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October 22

Changing codec format of .avi files

I have an oral presentation to present for a subject at school and as part of it I intended upon playing two video clips relevant to my talk. I took the small clips (~30seconds) from a larger file (~2 hours) using virtualdub. My problem is that the computer I will be using at school for the presentation lacks any media codecs apart from those inherent in Windows. The details of the two clips are below. As I cannot install the codecs on the school computer (for "security" reasons) I would like to know a way that I can change the codec format of these files so that they would be able to run on a system with NO downloaded codecs. Ideally, the output format would be one that I can imbed into a powerpoint presentation.

First File Format  : AVI Info  : Audio Video Interleave Family  : RIFF File size  : 7.91 MiB PlayTime  : 52s 10ms Bit rate  : 1276 Kbps Writing application  : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release) Writing library  : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release

Video #0 Codec  : DivX 5 Family  : MPEG-4 Codec settings  : BVOP PlayTime  : 52s 10ms Bit rate  : 1183 Kbps Width  : 532 Height  : 222 Aspect ratio  : 2.35 Frame rate  : 23.976 fps Resolution  : 8 Chroma  : 4:2:0 Interlacement  : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame)  : 0.418

Audio #0 Codec  : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3 Family  : MPEG-1 Info  : MPEG-1 or 2 layer 3 PlayTime  : 52s 854ms Bit rate  : 80 Kbps Bit rate mode  : CBR Channel(s)  : 2 channels Sampling rate  : 48 KHz Resolution  : 16

Second File Format  : AVI Info  : Audio Video Interleave Family  : RIFF File size  : 1.83 MiB PlayTime  : 28s 445ms Bit rate  : 539 Kbps Writing application  : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release) Writing library  : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release

Video #0 Codec  : DivX 5 Family  : MPEG-4 Codec settings  : BVOP PlayTime  : 28s 445ms Bit rate  : 446 Kbps Width  : 532 Height  : 222 Aspect ratio  : 2.35 Frame rate  : 23.976 fps Resolution  : 8 Chroma  : 4:2:0 Interlacement  : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame)  : 0.157

Audio #0 Codec  : MPEG-1 Audio layer 3 Family  : MPEG-1 Info  : MPEG-1 or 2 layer 3 PlayTime  : 28s 902ms Bit rate  : 80 Kbps Bit rate mode  : CBR Channel(s)  : 2 channels Sampling rate  : 48 KHz Resolution  : 16

I didn't actually read through that whole list but your best bet is to make it into a .wmv file for Windows based system, preferably with the Movie Maker. I hate both, but, hey, it's not my presentation. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 02:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Since you already have virtualdub you can use it to re-encode. Open the video in virtualdub, make sure "Video->Full processing mode" is checked, then select a codec in "Video->Compression...". Some of the codecs are old and what would be considered low quality but for short clips that shouldn't matter that much. I don't know which codec to recommend, sorry. The "Configure" button in the codec selection window allows to change encoding quality in some codecs. Optional step: if you want to re-encode sound too, check "Audio->Full processing mode" and select an audio codec in "Audio->Compression" (the default "Audio->Direct stream copy" will copy the audio track as is, leaving the audio codec unchanged.) Then "File->Save as avi" to encode. You can select a short range of the video first to check how the result looks or play with codec settings. Weregerbil 06:56, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

NO pop up script

Hello, I have a webpage in which there are links that are pop-up windows. Is there a html script in which I could disable having pop-ups? Note that i don't want to make them to load in my main window, i just want to disable the pop up on my page. Thanks --(Aytakin) | Talk 02:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

You say that you have the page - which makes me assume you made it. So, remove the popups that you put there if you don't want them. Then, you say you don't want them to load in the page and you don't want them to pop up. What do you want them to do? All in all, your question is far too confusing to answer. --Kainaw ^(talk) 04:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It's much more likely that he's using a free web-hosting service that forces popups onto his page. There are ways to block popups using JS and (I think) advanced HTML, but the popups are what funds your free-hosting service, so you're likely to lose it if you attempt to block them.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and there are popup blockers you can download onto your computer, but that would have the same problem. StuRat 11:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for the responses, that's the case!! I don't want the those links on my page to pop up and as  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  mentioned there is a way using Java or HTML, can you tell me where i can find such script?--(Aytakin) | Talk 22:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Try a google search like this one.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  09:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Simply by adding an "alert" script to your page will make these pop-ups become pop-under... I did that after my free hosting banned me for using scripts to block their pop-ups, you could use the alert script to say welcom to my page or to ask if they're over the age of 13 and such, once the alert script pops up, the popups will go to the toolbar, and when they click ok, they see your page only... It's annoying to have an alert script, but at least you gain that much control over your page... If you want true free hosting, check out http://www.hostinglagoon.com you fill out surveys using whatever info you want, this site gets paid for sending you there (no money, no credit cards, no personal info other than name and address) then they give you domain names, hosting gaming site credits... I did it, and had my domain and hosting up and running in less than 24 hours. The free domain and hosting I got is http://www.gesellman.com check it out and see if there's any popups or anything... 24.240.24.220 02:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Running a wikibot

I'd like to run a bot on a small Wikia wiki, but I have no programming skills. All I need it to do (for now at least) is to move a list of pages to a new namespace, and to italicise all instances of a proper noun. I'd like to run the bot of my own machine (a Windows, tee-hee!) for a few minutes a day at least until the job is done. I've asked before here and received some answers, but none were particularly helpful. So again I am seeking instructions on how to implement such a bot. Hyenaste ^(tell) 06:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you read WP:BOT and the accompanying articles? Dismas|^(talk) 10:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but nearly all of the associated pages involve the politics of setting up a bot in Wikipedia instead of helping getting one to function. The only page I've found that offers any help is meta:Using the python wikipediabot, but it doesn't say whether it works for Wikia or anything else except for a few lines of code scattered around. Hyenaste ^(tell) 17:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Moving application/binary directories' locations in Ubuntu/Linux as a whole

Hi,

My filesystem partition is running out of space with everyday. I want to move some big software directories to another partition, then put a symbolic link in its place. Is this feasible? Thanks! --inky 07:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it should be. A symbolic link can point to any file/directory, regardless of the partition, device, or file system that it's on. Depending on how you're doing it, you might want to do this through the fstab, though a symlink will probably suffice in any case. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hidden/Private folders on XP

Multiple users all work on the same computer. How can I have a folder that only one user has read/write permissions. (And yes, I tried to sell the "just install linux" solution, but they wouldn't go for it.) --Alecmconroy 07:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This (ignore #2 unless for some reason you're dealing with zips), or if you want maximum security, TrueCrypt. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

For XP Home, Log into an administer account under safe mode[F7 during boot] and edit the permissions by group as you would normally in Windows 2000. For XP pro/*-home, http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/winxpnetworking/ht/winxpsfs.htm use that. Jrabbit05 05:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Software Radio

In software Radio, what is the analogy to decode FM?

You mean such as internet radios transmitting through the wires? The analogy to decode FM would be the same, I believe, since both transmits through a medium, and goes through a Digital-to-analog converter, and out the speakers. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:14, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Video Compression

Any idea about which coec is the best in terms of compression and quality???

Well I'm not sure by benchmark comparisons but, based on its popularity, MPEG-4 (and the many codecs based on it) seems to have reached a good balance between size and quality. See video codec for some examples of codecs based on MPEG-4. —Mitaphane _talk 13:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Computer Lockup

The problem arises when I play games, for apparently no reason. I startplaying the game normally and press a key, the game does the action corresponding to that key e.g. going forward, then I take my finger off the key. But the player does not stop, he still executes the action as if the button were actually pushed. At this point, whenever I try to press NUM-Lock, CAPS-Lock and SCROLL-Lock, their LED on the keyboard doesn't change. Then one of two things happens:

1. The player stops doing the action the NUM-Lock Led changes, and I can resume playing.
2. The player continues on going until a BSOD pops up with a BAD_POOL_CALLER error, dumping physical memory to disk.

Could anyone help me on this? It's really annoying... Thanks in advance.

My specs are:

• Processor Pentium 4, 1.8 GHz
  • L1 Code TLB 4 KB pages, 4-way set associative, 32 entries; 4 KB/4 MB/2 MB pages, fully associative, 64 entries
  • L1 Data Cache 8 KB size, 4-way set associative, 64 byte lines, sectored
  • L1 Data TLB 4 KB/4 MB pages, fully associative, 64 entries
  • L2 Cache None
  • Trace L1 Cache 12 KµOPs, 8-way set associative
  • Unified L2 Cache 512 KB size, 8-way set associative, 64 byte lines, sectored
• Graphics Card ATi Radeon A9600PRO from ASUS

--Danielsavoiu 09:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

A BAD_POOL_CALLER error in Windows is a device driver conflict. It sounds like some driver that's getting used in your game is causing the problem. Try updating your drivers for devices(Vid card, sound card, controller, etc) that the game uses. That might do it. —Mitaphane _talk 13:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Canon Pixma IP1600 on Linux?

