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February 23

3D graphics software

I've looked a little for a good open source program that would be great for 3D architecture. By reading Blender's article, it seems that program's more for artwork than for architecture, but I may be wrong. I want a good, free, 3D program that I can use to recreate my house so I can do some remodeling. Can anyone give me a suggestion as to which one would be good? -- penubag  (talk) 00:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

How about Google SketchUp? The basic version is free. - mako 06:16, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks, but can you suggest one other? I'd prefer open source. -- penubag  (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I hope you'll still catch this since I'm replying to a bit of an old post, but you should take a look at Wings 3D. It's not particularly oriented towards architecture, but it's very easy to use and also quite "no-nonsense". Keep in mind that it does lack some features that may be useful to you - like boolean operations. Most of these can be emulated, if you will, by clever usage of tools like "slide", "intersect", "put on" and "absolute move". I find that its precision and ease of use more than make up for those missing features. --Link ^(t•c•m) 08:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Try looking at www.freewarefiles.com - I think I remember seeing one or two there. 78.149.170.123 (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Sisoftware Sandra - where is systemreport.txt hiding?

I downloaded and installed this. It said it could produce a customised report full of "tips" or fixes to improve the computer. Chose options to make the report a plain text file. Waited a very long time for it to churn through the computer. Waited some more. Nothing happened - no sign of the report anywhere, HD silent. However, looking at the various parts of it eg Motherboard does include some "tips". I must say, its got a badly designed user interface, and the help and faq are bad too. Can anyone explain please step by step how to create and view the system report? Thanks. 78.149.161.52 (talk) 00:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Wireless Messaging API hardware

What are the hardware requirements to use the J2ME Wireless Messaging API to send SMS? NeonMerlin 01:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Windows

1. Is Windows XP trademarked as "Windows xp"? That's how the title appears in the logo.

2. You know how when you go into Display, on the Appearance tab, there's a screen preview, including menus entitled "Normal", "Disabled", and "Selected"? Well, on XP, the "Selected" menu isn't really selected. Is this a bug or is it by choice? JCI (talk) 02:04, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The "XP" stands for experience. The Windows XP article doesn't say anything about XP being trademarked, but I don't think they could trademark two letters that derived from a word they certainly didn't invent. And could you please clarify the second question a little bit? I went to the Appearance tab and I couldn't find anything with "normal" "disabled" and "selected. Unless you mean the fonts, which have "normal", "large" and "extra-large". But I use the Media Center Edition. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 03:43, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You can definitely trademark "letters that derived from a word they certainly didn't invent". Trademarks are not about being original, they are about being unique. There is a difference—it is about brand identification, so you can trademark nearly anything in the context of your product (so the color orange is actually trademarked in regards to cellular technology, by the company Orange; it doesn't mean you can't use the color ever again, it means you can't use it to sell tellecommunications in a similar motif). Microsoft has multiple trademarks on the phrase "WINDOWS XP" and I'm not sure the Trademark office cares about capitalization. I don't know if they have "XP" itself just trademarked, but plenty of other companies do for different products, so I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft did too somewhere in the long list. You can look up trademarks on the USPTO's webpage. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It was a few years since I last used Windows XP, but as you know the UI is themed (the theme is called Luna) by default. Custom settings for UI elements (e.g. custom colours for windows, menus, buttons, title bars, ...) is only effective when Luna is disabled, so that Windows looks more like the Win 9x family of operating systems. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

a way to find max memory consumption of a quick program?

I want to know if there is a way, on linux, to find what the max memory use of a process during a quick run of its program. Since it runs so quick, I cant juggle a "top" process list window and quickly see the line for a split second, I want to analyze this data. I was thinking of possibly using strace, but that isnt showing me anything different for memory on the stack, although it seems pretty straight forward for memory allocated on the heap (I can just look at the mmap and sbrk commands).--yuowin ^tawk 04:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You could use ltrace to count up all the malloc() and free() calls. --Sean 11:40, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Valgrind can be set to produce lots of memory info, including detailed charts like this Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 14:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Add/remove icons on systray - win98se

How do I customize the systray? I am running win98se. Phil_burnstein (talk) 08:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't do that in Windows 98. The general icon options "show", "hide", "hide if inactive" were added to Windows XP. The only way to customize the icons in Windows 98 (SE) is to change the system tray icon setting for each application, if that is possible. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Matlab Particle in a Box Simulation

Hey, I am working on a matlab project, part of which requires me to write a simulation code for a box with many electrons in it and to track their movements.The following theory is how I can describe the project best as :

In the particle in a box method, you place a large number of electrons in a data structure representing the volume to be simulated. You divide this volume into small boxes that contain n electrons. If we use a 2D rectangular region we can define n(i, j) as being the number of electrons in box {i, j} and N – the total number of electrons is the sum over {i, j} of n(i, j).

What I have come up with so far as to use variables with my convenience is this: The simulator should start at t = 0 and advance delta t each timestep. So t = delta t × k where k is the current timestep.

This is how i started out, but I am trying to get the simulator to do some of the following steps:

To model transport we need a set of rules that govern how the electrons move from box to box. 1. In each time step a given percentage of the electrons in a box will move (diffuse) to it’s neighbors.

2. If we have an applied electric field present the flow (movement) of the electrons to it’s neighbors will be effected - ie the percentages for all four sides will not be the same.

3. Walls can be defined as “reflecting” or “absorbing” or somewhere in between.

The simulator will step through time evolving the distribution of n(i, j) Lastly, Iam trying to get this done in 3d and use contour plots and animate the distribution. I am stuck as I have never learnt Matlab before. Can someone please help me out on this one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.188.90 (talk) 13:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, simulating behavior using discrete memory cells is neither accurate nor efficient. Each "particle" in your simulation is limited to moving in increments of 1 cell or greater per step, and limited in direction based on the distance per step (for step=1 only 4 directions are possible; for step=2 8 directions). You can model your particles as entities, each with independent position, speed, direction, behavior, etc., in an array of particles. To run the simulation, an iterator updates each particle according to "step size". You can then reduce the step size to achieve a much more fluid animation once you've got the general behavior correct. – 74  17:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Preventing software from resizing the window

when i play game thy sometimes resize my screen. how do i make them games play windowed so i can multitask? they do't need to tak the whole screen up because they just streach the picture to fill space. thank you for you're time — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It depends entirely on the game. Read the instruction manual. Most games (not all) have a "window mode". Often, you have to start the game in full-screen mode and then select window mode from the settings. If you are lucky, you can save your selection so you don't have to go full-screen the next time. Hidden in the instructions is usually a method for forcing the program to go window mode all the time by altering an icon on your desktop or registry entry. -- kainaw™ 16:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

no this is for games that don't have that option. i looked and i couldn't find. sometimes when i play them and press the windows key on the keyboard it resized to small version, but as soon as i click on it it goes full screen again. is there a program i can use to force them into a windowed mode? something designed for exactly this problem. thank you for your time — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 16:37, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

How about sticking the game in a virtual machine -- Hoary (talk) 16:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Try Alt-Enter. It's a common keyboard shortcut to switch between windowed and full screen modes. --jh51681 (talk) 16:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Running the game in a virtual machine is worth a try, but it might not work if it requires graphics accelerator

For some games you can create a shortcut, then right click -> properties and in the Target field add -window or -w after the file path. If that doesn't work you can try DxWnd although I've not had much success with this myself. SN0WKITT3N 22:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

.pdf file size

I have some .pdf files that I need to e-mail. The web site I am using has a strict limit on file size. How can I reduce the sizes of my files so I can send more than one at a time?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.210.239 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 23 February 2009

You can use compression utilities such as 7-Zip or any other choice you want. Alternativly, you can use some available file-hosting companies or webhosts as a temporary means to transfer PDF files. --Sigma 7 (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I tried zip-ing one up and it reduced its size by 50% (from 1.2MB to 0.6MB) -- SGBailey (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

In addition, instead of sending them individually you could compress all the pdfs together with 7-Zip or WinRAR (especially with the solid archive option as they are all of the same file type) and split the archive into smaller parts of your emails size limit. Then whoever you're emailing them too will just have to have all the parts and can extract the entire file set at one.

You could also use a file-sending service like http://www.yousendit.com/. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Send cat to your correspondent. Use split to break up the files. I think you can get both of these for any OS in wide use. -- Hoary (talk) 13:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

But if the OP is having difficulty figuring out how to do something as relatively simple as transfer large files, he/she probably is not going to find using command-line tools to be the most efficient and useful approach. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

We've interpreted the predicament in entirely different ways. Very possibly it's me who's misinterpreted it, but anyway I see size as the problem. If, say, you must send a 30MB PDF file and you're limited to 5MB a pop, then mere file compression won't suffice, and splitting and concatenating seems sensible. But I do realize that some people are as wary of the command prompt as you or I might be of FDISK. Maybe somebody has created half a megabyte's worth of "GUI front end" for these humble utilities. -- Hoary (talk) 03:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If you don't care about the "extras" in the PDF files, you can simply select (highlight) the text of the PDF and copy it, then paste it into an email. You'll lose pictures and advanced formatting/typesetting, but you can squeeze in a lot of plain text under an email size limit. – 74  16:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Small freeware game?

Sometimes I like to take a break from working on the computer and play a game for a few minutes. I'm getting rather bored with playing online Reversi for the 1,000,000,000,000th time. I used to like playing Sokoban but have become bored with that. I do not like Tetris. What freeware game would people reccomend please? Something that is not multi-megabytes in size please. Edit: Other games I've enjoyed playing in the past are the freeware game Laser Tank and Quarry by Soleau, but I've played them out. 78.146.9.191 (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I really enjoy Fantastic Contraption, which is free online. Indeed, a very great deal of current casual gaming is online, much of it Adobe Flash based. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 21:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Jooleem is fun

Those little orbs make me hungry... -- penubag  (talk) 01:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

If you got me started on a list I wouldn't stop. I'll just give you a few good ones though: Dice Wars (great for a quick 5 minute break), dust (great if your creative mind is on), IceBreaker is another good puzzle game. I could continue my list but just drop the word and I will. -- penubag  (talk) 01:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I was playing Ice Breaker to 3am last night. How on earth do you get the Viking to the ship, in the scene where the lone Viking is positioned at the top left, and there is a large unfillable gap down the slope near the ship? Edit - now solved it. 78.145.24.81 (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately level 33 does not load - I've tried a few times. Is level 32 the last level? 78.149.170.123 (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

My wife is addicted to Samegame - my son and I wrote her a custom online version - which you can play here! - it's surprisingly difficult to get really high scores...but you can also just veg-out and play it idly. SteveBaker (talk) 04:35, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

That's quite impressive javascript! Excellent work. – 74  04:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of you to say so. The code is horribly slow on IE though - play it on Firefox or something. IE doesn't properly support 'canvas' graphics. We should probably have done it in Flash - but I wanted to see how far one could push JavaScript. It was an Xmas present for my wife - we wrote the URL onto a bit of paper and put it in a DVD case so we had something to gift-wrap. We even made up a sleeve that made it look like a Wii game - only with 'Web' instead of 'Wii'! SteveBaker (talk) 03:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been playing it. Have you thought of making the balls fall to the lowest point, as real balls would do? It would require more strategy from the player. To me the "score" was getting the smallest number of balls left over at the end. 78.145.24.81 (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't recall what the site is called but there was an online version of Pictionary that can be really quite good fun to play, though it requires other people to be there to play against. Also not so much a game as just a great bit of fun Line Rider is pretty entertaining and once you search on you-tube for some videos of people who've made their own 'runs' you'll suddenly realise that there are people with waaaaay more time on their hands than I could imagine possible. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Probably thinking isketch? Or one of the myriad of similar games? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for all answers so far. Apart from Reversi, all the games that I mentioned above involve moving something (tank, boxes, mice) through a moveable maze-like scene to a goal, with no time limit for thinking. Objects often can be moved or have various special properties (eg conveyor belt, mirror, ice) and the puzzle is to find the unobstructed way through to the goal. So can anyone point out some more like these please? Personally I prefer downloadable games rather than flash. Thanks. 78.145.24.81 (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Enigma? – 74  14:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Boomba is a game similar to your maze description, except it's flash. -- penubag  (talk) 01:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Goforapproval.com

I like the way the buttons (back, forward, etc.) on the computer screen look on that commercial. Is it possible to change your buttons to those (assuming I could find where to get those)?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

YouTube periodically not available

Earlier this afternoon, while I was watching some clips on YouTube, it suddenly stopped working. Conducting a search at the time, nothing happened until the page timed out, claiming it "cannot display the webpage". Other websites are working fine but YouTube - and only YouTube - is not working. This happens periodically. One attempted fix was to access ca.youtube.com, the Canadian YouTube site but it is also not working. Could this be a problem with my computer or the server or my access to the site? --Blue387 (talk) 22:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes.

