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November 3

radio system

how a radio system works ,its components and technologies — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.43.134.182 (talk) 06:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See radio. StuRat (talk) 07:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Compatibility of MSN and Yahoo Messenger

I have an online business meeting sometime this week, and rather than using Skype as I would normally do, the other party would like to use Yahoo Messenger, which I don't have, and don't want to have. I do, however, have MSN, and I am wondering if the two are compatible? This is likely to be a video conference, so would all functionality remain if the two are indeed compatible with each other (except for the emoticons, winks, and all the other childish stuff that comes with both)? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt they are, in any way. You could use a web service and theoretically not install anything extra. I believe Google, for example, has one for video conferencing. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.google.com/chat/video?hl=en 77.166.70.218 (talk) 08:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe you are thinking clearly. If it's a client, you must obtain and install Yahoo Messenger, at least for the duration of the meeting, because you don't want some minor glitch to occur. If you're the client, you must imperiously order the groveling supplicant to abide by your rules: viz, using MSN. This is the way of things. Tarcil (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Voice type/range analyzer

Is there any program which is capable to determine the voice type (soprano etc.) and/or range in an mp3 file? Thanks.--93.174.25.12 (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

100 * 1.14 = 113.99999999999999 in Python 3

Why is it like that? Can someone give me a link to a resource that explains this? Comploose (talk) 12:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Floating point and What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For arbitrary precision, at the expense of performance, you can use arbitrary-precision arithmetic:

from decimal import *
Decimal(100)*(Decimal(114)/Decimal(100))

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, answering 113.999... is actually faster than just outputting 114? I'll take a look at the resource above and try to wrap my hand around this. Comploose (talk) 13:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, the problem is that not every number can be represented with the same number of digits in every number system - indeed, most numbers require infinite representation in any base. You might be familiar with the fact that 1/3 is 0.3333.... in decimal notation, with an infinite repetition of the digit 3. In binary notation, there are other numbers that do not have a finite representation. Most implementations of programming languages nowadays, including Python, use IEEE floating point numbers, often double-precision floating-point format, with 53 bits for the mantissa and 11 bits for the exponent. So nearly all numbers cannot be represented exactly by Python, and the set of numbers that can be represented in binary is not the same as the set of numbers that can be represented in ~~binary~~decimal. In particular, 1.14 does have an exact finite representation in decimal, but not as a double-precision floating point number. So the computer picks the closest binary number it can represent, which, when converted back to decimal, is not exactly 1.14. Some languages perform rounding when printing numbers to users, so you do not always see the effect. For me, both Python 2 and 3 print 113.99999999999999 for 1.14*100, but Python 2 even prints 1.1399999999999999, while Python 3 prints 1.14 for 1.14. Using the decimal arithmetic suggested by Finlay does not really solve the problem in general, because even arbitrary precision arithmetic cannot represent e.g. sqrt(2) or π. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RE: "the set of numbers that can be represented in binary is not the same as the set of numbers that can be represented in binary"...you might want to change a "binary" to "decimal". StuRat (talk) 17:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, fixed. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:47, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can round off the results to mask this ugliness. For example:

round(100*1.14,9)

...will give you the answer rounded to 9 decimal places. StuRat (talk) 17:25, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank. Another thing that I find amazing is that if you transform this 13.999 into an integer, it is rounded to 13. Isn't this behavior too prone to cause huge mistakes? Comploose (talk) 19:50, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, "int" type operations have returned "the integer part" of a floating point number, which amounts to always rounding towards 0. I vaguely remember a dual operation in UCSD Pascal (probably frac()) that would return the fractional part. This behaviour is known and understood, and you are responsible to handle the numerical errors. Use round() like Stu recommended if you want rounding with less average error. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:04, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps so; whenever one converts something of one type into another, there can be issues unless one really understands what's going on. There are three main ways in which to convert a float to an int: math.trunc(), math.floor(), and math.ceil(). Floor and trunc might seem to do the same, but look at how they differ when given a -ve argument:

          print int(math.floor(-13.999)), math.trunc(-13.999)

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And there are plenty of other complicated conventions for rounding: schemes that round different numbers up or down. A program that is calculating financial data has certain specific needs when converting real numbers to fixed-point representation; a numerical algorithm for modeling certain mathematical equations may have different needs. Programmers should know enough math to make the correct choice for their program. Nimur (talk) 11:38, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Win8 problem

I tried to install virtually windows 8 and I got this error. Hardware:intel 2 pentium, motherboard:Asus(I can't remember the model)

http://i45.tinypic.com/izt3ya.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exx8 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can find the answer here. Ruslik_Zero 19:22, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do it through a virtual machine.

20:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exx8 (talk • contribs)

Real or virtual, PII is not supported by W8. Ruslik_Zero 18:41, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here are Microsoft's requirements for Windows 8. Hint: Whenever Microsoft gives a minimum RAM for Windows - double it (at least). If you have a Pentium II it is time to get a new computer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:48, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comma and dot in programming

I am a amateur coder that only coded for myself/school and I have a question. There is a game called aurora that has a bug that if you are in a place that use comma for decimals, you need to change in windows to make your system use dot for decimals or the game will show some bugs.

This made me think about something and I have a question about it.

When coding something, if I will do calculations stuff, I will need to create codes to handle this decimal/dot problems (a thing that the developer of aurora didnt one [well i am assuming]) if I dont want that some players experience bugs or make the players need to change their windows settings to not experience bugs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.179.73.100 (talk) 20:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When you're writing the actual program itself, when decimals are expressed I think you'll always find that the decimal separator in the program's text itself is a period (.). But you're quite right that some places use a comma instead, and a program that takes input from a user (like the game you're talking about, or like a spreadsheet program) should indeed handle the specific locale's convention for writing numbers. Handling this is part of the internationalization and localization process, which is needed to make a program work well for people around the world (there are all kinds of other things to worry about too, in general, not just decimal separators). This can be a lot of work, as there are so many locales around the world, each of which do different things, and you'd have very broad knowledge to be able to get things working everywhere. A saving grace is that many modern languages and software libraries have extensive knowledge about different locales and their many foibles. Here's a simple example, using the Java programming language. I first get a hold of a number formatter which knows about the rules that apply in Italy (one of the comma-decimal countries). Then I use that formatter to parse a comma-separated number string - and the string has been interpreted as 123.4567. But then I load the formatter for the UK locale, where commas are used as thousands separators, and parse the same string - there the number reported is 1234567.

import java.text.*;
import java.util.Locale;

public class num {
    public static final void main(String [] args) throws ParseException {
	NumberFormat fmt_it = NumberFormat.getInstance(Locale.ITALY);
        System.out.println(fmt_it.parse("123,4567")); // prints 123.4567
 
        NumberFormat fmt_uk = NumberFormat.getInstance(Locale.UK);
        System.out.println(fmt_uk.parse("123,4567")); // prints 1234567
    }
}

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was not exactly talking about creating some code that would be needed if guys from countries wants to use comma instead of dot in the game/program. Many users are ok with just using (and seeing) dots in the games/programs.

I was asking if some sort of code would be needed even if dot users will not be able to use/see dot in their game/program, even if they would just see/work with comma in the game, to so, not make bugs happens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.179.73.100 (talk) 21:27, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find your question still a bit confusing, but what I believe you are asking is, will a given program automatically take Windows' localization settings and use them as the default, and will this cause bugs if so? I'm unsure on the answer, but does that clarify the question? --Mr.98 (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure if that's what you are asking, but ir is very important that you keep things consistent. There are basically three choices: use a period, use a comma or use what Windows tells you to use. The problem is that a program might do different things in different places. Some wrong combinations are easy to spot because they never work, but some are slightly harder to catch. For example, if a program always uses the appropriate separator according to the Windows settings while it comes with data files that are fixed one way or the other, then you have a problem. It will run just fine with the country settings used when it was written and will break as soon as you try to use it with different settings. Of course developers should be aware of things like that, but in the real world they aren't always. KarlLohmann (talk) 05:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question about LinkedIn

How to contact someone on LinkedIn without having to register and have to pay a membership? How to invite someone or contact them without having to do so? (payment) Thank you. Netwwork (talk) 22:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The basic LinkedIn membership is free, so you don't need to pay to join. You can then invite someone to be in your network by providing their e-mail address. RudolfRed (talk) 23:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Figure out what company they are at, find the company's phone number, and call it and ask for the person. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 15:18, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

November 4

Slideshow/DVD

My AppleMacPro laptop is running Mountain Lion, and so far as I can see it is not possible to copy a slideshow onto a CD. Does anyone know of a way to do this please?85.211.131.65 (talk) 07:04, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As an S/VCD you mean? Might look into tovid. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, don't understand the above, and I should have said D.V.D not CD.85.211.131.65 (talk) 22:31, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This used to be possible with iPhoto '08 and iDVD (see the HT1103 or HT1089 instructions on Apple Knowledge Base), but Apple has discontinued iDVD and is getting rid of a lot of optical drive functions. Unless you have access to an old Mac/version of OS X with iPhoto '08 and iDVD, you might have to use a third-party application. --Canley (talk) 05:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Photo browser supporting GPS tags?

Running Ubuntu 12.04. I'm looking for an image browser that will show you on a map where a photo's location is, assuming it has GPS tags in the EXIF data.