My grandmother recently bought a Canon Pixma IP1600 inkjet printer and I set it up for her. In the process, I thought it would be cool to buy one for myself also. Only problem is, I am using Linux (and only Linux) in my computer, and at least according to the user manual of the printer, Canon isn't even aware that Linux exists. Does anyone have an idea if the printer would still work? It uses a USB connection. I'm also thinking of upgrading my Linux installation from Fedora Core 3 to Fedora Core 5. JIP | Talk 11:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

"Canon isn't even aware that Linux exists" Haha! :-) I know what you mean, it seems to happen far too often when you want to buy a product. Gah, why can't they just stick to some standard and make it work for everyone, even on systems they actually haven't heard of? I'm afraid I have no answer to your question. Isn't "printer over USB" standardised by now? —Bromskloss 20:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I found after a quick Google search is [1] which says you can use the free driver from [2] up to 300 DPI (if you try to use more than that it writes a logo to the paper unless you pay for the registered version). --cesarb 20:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Try using CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). I used this on my parents' Mac to print to their Canon printer and it worked perfectly. --Canley 05:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course you could always try it on your mothers computer. If you don't want to install Linux there (and why not?) you could use a live cd. DirkvdM 06:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

My grandmother's computer, actually, not my mother's. But I found that the Canon Pixma IP2200 has Linux drivers available, and is only 19 € more expensive. I might buy that instead. JIP | Talk 09:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Removing weapons from Unreal Tournament GOTY

Hi @ll. Is it possible to make all weapons (except translocator) not working (not displaying either in HUD or in level) and not working? Emptying the class definitions and recompiling with UnrealEd didnt help; google doesnt find any real helpful n this topic. Greets, HardDisk 14:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah there's some weapons mutator (I think it's called "weapons mod" so it will probably be hard to find) that lets you replace any gun with any other available to UT. Very useful for mixing and matching the old infiltration weapons (which are hellishly hard to find these days) with the UT weps. Theres an option to replace the weapon with "None" IIRC so you could just replace all the weapons with nothing and turn on the translocator in the normal UT options. I'm surprised that unlinking the class definitions didn't do it though.. did you just delete them or did you actually clear out the code that calls them? --froth^{T C} 21:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I couldnt delete them (not possible, as it seems), so I wiped everything out except the "class XXX extends Weapon"; then I started UT and all weapons were working. HardDisk 15:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Intel Processors

What is the highest-end Intel Processor available for consumer home desktops? And why do some newer processors have slower clock speeds than older ones? Jamesino 16:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Clockspeed is not necessarily indicative of the processor's performance. Intel used to market their Pentium's clockspeeds heavily because they were so stupidly high (compared with AMD, whose CPUs still matched or bettered Intel's). This is probably backfiring somewhat right now because their new CPUs do often clock slower, despite actual performing better. See Megahertz Myth.

The Intel Core 2 CPUs are probably the best consumer CPUs right now. They're faster than AMD CPUs of the same price, they've got less heat output, less power consumption, and they overclock well. The super fancy Conroe XEs are the fastest variety of those (see the article), but they cost a lot. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

What is the Hyper-Threading they talk about? Jamesino 20:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hyper-threading. Intel's current CPUs don't support it, only the old Pentium 4s do. So, it's not that important. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hyper-threading is a way to let a CPU pretend to be two separate CPUs, each running a separate execution thread. The second trhead gets to use the cycles that would otherwise go to waste due to stalls in the execution of the first thread. Intel cannot seem to make up its mind as to how effective this is, but the overally gain is relatively modest. By contrast, most of the Core 2 devices have two complete CPUs on one chip. Intel has also announced a quad processor, (two chips, each with two CPUs, inside one MCM package.) If they ever do get around to re-implementing Hyper-threading, a quad-core package would execute 8 threads -Arch dude 21:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Whistling Monitor

My girlfriend's CRT monitor is producing a whistling sound occassionally when it's on. The whistle is usually a constant sound, but does come and go. There is no change in the picture quality when the whistling begins. Can anyone explain what the problem may be? --Kiltman67 18:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I like Wikis. There seems to be an answer in this one. One possible fix is to change the monitor's refresh rate. Besides being extremely annoying it's not necessarily a sign of any problem, though I have seen a couple CRTs get very loud the day or so before they break. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

You can see things get loud? Are you a synesthete? DirkvdM 07:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[3], #28. :P. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Errors introduced by processor change?

What I have is an implimentation of Conway's Game of Life in C. I compiled it and it ran perfectly on my University server. I have since brought a second computer to school with me for the sole purpose of using it as my C compiler, so I can crash my own computer with massive memory leaks rather than a departmental server. I took the exact same code from the department server and transfered it to my little "server." I compiled and ran the code, no errors. But to my great dismay, the results are different. This is what I should get, and do on the department server:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
# of live cells = 24

On my own "server" I, incorrectly, get the following:

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 
# of live cells = 15

As a test, I also compiled and ran the code on this very computer, only to obtain the incorrect result as well. The only commonality I can find between my "server" and this computer is that they are both AMD procesors, and the department server is more than likely an Intel processor. Is there an argument in gcc specifically for AMD processors, besides those for optimization? The basic form of my code can be found here. I know my comments are over the top, but that may be helpful here. Any ideas as to what the problem could be? --yaninass2 | talk 23:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Where are you initialising the automatic array a? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

a takes integers, is then passed into the eval function, where it sets the beginning pattern of the game in the basis array. What goes into a changes depending on the pattern, obviously. What is used for this particular version is:

for(i=0; i < 5; i++){
a[i]=0;
}
a[5]=2<<5;
a[6]=7<<5;
a[7]=5<<5;
a[8]=2<<5;
for(i=9; i < 16; i++){
a[i]=0;
}

Hope this explains my code a bit more. --yaninass2 | talk 00:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

If you're not sure if the university server has an Intel processor or not, have you considered Endianness? Intel and AMD are both little-endian, but if the server is a SPARC or PowerPC processor then it may be compiling differently (correctly by the looks of it) on a big-endian machine, especially if you're messing around with bits and arrays (I've had a similar problem with gcc on my pre-Intel Mac and a friend's PC coming up with different compilations). There's some code in the article to detect Endianness if you want to check. --Canley 05:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Just looking at your code, it might be this bit where you're masking the significant bit:

basis[row][loc] = (a[row]>>(15-loc))&0x00000001;

--Canley 05:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice one, didn't think of that. I ran the test function on both machines and both returned 0, meaning they are both Little Endian. Good suggestion, but alas, not the solution to my problems. --yaninass2 | talk 13:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I ran your code (on yet another LE machine), and it works fine as far as I can tell (I made traffic lights). I even checked that none of your array references were out of bounds or were reading uninitialized data. The only thing I can guess is that your "code varies by pattern" is somehow broken, implementation-dependent, or machine-dependent. In general, it seems more likely to me that you are doing something undefined (like indexing beyond an array) which happens to give different results on the two machines than that you are actually experiencing machine-dependence (unless you're reading your patterns from a file in some system-dependent way or so). If you post your pattern code, it might be analyzable. --Tardis 16:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

October 23

Music writing program

Can anyone suggest a free program with which I could write standard notation music? --The Dark Side 00:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Although it is technically shareware, I recommend NoteWorthy Composer. It's only limitations are when you print sheet music, it prints an order form with it, and you are limited to 10 saves of its native file format .nwc, but have unlimited .mid saves available. Download it here. If you are in need of a keyboard program that can record keystrokes and save them as .mid files, then MidiPiano is what you want. Download that here.--Russoc4 01:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

GNU LilyPond! —Keenan Pepper 05:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Although I haven't used LilyPond, it looks like a pain for doing casual work in. Dysprosia 09:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Scorewriter for quite a list. What OS are you using? — QuantumEleven 10:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking to me? Maybe you need to adjust your indenting. Dysprosia 10:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

You are, of course, right - I ran that answer off in a hurry. (and this time I am talking to you! ;-) ) — QuantumEleven 10:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Mediawiki needs a better system for talk pages – one where you are not creating indentation yourself but just click on the comment you wish to reply to. Much like many other discussion forums, that is. This, more structured way, would open up the possibility for automatic and uniform "archiving" (the process of moving old comments off the main talk page), permanent links to single comments and automatic signing of comments. And, no, this comment is not a reply to QuantumEleven, but to Dysprosia. I just didn't want to ruin the chain of ever-increasing indentation. ;-) —Bromskloss 11:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

(indenting for the sake of indenting, but speaking toward to OP) I use Finale NotePad. It is fairly simple, and does not have the limitations of NoteWorthy: NotePad will print and save always. Hyenaste ^(tell) 19:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

But also note the criticisms. It seems that Sibelius is quite popular too. Hyenaste ^(tell) 19:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Damn, I love Sibelius. A lot better than Finale, in my opinion. Lilypond is a joke (literally too). X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 07:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sibelius is wonderful I'm sure... but the original poster specifically requested a free program. Shareware is one thing, but a progam costing several hundred pounds is quite another! Loganberry (Talk) 16:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia web services

Hello Wikipedians,

Does Wikipedia offer a web services interface (either SOAP or REST)? For example to search for articles and consume them in an application or website? Also I'd like to know about any good examples of public implementation of web services such as Amazon web services. Mahanchian 15:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia runs on the MediaWiki software, which uses a MySQL database. I'm not sure if you can access this from an application, you'd be better off asking this at the helpdesk or the village pump. --Jrothwell ^(talk) 10:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Accessing machines on the same gateway

I have two machines connected to the internet through the same gateway. I have admin access on both of them. How can I access one from the other? Both of them have Windows XP Professional. Thanks, deeptrivia (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by accessing? If you want to view shared folders, you need to have "file and printer sharing for Microsoft networks" enabled on your network interfaces on both sites and the you can browse shared folders by typing \\[ip address/computer name]\[shared folder name]. Mahanchian 16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I got it working! Thanks for your help. deeptrivia (talk) 17:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ethernet hub

Do ethernet hubs protect computers from viruses?--209.106.197.241 18:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC) Jeremy Bartels

No they don't. Mahanchian 19:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you are thinking of a "router"? Many domestic models of routers have a built in firewall and it is the firewall that does the protecting, not the actual "router". Also, it isn't really viruses that a firewall protects you from, it's hacks. You can still download and run viruses with a firewall. You need anti virus software to protect you from viruses. Vespine 22:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh ok. I understand. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

Baseball21888 21:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Jeremy Bartels

RSS / ATOM for Wikipedia

I want to use an RSS or ATOM feed for the Reference desk. What do you other editors use? I'm using Opera, but is there anything especially good for Wikipedia? And what's a good time frame to have it check for changes? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "use an RSS or ATOM feed for the Reference desk"? I might be interested in that too, if I only knew what it meant. You mean a feed that tells you what is up in the reference desk? Is there such a thing? —Bromskloss 07:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If you go to the history tab on wiki, there's an RSS feed. So yes, there is already such a thing. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 08:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, cool. —Bromskloss 09:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