Oh, you want a useful answer? In general, if other websites work then it isn't your computer. It could be that the server (and I use this term loosely; YouTube probably has hundreds or thousands of servers) is down—trying a local mirror or just returning to the site homepage might allow you to bypass a single bad server. If YouTube is extermely busy or has systemic problems, you might not be able to get *any* of their servers to respond, in which case you simply have to wait for them to restore service. The final possibility is that somewhere on the network between your computer and YouTube's server the connection is being blocked. Your ISP or other network segments might be blocking it to conserve bandwidth, as part of a power play (this is why we need net neutrality), or for technical reasons. In summary, it sounds like you already know how to handle this situation; if nothing works then you just have to wait. – 74  07:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Getting Rid Of Windows Mediaplayer

How do I dtop WMP from playing tracks at random? It is a pain in the arse trying to listen to concept albums!--KageTora (talk) 23:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a button on the control panel to switch the shuffle feature on/off. Here's a screenshot showing Windows Media Player with the shuffle turned off - there's a light "glow" round the button when shuffle is on. The same feature can also be controlled from the Play menu or by typing Ctrl-H. Astronaut (talk) 01:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

February 24

Proxy question

Is it possible to use a proxy server (the type that hides one's IP address) on a Java applet that accesses the Internet (This one was the first example I found) so as to hide one's IP address? I've just been wondering about that lately, so don't feel obliged to give a detailed answer. Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 00:25, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Any and all connections can be routed or tunneled through a proxy—given the correct proxy. Simple "free" web proxies may not support the necessary ports for your application (though with the source code it is possible to modify the ports used, but such modifications would be required at the other end of the connection as well). – 74  05:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Online cryptography tool

I seem to recall that there is a website that does what I want, I just can't remember what it's called or find it with google or anything else. I want to make a series of webpages publically available online, with some of them being "secret", meaning that the pages are still visible but that the text is gibberish and only people who know a particular string of characters are able to translate it into its intended meaning. For this purpose, perfect security is not really necessary. 98.218.124.185 (talk) 03:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

If your web server is Apache, you can use .htaccess to allow only the people who know a password to get into certain directories. The blog host Typepad will pasword-protect an entire blog. Google Docs lets you create password-protected online documents. EdJohnston (talk) 03:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

This site will encrypt your html code and prompt for a password when someone tried to view the page. SN0WKITT3N 12:12, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The above site seems to be buggy. I tried using it to encrypt the html, <p>Hello world!</p> using password "google". The resulting encrypted html (?) contained, among other things, the code: orig = unescape("%3Cp%3EHello%20world%21%3C/p%3E");. Not very well obfuscated. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe you have to include the entire page source, for example

<html>
<head>
  <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 http-equiv="content-type">
  <title></title>
</head>
<body>
Hello world!
</body>
</html>

for it to work correctly SN0WKITT3N 10:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The instructions do say that it can't encode short text - it does seem to work for longer strings. I wouldn't use JavaScript for securing pages, but it depends on the OP's definition of 'perfect'. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

gmail explosion

I accidentally pressed some key combination that has caused my gmail to appear extremely zoomed in. It only occurs when I am logged in, so it is not a browser issue. I poked around settings a bit and couldn't find anything. Help? --Shaggorama (talk) 05:32, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps try holding CTRL and scrolling your mouse's scroll wheel? Useight (talk) 06:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Yup, that resolved the issue. Thanks for the speedy reply. --Shaggorama (talk) 10:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Pressing Ctrl + 0 will return your zoom level back to default. Zunaid 17:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

C++ - pointer to a class function

I was trying something in C++ the other day (I'm quite confident in C, and just figured out enough with C++ to start making classes with their own methods). At one point I really wanted to take a pointer to a function belonging to an instance of a class I'd written (i.e. write a class C with a function f; create an instance I of that class C; try to take a pointer to I.f), but the compiler specifically told me I couldn't do this (I forget the exact wording) so I gave up and went back to C.

Is there a good reason why it's not possible to take a pointer like this?

Rawling4851 11:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

You mean something like this?

#include <cstdlib>

class C
{
public:
	void f();
};

void C::f()
{
}

int main( void )
{
	void (C::*fp)() = &C::f;

	C I;
	(I.*fp)();

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Regards, Bendono (talk) 12:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

You should be aware that method pointers are not real pointers, and that whatever it is you're trying to do with them is probably better done with polymorphism. In C you have no choice but to use a lot of function pointers, but in C++ that's not true at all. Here's some more information. --Sean 13:50, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Just as a rough idea: I was trying to implement an SP Network, using classes to define an S box, P box and the network itself. The S Box and P Box classes had public methods for both the forwards (encryption) and backwards (decryption) substitution/permutation, as well as an array actually defining the substitution/permutation. I wanted an SP Network instance to store and use pointers to these functions rather than to an instance itself, since the network acts in the same manner whether it is encrypting or decrypting. However, trying to take a pointer (e.g. just trying to compile "&(mySBox.encrypt);", let alone storing or using the reference) of course results in a compile error. ((unsigned|Rawling|16:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)}}

Explaining Bendono's example: In C terms, an object can be thought of as (essentially) a struct, and the object's methods are function pointers that are bound to the instance of the struct. In C, Bendono's example class above would (essentially) look like this...

struct C { void (*f)(struct C *so); } where 'so' is a pointer to (what would be) C++'s 'self'.

A simple void (*func)() = I.f will fail because the namespace and number/type of arguments are not the same. You need to at least preserve binding, as Bendono's example does.

But (as Sean points out) C.f is non-static, so I.*fp does not necessarily reflect the physical address of the function you will be calling. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that the desire for this kind of thing is highly symptomatic of the thought processes of someone who is transitioning from C to C++ and hasn't quite 'grokked' it yet. The sorts of reasons why you tend to need pointers to functions in C are erased by the inheritance and virtual functions in C++. For example - when you are doing sorting in C using the 'qsort' library function, you have to provide a pointer to a function that compares two of your objects. In C++, it's much more likely that you'd have sorting built into the class - and that you'd change the comparison function by overloading "operator>=" in a derived class. The kinds of situations where your C-like brain is telling you that you'd really like this pointer-to-member-function thing is exactly the time you need to "unlearn" that and try to aquire a C++ mindset. Don't worry though - I'll come to you eventually and you'll see just how much more elegant C++ is. It's not just C with a few extra goodies - it's an entirely different way of thinking that happens to share much of the same language syntax. SteveBaker (talk) 03:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Still, it would be nice to be able to have a signal handler be a (method of a) C++ object; the standard workaround with a global variable is ugly, and you can't dynamically generate a (true) function that knows the implicit parameter so as to add it to the call. As they say, objects are just a poor man's closures... it's not entirely crazy to want them, even if you get confused in the process! --Tardis (talk) 17:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Rocket Dock Stack Docklet

How do I configure the Stack Docklet on Rocket Dock to open the folder I want? All of the websites I have looked at don't tell me anything, and the only video-screenshot I can find is of a teenage guy mumbling away to himself.--KageTora (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Instant messaging program for server

Hello folks. I’m in need of an instant messaging program (hopefully a free one) that will work on our server. We remotely connect into our server, so an IM program on the local is not feasible. The program would need to run on Windows Server 2003 Standard SP2. Something that would not require folks to sign up for an account would be helpful. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Cheers! Rangermike (talk) 18:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

There are some messenger services related to the OS, but maybe Trillian is more what you're looking for? — Ched (talk) 13:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Another program that can read MS Backup format

Is there another program that can read/write an MS Backup format tape? I have to jump through hoops just to get it to recognize that a tape has been inserted, and trying to use it is driving me nuts. The tape and drive are recognized under another format's program, but as this tape has existing sets on it, I'd rather not "reformat" the tape... Thanks in advance! Arakunem^Talk 22:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki Extension on Wikipedia for Editbox

This is sort of a subtle detail which I have noticed. I am running my own MediaWiki for internal use, and there is a particular feature which I notice is installed on Wikipedia, but is not installed on my MediaWiki. Here is the behavior I notice. If I am editing a section on Wikipedia, and then I accidentally use that browser-tab to navigate to a new page before submitting my edit, I can simply click "back" on my browser, and my un-saved edit is still in the textbox, allowing me to safely resubmit without losing work. On my private MediaWiki server, this is not the case - navigating back reloads the original text, leaving my uncommitted edit lost into the ether (this is awfully frustrating). So, is there a setting I need to change, or a MediaWiki extension that I should install, or should I just be more careful not to accidentally browse away? Nimur (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

You might want to ask at the village pump. Astronaut (talk) 23:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

In dire situations along those lines, doing a:

strings /proc/kcore > edit.txt

under Linux has saved my skin. Obviously being able to just press "back" is better. --Sean 00:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

This is technically a "feature" of your browser; Wikipedia doesn't supply the text for the edit boxes (unless you've already submitted them with the "preview" function). There are, however, server settings that can change how a user's browser behaves, such as HTTP headers, which can tell the browser how long the page content is valid and whether to cache it. Another option is to change your browser; some are significantly better about supporting the back button with forms than others (in my experience, Opera has never lost the contents of a textbox). – 74  01:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I have not made any browser settings for saving forms. I use Firefox for both my wiki and Wikipedia and I get different behaviors, so it must be a server-side setting. What would I need to do to change the HTTP headers you mention? Is this a setting in Apache's configuration, instead of MediaWiki? I scanned my server's HTTP headers; it looks like the cache-control parameters are identical to the Wikipedia cache-control (except that Wikipedia has the Squid proxy/caches, but that shouldn't matter). Nimur (talk) 05:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Further investigation is pointing to some javascript somewhere in Wikipedia which is not present in my personal wiki server. There's a lot of places that could be including such a script - user-profile, skin, etc.; or it could be a newer version of wikibits.js or something... If I track this down, I'll post a solution. MediaWiki is a complicated machine... Nimur (talk) 06:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

I was running a much older MediaWiki version than I realized (1.12.0). This feature has been added (something related to default server-side ajax and/or javascript includes). Upgrading to MediaWiki newer than Version 1.13.1 has solved the issue. Nimur (talk) 06:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

February 25

Windows (2)

1. Are Windows 3.1 and its predecessors really operating systems or just...GUI's?

2. When was 3.1 really discontinued, December 2001 or November 2008? If it's the former, what was the 2008 discontinuation for?

3. I have a friend who has a Windows 3.1 computer that boots directly to Windows on startup. How does it do that? JCI (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

To start Windows 3.1, you usually have to type win at the DOS prompt. This runs the win.com file found in C:\WINDOWS. To start Windows 3.1 automatically, you add the word win to a line in the autoexec.bat file found in the root of the drive. Windows 95 and 98 also use win.com, whereas Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista have the GUI built into the kernel.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 02:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep, what K said. Most "hard core" hats of the day felt that 3.x, 9x, and ME were just GUI's sitting on a DOS OS (is that redundant)? — Ched (talk) 02:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It was an OS enough. It had common libraries and drivers and whatnot that applications could use, doing a lot of the hardware interaction and GUI stuff for them; that's kind of the definition of operating system, no? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Windows is something of an exception there though - pretty much every other operating system there is - or has ever been - has separated out the windowing system/GUI from the kernel of the operating system. If you aren't trying to monopolise the market and lock people in - it makes sense to keep them separate. Many of the ills of Windows can be attributed to that particularly poor decision. SteveBaker (talk) 03:28, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Answer to #1: Windows 3.1 and older pretty much are GUI. They are... basically shells to the MSDOS operating system. It is not until, if I recall correctly, either Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0 that Windows itself becomes an OS and not just a GUI.