I think KDE's old image browser, can't remember the name, used to do this, but there is no currently supported version of it. Nautilus doesn't do it, or at least I can't figure out how.

The problem with digikam is that it won't do anything unless you first put the photos into an "album". I have no interest in making "albums". My albums are called directories, and I manage them with cp and mv.

Anyone know of a program that will do this, or a way to get Nautilus or digikam to do what I want? --Trovatore (talk) 07:48, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Found the old one I was looking for: It was called KuickShow. Man, that was nice. Apparently it depended on features in imlib that aren't there anymore. I can't understand how this functionality can be allowed to degrade like this — surely someone has filled the niche? --Trovatore (talk) 08:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC) [reply]

You can probably find out why by perusing imlib's bug tracker, VCS, or changelog. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:41, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, maybe, but I'm not that interested. I mostly want a replacement for the functionality. Any leads? I found gwenview, and it's similar, but again doesn't do the GPS thing, unless I just haven't figured out how to turn it on. --Trovatore (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Encoded message

I am trying to decode the message on http://coord.info/GC39EDV which is in the form of one or two directional arms on a consistent base. Somehow the resulting plaintext needs to be interpretable as numbers.

I have tried the obvious semaphore and semaphore from behind, gibberish. I have also tried a simple alphabet rotation on the gibberish.

(C) and (E) are obviously split into two "words".

(B) and (C1) end in a common 4 symbols. B is 6 symbols long, C1 is 7 long.

(C2) starts and ends with the same symbol. If the symbols spell numbers in English, I know of no 5 character number starting and ending with the same letter.

Note that there is a formula to insert the values A..F into which suggests, in context, that (C) is in the range 8..11.

If anyone knows of other flag messaging systems other than standard semaphore or has any insight into any of this I would be very appreciative.

-- SGBailey (talk) 08:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Message F has nine symbols, with 5, 7 and 9 the same. I find 36 such words in an English dictionary, none of which I can see as a number ("goldeneye" = 17 because it is the 17th Bond movie? Unlikely.) After a couple of similar failed dictionary checks, I doubt it is a simple substitution alphabet in English at least. I'm trying to cross my eyes and see the symbols as a 3D puzzle. I'm guessing it's titled "Line of Sight" for a reason. 88.112.36.91 (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BINGO!! Ok, I've spent most of the day on this (on and off), but I've managed to decode it now. It's actually a very clever puzzle, and all the clues are there in the listing. Since it was very satisfying for me to solve on my own, so to speak, I won't post the solution (unless you specifically request it) - instead I'll just say that the thing that put me on the right track was the coordinates that are given by the cache owner. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's a reservoir on the top of Telegraph Hill - which also suggests semaphore like coding. CM - Is there any hint you can give without giving the solution? -- SGBailey (talk) 00:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. You were right about the semaphore, but it's not the manual semaphore. There's another type of semaphore that was used - try searching for Pasley Semaphore codes. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Getting closer. I've got the names of the places and I know their significance. Converting them to numbers is eluding me for now - I've tried A being the start being 1 through to D being near the end being a higher number, but the EFF in West doesn't yet make sense.

Make sure you're thinking along the right line. Everything you need now is in the article Semaphore line, although a Wiki search on at least one of the place names will be beneficial. Hope you manage to come at it from the right direction now. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well I know where Bannicle Hill is. and I can do S>N or N>S. I have yet to pass the checker, but I expect to in due course. Your help has been gratefully reecived. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What got me wondering was that small horizontal bar down from the signal arms that should have some significance and indicate a "non-human semaphore" (or a definitely, um, male human)...

Origin of markup symbols for /italics/, _underline_, and bold

Where do these markups come from that you often see in e-mails or elsewhere, where regular font styles are not available? (Though there are some mail clients that actually render the enclosed text the way it is supposed to look) I was wondering how old they are. Thanks! -- megA (talk) 13:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The origin of the underscore symbolism is surely obvious, and for the others practice varies. I myself have always used * to indicate *italics*, and CAPITALIZATION to indicate bold. Looie496 (talk) 15:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*bold* is definitely interpreted as bold by those mail clients I've come across, so there must be some standard somewhere. -- megA (talk) 17:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know when these originated, but it is curious that this sort of informal formatting does not appear much, in my experience, in teletypes. I've gone over many, many reams of teletype communications from the World War II period and never seen this sort of thing — they spell out punctuation if it is necessary. All of which is to say, I don't think this is one of those things that is that old. My suspicion is that this dates back to the early e-mail days, e.g. the late 1960s or early 1970s. But this is just a suspicion. It would be interesting to know, but it's not the easiest thing to quickly research owing to the fact that these characters are generally excluded from automatic search queries. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:04, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would have expected Usenet as the lastest possibility, and maybe some programming language or encoding standard that features these exact symbols. -- megA (talk) 17:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was already standard on usenet/gopher when I started back in '93. The ALL CAPS things was there at times too, but I think it was on its way out. Even back then, people complained about caps being "shouting", though come to think of it, many applications were presented in all-caps, which might also have contributed to the switch to asterisks. Matt Deres (talk) 18:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Emphasis* (not bold) and _underline_ were used in the Jargon File in version 2.1.1, Jun 1990, and explicitly described in 2.2.1, Dec 1990, which is the first version to have a "Hacker Writing Style" section. There's no information about the origin, though. /This/ style was added in 2.9.6, Aug 1991. -- BenRG (talk) 23:25, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I recall (back in the days of daisywheels, i think) yet another markup, doublestrike, which operated in addition to the bold attribute.Gzuckier (talk) 01:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Security question