October 24

Scheduled startup and shutdown

I have set my computer using the BIOS Power Management functions to start my computer at 7:00 AM so a program I run everyday can start at 7:30 AM. THe program includes a line of code to check time and end the program at a certain time. From there the power management section of the display properties sees the system is idle after 5 minutes and puts the system in hybernation. Trouble is the system does not always restart at 7:00 AM and the program never starts running. The system just stays in hibernation. Is there a beter way to accomplish starting the computer in the morning so the program can run and then shutting down the computer when the program is finished in the evening. Adaptron 00:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

please state your operating system, as this is where you would issue a command. TehKewl1 04:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see, the computer starts up at 7:00AM. Unless this start-up process takes 25 minutes, the computer will be idle for more than 5 minutes before the timed start of the program at 7:30AM and would go into hiberbation. This could be why the computer just stays in hibernation instead of running the program. Perhaps you should start the computer at 7:20AM instead? Just my thoughts --yaninass2 | talk 04:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Windows XP. I've tried a new aproach. Instead of using Task Scheduler I simple put a shortcut to the program in the startup program folder and the bios power management start time set for 7:30 AM. The display power option is now set for hibernation after 30 minutes of the computer being idle and the program set to stop at 7:00 PM. After the program stops the system goes idle and then into hibernation but unless I shut if off the bios pwer management will not start again at 7:30 AM. Is ther a way to shut it down instead of going into hibernation using the power option? I don't see any options listed other than hibernation. Can I add a key or otherwise teak the registry? Adaptron 16:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How do you mean "shut it down instead of going into hiberation" ? Can you just shut it down, or does it have to be in a suspected state? 68.39.174.238 03:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a lot easier and a lot more complicated than I first thought. Windows XP actually has a shutdown command but it will not work under certain circumstnaces. What I'm working on now is to generate a shutdown batch file that I can executre from the program I'm running along with BIOS controlled startup and startup folder program execution. Any ideas are still welcome. Adaptron 00:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

HTML Marquee trouble

I'm trying to design a marquee for use on a mock website, but I don't know much HTML, specifically something that causes a break between two sentences on the same line (like 10 spaces or something). With my marquee, one sentence scrolls accross, then I'd like a small break before the next one (as in, both would be visible but there'd be a gap separating them). If I use "br" it creates a new line and the marquee doubles in height. Can anyone help? --Bronzey 08:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I just found a sort of solution, put underscores inbetween the sentences then make them the same colour as the background... it works, but it's fairly ugly. I'd still like some expert advice though :) --Bronzey 08:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The correct way to do it is probably to use CSS, but it's easier to put

<pre>          </pre>

where you want the space. —Bromskloss 08:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

No, wait, that breaks the line too! :-( —Bromskloss 09:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here's a better one (still ugly):

          

—Bromskloss 09:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hah, thanks for your help :) --Bronzey 10:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Better expert advice is: Don't do it. Most uses of animated side-scrolling text are highly annoying intrusions.

The relevant CSS property is white-space, and the XML attribute xml:space is also relevant; but browser support may be an issue. The safest non-breaking space across all typefaces is the   entity (Unicode U+00A0). --KSmrq^T 14:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

MS OFFICE WORD 2003

If i have a normal ms office 2003 word document and i want to split it up into 3, for example, columns but i dont want the title to be in one of the columns and i want it to be across the top as normal; what do i do???--84.66.6.35 09:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In OpenOffice.org, you can select the part of your document you want to have in multiple columns and then go "Format" → "Columns…". Perhaps you can do the same in Word. —Bromskloss 09:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the same. Select the text you want to be in three columns. Then either click format, columns, or use the columns tool on your standard toolbar (it's to the right of centre, the top toolbar). Only the selected text will go into columns. Alternatively, if your document is only one page, you can put the title in the header in the top margin. Anchoress 10:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

There are a few ways to accomplish this, but this is perhaps the easiest: Type your title, hit Enter. Choose Format..Columns.. and select column layout you want. Be sure to choose "Apply to this point forward" instead of "Apply to Whole Document". Click OK. Type text for column 1. Choose Insert...break..Columb break. Type text for column 2. Choose Insert...break..Columb break. Type text for column 3. Voila! You now have a title centered above your columns. dpotter 18:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

WORD

How do you put a horizontal line in Word??? Iv looked everywhere but cant seem to find it.

( i have MS Word 2003) thanks--William dady 10:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What kind of a horizontal line? Cuz there are lots of ways to do it. Be more specific please. Anchoress 10:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a normal horizontal line like the ones you get on newspapers under the title, iv dont it before but i cant remember how to do it. (also i think you can get them on website programs, like frontpage, and they have their own button)--William dady 10:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If you have the formatting toolbar, just place your cursor in the text or on the paragraph mark where you want the line to show, and click on the underline toolbar button which is on your formatting toolbar (it should be the second one at top, to the right). Or choose format, borders and shading, and select the line you want. Anchoress 10:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If you have auto-formatting turned on (which is the default), 3 or more hyphens will be automatically turned into a horizontal line. --LarryMac 12:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, turn on the drawing toolbar (View -> Toolbars -> Drawing, it often shows up at the bottom of the screen), click on the "line" tool (by default it's just to the right of "AutoShape"), click and drag to draw your line. Holding down the SHIFT key forces your line to be at some angle multiple of 15° (helpful for drawing vertical or horizontal lines). — QuantumEleven 10:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Q about VoIP.

Do I need to be paying line rental on my landline phone for DSL to work? I'm looking at ditching my regular phone service for VoIP, but don't know if I need to have line rental active. Thanks.

Depends where you area and who your provider is, you'll have to ask them. In Australia you can NOT use DSL without paying regular phone line rental, but I do believe it is possible in other countries. Vespine 14:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How much more would it cost to have cable broadband installed? If you have to pay for phone-line rental on top of DSL ISP charges, it might be worth switching to higher-speed broadband --Username132 (talk) 17:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Here in Australia, cable broadband is ridiculously expensive (the average is $100 USD per month, with a 20GB-per-month download limit). ADSL is limited to 1.5Mbit.

Take a look at Naked DSL. dpotter 18:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Or more importantly, cable is pretty much only available in the capital cities, and even then not everywhere.Vespine 23:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Recovering Outlook mails and address book from a hard disk

I recovered the hard disk from my crashed laptop. It has all my outlook express mails and addresses in an archived format. It's possibly encrypted too. How can I recover them? I know had the laptop been working, there's a way to export all outlook data, but what can I do now? deeptrivia (talk) 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Were you using WinXP? The location for Outlook mail files (.pst extension) in XP is located in "Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" you can take those files and import them back into Office. —Mitaphane _talk 17:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

SQL question about aggregate rows.

I'm trying to construct a query in PostgreSQL to to the following, and not having much luck. I have a list of purchasing records, each one with a product ID, a purchase date, and a price. My select is grouping by product ID. I want to also be able to ask, "what's the first and last price paid for this item?". The initial query I came up with was select min(purchasedate) as firstdate, max(purchasedate) as lastdate, min(case when purchasedate = firstdate then unitprice else NULL end) as firstprice, min(case when purchasedate = lastdate then unitprice else NULL end) as lastprice from purchaserecords group by productid;, but postgres claimed "column "firstdate" does not exist"; I suppose I can't use a previously defined field in another aggregate column. If I try to substitute in max(purchasedate) for lastdate, it says "aggregate function calls may not be nested". How can I make it do what I want it to do? grendel|khan 14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I use a separate table that I fill - very fast. But, you can do it with a subselect: select * from purchaserecords as a where purchasedate in (select purchasedate from purchaserecords where productid=a.productid order by purchasedate limit 1). --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I tried subselects, actually, but it was incredibly slow. I'm taking a different tack now and trying to move the aggregate functionality in the reporting engine. It seems like there's no good way to do this. grendel|khan 16:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Subselects are slow - that is why you are told to never ever use a subselect. However, there isn't much in the way of getting the "last" item for every group. That is why I make a "lastitem" table and I fill it with a script. Then, I query the lastitem table. Since my main table has over 10 million records for just over 2 million groups, having a lastitem table makes it MUCH faster to get the last item from anyone in the group. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Peripheral device

What is the general features, usage, key manufactures, and the latest advncements and innovations in a printer

Printers allow you to create hard copy of the answers after you've done your own homework. --LarryMac 14:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What does your teacher mean by "latest"? I've heard that the printing press is a hell of a lot better than a monastery full of monks copying books by hand. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

audio timescaling

Can you tell me if pitch synchronous granular synthesis is equivalent to pitch synchronous overlap and add (psola) method? THNX! --Ulisse0 15:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, PSOLA is a kind of granular synthesis. - Rainwarrior 17:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thnx again! --Ulisse0 17:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

PNG

Is the a way to save of otherwise convert bmp formatted files to png formatted files in Visual Basic 6? If not is ther an add on or a program that will convert a whole folder full of bmp files to png? Adaptron 16:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about VB6, but IrfanView has a nice batch convert/rename function which should perform that task. --LarryMac 16:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

ACDSee is also nice for that. However, if you have to do it with VB6, I don't know if it exists, but it shouldn't be the world's hardest thing to do since they are both considered bitmaps. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If you can do it in .NET, the System.Drawing namespace is what you'll need. howcheng {chat} 20:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks very much for your help. Infanview will work fine although a plug-in, add-on or routine to do the conversion and save from VB6 would be nice and eliminate several steps. Since Infanview seems to have command line capability maybe I can use if from VB6. Adaptron 22:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate File Finding Program

I want to use a duplicate file finding program to remove duplicated music files. Of course two tracks that sound the same when I play them wont necessarily be exact duplicates (they could be different sizes, different formats and different names) - would this present a problem? --Username132 (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well how does the program work? Or what is the program's name? If the program is just hashing the music data (not the filename or other metadata attached to the file) and looking for files that have the exact same hash, then even closely sounding files will be different. If program works buy analyzing the outputing audio waveforms and then matching it to similar sounding outputs, I'd say you're probably going to get some false positives. —Mitaphane _talk 17:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

For a normal duplicate file finder, it'll only find files that are identical. If you have an mp3 at 128 kbps and one at 192 kbps, even if it's the same song, it's going to look significantly different to the computer. If you only analyze waveforms, it might still not work because of the way things are compressed and digitized, that one waveform might look a bit different somewhere where it was cut off cause it reached the peak, while it didn't on another file. So that would pose a problem. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a program called Dupless that does what you want. The old freeware version however is virtually useless for more than a few files since it only provides manual capability. If you program I think even VB6 has file detail lookup capability. I don't know if the non-free version of Dupless offers automation but it should not be hard to find on the web. Adaptron 22:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ubuntu Problem

I inserted my Ubuntu 6.06 disc (64-bit for my AMD 64-bit processor) and after loading to a black screen with a mouse pointer, I get a small repeating blip from my speakers over and over. This also occurs in graphics safe mode. A few months ago it worked fine, then it did this, a month later it worked fine and now it's doing this. Why is it so flaky? Someone at the Ubuntu forums suggested checking for loose connections inside the case but that sounds a bit wishy-washy, especially since WinXP runs fine. --Username132 (talk) 17:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reburn the disk and check the BIOS? X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 18:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This problem occurs with the disc I've burned and the one I sent for from the Ubuntu people. What should I check for in the BIOS? --Username132 (talk) 19:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Placing page in Categories

Hello, I was wondering how to place my webpage into different categories that way my page that I just created will be seen under specific categories. Thank you for your help.

