -- or any sufficiently accurate copy of me -- could pass a Turing test. How can I get myself scored on a Turing test, preferably against both computer and human norms? 69.158.1.219 (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There isn't really "scoring" on Turing tests. It's not like a standardized assessment. It's just about whether other people can tell you from an AI bot or not. That's basically it. Do people routinely say, "wait, you're just a chatbot, aren't you?" If not, then you probably "pass". It's actually a very low bar, and there are chatbots that pass it routinely. I've met users on Wikipedia who I've found to be barely above a chatbot — they reply stiffly, they basically seem only capable of recycling existing content, they don't seem to be able to engage whatsoever — but it's a rare thing (and I'm unsure what accounts for it — language difficulties? autism or other spectrum disorder? general awkwardness? maybe they really are chatbots?). --Mr.98 (talk) 15:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You could apply to be a human contestant in the Loebner Prize - a Turing Test based contest pitting humans against computers. Wired has an article written by a previous contestant - What's It Mean to Be Human, Anyway? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Java

What are major and minor elements in JAVA 199 (talk) 14:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I have a suspicion you can find the information you seek from Java (programming language). ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

No, this doesnt help, searched a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Intr199 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Where did you see this terminology? Looie496 (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Major and minor elements refer to the object model proposed by Grady Booch, not to Java specifically. According to Booch, for a language to be fully object-oriented it has to possess 7 elements, the major are abstraction, modularity, hierarchy, and encapsulation. The minor elements are persistence, typing, and concurrency. Programming languages may implement only some of these elements and be object-oriented to a different degree. ListCheck (talk) 17:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the point of LaTex? II

I asked this question above, but now I want a different perspective. Mostly the answers' tendency was concentrated on what the user was doing (CVS, scripting, choosing what he means, but not what he sees). I want now to know from a typographical perspective. Is there any effect that can only be produced with a LaTex editors and not with Word/Quark X/Scribus/InDesign? It's clear that each editor has its limitations, I can't, for example, import pictures into my notepad .txt file, no matter how hard I try. 17:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Comploose (talk • contribs) http://media-cache-ec6.pinterest.com/upload/59883870014903546_RaTehfZB.jpg

I think that depends on the definition of "can". In principle, Microsoft probably can implement formatting code that will yield typography comparable to (La)TeX. In practice, LaTeX produces better results. I once had to submit a CV in Word format, and, at first glance, thought it looked pretty good. Then I put it next to the LaTeX original, which quite changed my perception. I see two other advantages with LaTeX. First, I can simply type simple formulas, which is much faster than using the formula editor in Word (and, of course, the result looks better). Secondly, I can see the actual logical structure of the source and all formatting. In Word, I never know if that space between to italic words is, by accident, bold (or whatever ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

In principle, anything LaTeX can do, other typesetting programs, markup languages, or word processors can also do. In practice, many people prefer LaTeX because they find it convenient. Other people find LaTeX inconvenient. It is strictly a matter of preference. Nimur (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Is there any effect that can only be produced with a LaTex editors...? What do you mean by "LaTeX editors"? (La)TeX files are plain text files, so you can use any text editor including notepad to write your documents/texts without limitations. Also not sure what you mean by "effects". bamse (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the OP mean some LaTex compiler. 80.31.74.137 (talk) 22:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The standard LaTeX document styles tend to give a very "classic" sort of presentation. Serif fonts (except for beamer), extra space between sentences, lovingly crafted (almost calligraphic) symbols. To me this is preferable to the web-page-like stuff you get from Nimur's preferred HTML (at least, without a lot of special fiddling). But it's an aesthetic judgment. --Trovatore (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You could also write a CSS that looks as classic as your LaTex template. That's not that common because people tend to use CSS and LaTex in different environments: the first in web-design and the second in typography design for printed material. And I do think is better to stick to each technology depending of your purpose (web or stuff to be printed (including pdfs).