Answer to #2: Windows 1.0-3.1 were supported until 2001. I have really no idea about this 2008 discontinuation.

As for #3, I don't really know about that. Until It Sleeps 04:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

@SteveBaker: Windows is not an exception. OS/2, NT 3.x, Vista and Win7 had/have it in userland. Also, I wouldn't go quite so far as to suppose that the binding between GUI and OS is microsofty evil. MS does not have a monopolistic advantage by having the UI in kernel space. Few people even know what a kernel is. BeOS had its GUI in kernel, and look where it got them. Its a different paradigm from the familiar one of unices (so why is cons in-kernel?), but if you were designing an OS with a GUI from the outset, then there are good reasons (*nudge*, *nudge*) for having GUI code there. MS's core engineers, for all their faults, are not dumb. Embedded Linux guys are not dumb either. ;) -- Fullstop (talk) 05:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Windows programs are Windows programs, not DOS programs that merely made GUIish calls. Win 3.1 and 9x are OS enough that you have to reboot if they crash; there is no falling back on DOS. Moreover, Memory management had already been taken over by 2.10, so at least from then on, DOS even had to be emulated in a virtual machine. By 3.11, with its 32bit disk I/O (what was that thing called?) bypassed DOS for file access. By 4.1/98, unless there were DOS TSRs/device drivers loaded, 9x only used DOS as a bootloader, and bypassed DOS completely if it could.
2. What K;;m5m said.
3. General sales of DOS/Win 3.1 ended in 2001, but continued for the embedded market until November 2008. -- Fullstop (talk) 05:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Early versions of Windows required a reboot because there was no memory protection: if a program went wrong, it could stomp all over any part of memory. You rebooted because you didn't know what sort of shape DOS was in, not because Windows was an operating system. --Carnildo (talk) 01:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Floppies

Are there any modern computers that use 5 1/4 floppy disks? JCI (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

You can still get the drives to put into a new computer at places like newegg, but honestly - most modern computers don't even come with a 3 1/2" anymore. Thumb/flash drives, and DVD now - Blueray coming up fast. — Ched (talk) 02:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Moving Firefox Settings/History/Bookmarks Between Computers...

I have two separate computers that I use regularly. I use Firefox on both. I use mostly the same extensions and settings, but it would be nice if I could simply set it all up and then use the same "identity" no matter where I went. I know things like extensions couldn't be saved that way, but would it be possible to centralize and combine my history, bookmarks, and settings, and somehow transfer them easily from one computer to another? --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 03:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The portable version of Firefox (article) consolidates all the program settings in a specific location. You could put this version on a USB key and transfer it from computer to computer, transfer a zip of the folder from computer to computer (via email, for instance), or set this up on a shared drive and access it from multiple computers on the same network (at least I *think* that would work, though it might be slow and you might be limited to running it on one computer at a time). – 74  07:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

RECORDING ON COMPUTER

I LOVE STREAMING RADIO.CAN I RECORD IT WHEN NOT AT HOME? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.232.211 (talk) 04:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Um... I don't really think the caps were necessary. But, it is possible to record audio using some programs, even Windows Sound Recorder. You need to record from the Audio Out feed. I don't exactly remember how to do this, since I use Ubuntu as my primary OS, with Windows 7 as a secondary. Until It Sleeps 05:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's possible if you use an audio editor/recorder with a timer. Try to find at here. Oda Mari (talk) 07:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

This archived question might be of interest. (Opcode should probably also make the list.) – 74  07:40, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

You look into [1]. I haven't checked out there stuff in a long time, but at one point they had a utility that lets you schedule recordings for when you're not home. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

HDD recovery tools

Hi,

A friend of mine has recently had an external WD HDD fail - it's still "visible" in WindowsT and comes up with the error message "the file or directory is corrupt and unreadable" and if I run chkdsk it says "Check disk cannot be performed because Windows cannot access the disk". I'd appreciate any software recovery recommendations (preferably free ones). --Fir0002 06:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The first thing to do (it's free!) is to determine how valuable the contents are. In the event that they are "very" valuable, you should consult a professional data recovery service. If the contents are "not" valuable, you should toss the drive and move on. For values in between ("kinda" valuable), there's no shortage of "helpful" advice on Google. – 74  07:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The UBCD for Windows didn't help huh? Have you tried plugging it into a second/different PC?— Ched (talk) 13:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Knoppix maybe?

Thanks for the help - Photorec did the trick and recovered most of it --Fir0002 07:22, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Net connections log

I need a free or open source program that will monitor all connects to the internet and log them, such as "http://google.com" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing" etc with the time they were accessed, and possibly the amount of data transferred. Thanks for your help --Jonas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

answer please --Jonas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyone? This is an emergency --Jonas

I'm afraid we don't do "emergencies", and I have difficultly accepting your request as an emergency. In response to your question, some personal firewall software may have the ability to monitor and log internet accesses. – 74  14:18, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

User may be looking for a Port scanner? — Ched (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hard drive for videos

I'm looking for a hard drive on which you can store videos which can then be watched on a normal TV by simply connecting it to the TV but I can't find any. Can anyone point some out to me? -RMFan1 (talk) 15:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

A couple products you might be interested in are the Western Digital WD-TV, which requires an external drive, but supports many formats; or something like the Archos 605. --LarryMac | Talk 15:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's not a matter of hard drive but TV. It is possible if you have a Toshiba REGZA ZH7000/Z7000. It's the only one TV I know that you can connect a hard drive. Oda Mari (talk) 16:25, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest the Western Digital mentioned in the first reply as well. If you intend to record off the TV as well, like a DVR does, then you need an external drive with a 7200 RPM rating, which is the most common now-a-days. You don't want an old 5300 RPM disk, as these do not spin fast enough to record the video in real time. UntilItSleeps PublicPC 19:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Ones like these [2] [3] [4] [5]? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

HD TV

Hi I am considering investing in a new HD TV has anyone got any info I should know before buying? Should I go for plasma or LCD? Thanks. BigDunc^Talk 17:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems plasma is being dropped by most manufacturers. I don't know what the DTV arrangements are for the Republic, but for the UK they say they're going to start broadcasting Freeview in HD by the end of 2009, so I'd be looking for a TV that a DVB-HD decoder (pretty much all will have a regular definition DVB/Freeview decoder). A VGA connector is a nice to have (so you can use it as a PC monitor or hook it to a media centre PC - some PCs have HDMI out, but many don't). Any largish HD TV will run to a vertical resolution of 1080, but some are only interlaced (1080i) and some can do it "progressive" (non interlaced; that's 1080p). I'd personally recommend mounting it on the wall (all flat screen TVs have a a VESA standard plate fitting on the rear, making hooking it to the wall pretty easy) - this makes it easier to see, frees up some floor space, and keeps the rather delicate screen safe from small jammy fingers. My personal recommendation would be a Sony; I have a smaller 1080i capable one; a friend of mine has a 42" 1080p capable Sony, and I confess The Dark Knight on BluRay (which I'm to stingy to buy) on his does look quite breathtaking (I hate saying things like that, because I'm so not one of the "my expensive tv/stereo/gadget is incredible" squad. I wouldn't recommend Freesat, which I found to be inferior (in both content and picture) to Freeview. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 17:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

In addition, make sure what you get has enough SCART and HDMI ports. Right now your DVD player (and probably Sky box) will be SCART, but SCART is (thankfully) being replaced with HDMI - so your next DVD player (which is likely to be a BluRay) will very likely be HDMI. Thus you need SCART ports enough for your existing stuff, and at least as many HDMI ports for when, over the next few years, you replace that stuff with HDMI capable equipment. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 17:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(Note that if you are in the US, you probably won't have to deal with SCART) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

NoScript add-on

Is the NoScript add-on for Firefox really worth it? Because I just installed it and now I find it quite annoying to have to adjust the settings each time I visit a website. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 19:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it's definitely worth more than you paid for it. You can whitelist sites using context menu → NoScript → Options → Whitelist; a properly-formed wildcard entry should allow full use of a specific site. Of course, if you decide to whitelist everything you might as well just uninstall NoScript. – 74  19:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, not worth it. Your results may vary. --140.247.243.27 (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that it is worth it. I don't want to run Google Anal scripts on every site I hit. I don't want some script playing sounds when I hit a page. I don't want some script popping up new windows or trying to break my back button. Basically, there is so little that I do want scripts to do that I prefer to authorize scripts on a page-by-page basis. -- kainaw™ 21:00, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Google Anal? Seriously? Blech... Personally it seems hardly worth the effort—most browsers can block unauthorized pop-ups, most pages don't play sounds (from what I can tell), those few sites that do break the back button often are so poorly coded anyway that one needs their scripts for them to work at all, etc. Obviously it's a matter of personal choice as to whether the cost of the medicine is more or less than the disease, but your non-NoScript browsing experience doesn't seem very similar to mine at all. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

A much better alternative to NoScript is Adblock Plus. It has a built-in blacklist where you can disable scripts from running. I'd also recommend the Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper extension. Alternatively, click Tools>Options>Content> uncheck Enable JavaScript (although, I'm sure you've done this already without success) -- penubag  (talk) 01:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Funny, I already had ABP running way before NoScript, but I just installed the Element Hiding Helper version upon your suggestion. So I guess this means I can safely get rid of NoScript, right? --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 02:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, if you know how to write in regular expression, you can manually mass block anything you want with wildcards (*). The element hider is just an extension to Adblock to make the blocking easier. I've seen people misuse Adblock plus though, if you still see ads, make sure you have a subscription installed. -- penubag  (talk) 03:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand "expression" (I'm not too good at the advanced tech stuff, embarrassingly enough). --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 03:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

If you look under the options of Adblock plus and if you have the Easylist subscription installed (you probably do if you installed adblock plus correctly) you'll see a bunch of examples that came with it. Do you want to tell me what exactly you're trying to block? Is it just javascript? -- penubag  (talk) 04:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I found it. There's nothing in particular I want to block, I just to make sure it won't be a loss uninstalling NoScript. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 04:54, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, nope, and if so, you can always reinstall :)-- penubag  (talk) 05:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. :) --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 05:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Wolfram Rule 120

I have noticed an interesting logarithmic growth pattern in the 1D cellular automaton under Wolfram Rule 120. I would like to investigate this rule further, but I do not know of any satisfactory programs (preferably Java applets) that I can use to investigate this - and by satisfactory, I mean a cylindrical universe. Does anyone know of any such applets/programs? Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be no article on Rule 120 but there is on Rule 110 and Rule 184 and Rule 30. I programmed this in applesoft basic about 25 years ago, so if I find the code I will post it here. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not an applet, but it's standard C99 (see MinGW or Cygwin if you want to compile this on Windows) and it implements all the rules:

/* wolfram.c */
/* Implements a Wolfram rule cellular automaton on a cylinder. */

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<assert.h>

/* Using single bits would save memory, but would be more complicated. */
typedef char bit;

bit getrule(const bit r[8],bit a,bit b,bit c) {return r[4*a+2*b+c];}

void advance(const bit *a,bit *b,size_t len,const bit r[8]) {
  for(size_t i=1;i<len-1;++i) b[i]=getrule(r,a[i-1],a[i],a[i+1]);
  /* Handle first and last bit separately: */
  b[0]=getrule(r,a[len-1],a[0],a[1]);
  b[len-1]=getrule(r,a[len-2],a[len-1],a[0]);
}

void write(FILE *out,const bit *f,size_t len) /* adds a newline */
{for(size_t i=0;i<len;++i) fputc(f[i] ? '*' : ' ',out); fputc('\n',out);}

int main(int argc,char **argv) {
  if(argc!=4) {
    fprintf(stderr,
            "usage: %s rule len cycles\nReads len ASCII binary digits\n",
            argv[0]);
    return 2;                   /* BAD_ARGS */
  }

  const int r=atoi(argv[1]);
  bit rule[8];                  /* individual bits from r */
  for(size_t i=0;i<8;++i) rule[i]=r>>i&1;

  const size_t n=atoi(argv[2]),t=atoi(argv[3]);
  bit *const f[2]={malloc(n),malloc(n)};
  assert(f[0] && f[1]);

  for(size_t i=0;i<n;++i) {
    char c;
    scanf(" %c",&c);            /* skip whitespace */
    f[0][i]=c!='0';
  }

  for(size_t i=0;i<t;++i) {
    const size_t p=i&1;
    write(stdout,f[p],n);
    advance(f[p],f[1-p],n,rule);
  }
  write(stdout,f[t&1],n);

  free(f[0]); free(f[1]);
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Have fun! --Tardis (talk) 18:30, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