Unless your web page meets the guidelines for Wikipedia:Notability than it should not have its own page, and it will be deleted. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 18:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My interpretation of their enquiry was that they've created a new article and want to know how to use categories. I tried to find out what page they might have created but this post appeared to be their first edit. --Username132 (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Categorization FAQ are your friends. Although, for the future, it would be better to ask this sort of question at the Help desk. — QuantumEleven 10:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Dark Laptop Screen

I'm guessing you've gotten this question before, but since i'm not willing to search through the archives to find it: I bought a new dell laptop that i'm pretty happy with, but for some reason (i guess to save power,) the screen becomes very dark the second i unplug it. i tried fishing around for a solution throughout the control panel and settings, including power settings, but i cant find how to disable this. any help? Sashafklein 19:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

theres usually a FN button on most laptops. hold this down, and look for two icons like suns (usually somewhere around the F8 or f9 buttons, or on the arrow keys itself. hold Fn and press these buttons and it should brighten your screen. hope that helps. -JOE

The only other place I would suggest(if you want to disable it completely) is searching options in the BIOS or contacting Dell. This is generally a helpful feature for those who prefer battery life over display. —Mitaphane _talk 20:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Even at full brightness, it is common for a laptops to dim thier displays slightly when running on battery. I think this might just be a side effect from the change in voltage, but it is none the less common. - Ridge Racer 14:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm certain it's a built in feature. The question is whether it can be changed or if it's built into the hardware. —Mitaphane _talk 17:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Transparent Images

I am trying to make a black t shirt with an image i made in adobe. so that i don't have to pay to print black onto the tshirt, i made the image transparent in adobe and saved it as a jpeg. there are two problems. the first is that there was white on the image i made, and on the website where i made the tshirt (custom ink), the white does not display at all. it's just become transparent, it would seem. also, everything that is not white is ringed by white on the website. so my image that was supposed to show directly against the black is lined with a bit of white. would both these mistakes probably be problems with the website? should i have done something different with the image? thanks Sashafklein 19:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

JPEGs cannot be transparent. Save it as a PNG instead. howcheng {chat} 20:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Though remember PNG alpha channels aren't supported by IE! --froth^{T C} 21:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Interlaced? Sashafklein 03:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want. See the interlace article for more info. howcheng {chat} 03:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What if you choose a black background in Adobe (Photoshop I assume) instead of white/transparent? You're printing on a black T-shirt anyways, just make sure you trim as much as you can (but not too much!) when you cut it out to iron it on the t-shirt. Though if it's the shop that's making the t-shirt, and you're not printing on a sheet of transfer, you might want to check with them. --Silvaran 16:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out PNGs alpha channels are supported by IE7 which now has a final release, not just beta anymore. - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 22:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If I were to sell my PC (probably ebay or craigslist), how much could I get for it?

custom built by ABS computer (abspc.com) here are the basic specs:

Awesome Series P4 2.8GHz 120gb hd Geforce FX 5900 Sound Blaster Audigy 1gb DDR CDRWdrive (not sure of speed) DVD drive Antec Case 2 fans, blue LED lighting XP home SP2 installed

never had any problems with it.

can anyone just give a rough estimate as to how much this might be worth? if you need any more detailed information please let me know. thanks in advance.

Search for similar systems on eBay using the Advanced Search and checking the "completed listings only" checkbox. That will give you a good estimate. howcheng {chat} 20:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Systems are a lot of work to build but well worth the price. A P4 and motherboard with 7.1 sound can be had for less than $200 (maybe even $150), a 240 gig hard drive for less then $100, a DVD/CDRW/R recorder for less then $100, 1 gig DDR less than $150, a case and PS for $40. Add um all up and consider less than half as a good place to start for a used system unless you get lucky and a schoolmate really wants yours and is willing to fork out the bucks. Checking out similar systems on Ebay as previously stated will help narrow things down although prices can vary dramatically from sale to sale. Adaptron 22:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Try this NewEgg trade in calculator here. --01:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It told me $300 for my 2 month old thinkpad that cost me almost $2000 --froth^{T C} 17:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Web based free source control for simple users

Dear all,

I would like to ask if anybody knows a website that can provide source control for *one* file only for simple users (students). We want to basically prevent concurrent changes to the same file by implementing a simple check out - check in procedures.

Thanks a lot in advance, Tommy

One file eh? Simple users? I don't know off the top of my head but you can check out Version_control, List of revision control software, and Comparison of revision control software --froth^{T C} 21:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

October 25

C++ Decimal percision.

How do you get an extremely percise number with C++? Like i know you can use: cout.percision(10); for example But what if i wanted 50 places of percision? I tried to put 50 in the () but i only got i think roughly 10 or so spots of percision (even with a long double data type). is there a limit? is it my compiler? or is it just cause the datatype can't hold it? thanks for the input! --Agester 04:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

According to the floating point article, it should have 52 significants. There might be a limitation to cout or setprecision? I'm not sure, since I don't use them any more. Try printf("%52.50f",variable_name); instead and see if that help at all. If not, I'll look some more.

The 52 number is a number of bits, not decimal digits. The arguments to the formatting functions are counts of digits. (The real answer is given below by Kieff.) --Tardis 15:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

From googling some more, I found that a 64 bit long double only has 17 signicant digits, while a 128 bit long double has 31 significant digits.[4] The 128 bit long double is also not compliant with IEEE standards, and not all compilers support it. And it says on another site that a long double has at least a precision and range of 10, which might be what your compiler is limited to.[5] --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Get some arbitrary precision functions, there are a bunch. ☢ Ҡi∊ff⌇↯ 06:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Also make sure to be a bit more percise precise in your spelling. Especially when programming, such little slips can create hours of ill-directed debugging attempts. DirkvdM 07:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a lot easier and a lot more complicated than I first thought. Windows XP actually has a shutdown command but it will not work under certain circumstnaces. What I'm working on now is to generate a shutdown batch file that I can executre from the program I'm running along with BIOS controlled startup and startup folder program execution. Any ideas are still welcome. Adaptron 00:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Internet bandwidth priorities

Is there any way to tell what parts of your Internet connection are being used for different applications, including how much bandwidth is devoted to various programs? I'm trying to download something but it's going agonisingly slowly and I suspect there is some background software (knowing my luck, something I never use) hogging up all the bandwidth. I'd like to find it and disable it. Battle Ape 05:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, however, filesharing or download programs, as well as autoupdates, tend to take up bandwidth. I recommend simply ctrl-alt-delete, task manager, and kill everything you don't need (with the exception of Windows of course ;) ). You can also stop using any browsers or anything to your knowledge, ctrl-alt-del, hit Networking, and look at bandwidth usage. If it's high, and you're not doing anything, that's what's up. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 07:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no way to do this 'centrally'. Some software (eg file-sharing and P2P) have settings to limit the amount of bandwidth they use. More likely, a slow download doesn't mean a problem at your end but simply a slow/overloaded server. Most home internet connections can download much faster than most servers can send data, especially if many users are downloading from the same server. A tool to monitor how much bandwidth you're using (such as DU Meter (30-day evaluation)) can be very helpful. — QuantumEleven 10:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like a software firewall is what you're wanting. My firewall program monitors incoming/outgoing packet for each process that uses network access. Of course this includes local network usage as well as Internet usage. —Mitaphane _talk 19:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Password-controlled"File Hiding"

Question, refdesk.

I want to protect a folder on my PC from being played around with. However, if someone goes into the folder, I don't want them to know it's password protected. I want a program, essentially, that shows a "blank" folder, until I enter a password to show all the others (password function is obviously hidden). Anyone know of such a program? --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think you can kinda-sorta do that with TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is a tool for encrypting data in an easy way. It will mount a virtual volume (ie like you had an extra drive) that encrypts everything you put into it. But that's not all; you can also put a hidden volume on that same encrypted drive. That means that you can have a bunch of files on it, and everyone that sees it will think that that's all there is. But it's not! If you fire up TrueCrypt and enter a different password, suddenly the hidden volume will appear with all of the files you had hidden. Get it? So, set TrueCrypt to mount a certain virtual drive at startup. It will appear empty to everyone (it will appear like a normal folder, so anyone can put stuff into it). But enter a certain password, and as if by magic, another drive will appear. I think that is the closest you're going to get without actually programming a tool yourself. Oskar 17:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Computer Slowing down with CD Drive interface

Hello guys...I use P4,2.6GHz,256 MB RAM,inbuilt video card.I'm using XP with Service pack 2.My pc slows down more severely whenever I try to copy a content from CD.My music also slows down when I copy the data from CD.Why is this?...The CPU usage goes almost 100 when burning CDs using Nero 6 or nero 5..At first when I bought my PC it was not so..Now only the problem persists..It would be nice of you guys if you could provide useful suggestion in getting my PC back to normal..Advance thanks

First of all, check if your CD drive is operating in DMA instead of PIO mode. To do this, follow the instructions on this page. If your DVD drive was running in PIO mode, change it to DMA mode (as explained on the page I sent). If it doesn't work, there is a link at the bottom of the thread to a different way to enable DMA.