Another difference to be considered is if you want to use the wysiwyg or the wysiwym paradigm. Only the last letter is different, but both approaches are miles apart. If you care about the appearance of your text, like in the case of a popular magazine, the first is more appropriate. If you care about the logical connection of the elements, like in the case of a scientific text, use the second. 80.31.74.137 (talk) 22:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that you should use WYSIWYG if you care about the appearance. Appearance comes out better in the long run if you have a well-designed program that takes care of it automatically, based on the logical structure, than if you have to be fiddling with it all the time as you're writing. The only thing that's better about WYSIWYG is that it's easier to get something that looks approximately right, because it's a one-step process, whereas with something like LaTeX you likely have to make at least one extra pass to clean up stuff that the automatic approach didn't get quite how you want it.

It's quite imaginable that something similar to LaTeX could be implemented in CSS, though I don't know of any such package. I suspect, though, that it would be order-of-magnitude as big, complicated, and hard to learn, as LaTeX. --Trovatore (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, the CSS file is roughly equivalent to a LaTeX style file. The HTML is roughly equivalent to a LaTeX source file. And the rendering engine (e.g. Gecko or WebKit) is comparable to the TeX/LaTeX "compiler". The whole thing is slightly obscured because LaTeX is just a set of macros for TeX. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, so what you'd need is some huge interconnected set of CSS files that can include each other. Or something. I really don't know much about CSS so I don't know how that works. But I'm sure you couldn't get equivalent functionality with a single CSS of reasonable size. --Trovatore (talk) 23:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but no matter how good your CSS, unless your rendering engine supports the typographic intricacies that make TeX output look great, no amont of CSS will help. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

But which typographic intricacies are those? This is something Knuth fans always have trouble actually nailing down. Do you have a particular attachment to a specific interpolation-algorithm used by TeX to render some specific glyph? Anecdotally, most colleagues and readers I have experimented on can not tell the difference between a document prepared with TeX, and a document I have created in Microsoft Word and applied the Computer Modern font. Many years ago, TeX had a clear advantage over its competitors: the kerning and typesetting was more sophisticated. But today, every major text layout engine, whether intended for word-processing or web content, supports these features: they are taken as a given. While these features are still "intricate," I don't believe TeX's implementation is in any respect distinctive; this sort of support is what I consider basic functionality in every word-processor. Variable-width character glyphs are no longer novel. Advanced line-editing and layout is universally available. WYSIWYG editors, like LibreOffice, now support elaborate character editing - via both a graphical menu, or through direct markup; documents may embed styles or import style definitions from an external style sheet; so if the claim is that TeX offers anything special with respect to character layout and rendering, I call shenanigans. These are standard features. As far as I can tell, the chief advantage of using TeX is the ability to rapidly enter mathematical formulae, especially by skilled users who have memorized large quantities of style markup syntax. And personally, when I see Knuth's example of attention to detail... what I see is: 1) crudely color-matched paletted GIF images whose background color is neither transparent, nor identical to his HTML document; 2) significant aliasing due to a low-resolution render that has been upsampled; and 3) a discolored highlight surrounding the glyph. These artifacts affect both "bad-case" and "good-case" TeX renders. When somebody so famous for attention to detail can overlook these issues, I have very little patience when they proceed to complain about serif stylization. You can't have it both ways: fix these insignificant glyph errors, or don't worry about insignificant glyph errors. Nimur (talk) 00:22, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Some people answering here have never worked with professional publishing programs like Scribus, QuarkXPress, or a handful of Adobe programs. They are fantastic for publishing and you don't have to constantly fiddle with anything. These programs are way better than Word, which seems what LaTeX fans have in mind when answering. At least in the Adobe versions your work is layered. That means that you can work on each layer (picture, headers, texts) independently, and in a team, different team members can concentrate on their layer. Can you do that with Kile, Lyx or similar programs? There's really no fancy 'effect' that you cannot put on paper using them, no scientific symbol that is not available. You can choose at what pixel you put any picture, any textbox. The main difference is still what I said above: constructing your work by what you see or by what you mean.

If you still don't believe me when I say that everything is possible, try Nimur's method above. Print a file, look at a printed file and try to guess if it was produced with LaTeX or with any Desktop publishing program.