For further reference, you probably want to use "Rule 106" instead of "Rule 120" as the smallest equivalent Wolfram code is conventionally used. --Tardis (talk) 23:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

uTorrent limit

hi, basically it seems that when downloading files using uTorrent it seems to limit the speed to 235kbs, every time and anytime, which is odd because i did an internet speed test and got a download speed of about 2000kbs/2mbs. Ive taken all the limits off that i can see in the options menu thing....how can i make it faster basically? thanks, --81.77.209.125 (talk) 21:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that this limit is being imposed on BitTorrent traffic by your ISP, in which case changing your settings won't help. Algebraist 21:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

So your saying that my ISP (Orange Internet or whatever its called) can single out traffic from Bittorrent (and related) and limit it at their will. Would using another P2P program, eg Limewire, solve this problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.209.125 (talk) 22:01, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

No, but you can use encryption in utorrent that might increase your speed. Go Options, Preferences, select the Bittorent tab and change Protocol Encryption to Enabled or Forced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

There are several things that can affect your d/l speed.

1. check you program configurations / preferences to see if you have a limit there - often default program settings will set aside x-amount of upload bandwidth and limit d/l speed.
2. Check your router configuration, there are often tweaks there that limit ftp in favor of html, smtp, etc.
3. Indeed it can be your ISP, Comcast (a US major ISP) faced heavy criticism for limiting and even blocking P2P and torrent users. Actually - blocking is wrong, they dropped their connection. (I think Verizon ran a-foul of this as well). — Ched (talk) 22:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Technically, no "blocking" was taking place (at least in Comcast's case); Comcast was injecting fake reset (RST) packets. Of course, Comcast's PR machine was spinning these forged packets as "not a block". The logical escalation is to modify P2P software to ignore these RST packets, which would have resulted in even more traffic (mostly unwanted) on Comcast's network. On the bright side, this whole affair inspired significant interest in net neutrality. – 74  23:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure your port forwarding is working correctly? Torrent programs require your router settings to be just-right in order to get maximum benefit. Google "utorrent port forwarding" if you have questions. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Definitely use encryption and "randomize port", as mentioned. These two things allowed me to avoid the ISP limits. Also, you tend to get more bandwidth at night, so try to target your downloads overnight. 2000kbps is an extreme speed. If I were an ISP with that kind of bandwidth, I would be targeting business clients, and definitely be throttling bittorrent traffic during the day.NByz (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Bit Torrent self regulates the download speed you get based on how fast you upload. It's only a rough calculation but I am guessing that your cable is significantly slower uploading than downloading. I usually CAP the upload speed of the torrent app to ~80% or so of my actual usable upload speed and this tends to improve things a lot as otherwise the upload channel gets so clogged up that you cannot even use your connection for browsing web sites, and your download speed may end up being SLOWER as the ack packets cannot be transmitted back fast enough (as they are competing for bandwidth with the actual data being uploaded by the torrent app). 204.16.236.254 (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

February 26

Cell phone tracking

I've lost my cell phone, it's still on but it's on silent. How can I find it? Are there any online tracking tools that can give me the approximate city it's in? -- penubag  (talk) 01:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

You probably won't be able to track it unless you've enabled something like Google Latitude. --Aseld ^talk 01:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

City? I don't think that it being on silent is going to matter if you don't know what city it's in. Have you lost your mobile or have you lost your girlfriend? I certainly hope that a publicly available way to track any mobile is NOT available yet. I'm sure it "can" technically be done, but I highly doubt you could get access to that information unless you are a law enforcement body with an appropriate subpoena. Vespine (talk) 04:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Warrants? We don't need no stinkin' warrants. – 74  05:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It is too late once it is lost, but there are programs you can put on your phone (when you have it) that will allow you to track it online, such as loopt. -- kainaw™ 05:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Back when I worked for US mobile carriers (AT&T Wireless, Cingular), any customer service agenct could see which tower the cell was using (if it was on), which gives a general location. They weren't supposed to give callers this information though (stalkers!). There was a linegroup set up for police inquiries though. I don't know what the verification process was there.

In Canada, many providers have a "child-find" application that uses assisted GPS to locate the phone. Although some phones run childfind as an "application" on the phone (you'd have to install it) or a fee-based service (you'd have to pay for it), I know that Telus has it going all the time. You just have to log into your Telus online account and ask a CSR for some code. I'm sure some other providers are similar. When you call the contact center, just be bothersome. Some people don't know or follow the rules and will give in when pressed by customers.NByz (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

If the phone has text capabilities, send a text stating that you are the owner and you seek to obtain your phone. With some luck, someone may have found it and they will contact you. Of course you could try to call (as I guess you probably already did) but some people may respond to a text rather than an incoming call on a phone they just found. This all of course depends on whether or not someone even found your phone, and it is not lying lonely in a remote environment. I once found a phone on the sidewalk...I scrolled through all the numbers until I saw one listed as "Mom". I called the number and the owner met me rather quickly to get his phone back. best of luck to you. You may want to call the phone service provider as well so you don't get charged for calls you didn't make in the case someone is using it 10draftsdeep (talk) 18:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

identify the '80s video game

Can anyone identify the game I played on a friend's new Sinclair QL many years ago? It was a 2D (side-on) view of a spaceship exploring a multi-screen cavern complex (collecting items, perhaps?) and I believe it had come bundled with the machine. I thought it was called Citadel, but a description I found on the web of Eidersoft's game of that name doesn't match my recollection.

... and is there somewhere I can download it? or see source? or screenshots? or anything? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.119.23 (talk) 02:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

My first instinct is Asteroid or Phoenix but I'm probably wrong. -- penubag  (talk) 02:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like Defender to me (or any one of a number of very similar games). Defender was very popular in gaming arcades around that time (mid 1980's) and therefore a likely target for bundling with a home computer. Alternatively, take a look at this list of QL games and see if any of the names jog your memory. Astronaut (talk) 14:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, Stargate (video game) might be a possibility. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 14:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Can any Windows XP Home Edition Cd-rom be used with any XP Home computer?

I have a second-hand XP Home computer that does not have any Wiindows disks to go with it. If I bought a Windows XP Home Edition Cd-rom from ebay or somewhere, would I be able to use it for 'repairs' without complications? And is it possible to create an ersatz Windows XP Home Edition Cd-rom using for example the files in the i386 folder, or in the set of floppy disk set-up files that MS rather puzzlingly makes available? 78.149.135.197 (talk) 02:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

There might be complications, although I'm sure you'll be able to work around them. You see, it's not the disk that matters to Windows. It's the serial number. If it's a real serial number, Windows XP will install. However, after installation is complete, Windows will record the ID numbers of the hardware in the computer and associate them with the serial number. Thus, often, activation will not work on more than one computer because Windows will check online and see that the CD has been used on more than one computer. Nevertheless, in such a case, once activation fails, you can call Microsoft to activate the software. They will ask you for the faint numbers imprinted on the back of the CD, which will prove that the CD is genuine. Also, if your computer came installed with Windows XP, you often can find the serial number on a sticker on the case. You can use any CD or DVD to install Windows, and if the serial number hasn't been used on any other computer, activation will work.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 03:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

There's also one exception. If it's a true "store purchased" XP CD - then everything K;;m5m said applies. If, however you're trying to use an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer-er) disk - which is more of a restore disk than the actual OS - it can fail. Meaning that if you got a "System Restore" disk from Compaq when you purchased the computer - and you try to use it to install XP to a Dell computer - the disk will read the hardware as not valid - and fail. — Ched (talk) 05:57, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

There are really many kinds of Windows disk that people call "OEM". One is a regular install disk that MS sells to OEMs (really to very small scale system builders); this is essentially just like a regular install disk, but it comes in basic packaging (just a little cardboard sleeve with a licence sticker). Then there's the small system builder's kit (which is for builders who build a few hundred or a few thousand PCs a year); this lets them make custom install disks, and the associated programme sells them licence stickers wholesale. Then there's the special arrangements for large builders, the details of which vary between manufacturers (and are generally secret). Of these the first kind should work fine on any machine, the second might or might not (for the reasons others have answered above), and the third will almost certainly not. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that a second-hand disk off eBay will not be any use for a repair-install to fix problems, because someone has used it before? That only a new disk will be useable? The computer I have has been verified as having genuine Windows after I installed SP3. 78.146.52.210 (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Without rereading everything - if you use the number on the sticker of your computer, you can install. At worst - you'll need to call the 1-800 number for the activation key. If you don't have a valid number, and I hesitate to mention this - you could always google Devils Own, xp.... BUT be advised, that's an easy way to pick up a virus/trojan dropper - and use of such numbers are not legal. (at least in the US) — Ched (talk) 04:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I work in a computer shop and work with this a lot.

- Retail stickers need retail XP CDs.

- OEM stickers need OEM, NON-BRANDED XP CDs (generally)

-- 'OEM stickers' includes the key affixed to the side of your computer by the computer manufacturer (as required by Microsoft). That key is probably not what is actually being used on the computer (read on for why).

Both retail and non-branded OEM disks will allow you to do a repair install (but requiring retail or OEM keys, respectively). Most branded OEM disks I've seen won't do a repair install, and actually use a volume-license install key (so you don't actually have to enter the key on the side of the computer). Of course, that's moot if you need it for a repair install.

Installs are linked to key, not disk. I've got multiple copies of the same XP SP2 disk, slipstreamed with SP3, to reinstall computers all the time. (Washii) 63.135.50.87 (talk) 23:52, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, also: you can tell what kind of disk (retail/OEM/volume license) you're using by comparing the full volume label to a listing, like at TackTech [6] (Washii) 63.135.50.87 (talk) 23:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Installing GNOME in FreeBSD

Hi. I decided to install GNOME in FreeBSD, so went to the /usr/ports/x11/gnome2 dir. and typed make, then make install clean. That was nine hours ago. It seems to be downloading and compiling a bunch of packages, now. I'd really like to use my laptop. My internet connection is really slow today (35 kbps even though it's supposed to be broadband). It's on tetex-texmf right now. It's not a slow computer -- 1 GB of RAM, 7200 RPM HDD, and a 2.5 GHz CPU. Will it probably be over soon?--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 04:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Running .iso directly from HD

Is it possible to run an .iso directly from the Hard Drive or do I need to put it on a CD? I am using an Acer Aspire One, and it has no CD-ROM drive. Is there a way to get this .iso onto the PC (I am downloading it from a HP Laptop).--KageTora (talk) 08:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes - you'll need a CD emulator - I think that Virtual drive is the closet article we have, but look here and here. If you still have questions, drop me a line at my talk page and I'll try to help get you aimed in the right direction — Ched (talk) 09:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Magic Disk is a nice simple Windows program which will mount an ISO image so that it appears as a cd drive to the OS, or if you're using Linux I think there is a loop device which can do this. But it depends what you're trying to do; just installing a game or software from the image will work fine but if you want to for example install a complete Windows XP you'll have to go about it a different way, see here SN0WKITT3N 10:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's] how to do it in unix/linux. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 13:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, it is Mac OSX Leopard I am trying to install on a Windows XP machine. Shush! But, anyway, 'for information purposes only', how would I go about this?--KageTora (talk) 14:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