If DMA isn't your problem, try updating the firmware on your CD drive. Go to the manufacturer's website and snoop around for a firmware upgrade. Make sure you get the right firmware for your drive!

Also, try running Nero CD-DVD speed, which will give you a detailed analysis of how fast your drive is running, how much CPU it's using, which can help you to pinpoint the problem. Also, Nero InfoTool is very good at giving you details on the settings which may be enabled or disabled on your drive. Good luck! — QuantumEleven 09:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

256mb is awful, you should really get at least 512mb. That might be a contributor to the problem.71.217.195.83 17:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, are you due for a disk defrag ? Fragmentation could slow things down, especially if your computer's going to paging space due to low available memory. StuRat 18:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Dual booting with Kubuntu and Windows XP

Hi all. I was looking to install Kubuntu on my computer so I can dual boot, I currently have XP installed. So I used Partition Magic to create a 10 GB FAT32 partition on one of my hard disks to install Kubuntu (it also created the swap partition for me). I also installed Boot Magic.

After creating the partition, I rebooted with the Kubuntu Live CD in and then started installing it. But I didn't know what to do when it came to the step on which hard disk to install on (step 6 of 7 on the installer). On that step, it showed my 3 physical hard disks but none of the partitions (in particular the newly created FAT32 one). So I chose the "Manually edit partitions table" option (option 3), at which stage I could see the partitions but I had no idea how to choose to install it on the new partition, plus I really had no idea about all the mounting business.

Would it be easier for me to just choose the "resize" (option 1) and create a new partition for it there, and delete the partition I made with Partition Magic. The reason I didn't want to do it before was just in case I accidentally format my hard disks (not something I want to do!) or find myself unable to boot into Windows (if that can even happen).

Any help as to how I should go about doing this? Thanks all (sorry about the long post). - Akamad 11:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You should have never used PM. Hmm, ok for this I'll assume you want a swap partition and a root partition, nothing fancy like separate partitions for /usr and /home... Go back to PM and delete the partitions you made before, but leave that 10GB of empty space there. On the partition stage of the kubuntu install, edit the partition table and add a new 9GB partition at the beginning of the empty space. Make it ext3 mounted at just a forward slash slash ( / ). Then make another partition at the beginning of the empty space. There should be about 1GB of storage left, but not exactly. Type in 100% to use 100% of the remaining space. Make it of type Linux swap (the first one if there are 2 options for swap). It will mount it to /swap, even if it doesn't say that. --froth^{T C} 01:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah PM screwed things over for me (Boot Magic didn't help), so I'm just going to format my windows hard disk. That way I figure I'll be able to create clean partitions from the start. All my data and stuff are on other hard disks so ther won't be any data loss. Thanks for your help anyway. - Akamad 09:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

While we're on the topic, is Ubuntu's partitioning procedure capable of resizing existing partitions? It's basically the only reason people started using PM in the first place.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  09:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The main distribution method is a livecd, so you could run parted before starting the install procedure. IIRC parted can resize NTFS --froth^{T C} 17:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

USENET

What are the highest trafficked Usenet groups?

• most viewed?
• most posted to?
• most replied to?

• Trafficked? ;-) —Bromskloss 12:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

alt.drugs

(anonymous in case the police is looking for me)

Transfer speed

I'm not sure whether to ask this here or at the mathematics reference desk, but it is a computer question so here goes: if I want to transfer a 10 GiB sized file to another person at a speed of 0.5 megabit / second, how long will it take (note that it's megabit/second, not megabyte/second)? I got some different answers when trying to figure it out by myself, but I think the answer is about 1.89 days. Is my calculation correct? 83.250.208.83 12:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That sounds roughly correct, but there are a lot of other variables ... what is the transfer protocol? What size is each packet? How much header information is required for each packet? and so on ... --LarryMac 12:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Using my own experience with a 512kbit upload, I know you get about 50-55 KB/s as a transfer rate (assuming nothing else is hogging the upload, of course). Using that speed as a benchmark it should take between 2.2 and 2.43 days. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 15:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I get 8 bits/Byte x 10 GByte x 1000M/G = = 80,000 Mbits.

Then I get 80,000 Mbits / (0.5 Mbits/sec) = 160,000 secs.

Then I get 160,000 secs x (1 hr/3600 secs) = 44.444 hrs.

Finally I get (44.444 hrs) / (24 hrs/day) = 1.85 days.

Note that this is the minimum time, assuming 100% of the transfer rate is available to this process for the entire time, which is a dubious assumption. StuRat 18:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Latex Book Margins

Hello,

I'm using LaTeX to format a book and this is the first line: \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,titlepage,twoside]{book}

The problem is that the wider margins for binding with my twoside command are on the right side, not the left. How do I get them to reverse?

Thank you for any help,

--CGP 12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The twoside option should make the margins alternate between right and left, so they're always on the outside. If you want the chapters to start on left pages rather than right ones, use the option openleft. —Keenan Pepper 18:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I tried using openleft and openright and they make no difference on my document. Oddly it also does not change anything if I use oneside or twoside. Is there some other option in {book} that I am not aware of? --CGP 19:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the wider margin on the outside of the page is actually for "margin notes". If you include the command

\layout

in your document then LaTeX will put in two pages of diagrams with the margins shown. You can then adjust the values it gives, such as \oddsidemargin and \evensidemargin with commands like

\setlength{\evensidemargin}{17pt}

\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{62pt}

which I think are vaguely sensible numbers to give you a narrow margin on the outside and a largeish binding margin but you'll probably need to fiddle with it somewhat. Bdgoddard 20:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey thanks, it was the margin notes that were throwing off the look. Your new layout commands look perfect. Thanks for the help. --CGP 08:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there a Java keyword for the outer class instance of an inner instance class?

If I have the following,

  public class OuterClass {

    private class InnerClass {

      public void increment() {
        ++someVar;
      }

    }

    private int someVar;
    private InnerClass innerClass;

    public OuterClass() {
      this.innerClass = this.new InnerClass();
    }

    public void someMethod() {
      this.innerClass.increment();
    }

  }

Is there a keyword I can use (sort of like this or super) that will allow me to access the OuterClass instance from within InnerClass? One I can wedge in between the ++ and someVar in the increment() method? Thanks. --Silvaran 16:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, you cannot access the class that contains the "active class" without a reference. Therefore, you must pass this as a parameter to a constructor declared appropriately. However, since the variable is private, I'm pretty sure you can't actually do it even WITH the reference. You will need to create accessors to do whatever it is you want to do. + == Suse 32 vs 64 Bit ==

If the reason to do things like this is to be able to change the way methods are executed in your OuterClass instances, you might want to consider taking a different approach: Change OuterClass to an interface (or abstract class, or class with "standard" functionality - depending on your needs) and use inheritance to create subclasses you can instantiate and place in a variable with OuterClass as the type. Nested classes are, IMO, not really useful unless you need some task done that doesn't make sense outside the class, and doesn't fit in the actual class. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 17:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, you should use subclasses (or just separate classes) instead. It's always slightly messy to use an inner class, but it can be very useful (mostly for passing functions as arguments, like for instance passing a comparator to java.util.Arrays.sort()). That said, you don't need a keyword. The code you have will increment the OuterClass instance of someVar just fine from InnerClass. Also, you don't need all of those "this." (in someMethod() and the constructor). If there isn't a variable with the local scope that has that name, you don't need to specify that it belongs to the class. Again, I personally think it's a bad design choice to rely to much on inner classes. Separate classes are just so much cleaner, in my opinion. If you can give more detail on what it is you're trying to do, maybe we can help further :) My two cents, anyway. Cheers! Oskar 17:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I had a situation where an inner instance class had a parameter named the same as a member of the outer class, a la (within InnerClass)

    public void someMethod( int someVar ) { ... }

Quick solution was to rename the parameter. In other situations, I could prefix the member variable with this., so I thought there might be a similar one for accessing an outer class. I prefer the inner instance classes for small groups of methods that operate exclusively on the outer class. In this case, a static nested class would make the outer class instance variable redundant (why not just use an instance class?), and no other classes in the same package can access it like they could a package private class.

The general pattern for the outer class in my case was some kind of pluggable interface. I had a single outer class, a private interface, 4-5 instance classes that implemented this interface, and a member variable pointing to the interface. So I could change the bulk of the behavior on the fly from within the class, and implementors could be kind of chained together (one implementor could create another and point the outer class to it). --Silvaran 18:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe the construct you want is OuterClass.this.someVar; you qualify the this to indicate which "current object" you're talking about. --Tardis 19:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Suse 32 vs 64 Bit

If a 64-bit processor can run both 32 and 64-bit software, is there any advantage to downloading 64-bit SUSE 10.1 over the 32-bit version? --Username132 (talk) 16:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I would expect the 64-bit version to run faster. StuRat 18:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't, at least not in most instances. The big thing with 64-bit is pretty obvious--the address space. If you have something (database, video editor, whatever) that needs to access more than 3 gigs of memory (2 gigs in Windows IIRC) at a time, INCLUDING virtual memory (stuff paged to disk that looks like RAM to programs), then the 64-bit is going to be faster. With 32-bit, the OS has to make certain compromises (like relying on [PAE] for up to 64 gigs of RAM, but still only 4 gigs of address space for a given process), which are going to slow things down. All other things equal, 64-bit is going to take a little more (though definitely not twice as much) memory to run programs, as addressing will use 64-bit pointers, but that's likely not a concern. Not everything is 64-bit clean yet though, and there are a lot of commercial/proprietary/closed-source applications out there that won't run natively in 64-bit. I suspect Suse has a 32-bit compatibility layer for 64-bit architectures that will solve some--but not all--of these problems. HTH. --Silvaran 18:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was not just a matter of address space but also the size of the registers. And I also thought that you only get the benefit if the hardware and the OS and the application are 64-bit. So only recent (and future!) apps that are 64-bit will benefit from using that version of Suse. Or so I thought. DirkvdM 10:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

If the kernel makes use of the larger register sizes (and if it does a good job of it), you do have a potential speed gain. Operations that originally took 2 registers can now be done with one, so theoretically there's a little less moving about into and from cache --froth^{T C} 17:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Margin Setting

Ho do I set the margins in Microsoft Word so that, when the text is printed out, it mesures 7.20 by 4.20?