I tried to sign into my yahoo account now and I can't. I asked to reset my password but it says "For your protection we can't let you reset your password online, please contact the Costumer Center". What does that mean? Was my account hacked? Please help me I'm desperate. Netwwork (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried to contact the Customer Center? Looie496 (talk) 15:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I have, even by phone but don't find the number. Netwwork (talk) 15:51, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try this 77.166.70.218 (talk) 08:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

cURL

I need the equivalent to this in cURL;

wget --mirror --include-directories=*/abc http://example.com

The reason is that wget does not support HTTP compression but cURL does. Using compression will save terabytes of bandwidth. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 15:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

cURL is not equivalent to wget; cURL does not have anything like mirror. There are a number of other web crawler programs which may suit your application. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. All I really need to do here is extract urls containing "abc/" from index.html and feed them to cURL to download. But I don't know how to do this because my knowledge of grep, awk etc is bad. The html of the links is;

<a href="abc/page1" class="link">page1</a>

and they are on a single line in the raw html (I tried for /f delims but because it's all on one line it doesn't work) 92.233.64.26 (talk) 16:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a sequence (page1, page2, etc.), you can just do curl 'http://example.com/abc/page[1-27]' -o '#1.html' ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no sequence, that was just an example. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

for i in `curl -s http://example.com/ | egrep -io 'href="abc\/.*?" ' | perl -pe 's/^.*?href="(abc\/.*?)".*/http\:\/\/example\.com\/\1/g'`; do curl -Os "$i"; sleep 2s; done

¦ Reisio (talk) 20:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Help with HTML forms

Is it possible to use HTML forms to "modify text" in the middle of a URL? For example, here is the example of a URL I use:

file:///C:/Other/HTML/sx/num44.htm

I want to make a form that will allow me to type in any number in said form to replace "44" in the URL above and take me to the page corresponding with that number. For example, I type in "26" and it takes me to "file:///C:/Other/HTML/sx/num26.htm".

I can easily use forms to "modify the text" if it's at the end of the URL; for example, a specific Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Sandy

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=[INSERT TEXT FROM THE FORM HERE]

But I have no idea how to do it in the middle of a URL. Any help? -- Tohler (talk) 20:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You need to use a little Javascript to do something like this. Here's a very simple example of a script that will let you take some input and then make the browser go to that page. Depending on your use, this may be sufficient; if you need it to really use HTML form elements (e.g. if you are submitting actual form data), it will require modification. But it's not very hard; just let us know. Here's the code:

code

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

<html>
<body>
Page number: <input id="theData" type="text" value=""><br>
<input type="submit" value="Go to page" onclick="window.location='file:///C:/Other/HTML/sx/num'+document.getElementById('theData').value+'.htm';">
</body>
</html>

Let us know if that doesn't quite do it. You can see that all I've really done there is add a bit of Javascript to the "onclick" method of the submit button, and told it to change the "location" property of the "window" (which is how you set a URL with Javascript") to whatever URL I want. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

November 5

current form

Is current in its original pristine state considered to be AC or DC? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.19.104 (talk) 00:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a strange way to describe current! Electric current refers to any movement of electric charge. So, there isn't an "original state" from which we produce AC or DC current. If we produce the current in a way that we can approximate as a constant movement of charge in one direction, like a battery, then we have DC current. If the method of production causes a time-variation, like most electric generators, then we have AC current. If we want to use a very generalized method to describe movement of charge, we solve Maxwell's equations, constrained by the physical conditions of the system under test. When we formulate our equations this way, neither "AC" nor "DC" is commonly used; instead, we talk about time-variations and steady state conditions of the moving charge. You can stretch this terminology to correspond roughly to AC and DC, but that's not common. Nimur (talk) 03:04, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean natural occurrences, like lightning, then I'd go with D/C. (While it might reverse direction at some point, it's not going to reverse continuously at a fixed interval, like A/C does.) StuRat (talk) 19:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's An App For That

Hi. Where can I find a searchable database of all the apps available to humans in the handheld digital tablet cyberniverse, including iPad/iPod/iAnything, Blackberry, Samsung, Android, Smartphone, etc., based on keyword mechanism or function/patent data transfer? Thanks. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 19:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...I suppose maybe there isn't an app for that. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 18:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Printing text files in Excel to be read by C/C++

I would like to have an Excel/VB macro which writes certain cells of a spreadsheet to a file, so that they can be read by a C/C++ program.