You can't install OSX on a regular X86 machine -the installer checks for apple-specific hardware on the motherboard. There are hacks and patches to allow this to work (on a few motherboards), but those are probably illegal and certainly for the very technical only. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 15:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's only "a few motherboards"; see this website. And what's illegal about it? (If you're thinking of minatory language in the EULA, consider its actual significance.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You're not going to be able to install an operating system from a virtual disk drive. Not easily anyway. You might be able to make a bootable USB device, though. APL (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it is not possible to install most OS from virtual drive, but few are possible. It is possible to install ubuntu from local iso image (wubi), and it is possible to install OS in virtual machines (although these usually does not requires virtual drive and can mount image internally). -Yyy (talk) 08:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Map Network printer using a .bat file

Hi all, I need to create a .BAT file that will install a network printer . The .BAT file should use the Net Use command. Can anyone help? Thank you in advance. --80.88.251.210 (talk) 13:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Wireless connection problem

Hello, I'm hoping to get help with a problem. Sometime between 1 a.m. yesterday and 7 this morning my laptop decided to stop recognizing wireless signals -- my own, others in the neighborhood and now those at work. I have a dial-up connection, but it's woefully inadequate. Is there anything I should do, besides rebooting, that I can do? I don't think I turned anything off inadvertently, but anything's possible. I run Windows XP if that makes any difference. Thanks for any and all help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.239.216.32 (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

If you tell us specifically what make and model of laptop you have, we may be able to help you better. There are often hidden (or at least not-well-marked) buttons or switches that control the wireless functions. --LarryMac | Talk 15:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I use a Dell Latitude D620. Thanks. 4.239.216.32 (talk) 15:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm using a D630 right now -- look at the picture on this page, under the heading "Wireless Communications", about 2/3 down the page. You may have inadvertantly moved that switch - they say "to the left", it would be "to the rear" if you're actually using the computer. --LarryMac | Talk 16:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That did it. As someone said on your talk page a while back, you do rock!4.239.216.32 (talk) 16:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Really annoying noise

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p. Runs XP. Everything about it's pretty perfect except: when I simultaneously push any two arrow keys in addition to the upward arrow key, it makes and annoying error beep noise. I've disabled all of the regular computer noises through the sounds thing in Control Panel. This is the only one that keeps annoying the hell out of me (and the noise it makes when it's plugged in, but that's less irritating). If I'm, say, avoiding my homework by playing some online game while listening to music on earphones, if I by mistake push three directional buttons, the beep comes REALLY LOUD in the middle of my music. Very unpleasant. Any ideas of how to deal with this (and, while I'm at it, the plug-in noise)? Thanks, 140.247.41.80 (talk) 18:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like the keyboard microcontroller sounding the motherboard's onboard piezo-electric "bell", in response to you pressing more keys than the keyboard matrix can decode. You might be able to disable this tone in the BIOS. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

PC Speaker Usually you can't disable it in the BIOS, actually, but you can disable the driver for it. Here's some instructions for windows: [7] Indeterminate (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Internet volume control

I've been wondering for a while -- is there any way (firefox add-on, etc) to control specifically internet volume? Like mute the internet (or tone it down), while not touching other volume? I've been looking around and can't find anything, and I'd use something like that all the time. 140.247.41.80 (talk) 18:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Windows Vista has an OS-level per-app volume control (over and above any volume settings a given app may have internally). XP doesn't have that feature. I don't know about other OSes. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 19:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

So if I have (and plan on keeping) XP, there's no real solution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.41.80 (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I can sympathize. Many Internet apps (like games) will have their own volume settings (although some are limited to on and off), so that's one option. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Disabling autorun under XP

A few weeks ago I asked here about disabling autorun under XP. The standard answers didn't help me. It now looks as though Microsoft has finally admitted the problem and come up with a fix, so I hope it's okay to post a link here for anyone else having the same problem. [8]--Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, and thank you. I tried following the instructions, and managed, after some fiddling. The link to the English Microsoft page doesn't work for a non-English version of the OS. So I googled "KB950582 oppdatering" (KB950582 update), and found the relevant Microsoft page in Norwegian. However, the utlility "Gpedit.msc" that is referred to in the article was not installed after the update. So I followed the manual instructions, and added the registry key NoDriveTypeAutoRun (REG_DWORD), which I assigned the value 0xFF, which should disable AutoPlay on all kinds of drives. (Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\). And that annoying dialog that comes up whenever I plug a usb device to the PC is gone, the drives just appear in "My Computer". --NorwegianBlue ^talk 00:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If the universe is a computer, can it be hacked?

Some experts have suggested, e.g. at [9], that the universe may be running on a computer. If this is true, is it likely that this computer can be hacked from within in order to view (without the limitations of the black-box testing we're doing now) or change the laws of physics? How might vulnerability to such hacking be tested for? NeonMerlin 19:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

If there are hypothetical supercomputers out there running simulations so complex, we wouldnt be able to tell the reality from the virtual, I'm sure some asshole will get it in to his head to hack it and ruin it for all of us. Livewireo (talk) 19:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

But what if the first person to hack it wasn't an asshole and wanted to use his or her powers for good? NeonMerlin 21:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of hard for me to imagine much good coming out of changing the laws of physics. "Hey guys in order to reduce energy loss I've lowered the rate of entropy dissipation OH NO I BROKE ALL ECOSYSTEMS AT THE SAME TIME" --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The universe may be a finely-tuned watch, but sooner or later it will need a new battery. NeonMerlin 04:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If the universe has some sort of security or general protection protocols that need to be hacked, presumably whoever put those security protocols there wants them there.

I'd be pretty pissed if The Sims started randomly mucking about in my computer's ram. Even if they did it with the best of intentions, it would not end well for the Sims. APL (talk) 16:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You would eradicate a potential new life form because it was inconvenient? If the universe is a computer simulation I certainly hope our Owner is more understanding. – 74  18:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If you follow that assumption (which I find rather childish)... We are not intelligent beings. We are nothing more than data representations in a simulation. So, asking if we can hack the computer is equivalent to asking if that little ghost in pacman can hack my computer. Sure, there are movies (ie: Tron) in which we fantasize about the parts of a computer being truly intelligent. They aren't. They are just a bunch of changing ones and zeros. So, we can live in a disillusion that we are intelligent, but that doesn't make it so - especially when confronted with an understanding that we are just little blips in a computer simulation. -- kainaw™ 21:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

So in your opinion we should give up on AI now because you've determined it's not possible? I don't find the possibility of artificial intelligence any more outrageous than the original computer simulation premise. If the world is an elaborate simulation, then we are part of that simulation, presumably as artificially intelligent constructs. Is there some inherent quality of life that prevents a machine from being self-aware? From holding beliefs? From being "alive"? Last time I checked we hadn't found any such "magic". If you get technical enough, humans are very advanced biological computers: we accept inputs, process, and produce outputs. – 74  22:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This hypothetical situation calls for a few premises:

• 1) We would need to know that such a computer exists
• 2) We would need to be able to somehow interface with said computer with one of our own computers.
• 3) We would need to what language the computer was written in to be able to alter it with our super hacking powers.
• 4) We would have to have the mental capacity to understand that we are really just simulations of a computer and not real. This would probably be the hardest to come to grips with.

This also doesnt bring in to play how we first came in contact with said computer, who made it, WHY they made it and so on and so forth. Livewireo (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The relevant article for this is simulation hypothesis, although that's something of a cranio-rectal eversion, and Wikipedia doesn't give medical advice :) 87.112.17.229 (talk) 22:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The Thirteenth Floor, Existenz and The Matrix All great movies in my opinion. . Also "we are data representations in a simulation" != "we are not intelligent". Vespine (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

kainaw, If you're going to make a statement like that you're going to have to explain why biological machines are "intelligent beings" but an element of a theoretical computer (of unknown nature) of vastly more complexity is automatically not an "intelligent being". Because that seems incredibly counter-intuitive to me. Why would you assume that the unknown computer of vast complexity was incapable of doing something that a (relatively) simple biological process was capable of? APL (talk) 16:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

In the sense that "hacking" is achieving unexpected outcomes beyond the originator's control (and accepting the hypothetical computer simulation premise), we have already accomplished it. The laws of physics change dramatically at a small enough scale (one of the factors motivating the computer simulation hypothesis), allowing us to perform quantum teleportation, for instance. Unless the simulation was designed to allow that, I'd call it a hack. We may never be able to view the "source code" for the universe (and probably wouldn't understand it if we did), but we could (and would) certainly exploit any inconsistencies in the system for our own benefit. An example: in a simulation there would be no reason why a process couldn't create energy, just rules preventing it. Finding an "infinite energy source" would require circumventing the rules, but would almost certainly be beneficial to humankind (unless the simulation was summarily canceled because of the discovery). – 74  22:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

My feeling would be "no". The laws of physics are going to be the processor architecture. The processor is not going to be able to modify itself. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

A computer program can hack another computer program, but I don't think one could ever actually hack itself... --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 01:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You stated it much better than I did. If we are nothing more than some constructs in a computer program, then we are constructs of a computer program. We do what we have been programmed to do. If our programming has designed us to, in some way, alter the laws of physics in the simulation, then that is the purpose of the program. It is not a hack. At most, it is bug in the program. So, are you asking if God ignored the compiler warnings when he compiled this simulation? -- kainaw™ 01:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If you assume that an artificial construct cannot have "free will" then your result follows. The key difference between a "hack" and a "bug" is intent; without free will a construct cannot have "intent" to do anything that the Programmer didn't intend. With free will, the construct can have intent to exploit the simulation (beyond the Programmer's intentions), thus qualifying as a hack. – 74  03:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Alinnisawest, if genetic programming is combined with self-modifying code then AFAICT a program can do things its author never specifically intended, even without having bugs and even without interacting with another program. NeonMerlin 04:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure a simulation of a computer can 'hack' the computer it's running on - this happens all the time. Lots of programming languages (Java, for example) run in a 'virtual machine' environment - or a 'sand box' (see JVM for example). It has long been known that errors in the implementation of the virtual machine in some versions of Java have allowed programs to 'escape' the sandbox. Most exploits are things like buffer overruns that allow arbitrary code to be pushed onto the stack and executed. Suppose the computer that runs our universe has code like:

 class Proton : public Hadron
 {
    class Quark quarks [ 3 ] ;
    ...
 } ;

...then somewhere in the code, something allows for more than three quarks to be shoved into the Proton when it undergoes some kind of collision. So you turn on the LHC - create some new condition that hasn't happened since the big bang (and certainly not since the ultra-being's ultra-geeks switched over to UNIVERSE 2.0.0 - LEARNING EDITION). Now - for some reason related to finding the Higgs Boson - more than three quarks get somehow stuffed into a Proton and suddenly there is a possibility of an exploit that would allow one to run arbitrary code on the ultra-computer on which our universe runs.

The problem is not so much in figuring out how to effect a buffer-overflow exploit in this hypothetical machine - it's how to understand how to make use of the exploit - given that there is no documentation for this computer. Without knowing the instruction set of the target machine - and without any examples or documentation to follow - it seems rather unlikely that we'd ever be able to figure it out. After all - any oddities we've ever discovered in the laws of nature are simply things to be noted - we have no way to know whether weird stuff like quantum theory and (especially) relativity are in fact due to bugs in the simulator - or whether they are just weird and arbitrary limits set up by the uber-being that runs our machine. SteveBaker (talk) 04:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Surely you mean

class Particle {
  Particle(const Particle&); // not implemented
  mutable bool on_shell;
  volatile q_int spin[3];    // NB: reading any one changes the other two
  // ...
public:
  //HACK: arguments are only honored approximately
  Particle(Vector4 event,Vector4 e_moment);

  //TODO: support gravitons

  // ...
};

// ...

// TODO: should this be refactored into smaller particles?
class Quark : public Particle {/*...*/};

class Baryon : public Hadron,Fermion {
  Quark *quarks[3];
public:
  Baryon(Quark *a,Quark *b,Quark *c);
  // ...
};

class Proton : public Baryon {
public:
  Proton(Up *a,Up *b,Down *c) : Baryon(a,b,c) {/*...*/}

  double getHalfLife(); // BUG: is it okay to return +inf here?