Alternatively, download Scribus, which is free and give it a try. 79.155.47.134 (talk) 00:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

A very long time ago, I had a job typesetting journal articles that were often quite technical — lots of differential equations. All of this was in PageMaker (e.g. what InDesign was before it was InDesign). I could replicate each of the equations, but 1. they were not functional in any way (they were purely visual, with complicated kerning and line height settings to make them appear correctly), and 2. it was not easy, and took hours of fiddling to get correct. For the technically inclined, LaTeX is especially good at letting you creating functional equations (e.g. writing them out in a markup language that a computer could understand the purpose of) and simultaneously outputting those as visually correct. There are other alternatives to doing this sort of thing, but this is an area where LaTeX is superior over just using other, non-specialist word processors or page layout software or even CSS. They're just visual; they're not functional. There's a big gap there. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

"A very long time ago" could mean, I suppose, more than eight years, since PageMaker was discontinued. Since then, many things happen, and software developers indeed discovered that graphical tools have to deal with kerning, math symbols and math equations as such. Maybe you'll need an add-on like MathMagic, but I don't see anything typographical that cannot be done, unless you have LaTeX. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Reduction (complexity)

What is this sentence even means --> Intuitively, problem A is reducible to problem B if solutions to B exist and give solutions to A whenever A has solutions.? I can't understand what is it saying. Is that mean that the time to find solution to problem A and problem B are the same?Pendragon5 (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

No, not necessarily. It means that if you want to solve a problem a of type A (say a travelling salesman problem), you can construct a problem b of type B (say an instance of 3-SAT) and solve b instead. You can then convert the solution of b back into a solution of a. But the transformation from a into b and from the solution to b into a solution of a also take time (and that time can be very considerable). We are often interested in a polynomial-time reduction, where the time for the transformation is polynomial in the size of the problem description. For that kind of reduction, the problem remain in the same complexity class (for the major classes like P, NP, and NP-complete). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:49, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

September 9

LG TV that can turn all 2D images into 3D ?

That is their claim. Call me skeptical (SkepticalRat ?). I don't see how this is possible with current technology. I suppose, using some advanced artificial intelligence, by recognizing each object, judging their relative sizes (versus their absolute size, other object's relative sizes, and this object's size in surrounding frames), overlap, focus, etc., a highly advanced program could determine which objects are in front and which are behind, and then render them accordingly, but somehow I doubt if this is what they do. So, what exactly do they do ? StuRat (talk) 04:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's 2D to 3D conversion article seems to link some useful references. -- BenRG (talk) 05:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting links, but have I missed one that explains what StuRat is asking? I share his skepticism. Dbfirs 07:09, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

... Hmm ... it looks as if I'm wrong[2], and these TVs really do some very clever image recognition and lightening-speed processing. They must contain extremely fast processors and a lot more computing power than the laptop on which I am typing this reply! Dbfirs 07:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

To quote from the above linked page: "Conversion software looks at the content and performs analysis of its shapes and colours, works out what's in the foreground and background, and then creates a map of the images to create two slightly different versions giving the parallax image our eyes need to receive to 'see' in 3D. Of course, the software is so powerful that it completes all of this at super fast speed. To summarise, what 3D TV conversion software is doing is modifying the depth of field of a 2D image to render it in three dimensions."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, so is it any good ? I picture it working about as well as the first attempts to change black and white TV into color, where they colored the bottom third green and the top third blue, hoping that would be right at least part of the time. StuRat (talk) 14:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Confirming my skepticism, the article says "...it can suffer from a lack of clarity and sharpness. Quick image movements on the screen can also [be] blurring or stuttering." StuRat (talk) 14:38, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The quality is so-so. At the best it looks like something you would see in a View-Master. There is a perceived depth of field but everything looks flat like in a View-Master. We've had the TV for about a year but other than the first week we haven't used the conversion since. Proper 3-D films look fine on it. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 02:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Which CD/DVD?

I'd like to copy some of my MP3s onto a CD to play in my car stereo. But I'm not sure which formats to use. I have a few questions:

• All of my songs are on iTunes. Can I write to CD/DVD from iTunes?
• My laptop has a DVD-RW on its disk drive. Which CD/DVD formats can it burn?
• Would my car stereo be able to play DVDs containing music files?