I've been using the unfortunate Print #1, ActiveWorksheet.Range("range1").Value, ActiveWorksheet.Range("range2").Value, ... but it fails miserably if "range" has more than one cell. Any ideas? (It would be nice to have lines end only when I want them to, which Print doesn't handle properly, but that's not essential.)

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This macro exports a range to CSV, which is nice to read in an external program. 46.208.87.106 (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking for multiple ranges, but that will certainly work for the data area. The parameters to be output are approximately 82 selected cells in 10+ areas. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

November 6

HTTP at work

I would need to check a list of the technical things that the http does in the background from the point I write, for example, www.google.com in the bar and press enter, to the point when the page is loaded and visible in the browser. I know that it's a bit beyond the scope of wikipedia articles, so perhaps it should be available somewhere else. Cambalachero (talk) 02:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How about starting at the Web Architecture page from the W3C (the main standardization organization for web technologies, including HTTP). You can also read RFC1945, a document that relates the original HTTP vision, as written by its inventor. There are many thousands of books on this topic, but I have found the RFCs to be the best resources, because they are written by experts. While RFC 1945 HTTP is not the most current document, you can start there, and browse Wikipedia and other RFCs. If you want to see a less academic, more "real-world" example of what's actually happening, consider downloading and compiling a modern open-source web-browser. If you inspect the code, you will see that much more is going on in an application like Mozilla Firefox, far beyond the network layer of transactional HTTP. Compare the behavior of an tool like cURL, which also implements the HTTP protocol, and whose source is also available for inspection. Nimur (talk) 04:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean you want to see all the file loads, scripts, etc. that happen in a modern browser when you visit a site, I suggest installing Firebug into Firefox, then activating its "network" tab, then visiting google or whatever other site interests you. The network screen shows you all the downloads and their latencies, and the inspection tabs let you examine all the scripts and so forth. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft and Apple's cross licensing agreement

OK, so Apple and Microsoft entered into a cross licensing agreement. Does this mean in 1997, and this year as well. Does that mean Microsoft can give the license to its OEMs so they can design laptops that look similar to the MacBooks? --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 03:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The exact details of the current agreements aren't known, but the 1997 agreement did include some design patents, though there are "anti-cloning" provisions to avoid making products that look too similar or have too much overlapping "look and feel". It does not allow Microsoft to make "substantially identical" products as Apple. This article sums up this part of the agreement; you can read the original agreement here if you know how to parse legalese. I very much doubt that Microsoft can farm out any of such licensing to its OEMs (and it obviously can't let them do what it itself can't do). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't '3G' tablets make phone calls?

I was wondering why hardly any 3G tablets support phone calls and SMS messages? Apparently Samsung's original 7" Galaxy Tab did, but no recent tablets support this feature.

I know that tablets are inconveniently large to use as a phone, but searching around the internet there do seem to be quite a lot of people who want that feature - and people already use them for Skype and VoIP apps. It would seem to be almost free for the manufacturers to add it to tablets that already have a 3G chip, a microphone and speakers, especially as the phone dialer / SMS apps are already built into Android and iOS.

But, obviously they don't, so there must be some reason. Is it somehow related to regulations, with tablets not needing to go through the same certification process as phones? Am I wrong about it just being a small software change, and a voice-compatible 3G modem is actually more complicated than just a 3G data chip? Or are they just trying to make more money from selling people two devices instead of just one?

59.108.42.46 (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually a number of Samsung tablets do support this. It does seem to be a feature commonly absent. Nil Einne (talk) 12:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It just adds complexity, cost, testing requirements, etc., for a feature not many people would really want (who would want that that doesn't already have a cell phone ?). Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. A cell phone can fit in a pocket, and hence go just about anywhere. Is the same true of a tablet ? StuRat (talk) 22:38, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does Technerd.com rank well enough to be included in Wikipedia?

Does Technerd.com rank well enough to be included in Wikipedia? Plz consider Technerd.com`s inclusion into Wikipedia. TX — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.49.41.230 (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion in Wikipedia is based on Wikipedia's notability policy. Please look at WP:WEBCRIT and then let us know under which grounds you think this website qualifies. Marnanel (talk) 19:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What CUSTOMIZABLE gaming-laptops have conversion-to-tablet capabilities?