  // ...
};

We can't have Lambda, CharmedXi, TripleBottomOmega, AntiNeutron, etc., each declaring their own array of 3 quarks, now can we? And quarks (despite being indistinguishable) have identity semantics, surely, since we can create hadrons out of existing quarks. I wonder if this is exception-safe, or if it can leak entropy when the Cosmic AC throws bad_alloc... --Tardis (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of causing a buffer overflow, we could find an improperly terminated array and read past the end of a buffer. In Steve's example, if we found a way to extract an arbitrary number of quarks from a proton we could use that to read potentially a LOT of the data the universe runs on. If the universe's computer doesn't have any sort of memory protection, then perhaps we could even read out data not related to our simulation. That could be interesting. We could read God's emails.

There's still basic problems, however. That data would have to be decoded. God's emails probably aren't in ASCII. And there would be a very serious danger that reading things we weren't supposed to would cause a fault, or some other bad side effect. APL (talk) 20:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're interested in stuff like this (strange loops and things that break out of their own little universes), I HIGHLY recommend you read Gödel, Escher, Bach. It will blow your mind. Seriously, you will not be able to think a cogent thought for a week after reading that book. Not only that, it's extremely fun (it features many charming dialogs between Achilles and the Tortoise and their various wacky adventures) and interesting as well as totally mindf***ing. Belisarius (talk) 06:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

For the people who claim that a simulated being can't hack the simulator, here is a theoretical example. Imagine if we discovered that supposedly random phenomena were actually governed by a pseudo-random generator. Further imagine that the universe is divided into cubic meters, (poss. for parallel,distributed computing.) You could construct a device that would perform a vast number of some reactions that would request a random number until the pseudo-random generator was in some desirable state. Bam. You've just altered the probability of quantum physics reactions in that cubic meter of space. I'm sure some clever physicist could come up with something useful to do with that power.

Now, admittedly, this isn't a "hack" in the sense that there is no opportunity to execute arbitrary code or to corrupt memory outside of the simulator, but Steve already explained why that would be problematic anyway. This is a 'hack' in the sense that it's exploiting a vulnerability in the universe's 'fairness', like writing a program that predicts the shuffle on an online poker site.

Who knows if we'd recognize this sort of exploit as a simulator error or just a peculiar law of physics. I suppose it depends on how blatant it is. APL (talk) 16:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the universe does run just like a computer, but its so darn big that changing one thing in one corner is unlikely to make any real difference in the scheme of things. The last hack we know of took place 4 billion years ago, and the result was us. But noone else in the universe cares. I too highly recommend Gödel, Escher, Bach. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

So, to summarize, this has all come down to: If we redefine "hack" to mean "find a bug in a program" and redefine "intelligent life" to mean "any part of a program that may come across a bug in a program", then it is possible for a part of a program that may come across a bug in a program to find a bug in a program. I find that a huge rationalization of the question. The question appears to me to ask if it is possible for us to hack the program. In other words, we must escape the confines of the simulation, somehow gain the ability to develop and execute code on the computer running the simulation, and then execute our hack. It is really easy get the answer you want when you rationalize new definitions for common words, but not so easy if you stick to the original meaning of the words. -- kainaw™ 19:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you'll find the definition of "hack" isn't nearly as clear as you make it out to be. "Hacking" is (ab)used for techniques like disabling javascript and manually modifying URLs, but a generally-accepted definition would be "Unauthorized attempts to bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network." I challenge you to cite a computer hack (as defined in the prior sentence) that does not make use of a bug. Meanwhile, as I have stated several times before, the premise that we are inside a computer simulation does not invalidate our presumption that we are "intelligent life"—we don't turn into mindless automatons simply because we are no longer biological in function. Simply put, we disagree on what the "standard" definitions and assumptions are in this case. – 74  20:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

To some extent, this has already happened with some of our own 'virtual universe' software. Several people who have attempted to use software to use evolutionary techniques to 'evolve' artificial creatures in a virtual world have found that these creatures will evolve to exploit bugs in their software. For example, in one case such a system was set up to limit the amount of energy in the virtual world in an effort to create creatures who would hunt each other for food. After some large number of evolutionary steps, it was found that the dominant 'species' of creature in the simulation was a stationary 'blob' that made its living entirely by reproducing - then immediately eating it's offspring. It had evolved to be precisely the right size such that the energy lost by reproducing plus the exact same amount of energy gained back when eating it's young resulted a tiny round-off error in the floating point math. They'd evolved to (in effect) subtract one very large number from another in such a way that the roundoff was always in their favor. In another case, someone was attempting to evolve creatures that could move in interesting ways by setting up an evolutionary system where the probability of reproduction depended on the distance the creature could move in a certain amount of time. He found that all of the creatures evolved as simple mindless tall/thin vertical columns! When they were tested for their speed, these columns simply fell over. Since his software used only the center of gravity of the creature in the X/Y plane to determine where it was at any given time - they appeared to be moving very rapidly and therefore outperformed and out-evolved creatures that were evolving more interesting things like legs or wheels. So any bugs that might be exploited for gain would probably just be a part of the way we see physics work. SteveBaker (talk) 14:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see exploiting a bug for gain as a hack. What if eating meat is a bug in the system? Are we to claim that we are hacking the system because we eat meat? Youth in Asia (talk) 14:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Problem in Windows XP SP2,

Ok, let me tell everything. I installed Windows XP SP2 on my Compaq 7500 Desktop Presario aa month ago. First everything was going just right, but hey, after the second week, tried to run Dungeon Siege 2 on PC. Not running, saying ;D3D Initialization failed'. Lol, installed ATI Display driver, but did not work! My video card is ATI. Any suggestion? Just kidding here. 115.241.78.80 (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello. I think you should try to replace Windows XP SP2 with SP1 instead. I had the same type of problem once, and the expert asked me to do the same. And, it worked indeed. Thank you. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 20:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Better yet, update to SP3. After that, make sure you have the most up to date ATI driver (from ATI's site, not from the disk that came with your computer). You may also have to install the latest DirectX from microsoft's site. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 20:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't attempt to go back to SP1, that would be foolish. After doing what 87.112 says, also make sure that all recommended Direct 3D features are enabled. --LarryMac | Talk 20:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

But has SP3 enabled with the feature? I have not yet tried, and so I am simply asking. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Do the SP3 upgrade for sure, I don't think it will make a difference with your video problems but it is important. Which specific ATI card do you have? If it is an AGP card the latest drivers will not work for you. ATI long ago decided to drop all support for AGP cards. I recommend intalling the Omega drivers from [10]Worked wonders for me when I was trying to get an AGP card to work a few moths ago. 161.222.160.8 (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

…

Why isn't the character … (yes, that's one character, not 3 dots) used in any webpages? (Google proof) I realize that I've completely spoiled my little secret by putting the character on this page, so now Google will see this page, but why isn't that character used at all, anywhere on the 'net? I was typing three dots into MS Word, and it auto-replaced the three dots with this. flaminglawyer 21:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Because Google generally ignores punctuation when indexing and searching. NeonMerlin 21:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Google proves no such thing. The ellipsis character is used on plenty of pages, not least the Wikipedia Ellipsis. Try searching Google for a single period, or colon, or comma, and it doesn't find any pages either. Moreover it seems it finds no entries for longer strings of punctuation, like >= ^^ *** and so forth. It's because Google builds its index on strings of regular letters and numbers, which it assumes will be meaningful for people. One of the first things it does when processing a page for indexing is to chuck out all the punctuation, elipses, and so forth. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 21:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh. I feel stupid now. flaminglawyer 21:52, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The path to enlightenment is composed entirely of a succession of progressively stupider questions. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 21:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

A question that comes up every once in a while here is how do I google for "hello.world" (for example), the answer is you can't. Vespine (talk) 22:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could say: 1) Get rich. 2) Buy Google. 3) Rewrite the search algorithm. 4) Search for "hello.world". -- kainaw™ 23:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Wait a sec, this means that you can't search for punctuation at all?! Ah, what a tragedy. flaminglawyer 01:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

One exception is that Google remembers any amount of plus signs at the end of words. You can get results for C++, the programming language, but also a+, a++, a+++, boy+, fish++, dog+++, etc. --Bavi H (talk) 04:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

@Vespine: What are you talking about? I can do a google search for hello.world, and it works just fine. flaminglawyer 05:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

No, you can do a Google search for hello.world and it returns results of the form hello*world where * is zero or more characters of punctuation and/or whitespace. You cannot isolate results where * is exactly a period. – 74  06:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Try Googling the band !!! and you'll get nothing. In order to find them, you have to type "chk, chk, chk" in order to get results, something that has earned them the title as the hardest band to Google. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 23:56, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Malware in Lisp

Does any virus or worm have its propagation mechanism written in Lisp, or does any trojan have its cover program written in Lisp? NeonMerlin 21:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of viruses for AutoCAD, written in its AutoLISP language. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

C standard

Does

!! some_int

always evaluate to either 0 or 1? --194.197.235.29 (talk) 23:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

No. Try it yourself. Try some_int=0 and some_int=1. You should get different results. -- kainaw™ 23:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This reasonably formal definition would say yes. I don't know if an absolutely formal definition of C is available online. 87.112.17.229 (talk) 23:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I read the question as "will !! some_int always be a 0 or will !! some_int always be a 1?" It will be a 0 if some_int is 0. It will be a 1 is some_int is not zero. Therefore, it will neither always be 0 or always be 1. -- kainaw™ 23:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think he's asking the rather deep question whether standard guarantees that !!3==1 and !!-4435==1 (and thus that some clever compiler optimisation won't turn !!-4435 into -4435 instead). I'm almost certain that's true, but you can bet that when they were writing the standard someone lobbied for !0 to simply be "any integer that isn't 0". 87.112.17.229 (talk) 23:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the C99 standard + TC2, section 6.5.3.3.5 (page 79, on page 91 of pdf), ! will return 0 if its argument is non-zero, and 1 if its argument is zero. So yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.179.32.100 (talk) 01:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thank you very much. My English can be a bit good sometimes, I meant what 87.112.* wrote above. --194.197.235.29 (talk) 01:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

February 27

Typo redirect in Firefox

Hello. I was attempting to correct a typo in the Firefox address bar and accidentally overtyped the entire URL with the single letter "s" and pressed enter. I was surprised when I was taken to craigslist.org. I intentionally repeated the action, careful not to select any of the drop-down history items and received the same results. I have visited the craigslist a couple of times in the past, but have never intentionally downloaded anything from there. Is it possible that the site installed something without my knowledge? I took a look at my Firefox add-ons and didn't see anything suspicious. Does anyone else get similar results? Any idea why this behaves this way? Thanks. -- Tcncv (talk) 02:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to replicate that just know but didn't quite succeed. Instead, I was taken to a list of Google hits for "s", the first of which -- for some strange (and I'd cynically guess paid-for) reason -- was Craig's List. The resemblance to your result doesn't seem coincidental. Doing the same for the not-quite randomly selected string "tcncv" takes me not to Google instead to some outfit called "twincitiesnightclubs.com". How does it work for you? -- Hoary (talk) 02:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Nope, you didn't download anything. Typing in something in the address bar is like doing an "I'm feeling lucky" search on Google. It does a google search for the term (or letter) and takes you to the first result. In this case, the first result in a google search for "s" is craigslist. flaminglawyer 02:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Is there any way to disable this behavior? I tried changing search engines (I chose Wikipedia) and even removed the search box from the right side of the toolbar, but I still get the same result. It's not a big deal, but I prefer not to have an application that redirects typos to the highest bidder. -- Tcncv (talk) 02:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Use about:config to set keyword.enabled to "false" (or change keyword.URL to your preferred search). – 74  03:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you. -- Tcncv (talk) 03:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Just as an aside, this is an excellent feature! It makes typing in websites much faster. If you want to go to amazon, just type "amazon", if you want to go to wikipedia, just type "wikipedia" (although that takes you to the international portal). It's WAAAAY cool once you start using it regularly. For instance, has this situation ever happened to you: "Ohh, I want to go to Reddit! Wait, what is it? reddit.net? reddit.org? reddit.us? reddit.com?", and then you have to land on a bunch of domain-squatters sites, giving them ad impressions and stuff. No need to, just type "reddit"! Another example: "I'm thinking of applying to Brandeis University! Let's go to their website! How's it spelled again? Brandyce? Brandice? Brandeis? And is it brandeisuniversity.edu, brandeis.edu, brandies.com, brandyceuniversity.com, brandice.edu, brandyce.org?" etc, etc. No need to worry, type in any of those spellings, and it takes you right there.