Hopefully you'll be able to shed some light on this, or tell me what other things I need to know to be able to answer these questions. — Fly by Night (talk) 13:48, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

1. yes
2. you want to burn Red Book (CD standard), nothing else, on a CD (not a DVD)
3. car audio tends to be much less flexible and forgiving than even the cheapest computer. Some of the fancier lines of car audio, like Sony's Xplod and Philips' Expanium are more likely to play mp3s and to tolerate different formats, but the stock equipment many cars shipped with can be much less flexible. You'll have to burn some samples to see - make sure you start with a CD-audio project on CD-R media with only an hour of music, and once that works in your car you can experiement to find its limits.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I should qualify the first as perhaps "maybe". I've done it, in iTunes, with audio ripped on that machine - as I've never bought music online, I don't know whether iTunes will let you burn that to disk. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I must say, my advice would be not to bother, but instead to rig up a cable to your car's stereo's AUX port (which most have, buried away somewhere). If you're not happy doing that yourself, any car audio installer should be able to run a cable with either an iPod or 3.5mmTRS connector, allowing you to use any digital audio player through the car's audio system. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I used the AUX port for many years until I bought a (second-hand) car with a CD player that claimed to play MP3s. To my surprise, this worked, though it can't cope with more than 255 tracks in any one folder, so I create several folders. I have CDs with many hours of music in MP3 format, and the car CD player just chooses tracks at random, starting to play as I switch on, and continuing from the exact place it stopped last time. I find this much more convenient than the AUX input, and I don't need to change CDs. I've never seen a car CD player that can play DVDs of music in MP3 format. Dbfirs 15:33, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

More convenient how? :/ ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The ideal thing would be an automotive-grade audio device which takes removable high-capacity solid-state media like Secure Digital. There are some downsides of using a portable player like an iPod and an AUX connection: the haptic-UI and high-contrast display of automotive audio equipment is easier and safer for drivers to use (a touchscreen is difficult to use when you're driving and can't look at it); automotive components have a wider range of temperature tolerance than consumer components (which is an issue for people in Arabia or Canada); and simply having the system built in (and not dangling on a cable) is neater and makes it harder to steal. There are plenty of such players available from the usual aftermarket car audio manufacturers, but they don't ship this on most cars in the base to middle of a range. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The answer depends on the stereo in your car. The options are

• You have a basic CD player that can handle CDRs (most modern players should handle this). In this case you 'll need to burn a cd as an audio cd, and you'll be limited to about 80 minutes of audio.
• You have a CD player that handles MP3s. Look for the MP3 logo on the player. If this is the case you can burn a data CD of the mp3 files. You can store 10 hours or more of audio this way on one CD.
• You use an auxiliary jack and hook up another device (like an mp3 player) to it with a simple phono cable (you can buy one at radio shack for $6).
• You have a player in your car that accepts another media, like an SD card or a usb drive, in which case you can put files onto that and play them off of it. Mostly you'll find these in aftermarket stereos and not original ones. Shadowjams (talk) 18:14, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Another option: fancy cars (or cars with fancy kits) have iPhone docks, which allow iPhones to play through the stereo, and makes the car the iPhone's hands-free kit . I think this doesn't work for Android or Blackberry phones, as they don't have the docking connector with all the additional connections that makes this work. 146.90.59.151 (talk) 01:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Video streaming is slow, especially in youtube

Hello there, I am having trouble in streaming video in youtube.com for last couple of months. As for other websites, this problem happens occasionally. I do not have problem with browsing and downloading though. If I pause a video while it is streaming, the streaming usually gets stopped at the middle of playbar. But if I press play button with mouse pointer then streaming continues. Why is this happening? All I want is, video will be streaming while I pause the video so that I can continue watching video after streaming is over. I have updated Mozilla browser along with latest Java and adobe flash player. But nothing happened so far. The problem remain same. Am I missing something or should I change any settings? Thanks--180.234.35.56 (talk) 17:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

September 10

constructor inheritence in c++

Hello !why can not we inherit constructors in c++? i have read so many books.but i can not understand. can you please explain clearly? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 00:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

C++ 11 supports constructor inheretance: C++11#Object construction improvement. Why not before? Because. 146.90.59.151 (talk) 01:55, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

'Transcluding' forum posts, possibly through RSS?

Would it be possible to transclude (using the Wikipedia definition) posts on phpBB forums, say, or even Yahoo! Answers on blogs like Livejournal, or anywhere at all with some code? (I was thinking about RSS since that's sort of how it works, but not sure if it could be transcluded in this manner.) 62.255.129.19 (talk) 03:20, 10 September 2012 (UTC)