Seems I can't find enough laptops that can turn into tablets. Lenovo has a model of screen that bends all the way backwards to turn into a tablet.

Another manufacturer has a type that swivels into tablet form.

And Dell has one that turns the screen within the frame first. (Sounds fragile though.)

And yet, I have heard of no gaming laptop that can turn into a tablet. No XoticPC, OriginPC, Alienware, ASUS, etc. that is good for games, that I know of, can turn from a laptop into a tablet and back.

But I can't know everything in the world. What models do you know of that are 14-16 inches, can handle intensive games well, can turn into tablets, and are customizable? That is, customizable enough that I would have a wide latitude of specs to configure, like in this example.

Thanks. I'm to get a smaller, replacement laptop in January and hoping it's that multifunctional. --Let Us Update Wikipedia: Dusty Articles 08:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of none. It's also likely that the growing tablet market will marginalize traditional convertible laptops, despite the use cases being fairly different. That said, you can get a ThinkPad with at least a Core i7, and while that might not be two nvidia or ati graphics cards bound together, it's certainly plenty. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From a gaming POV, you're likely better off (both from a performance and drive compatibility POV)_ getting something with a AMD Fusion#"Trinity" (32nm) unless you're playing a game with very high CPU requirements. (May not be the best idea from a battery life POV depending on your usage requirements.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I think the bigger problem for the OP is that the discrete graphics market for laptops is dying with the modern SoC CPUs with integrated graphics now generally powerful enough to play even high end games, at least with low settings (and perhaps resolution). For something like a convertable tablet which probably isn't of that great interest to those still interested in discrete graphics on laptops, you're going to find it even more difficult. And the OPs screen size requirements seem to be at the real upper end of the norm in the convertable tablet market. From a quick search, from what I can find there is only one or two current mainstream options for a convertable tablet with discrete graphics. There is the older Fujitsu T901 [1] but it only has a Nvidia 4200M which from what I've read is probably weaker then a HD 4000 let alone something on the AMD Trinity line. (There was an even older HP TM2.) There were claims during unveiling that the Transformer Book would have a discrete graphics option [2] [3] [4] and also a 14 inch but I can't find any mention of either on the Asus site [5] although may be it's still coming or the Asus site just doesn't mention them. Plenty of convertable tablets do come with Ivy Bridge I5s and I7s and some come with Trinities so your best bet is to look in to that. Nil Einne (talk) 08:42, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bus speed and performance.

I wanted to see if increasing processor frequency would give a noticable improvement (System is GA-MA790XT-UD4PF4, Athlon II X4 620, 2600MHz, HT 2000MHz, DDR 1333MHz, Ubuntu 11.10), wasn't expecting much to be honest. Since the max multiplier is locked , I changed fsb clock from 200MHz to 250MHz and adjusted the multipliers so HT, NorthBridge and memory clocks would stay the same.
Testing video conversion with Avidemux showed such a big difference, much more than the increase in CPU speed could explain, that I did another test with CPU speed as close as possible to the original value of 2600MHz; a multiplier of 10.5 gave 2625MHz, only one percent faster.
Result: 89sec to convert the test video, compared to 121sec with original settings (tests repeated several times).
Comparing the results, it seems too good to be true: CPU, HyperTransport, NorthBridge and memory frequency unchanged, only the FSB clock is increased with factor 1.25, yet I get a performance gain of 1.35? How is this possible? (input and output files were less than 100MB, I can't see I/O speed making such a difference...) Ssscienccce (talk) 08:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AMD processors don't have a FSB and haven't for a long time, the clock you're setting is the base or reference clock not the FSB. If you'd adjusted all multipliers and settings to be the same, you really should not be seeing much of any difference. Are you sure you didn't neglect to take something in to account? In particular, the way the motherboard will set the memory timings when you are overclocking in this way even if you've adjusted the multiplier is not always easy to predict. (I'm presuming you double checked with software when the computer was running to ensure the clocks are what you expected.) Did you actual make sure the timings were the same (or set all of them manually)? There is also the possibility you neglected to fix the PCI express clock although I would expect instability with such a higher overclock and unless you've put your video card in a 4x slot or something I wouldn't expect it to make a significant difference. (I'm presuming when you said you repeated the tests multiple times this means you did restart at least once for the slower speed, or preferably repeat the tests after getting the higher speed ti ensure something didn't happen which screwed up the results.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I forgot to mention you may also want to make sure power saving settings aren't screwing up the result (in theory they shouldn't unless you have very aggressive settings for some reason, but stuff can always go wrong so it pays to take it in to account probably by disabling them). It get's even more complicated if your CPU has some sort of turbo mode but from what I can tell, it does not. Nil Einne (talk) 13:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I recently cleaned the (considerable amount of) dust from the heatsinks and fan because the cpu overheated when running avidemux for a few minutes, so I assume it runs at full speed. I ran the test without any monitoring software straight after rebooting to make sure conditions were as identical as possible. Might check some benchmarks, the few I ran didn't seem to show any difference, but these are CPU only I think (blowfish, cryptohash, fibonacci, FFT). In any case, it's the speed of apps I use that matters.