Seriously, it's a great feature once you start to use it. And it's not like Google is involved every time you type something in to the address-bar, if you type in a regular ol' URL, it'll just go there. It only activates when you type in a normal human-language word or phrase. I don't even bookmark stuff anymore, I just use that + the awesomebar. Give it a shot, I bet you'll love it! Belisarius (talk) 06:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Mac Voice recording software

I;m doing voice overs for a school film project. Unfortunately, no one likes me and I have to do all the voices. Is there any voice software out there with a wide variety of effects, options etc. Preferred for mac. --69.127.64.183 (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Most Macs nowadays come with a mic pre-installed, and GarageBand pre-installed. Those are all you need. Or, if you hate Garageband, there might be an Audacity version for Mac (I'm not sure, though). flaminglawyer 03:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

indeed available for macs...http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/--Cerejota (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Installing 2nd hard drive

My XP machine bit the dust, but I'm fairly certain my SATA hard drive is okay (fingers crossed). I've now got a Vista machine and want to hook up my old hard drive to access some files. Is this just a matter of hooking up the power and data cables, then doing something in the BIOS or control panel somewhere? Do I need to buy a data cable or is it in there? Clarityfiend (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems so. SATA cable could be taken from XP machine. Usually adding an another HDD does not requires any changes in BIOS, so drive could be just plugged in. -Yyy (talk) 08:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You are fortunate that it is SATA; if it was IDE, you'd likely have to alter some jumpers. Useight (talk) 17:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Interact with an X session remotely

Hey all,

Say I have a desktop computer running some variety of UNIX (probably in practice going to be GNU/Linux) and X. A user has an X session open through the normal method (startx executed locally). Assuming I have root access to this computer, is there any way to control this X session (for example, running a program the graphical component of which would then appear within X, say to control MPlayer on my desktop from another computer on the network) using a command-line tool like SSH?

Yes, I know about VNC - it won't work very well for my purposes as the computer I'm hoping to RC from is a tiny EEE PC that doesn't even have X.

Thanks a lot, Aseld ^talk 12:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

VideoLAN has a simple http server that allows you to control it remotely. 87.114.16.126 (talk) 12:25, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Many applications which make sense to "remote control" support some option for doing so. MPlayer, for instance, can accept commands from a "file" (which, in Linux, includes named pipes, etc.) with the "-input" command line option. Here's an example of MPlayer remote control; you can modify it to run as a command-line app, or just manually send commands to the input. – 74  16:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. --Aseld ^talk 22:50, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I take it the answer to my original question is no? --Aseld ^talk 23:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Does this thread answer your original question? – 74  00:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Perfectly and one hundred percent. Thank you very much! --Aseld ^talk 00:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

DLL error

i am having a problem while installing a software it is showing me a DFORMD.DLL error.

can you kindly help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 13:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

What software are you installing? When do you get this error? What is the exact text of the error message? What type of computer and operating system are you working with? --LarryMac | Talk 13:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Larry, software --minitab.exe When-- At installation Message--the dformd.dll could not be found, reinstalling the application mey resolve the issue OS--Windows XP service pack 3 Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 14:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC) Anybody ???please help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the only thing that turned up in my research related to attempting to install a "crack" for Minitab. If you have the appropriate licensing from the publisher, they seem to have a thorough support section on [their website]. --LarryMac | Talk 17:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello. You can scan your .DLL files once using 'Scannow' option using the Win-XP CD. It will probably solve the problem by repairing the corrupt DLL File. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 17:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

How to put an upper limit on the size of webpage a browser will load?

Sometimes I find that as a result of surfing or googling my computer is downloading a huge webpage - usually a blog page, which may include several video files for example. This takes over the computer and makes it unusable for ten or twenty minutes - the red X to stop downloading does not work, the computer more or less freezes while the blogbloat page downloads. Only way to stop it is pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and losing all open browser windows. Does any briowser allow you to specify an upper limit to the size of webpage loaded - so that it automatically stops loading when this limit is reached please? 78.149.170.123 (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll be surprised if there is such a thing, but you might be interested in Template:Websearch, which stops Flash videos from loading until you click on them. --Sean 15:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you give the URL of such a page? Or, if you are (understandably) reluctant to go looking, the domain name of a site that has such pages? -- Hoary (talk) 15:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I have looked but cannot find any in my History, perhaps because that page is not recorded when I press cntrl-alt-del. You may find one if you search for a popular subject that involves pictures - so try something involving celebrities for example. The problem is made much worse by some bloggers apparantly archiving several pages onto one huge one. Try googling for Celebrity Blog Archive for example - although I would prefer not to get in that trap again. 89.241.154.51 (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Large pics are usually what takes my computer down. However, by the time you realize there's a problem it's too late to stop it. This is part of the much larger problem of apps not being smart enough to figure out that the object they are trying to load will exceed the available memory. They should refuse, or at least warn you, in such cases. One workaround option is to use a browser like Firefox, which can restore your tabs/windows to their previous states when it's next restarted (except for some Flash games and such). StuRat (talk) 15:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Side note... The web browser on the PSP will warn you if the page won't fit in memory and offer to show it in "memory save mode". -- kainaw™ 16:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The HTTP specification supports "Range" headers, which can be used to limit the size of HTTP responses (though not all servers support them). You might be able to add such a header to your browser's default request. However, in my experience webpages are quite cancel-able, either with the 'X' or by hitting the 'stop' or 'back' button (now conveniently located on keyboards and mice). If your current browser doesn't behave reasonably I'd suggest switching to a better alternative. – 74  17:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

In my experience it isn't that they can't be canceled, but that, by the time you get the idea that it needs to be canceled (say due to the browser slowing to a crawl), it's already too late to save the session. Thus the need for an automated method of checking the size of a downloading page and stopping it BEFORE all available memory has already been used up. StuRat (talk) 21:38, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if it is possible to change the priorities in windows or explorer (very very hazy idea of what is involved) so that the computer always responds to user commands, and never, as happens now, ignores user commands as its too busy loading a webpage? 89.241.154.51 (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Cannot install Yahoo messenger

I tried multiple times but this error message always appeared at the end of the installing process: "This Application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may this fix this problem".

Please give instructions how to fix this problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.0.38.87 (talk) 15:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps try installing it in Safe Mode? Useight (talk) 17:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Your computer is rejecting terrible software is all. Use Pidgin instead. --71.98.7.73 (talk) 17:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Pidgin isn't without its faults, either. There's nothing wrong with suggesting alternatives for the OP, but saying that his/her computer is rejecting "terrible software" sounds like nothing more than an opinion, unless you have solid proof to back it up. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 05:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

WHY ISN'T MY .MKV CONVERTING PROPERLY?!?!!!!!!!!11@@!

I have an .mkv of My Neighbor Totoro. I want to stream it to my Xbox to enjoy a delightful cinematic experience, but Xbox doesn't natively support .mkv, only .avi and .wmv. I want to convert the movie to AVI so i can watch it. I tried using Avidemux to re-encode the movie using Xvid and I converted the audio to AAC, then saved in the the AVI container format. IT STILL WON'T WORK WHEN I TRY TO STREAM IT VIA MY XBOX, IT TELLS ME I HAVE AN UNSUPPORTED CODEC/FILE (I'm a bit frustrated at this point)!!What am I doing wrong? --71.98.7.73 (talk) 17:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

MKV is just a container format; the video (and audio) is encoded in one of a large number of codecs. Your MKV file is encoded in a codec that Avidemux doesn't know. So if you encoded it yourself (e.g. from a DVD) then what you're doing wrong is encoding it with the wrong codec, and you should experiment with your encoding application's settings. If you didn't encode it yourself then you should delete the file and go buy it on DVD. 87.114.16.126 (talk) 17:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Try Handbrake —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have an answer to your question, but I would like to point out that people would be happier to help you if you didn't PUT STRINGS OF CAPITAL LETTERS FOLLOWED BY RANDOM SYMBOLS!!!""$%^&***()//>??! in your header - it's considered impolite, and is frowned upon by many. Note that the codec you use to change it from MKV to AVI has an effect on how well it can be read - try using different codecs and see if any of those work. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 19:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I would like to offer my sincerest pardons for the "STRINGS OF CAPITAL LETTERS FOLLOWED BY RANDOM SYMBOLS!!""$%^&***()//>??!" in my header. Thanks to the people who posted a reply. From the responses, I've gathered that I'm SOL unless I can just mess around with the re-encoding options and get lucky. And actually, I didn't encode it in the first place because I downloaded it from the interwebs. Thanks again, I'll just search for a different torrent hosting an .avi of the movie. --71.117.46.229 (talk) 20:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

error message on football website

I load up Swansea FC website and open the SwansWorld link. I log in and try to open the Match Highlights link. I can open the page but get an error message at the bottom of the screen. I select a match and click Play. It open sup a new page and says Now Playing but there is no picture or sound. Can you explain why this happens and offer a remedy?Silverlining99 (talk) 19:48, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

In cases like this, it's usually useful to provide us with the error message in question. It probably happens because something isn't working right on the website (hence the error message). Or, possibly, because you need to install a plugin, which is probably mentioned in the error message, if this is the case. I checked out the section of the site myself, and it seemed to work, but of course I'm not a subscriber, and it's possible that we're not seeing the same things at all. In any case, I did see and hear a promotional video play in the "Match Highlights" section. That may simply mean that they fixed the problem with the site. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Complexity Class/Average Time

Consider the following problem: you are given a set of n points in the plane and want to find the largest distance between two points. Does anyone know what the complexity class of this is? What the average time this can be found in is/worst time, etc.? Phoenix1177 (talk) 00:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The distance between two points in 2D is sqrt((X₁-X₂)²+(Y₁-Y₂)²). To find the maximum distance in a set of points I would normally find the square of the distance between every point pair (plug them into the previous formula but omit the square root). This way the distances can be compared without the inefficient square root operation. Only once the maximum was found would it be necessary to do the square root to find the actual distance. This brute force approach could work well for up to thousands of points.

However, this approach wouldn't work so well if you had millions of points. This would require trillions of operations. In such a case, a more sophisticated approach would be needed. Perhaps a first pass could find the minimum X, maximum X, minimum Y, and maximum Y from the set of points. This could be used to find the center point. The square of the distance of every point from this center could then be found and maybe the farthest 1000 stored in a list. The farthest 2 points would likely be in this list, reducing processing time dramatically. I don't know if I could actually guarantee that the farthest two points would ALWAYS be found by this method, though. StuRat (talk) 04:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The pair of points farthest away from each other (or one such pair, if it is not unique) will be guaranteed to be both on "corners" of the convex hull of the points. So one thing you can do is find the convex hull, which can be done in O(n log h) (where h is the number of points in the hull), and then kind of iterate around the hull on opposite sides at the same time, calculating the distances between points on the hull that are approximately "opposite" each other; this will take O(h), so this process is O(h + n log h), which is also O(n log n). --Spoon! (talk) 09:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

But how do you know if points are on opposite sides before you determine their distance ? StuRat (talk) 14:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, I had worked out an algorithim that used the fact that figuring out if a point in the plane was inside of a given square was very easy(since you just need to compare x and y with numbers defining the square) to use squares ever increasing in size to rule out pairs of points. It was quite better than the basic approach of calculating all the distances and then comparing them; but I'm fairly sure the convex hull approach works better, probably much better.