You may have to set margins on your printer software to accomplish that. StuRat 18:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Or you can do it through Word's Page Setup box (File -> Page Setup). On the second tab, set the paper size you'll be using (A4, Letter...). Make a note of the paper size. Then go back to the first tab and set the margins so that the printable area is the size you want (you do this by taking, for instance, the height of the paper and subtracting the bottom and top margins to get the vertical size of the printable area). Hope that helps! — QuantumEleven 08:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

There are two other options. You can click and drag the margins in Print Layout View (an editing view of the actual document), which has the virtue of enabling you to use the page rulers right on the page. Or, if you just want a block of text 7.2×4.2, make a table cell that size (it's much easier than doing it thru the margin menus) centre it on the page, and type in that. Anchoress 09:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

PHP Login

I am learning PHP and I would like to know how to tell if a person is logged in to a website. For example, I can send a cookie, but how reliable is this? How do I know the cookis is real and not a fake. Thanks, 86.41.151.218 22:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Start a session. The server will send a session ID (in a cookie) to the client. The next transaction (like they move to a different page on the server), the client will send back that session ID to the server, the server will look up the information associated with that SID (like the current logged in user id, from which other information can be accessed) and display the page based on the SID (like printing the user's user id in the corner of the screen, or applying the site theme that the user has selected in their options). There's no way to tell whether the cookie is forged, unless you encode the SID with the user's IP address (though this can somewhat reduce security if a certain user's IP address is known by an attacker and the encoding scheme is known, and you need to sent the connection type to keep-alive so the user's ISP's DHCP service doesn't issue the user a new IP and thus invalidate the SID). --froth^{T C} 01:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this is the session_start() blah, blah, blah stuff. How safe is this? How do other websites do this? How does Wikipedia track users, for example? Thanks, 86.41.151.218 01:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

If you don't use sessions you have to put identifying data (like the users id) into the cookie rather than a SID that points to all that identifying data which is securely on the server. If you don't use sessions, users can potentially edit their cookies to change who they're logged in as (they can do this with sessions too but only if they know their target's SID, which is procurable through XSS attacks). This is from the HTTP cookie article: While cookies are supposed to be stored and sent back to the server unchanged, an attacker may modify the value of cookies before sending them back to the server. If, for example, a cookie contains the total value a user has to pay for the items in their shopping basket, changing this value exposes the server to the risk of making the attacker pay less than the supposed price. The process of tampering with the value of cookies is called cookie poisoning, and is sometimes used after cookie theft to make an attack persistent. Most websites, however, only store a session identifier — a randomly generated unique number used to identify the user's session — in the cookie itself, while all the other information is stored on the server. In this case, the problem of cookie poisoning is largely eliminated. Basically all PHP based sites use php sessions, and sessions as a general idea is almost universally used (I can't think of a single case where sessions aren't used but I could be wrong here). Wikipedia does use PHP sessions through the cookie var "enwiki_session". There's also something called "enwiki_key" that could be used for encoding or something I'll have to look at the mediawiki code. --froth^{T C} 05:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

October 26

Word

In Word, how can I keep a straight edge on the right side without justifing it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.142.163.229 (talk) .

That's the definition of justify, so it's not possible --froth^{T C} 01:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Did you maybe mean not right justified? If so, then choose justified, and it'll left and right justify and fit both ends. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You generly have 4 options for aligning text:

Left Align

This text is left-aligned so you get a streight line on the left side.

CENTER

This text is centered so all the text appears in the center.

Right Align

This text is right-aligned so you get a streight line on the right side.

Justify

This text is justified so you get a streight line on the both sides. This is done by changing the spacing between the letters / words on each line to make them line up on bothe sides.

86.41.151.218 02:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

What Froth said above is not accurate; you can use a right-aligned tab stop without changing the alignment/justification. Anchoress 09:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, you're still "aligning" it, and thus "justifying" it, so while we're speaking English here I don't really see the difference. You're just using a secondary method to do the same thing.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  09:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

While we're speaking English here, we're not here to argue semantics, we're here to answer questions and help people. Froth's answer gave the impression that what the OP wanted wasn't possible. While it may have been technically correct (as I say, it's semantics), it was unhelpful. Anchoress 09:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not essential for the question, but note anyway, as 86.41.151.218 pointed out, that justification means that both left and right side of a block of text align with their respective margins. —Bromskloss 10:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The difference here is between 'justify' and 'msWord justify'. So, although incomplete, Froth's remark was justifiable. DirkvdM 10:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

LOL Dirk, do you have to ponder these puns, or do they just come naturally? Hyenaste ^(tell) 18:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

They come naturally because I constantly ponder on them. :) My mind just works that way - it constantly plays with words. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. And I've tried because it can be irritating at times not to be able to concentrate on the serious meaning of words. For example, at the top of the page, 'humanities' to me reads as 'human titties'. Which is mildly funny at first, but becomes a bit of a drag after a while. And 'John F Kennedy' to me becomes 'John Fuckin' Eddy'. :) DirkvdM 09:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry people, it was more of a quip than a serious answer :/ --froth^{T C} 17:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

3D

We know that 3d graphics accelerators generate 3d graphics but display only 2d field of vision.Any idea what tweak can be applied (something like the stereo command in python)to many of the opel and other games so that they produce stereo view continously which can be used for 3d viewing???

NVIDIA has a 3D Stereo driver for their video cards. If you don't have one of their cards, and the game doesn't support it on its own, there's little else you can do. There are some alternatives, but they suck. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You can mask the colour writes so that you just draw red, and then render the left-eye view, then switch to blue-green and render the right-eye view, and use a suitably coloured pair of 3D glasses to view it. (In OpenGL you would use glColorMask) You'd have to code it right into the game though. - Rainwarrior 17:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

java j2sdk1.4.0 question

hi,friends.myself jack.I have installed java j2sdk1.4.0 in the c drive and set classpath using environment variables.after creating a simple application helloworldand using javac it is compiled ,but during runtime it shows "Exception in thread main 'Noclassdeffounderror':helloworld.Why is this happening and how should I solve it.please help.

:The name of the class and the name of the file are not named the same. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC) See the Java Forum. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Microsoft Word

Sometimes on Microsoft Word, if I write something before text I've already written, it strangely deltes and replaces that text. What causes it? --212.219.230.119 11:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a command called 'OVERTYPE', which can be accidentally turned on with a keystroke or a mouse click, which replaces existing text letter by letter when new text is typed in front of it. I don't recall the keystroke offhand to turn it off or on, but when you are looking at your MSWord screen, the 'status bar' (the grey band at the bottom of the screen right above the Windows Taskbar), where you see information like what page you are on, will have several little 'windows' with grey text. When you are in 'overtype' mode, the 'OVR' text will be black, and double-clicking on it will turn the feature off. Anchoress 11:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. (deleted) --212.219.230.119 11:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I get it, you're a troll. Well maybe your answer will be useful to someone, even if you asked it as a joke. Anchoress 11:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I was being serious, I needed to know how to stop the overtyping. (deleted). --212.219.230.119 11:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soap box. Anchoress 11:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

(deleted} ;) --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 15:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The INSERT key in the 6-pack above the arrow keys typically toggles between insert and overstrike modes. StuRat 15:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

DNS mystery

2 machines on the same hub, running the same OS (Win2K pro), one resolving domain names fine, the other not. Can traceroute to the DNServer from both machines. nslookup results in

 *** Can't find server name for address 195.188.53.113: No response from server
 *** Can't find server name for address 193.38.113.3: No response from server
 *** Default servers are not available

(on the "bad" machine, natch). Any ideas? Rich Farmbrough, 17:51 26 October 2006 (GMT).

In nslookup set debug, type in some domains, and see what's different between the output of the same command on the two machines. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

debug output

 > set debug
 > www.cisco.com
 Server:  UnKnown
 Address:  193.38.113.3

 socket (dg) failed: No error
 *** UnKnown can't find www.cisco.com: No response from server
 >
 
 -----------------

 > set debug
 > www.cisco.com
 Server:  ns.cableinet.net
 Address:  193.38.113.3

 ------------
 Got answer:
    HEADER:
        opcode = QUERY, id = 4, rcode = NOERROR
        header flags:  response, want recursion, recursion avail.
        questions = 1,  answers = 1,  authority records = 2,  additional = 2

    QUESTIONS:
        www.cisco.com, type = A, class = IN
    ANSWERS:
    ->  www.cisco.com
        internet address = 198.133.219.25
        ttl = 49480 (13 hours 44 mins 40 secs)
    AUTHORITY RECORDS:
    ->  cisco.com
        nameserver = ns2.cisco.com
        ttl = 49480 (13 hours 44 mins 40 secs)
    ->  cisco.com
        nameserver = ns1.cisco.com
        ttl = 49480 (13 hours 44 mins 40 secs)
    ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
    ->  ns1.cisco.com
        internet address = 128.107.241.185
        ttl = 71035 (19 hours 43 mins 55 secs)
    ->  ns2.cisco.com
        internet address = 64.102.255.44
        ttl = 167339 (1 day 22 hours 28 mins 59 secs)

 ------------
 Non-authoritative answer:
 Name:    www.cisco.com
 Address:  198.133.219.25

 >

I suspect something is hooking the gethosytbynumber or whatever it is called, but maybe not. Rich Farmbrough, 21:28 26 October 2006 (GMT).