I know it's not an actual fsb but many sites seem to call it that. My bios calls it CPU clock, same name it gives to the actual CPU frequency. Running on 250MHz and CPU 2750 now, no problems but I'm slightly worried whether the "base" frequency drives something I'm not aware of. Did find out that 350MHz is too high, had to clear the cmos after that because the sytem went dead. Something in the cpu or chipset that couldn't handle it, or the BIOS allowing values the motherboard can't generate?

It also occured to met that with four cores available, the percentage of cpu load by avidemux could depend a lot on how multithreading is implemented in the code; I have no idea how this is done in practice, but could it be that for example different code is used depending on the number of parallel threads that can be started? Say you have a "main" loop that spawns "subthreads" based on the free cores available, and small timing differences result in a subthread lasting just a bit longer than the loop so one less subthread will be started every time? Maybe I should look at the average or total cpu load avidemux uses. Will have to wait till I get an extra HD to backup my system, I want to test the 64 bit version to see if that runs better (maybe add some memory as well). Ssscienccce (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adding download of a complete web page to a folder in Google drive (Google docs)

I'd be grateful for some step by step advice on the best and least fussy way for someone who is not a techie to do this using Firefox, Chrome or IE. Preferably, the end result would be a single file in the folder. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 15:14, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://maf.mozdev.org/ ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see MAFF or MHT in Google_Drive#Supported_file_formats. Saving the page and putting it in a zip file seems the easiest solution. Or convert to pdf maybe? Maybe someone who uses google drive can help? Ssscienccce (talk) 18:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually for Google Drive viewer (or google docs?), and not Google Drive itself, FWIW. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Layers in GNU Image Manipulation Program

Hi! I'm having some difficulty stacking two pictures that I took on top of each other in GIMP 2.4.7 I want to be able to erase some of the top picture so that the next one in the stack shows through. Oh, and I'm running the program on a Linux system. Thanks, B. Jakob T. (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File > Open as Layers. You might also need to try right-clicking on the specific layer/s in the (typically) right-side 'Layers' pane, and selecting 'Add Alpha Channel'. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:27, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll try that. Thank you, --B. Jakob T. (talk) 22:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The really simple way is to drag an icon of the second picture from your file manager and drop it on top of the first image -- this will automatically add the second image as a new layer. Looie496 (talk) 23:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

November 7

TO SAVE BLOG PAGES AS PDF

I want to save some blog pages as pdf files. How can I do this? When I try to save as a web page (html or htm) I could not save the pictures and charts and the format also changes. Pl. help me. Thank you.175.157.12.88 (talk) 07:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, here's what you want to do: Go to File > Print. When your Print dialog pops up, instead of printing to a physical printer, you want to select "Print to file" and then choose to print it as a PDF. Hope this helps. Sophus Bie ^(talk) 12:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that will work - it will produce a file using the control language of the currently-selected printer. You first need to install a PDF printer driver such as CutePDF. CutePDF will then appear as an option in the list of printers; if you "print" to this it will create a PDF (I'm assuming a Windows machine here). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It works in Firefox 16 on Ubuntu without anything special installed. Output either as PDF or postscript. I remember the old "print to file" where you installed a printer driver on a pc, printed to file and then used that file on the computer that was connected to the actual printer. Seems "print to file" can mean several things now. Don't know if this works the same on windows. Ssscienccce (talk) 18:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to be completely anonymous on the Internet?

I know that other people on the Internet can track you with adequate effort and resources by these means:

Cookies
IP Addresses
Google Analytics and reverse ID lookup
Word and character frequency analyses

I understand how a person could disable cookies on his computer or delete all cookies after using the Internet browser, how a person may hide his IP address by getting an account, how a person may avoid using Google Analytics, but I don't get how a person can avoid his own writing style. Is it possible to successfully hide one's own writing style to ensure maximal success of anonymity? How is it possible to hide your own voice on the Internet? 140.254.121.35 (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you read our article section on comparisons between anonymity and pseudonymity? Nimur (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly it is possible to change your writing style. im doing it rite now lol XD 92.233.64.26 (talk) 20:11, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It may be hard to reliably disguise your idiolect once your corpus of writings become substantial, and as computerized text analysis becomes more powerful, especially if your new persona focuses on interests already associated with your old one. They caught the Unabomber that way after all. It might help if you learn a new language from scratch and have your new persona write in it exclusively, though I'm just guessing about that and it might not help at all. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 00:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question about SSD

…in solid state drive’s context what does “IOPS” means?

Looking in newegg.com some SSD disks show max sequential speed by MB/s and other by IOPS…

So… any idea?

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 21:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

IOPS 92.233.64.26 (talk) 22:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MB/S is the serial transfer speed (copy a lot of data in one big operation) and IOPS is the number of (small) operations you can do in a second. Older SSD's had crappy IOPS because the overhead of launching an operation was relatively large, especially write operations. Anandtech.com has informative SSD reviews so that's a good place to look. I'm thinking of grabbing a Samsung 830 since they are good drives being closed out at low prices because of the coming 840 and 840 Pro. I'd be hesitant to get an 840 despite its good specs until there's more of an experience base. The 840 Pro is more conservatively designed but costs a lot more. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reference manuals

I'm looking for C++ standard library reference manual and VBA for Excel 2010 reference manual , although a general C++ reference, Excel function reference, or VBA reference, would also be helpful. The C++ suite I have seems to have a library reference, but I need to know the function name, and the version of Excel's (Macro) help maps to part of the manual at office.com, which is inadequately hyperlinked. For example, from a type, it will not produce the list of members or methods.

Any ideas? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For C++, the articles C++ Standard Library and Standard Template Library, and the various articles linked in the infobox, link to some very good resources. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Although you're often better reading the documentation for the implementation of the library that ships with the specific compiler you're using. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. "The" manual for C++ is a little bit ambiguous. It's probable that most of your day-to-day code uses a common subset of C++, but if you get into the development of software of any complexity, you need to specify the toolchain more precisely. For example, GNU Standard C++ is explicitly not ISO C++; but it's free software, and its documentation is also free. If you want the ISO C++ reference, it isn't free. On my unix system, I can simply type man in the terminal and my currently-selected compiler's manual opens up. Your unix-like system may vary in its manual coverage. On Windows, I use the MSDN as my primary reference. Nimur (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

cppreference.com has some gaps but I've found it generally adequate as a day to day reference source. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 00:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

November 8

Isolating Windows installations

I have two internal HDDs mounted on my computer with one Win 7 installation on each. I'm using one to play poker professionally and the other one for stuff like surfing the web, making DVDs, playing computer games etc. I'm wondering whether it would be possible to make each hard drive invisible to another, so that neither installation can tamper with the other one's files, in case I get a virus on the leisure HDD. Thanks! 64.94.77.175 (talk) 01:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't think of an easy way to do that with two internal hard drives on the same computer. (With external hard drives, you could just turn one off when you use the other.) One particular problem I've run into is things which insist on installing in the C drive, rather than asking. So, I'd make the leisure HDD the C drive, so it will be more likely to be contaminated than your more important hard drive. You could also get a third hard drive, and use that as the C drive, so hopefully neither of your other hard drives will be contaminated. This wouldn't protect you from malicious code, though. StuRat (talk) 01:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, you can assign different drive letters to the same drive in different installations. I've made it so that the HDD that's currently running is always C and the other one is always D :) 64.94.77.175 (talk) 01:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that should help somewhat. StuRat (talk) 01:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a homemade solution, how about adding a power switch to the wires leading from the power supply to each hard drive ? You could route the wires out a vent, and mount the switches externally. I wouldn't suggest flipping the switches while the PC is on, so turn one on and one off before you boot the PC. You could even have a single switch which only allows one hard drive to be powered at a time, although this might be a negative if one drive won't boot and you want to boot from the other to try to fix it. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can disable the drive in Device Manager. Go to the Control Panel, open Device Manager (under System & Security), find the appropriate drive under Disk Drives, right-click on it and choose "Disable". The disk will now not be available through the filesystem (i.e. there will be no "D drive"). It's still technically possible for a virus to re-enable the drive and infect it's files, but I've never heard of one that actually does this. 59.108.42.46 (talk) 02:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mooched?

A message popped up saying another device was using the wifi. There's only me, and the printer. The box disappeared and I went to the net to find out how to work this out. I'm no nerd so even though eHow and others (mooch hunter dot com) had steps to deal with it I can't find my way through. On the usual list of who's on wifi networks around here, there's a couple of new ones: Virgin Mobile Hotspot (+numbers) and VodafonePocketWifi(+). How can I tell who's mooching & how can I find that message again? I'm on a MacBookPro OSX 10.6.8. Thanks in advance Manytexts (talk) 06:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Help getting Jquery on my computer

I want to use JQuery, but when I install it from the website, where do I put it on my computer so the html files can access it? 169.231.15.122 (talk) 07:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]