MacBook vs. PC laptop

Here's my situation: I'm a college student, living in a dorm, currently using an approximately 3 year old custom built desktop. I have a dual monitor setup just because it makes it much easier to view more at once. However lately I've been really wishing for a laptop, which would likely become my desktop replacement. I've always been a PC user but recently I've been using Macs (a couple of my roommates have powerbooks) and I've gotten to like them a lot. The new macbook pro release has got me thinking that I should consider a mac over a pc laptop.

My question is, what would you guys personally recommend for a laptop? Mac or PC? What is the overall better choice? I used to play a lot of computer games but lately I haven't really been doing that, though I assume eventually I will get back into a game or two. I want something powerful but also sleek and easy to use. I really like the macbook keyboard from previous experience.

Also I've been reading about Leopard, which will be released sometime in Spring 07. Would you guys recommend, if you do recommend a Mac, waiting till spring, when Leopard is released? Also I have heard rumors about a new, much more powerful chip coming out sometime next year, could anyone shed any light on what is coming for the future, either spring or early to mid-summer?

Now that macs are on the i386 architecture, any "new chips" coming out will probably be available for PCs and macs, though of course only PCs are upgradable. Personally I despise mac OSX and quite haughtily scorn it.. though I read that many pioneers of computer science rather like it, my "hacker subculture" sensibilites demand that I hate it and my left hand is all too happy to oblige. If you like to play windows games, you could just install windows on your macbook. As for the keyboard, I'll offer my usual Thinkpad plug- it has a full size keyboard- indisputably one of the best on the laptop market. I urge you to stick with a PC, if only because the macbooks are uglier than deep fried diahhrea and you'll end up paying a big premium for the mac name, with the only "plus" being that you'll be able to run osx and it'll be a bit easier to dual (or triple) boot with linux. Also consider that Vista won't be compatible with boot camp. --froth^{T C} 23:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Why even consider a Mac? They're horrifically overpriced, especially when it comes to laptops. Get a PC. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 00:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Both of the above responses are citing the oft-repeated mantra that Macs are horribly overpriced and you are paying a premium for the brand name - while this may have been true several years ago, I don't think Macs are that expensive compared to PCs, particularly for brand name PCs such as the IBM Thinkpad touted by Froth above. Apple has numerous budget options such as the Mac mini, iMac and MacBook which are on par, if not cheaper than brand name PCs.

Let's compare the price for similarly low-specced machines on the IBM and Apple websites:

• IBM ThinkPad T60: Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz / 512MB / 60GB / TFT14.1 / Combo / WinXP Pro = US$1,154
• Apple MacBook: Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz / 512MB / 60GB / 13.3 / Combo / Mac OS X = US$1,099

Hello! Can this be? The Mac is actually cheaper! Note: the screen size is slightly smaller on the MacBook (13.3" at 1280x800), but the resolution is actually higher (and the guy asking the question has an external screen) than the ThinkPad (14.1" at 1024x768).

Thinkpads are even more overpriced than macs, I was just giving an example of a comparable keyboard on the "non mac" side --froth^{T C} 06:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is it stated that Windows Vista won't be compatible with Boot Camp. I'm not saying it's not true, but I've only ever read that it would. As for the MacBook being uglier than "deep-fried diahorrea", that's purely subjective and your opinion. I don't despise Windows XP, but I find Mac OS X much easier to use, fewer gaping security holes, it does everything I need, it's much more versatile (as stated above, you can run XP, Mac OS X and Linux if you wish... and it just works, as they say. You also get the free iLife package, which is pretty powerful music/video/DVD/photo software. --Canley 02:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's actually possible but it doesn't work without some serious hiccups, and the average user probably wouldn't be able to figure it out. Something to do with vista not supporting EFI I think. By the way the reason I can't stand OSX is that it's like a mp3 player... it looks ok, does its function well, easy to use.. but that freedom that you have with a PC is completely missing. Yeah you can hack your mp3 player to load the linux kernel I guess and some other tricks or whatever, but it's not the same. With a PC you can take it apart, build it yourself (build your own components even if you wanted to!), see it go from its very base components up to the low level functions that make an OS possible. Then you never take high level functions for granted- you know and can intimately understand what's going on under the hood. There's no character in the bootstrapping screens that can't be changed if you can find the proper memory address. You could just never install an OS and use all the hardware in something else. I know that OSX is just that, and operating system, but the whole dynamic of OSX and macs in general is that it's just something you type at and click at and it does everything for you easily.. it's more like an embedded system than a computer! It's like an mp3 player rather than an open environment --froth^{T C} 06:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Nobody buys computers from IBM. 71.217.195.83 04:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The Thinkpad article describes them as "highly successful" and anyway Lenovo thought it was worth $1.25 billion of their money just to be allowed to manufacture the things... --froth^{T C} 06:09, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

For any computer purchase, but especially for Macs, good timing can bring good values. If you don't need a new computer today, there will always be a better one tomorrow. How long do you want to wait? Around the time of new releases, older models often become bargains. Many computer companies reveal important plans in advance; Apple Computer usually does not.

For current facts, the venerable MacInTouch site will help. For when to buy, MacRumors has a guide combining facts and speculation. Sites like AppleInsider and ThinkSecret also blend insider info and speculation. And would you believe it, Wikipedia has an article dedicated to the Apple rumors community. An outdated survey of Mac-related web sites, but possibly still helpful, is the Best Of the Mac Web Survey conducted by Low End Mac.

If your experience with Macs draws you in that direction, that's probably your best choice. The Intel Macs will run Vista under either Parallels or BootCamp or iEmulator or some improvisation, and Mac OS X already has a FreeBSD-like Unix under the hood (for power users). The MacWindows web site may also be of interest. --KSmrq^T 14:16, 27 October 2006 (UTC)]

IIRC, vista specifically destroys the mac partitions on install... --froth^{T C} 16:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want portability and battery life, a Sony or Lenovo is your best bet (I made myself choose between a Lenovo Thinkpad X60s and Sony VAIO TX3; Sony won, I'm happy with it, although I've heard the Lenovo support is really great, and they have coated screens - better for your eyes...) However, if battery life and small size aren't considerations, go with Mac all the way! You may be able to get Windows OEM deals from your local Mac retailers, as well as cheaper deals on RAM than from Apple direct. On the other hand, local retailers can't give you the full educational discount, so you'll have to weigh those against each other. Not that you'll ever want to use Windows unless you have some very specific program you need to run (like GIS software, alas!) Btw, all the laptops I've mentioned will run large external displays via VGA, but probably not dual head. Iirc the graphics cards in Macs are capable of doing this, but not sure how you connect them. Samsung make nice laptops, too. - User:Samsara (Mr. Gates took my tilde key)

if battery life and small size aren't considerations, go with Mac all the way. That's not necessarily the case either. Because it's not a proprietary standard and blahblah, you can find companies that make insanely powerful Windows-based laptops. They are larger and heavier, but if battery life and small size aren't considerations, they're hella powerful. I've seen a few laptops with at least X1600 GPUs that are close to the price of Macbooks (which have horrible Intel GPUs), rather than the more expensive MacBook Pros (with the X1600s). It really, really depends on a variety of personal criteria. I got a Windows laptop because I found a Dell that's smaller than the Macbooks, cheaper than the Macbook Pros, and actually has a decent GPU rather than the integrated Intel nonsense. I personally have no preference for OS X, I'm just as happy with Windows and Linux. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Blahblah? Which bit of my post were you unable to compile? - User:Samsara

No no, not part of your post. I was just explaining that non-Mac laptops come in far more varieties because far more companies develop them for far more types of users. However, I didn't want to type all that out, so I substituted it with blahblah. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My main point is that unless you want something that is very portable, there is no reason not to be running OS X. And if you're going to run OS X, you're best off buying a Mac, despite how much fun it might be to hack it. - Samsara (talk ·  contribs) 22:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

OSX is one of the least portable OSes on the market --froth^{T C} 18:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I HATE MACS I HATE MACS I HATE THEM... DO NOT GET ONE SETTLE FOR A WINDOWS BASED ONE... the only thing that i like about macs is that some of the desktop screens have handels in them...... this way i can attach a chain and use them as a BOTE ANCRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!pulo 08:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, you've won me over with that convincing argument! --Canley 03:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It's from a mac commercial parody (here about 1:40 into it) good stuff lol --froth^{T C} 18:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

My sister recently bought a Mac Powerbook as her only computer. She is the only Mac user in our entire family. I'm the only Linux user. Neither of us have Windows. JIP | Talk 15:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The best 15 inch laptop

that weighs under 9 pounds. What company sells it, do you think? Are there any companies that allow you to make absolutely custom laptops that are any good? 70.108.215.106 23:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

get a thin client laptop --froth^{T C} 23:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Would that be a good idea? After all, a thin client has to be connected to a server to be of use, which makes them rather impractical for individuals, and they need a constant network connection (to connect to the server) which could be problematic when on the move with a laptop. -- AJR | Talk 18:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well then use your old desktop as a server. --froth^{T C} 18:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

"Best" is highly subjective, I have asked myself that question many times. I personally own a vaio which I am very happy with and my gf has a MacBook which she is very happy with too. Both machines are generously specced and have not failed at any task we have thrown at them. Vespine 01:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

October 27

Good headphones?

Does anyone know the best set of circumaural 'phones around $70 or less? I got the Koss Pro/4AA, but they are for things like amplifiers and studio equipment (handy, but not what I'm looking for). Sort-of looking for something that can work with a CD player. Much appreciated. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 00:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Best is really opinionated. I use a Cyber Accoustic ACM 800 which don't hurt my ears if I wear them for extended periods of time, have pretty decent sound, a few feet of cables, folds up (but not to anything small enough to really be considered portable), and has a noise cancelation system which doesn't work very well. I think it just boosts the volume slightly when it's on. I'm in no way advocating it, but mine costed me $50 at the time. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

My father is an audiophile, and he got me the Sennheiser HD 497. I've been happy with them, and I think they're in that price range. Hope that helps! -- Creidieki 01:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I second the Sennheiser HD-497s. They're $70 and are fantastic. 202.10.86.63 04:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Not a shabby suggestion at all, but just take note that the HD-497s leak sound like mad. If you're using them in a very quiet place, you'll tick off the people near you. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 15:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Why aren't your current phones suitable for CD players? —Bromskloss 12:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Top 10 Headphones Reviewed dpotter 18:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Firefox 2.0 and Wikipedia

Firefox looks really weird at Wikipedia. It's fine on other websites. Anyone know how to fix it? See pic. Thanks WP 01:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you actually using the release version of Firefox 2.0? It's just that I can see the word "Build" after Firefox, which may mean you are using a beta or pre-release version. The final version is available at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/, I'm using it now and it's fine. Note that Firefox doesn't seem to be detecting this new version as an update, so you may need to install it manually. --Canley 03:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't update automagically?! :-( Here I am, waiting for it to notify me about the new version, and you tell me it won't! Any idea why? —Bromskloss 12:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

No. As of 1.5.0.?, they all say "build". It annoys me, too. - Samsara

I havn't noticed that. Nor have I noticed the bug described by Canley. If you're using the final Firefox 2.0, which language is it and are you using an optimized build like swiftfox? Do you have any extensions installed, or a custom theme? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk)

You can't update from 1.5.0.7 to 2.0 because there's no way to stop an automatic upgrade; so the automatic upgrade hasn't been set up yet. Firefox 1.5.0.8 will let you decline an automatic upgrade. --Kjoonlee 18:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's called a build samsara. If it wasn't a "build" it would be "source" and you'd have to build it yourself (with make or a windows compiler) --froth^{T C} 21:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Err, right, but Firefox doesn't usually include its build number in the window title. I'm on 2.0, and it isn't doing so. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Online Jobs

Hello all. Are there any legitimate ways of working and making money over the internet? I can find a job online, but how can I find an online job online? I've looked into survey taking and the like, and it seems pretty fishy. I'm a full time college student without a car, so I really need some information about working from my computer over the internet. Are there any job opportunities available? Thank you for your help. 72.228.54.222 04:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm a publicist and science writer, and I do all my work online. I know there are modestly lucrative and legitimate content-writing jobs out there, but from what my friends in the industry say they are jealously guarded by the people who have them. I make a bit of money on the side writing content for people on the KEEN and NiteFlirt sites, but I got those jobs thru word of mouth. Anchoress 04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's funny you mention NiteFlirt--I have a friend who did some work for them. She referred me to their website about a year ago, and I was considering becoming a "flirt." Even that seems kinda sketchy to me though. 72.228.54.222 04:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I've done it (not with NiteFlirt), and a good friend does it. I found it excruciatingly boring, but she does very well. Anchoress 04:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I have an extra job in my spare time, I do translations over the web for a german company (and actually, I live in Sweden myself...). Unfortunately, I usually only get one or the documents to translate every three or four months, but anything is better than nothing? TERdON 00:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing about online jobs is that it really depends on what you want/can do. If you happen to be incined in the computing field, there are some good places like rentacoder that allow you to make bids on projects. Pretty nice, because you get to choose what you work on. Projects range from simple things like making logos, to extreemly time-consuming programming jobs. - Ridge Racer 04:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Modem router combos

I'm looking to buy a DSL modem and a router. Is there any downside to the 2-in-1 router+modem combination units? The two I was looking at purchasing are the Netgear DG834 and the D-Link DSL-504G. Would they be wise purchases? Are there any other places I can find cheap routers in Australia? Thanks. 202.10.86.63 04:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I have used both of these, and while I can't remember the details, they seemed to do waht was on the box. Rich Farmbrough, 10:52 27 October 2006 (GMT).

sd cards

i have a dvd player that plays memory sticks,sd cards and cf type 1.my photosmart 8200 series has same.can i download and burn a movie on to one of these cards and then put in dvd player to watch it rather than burn to disc? thanx.x

xml file

Hi guys, I am trying to create an xml file called banner.xml as per the instructions here. The text for the xml file is here. Can someone tell me how I can create the xml file. This software stuff is beyond me (sigh) -- Lost^(talk) 14:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

You can paste it into notepad and save it as xml --froth^{T C} 16:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't use notepad. Use wordpad. Notepad will save it as banner.xml.txt. You'll have to turn on file extensions (which should have never been turned off by default) and then rename the file. Wordpad will (if memory serves) save it as banner.xml. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Notepad will work. Just select All files under the Save as type: thing in the save dialog, rather than .txt. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Or alternativly in notepad, put the filename in "quote marks" and it won't add an extension. -- AJR | Talk 18:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

join

When attempting to return only matching records from two related tables where the value in one column of the first table also appears in a certain column of the second table. this scenario best describes which type of "join"?

inner join
outer join
cross join
all of above
none of above

If you went through the trouble of typing "join" in the search box, you'd see the article Join (SQL), which explains each of the join types. Then, you could do your homework easily. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Carbon fibre mice

Does anyone know of a computer mouse whose entire upper shell is made of carbon fiber? I recently got a carbon fiber laptop that I'm quite happy with, and would like to have the same material in my next mouse. There are rumours that some of Logitech's mice are made from carbon fiber, but from images I've seen it looks like the buttons are usually plastic (polycarbonate?), with the grip parts along the sides possibly carbon fiber. - User:Samsara

Why would you need carbon fibre in your mice? It's primarily used to save weight (which shouldn't be a concern in mice), and on the other hand scratches rather easily. ColourBurst 17:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I just like the feel of it. - Samsara (talk ·  contribs) 19:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, may I ask where you accuired this carbon fiber laptop from? - Ridge Racer 04:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Carbon fiber is pretty expensive for you to buy for a mouse. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 05:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Big VB Programming Project

Please I want to make a big programming Project in VB 6 or VB.NET . So Can provide me with internet site or institute to provide me with this complete code of project.

Now that would be cool. I want to do a big project (like the one I've been coding for last 36 hours straight), but instead of coding it, I just go to a website and download the code. Project done. Where's my pay? --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

There are seldom sites that will offer exactly what you want - and often not for a small fee, either. Unless it's something rather simple (a calculator?). x42bn6 Talk 19:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

OIN popup

Each time I search using Google, I get a strange and uninvited pop-up from OIN. I can neither block nor get rid of it. I'm hoping I'm not the only one dealing with this, and that someone can help me strike this from my computer. Thanks.Wolfgangus 17:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I bet it's spyware. Use Adaware, Spybot - Search & Destroy and Microsoft Antispyware. Then, stop using IE (or at least update it / increase the security level) or programs which bundle spyware. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Spybot alone found 78 'problems'

If you want to continue using Internet Explorer, then upgrade to version 7. Harryboyles 22:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Video Ipod

How many songs can the Video Ipod hold?

That's subjective. It depends on how long your songs are, and what bitrate they're encoded at. Apple gives a number of 7,500 songs, which is based on every song being a 4-minute 128 kb/s AAC. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

If you had mp3s, theoretically, how many songs could you fit on? X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 04:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

NTFS & Linux

When I was able to run my live Ubuntu CD, linux could not mount the HDs. Is this because they are NTFS formatted? --Username132 (talk) 23:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

While it is possible to read an NTFS file system from Linux, I know of no safe way to write to one. It is possible if you don't mind the risk of trashing the NTFS drive. If all you want is read access, mount with a normal mount command, but add the "ro" for "read only", such as /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0 --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a (perpetually "experimental") NTFS-write module for Linux - http://www.linux-ntfs.org/ As Kainaw says, it's a bit risky; an ro mount should work fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well all my drives are formatted with NTFS - I have enough spare capacity to shift all the data from one drive at a time - how do I then format the drive with a file system that both Win and Linux can read? A right kaffufle... --Username132 (talk) 01:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The obvious solution would be to format the drive as FAT32. Both Linux and Windows will do this. You need a spare partition, and this might be hard to get on an already-formatted drive.--Silvaran 02:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Captive NTFS? It taints the OS with a proprietary driver, but blarblar. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

October 28

ASP date function

I have a site where I need to put a weekly date range in, IE prices effective Oct. 25 - Oct. 31, 2006 (Wednesday through Tuesday of each week). The site is a .asp extension, anyone know of an easy way to pull this off? either in ASP or JavaScript would be great. Hadiz 04:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Labtec Wireless Keyboard

I recently acquired a Labtec Wireless Keyboard and am having a great deal of trouble with it.

It works fine in word-processing software, but when I try to use it on the internet strange things start happening. The longer the computer is on the worse the problem becomes. I can’t reach tech support on the telephone, so I was hoping someone on Wikipedia’s reference desk could help me. Some of what it’s doing include:

1. Launching Windows Media Player at random intervals
2. When I push Shift to type a capital letter it inserts a d or a j or a d and a j before and after the letter I want capital
3. It likes the number 7. A lot. Whenever I try to type any number it puts a 7. It also inserts 7s in random places in words when my fingers aren’t anywhere near the number keys.
4. It jumps from one line to another randomly. I’ll be typing and all of a sudden I’m on the line below or above.

I’m running Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 6.0 66.72.65.164 01:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Does it happen every time? I'd think the keyboard was broken or dirty, but you say it works elsewhere. I've had some random keyboard issues too (Firefox though) where it would put my letters in a random sequence order no matter what order I typed them in. Hmm... I probably should tell you to download Mozilla Firefox since we're on the computing reference desk. In this case it will maybe solve your symptoms, although IE will still be broken. =/ Hyenaste ^(tell) 02:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Two ideas spring to mind: interference from other sources, or your keyboard may be too far away from the receiving device. Do the problems persist if you move the keyboard close to the receiving device? Dysprosia 06:40, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Mouse slowdown/speedup problem

Whenever I want to move files to a new folder in Windows XP after installing a wireless optical mouse at certain times the cursor begins to slow down and then overshoot making it very difficult to use. I assume this is due to the amount or location of memory Windows uses to handle the list of files to be moved such that it reduces the memory available for the mouse buffer. How can I allocate more memory for both the mouse and for the list of files Windows is about to copy or otherwise keep this slowdown/speedup response from happening? Adaptron 04:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)