Relatedly, it is obvious that I can look at a bunch of dots on a page, draw a circle around one, measure the radius, and see what points aren't in it; thus, determining what points are less than r distance away from the center point. However, computers seem forced to manipulate the problem numerically; my point is that humans can do this quickly, and I don't think they'd have any problem, outside of listing all the points, even if the size of the set got very large; so, does anyone know if there is a way to get a computer to approach the problem geometrically in the sense of a human above, it should be possible. Ultimately, we can manipulate circles, mentally, by treating the circle like a single object, is there any language that can manipulate geometric objects in this fashion (without breaking them down into a representation of points in the plane, basically, that can do this elementally). Phoenix1177 (talk) 17:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. There do seem to be some simple tasks which computers just can't do very well. Determining which points are inside a circle is one of them. Another common example is inserting something into the middle of a list. If I want to insert a shirt into a clothes rack, I just push the rest of the clothes back and pop it in. But computers can't do this without "taking every other item after the insertion point off the rack and placing it back onto the rack in the new position".

Back to the circle problem, you could convert the point coords all to polar coords, centered on that target point, which would then make determining which were inside a given radius trivial, but this would take just as long as calculating the distance to each.

Perhaps it would help if you could sort the points geometrically first. Say you have points with coords between -10 and 10 for both the X and Y coords. You could place all points with an X value between -10 and -9 and a Y value between 1 and 2 in one list, for example. If you then determined that this box is not worthy of further consideration, you could eliminate all the points contained therein at once, instead of making that determination for every point individually.

It would help if you could give some specifics, like exactly how many points there are and what range of X and Y coords they cover, and if any of the points will share the exact same coords, and if the points will be evenly distributed or clumped together. Also, what kind of response time is needed and do you need to be absolutely certain to get the maximum distance, or is a "close approximation" usable ? And don't overlook my suggestion of omitting the square root operation until the very end, as this makes an absolutely huge diff in performance. StuRat (talk) 20:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

This is from Introduction to Algorithms (by CLRS), page 948-949: (hopefully it is not a copyright violation to quote it here)

Consider, for example, the two-dimensional farthest-pair problem: we are given a set of n points in the plane and wish to find the two points whose distance from each other is maximum. As Exercise 33.3-3 asks you to prove, these two points must be vertices of the convex hull. Although we won't prove it here, the farthest pair of vertices of an n-vertex convex polygon can be found in O(n) time. Thus, by computing the convex hull of the n input points in O(n lg n) time and then finding the farthest pair of the resulting convex-polygon vertices, we can find the farthest pair of points in any set of n points in O(n lg n) time.

--Spoon! (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again for your responses. As for specifics: I am not so much interested in this single problem, I am more interested in finding what methods are fast at solving geometric based problems, then seeing how these differ from the slower ones. The main intention being that I believe that there is a very large difference in how humans approach geometric problems, symbolic problems, computational problems, etc.; basically, I think there should exist ways to mechanize the ideas underlying these approaches in a way that would be useful. Phoenix1177 (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I think many of the limitations in how computers approach such problems is due to them using linear programs and single processors (or small numbers). Perhaps a massive parallel array of processors could solve such machine vision problems like this (finding all the points within a circle) more quickly. For example, a program running on each processor could analyze whether each point is within a circle or not, so all points could be analyzed simultaneously. StuRat (talk) 16:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

February 28

Windows XP wireless trouble

Maybe someone can help : / I recently installed Windows XP on my Macbook with Bootcamp, but for some reason, Windows XP refuses to recognize my wireless internet. It asks for a dial-up connection, but that's it. I looked through, I believe, all the menus and preferences etc, but I can't figure it out. Thanks! Evaunit♥666♥ 07:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

What service pack do you have installed? I have had trouble with the wireless internet on Service Pack 1 and lower. Also, it may just be that your installation of Windows does not have the drivers for your wireless NIC, most likely due to it being a Macbook. You could try searching for the driver on the internet on a friends' computer, download the driver, put said driver on a flash drive, and transfer to your macbook. You would need to know the model of your wireless NIC in order to do this though. Good luck. Until It Sleeps 02:05, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Font used by Westboro Baptish Church

Can anyone tell me what fonts the Westboro Baptish Church uses for their signs? It doesn't look too exotic but I rarely recognise fonts. ----Seans Potato Business 18:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

WhatTheFont is usually very good indeed for this kind of thing. I found a large picture of WBC protesting on Google Images, cropped and rotated until I had a single line of text, and chucked it at WhatTheFont. It hasn't found the exact one (which seems to have slants on ascenders and descenders), but Eureka Sans Cont-Black Italic is kinda close. 87.113.105.126 (talk) 18:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Replacing thumbnails with original image

Hi there, I'm looking for a way to use greasemonkey javascript to convert all links on a page from something like

website.com/thumb/001s.jpg
website.com/thumb/002s.jpg
website.com/thumb/003s.jpg
website.com/thumb/004s.jpg
etc

to

website.com/images/001.jpg
website.com/images/002.jpg
website.com/images/003.jpg
website.com/images/004.jpg

Please note that the image names I've given (001, 002, etc) are just examples and this would need to work for whatever the image name happened to be, and also not just for jpg but for png, gif, etc. So basically a page will load the full image instead of the thumbnail, but keep the image in the same size and placement on the page as the thumbnail. This is useful to me so that I can save a webpage and include the full images instead of having to download them individually later. Thank you so much to whoever can help me with this. Love xxx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 19:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're thinking of using this to download TGPs, you'll probably find it won't work. Too many have willfully weird schemes of doing things involving odd urls, links to subpages, javascript, and popup pages. You'll have as much or more luck with the Firefox plugin DownThemAll, but it founders on many of the same issues. 87.113.105.126 (talk) 19:44, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The url layout I posted above is pretty much the same for each image with just the name of the jpg changing and the directory for /thumb/ and /images/ etc. I did find this which does exactly what I want on almost any page, but it loads the images all over the place and not in their original locations and thumbnailed size. I know it's asking a lot, but could anyone with some javascript skills possibly write something like this for what I want? I would be eternally grateful. Again, thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 20:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright, here's a snippet of javascript that presumably meets your requirements:

function img_fix() {

	for( var i = 0, j = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); j[i]; i++ ) {

		// if an anchor tag links to an image file and contains an image tag, use the link href for the image tag src
		

		if (j[i].href && j[i].href.match(/[.](bmp|gif|jpe?g|png|svg)/) && j[i].childNodes[0] && j[i].childNodes[0].src) {

			j[i].childNodes[0].src = j[i].href; 

		}

		// otherwise, check if an included image tag's src contains "thumb" and replace it with "images"

		else if (j[i].href && j[i].childNodes[0] && j[i].childNodes[0].src && j[i].childNodes[0].src.match(/thumb/)) {

			j[i].childNodes[0].src = j[i].childNodes[0].src.replace(/thumb(nail)?s?/,'images');
		}

	}
}


document.addEventListener('load',function addButton() {

	// throw a link up in the corner

	if( !document.body ) { return; }
	var mydiv = document.createElement('div');
	mydiv.style.position = 'fixed';
	mydiv.style.top = '0px';
	mydiv.style.right = '0px';
	mydiv.style.width = '20px';
	mydiv.style.border = '1px solid #000';
	mydiv.style.backgroundColor = '#fff';
	mydiv.style.color = '#000';
	mydiv.innerHTML = '<a href="javascript:img_fix();">fix</a>';
	document.body.appendChild(mydiv);

},false);

This code is intended (and tested) to run in Opera, but I'm sure it could be adapted to greasemonkey with a minimum of effort. You can modify the replace statement to handle URLs that don't quite fit your description. – 74  23:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, here are a couple pages that work with this script:

• http://www.lacasahealth.net/pg_tech.html
• http://www.solarturbinegroup.org/media/tech/ (it is necessary to disable automatic redirection)

– 74  15:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You are a fucking hero for doing that for me! Unfortunately I can't seem to get it to work in greasemonkey, but thank you anyway for the time you put into that. While searching I came across this which does exactly what I want but only on coppermine galleries. If it's not too much to ask, could you have a look at that script and see if it could be adapted to my urls? Again, thank you, you deserve another barnstar!

Here is a greasemonkey equivalent script:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Thumbnail Sourceror
// @namespace      http://userscripts.org/users/useridnumber
// @description    Attempt to replace all thumbnails with linked image content
// @include        *
// 
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
	for( var i = 0, j = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); j[i]; i++ ) {

		// if an anchor tag links to an image file and contains an image tag, use the link href for the image tag src

		if (j[i].href && j[i].href.match(/[.](bmp|gif|jpe?g|png|svg)/) && j[i].childNodes[0] && j[i].childNodes[0].src) {

			j[i].childNodes[0].src = j[i].href;
		}

		// otherwise, check if an included image tag's src contains "thumb" and replace it with "images"

		else if (j[i].href && j[i].childNodes[0] && j[i].childNodes[0].src && j[i].childNodes[0].src.match(/thumb/)) {

			j[i].childNodes[0].src = j[i].childNodes[0].src.replace(/thumb(nail)?s?/,'images');
		}
	}
 })();

You'll probably want to turn this script off when you're not using it. – 74  19:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

YES! This is perfect thank you!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Laptop Head to Head

Which one of these laptops is faster in terms of gaming performance and image/video processing?

The 2.4 Ghz MacBook Pro: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10111222&catid=

Or the HP HDX 16t Premium series upgraded to the same price as the MacPro: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&series_name=HDX16t_series&a1=Category&v1=Performance%20and%20entertainment

Both are roughly around $2,000 CAD.

By looking at the technical specs, I'm assuming that the HP will give better performance right? If so, aside from styling, what does the MacBook Pro offer over the HP to justify its equivalent cost?

Acceptable (talk) 20:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, portability. Looking up reviews on the Google, the HP might have anywhere between 119 minutes and 156 minutes battery life in 'regular use' (that is, wifi, web browsing, not using the optical drive or doing 3D games); reviewers say the Macbook Pro will do ~300 minutes. The HP is also larger (14.9 x 10.0 x 1.7 inches vs. 0.95 x 14.35 x 9.82 inches) and heavier (7.3 lbs vs. 5.5 lbs). If you don't care about that stuff, that HP and other laptops will no doubt offer more value. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Are the games you want to play available on Mac? Astronaut (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Freeware utility: Screenshots with Alpha Transparency

Is there really no freeware utility able to make screenshots of windows with an alpha channel? (Many Windows Vista screenshots on English Wikipedia have alpha transparency preserved.) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Window Clippings is the only one I know of. It's not free any longer, though the old free versions can still be found. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I had been looking at Window Clippings, but didn't know that there were old freeware versions of it available! Thanks again! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

OT: I don't get it. Why would one want to make screenshots with alpha, and where would such a thing occur? -- Fullstop (talk)

In Windows Vista, the frame around a window is not 100 % opaque, but slightly transparent. Thus, if you take a screenshot of a window using Windows ordinary "Print Screen" method, you will see what is behind the frame, which usually is not what you want. In addition, the frame is not perfectly rectangular, so even if you position the window in front of a white area on the screen, a few white pixels will be visible in the screenshot, which does not look very good against a black background. Therefore, one would like an application, such as Window Clippings, to copy only the pixels from the window alone, with the alpha channel preseved. See this example of the difference between an ordinary screenshot and one with alpha data preserved. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Now I see that the alpha channel is still lost in the first example, but surely you get the point: if the page background were black, the first screenshot would look much better with its alpha channel. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you would like to paste the screenshot (of a window) on a (larger) screenshot of a desktop, then, if it is going to look good, the content of the desktop must be slightly visible below the frame of the window. This is only possible to accomplish (reasonably easy) if the alpha transparency data is preserved in the screenshot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andreas Rejbrand (talk • contribs) 21:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

March 1

change camera drivers

I have a HP Pavillion laptop with an integrated webcam, however I really like Dell's webcam center. I was able to download and install the dell webcam center but the webcam driver isn't supported. Where would I get one that is supported and how would I get thoe drivers to replace the ones currently installed? --omnipotence407 (talk) 00:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Since your webcam is integrated, it is, of course, and HP webcam. An HP webcam can only work with it's own drivers, and it's own software. Software from different vendors, Dell in this case, will not support the webcam in question. The exact same thing applies to the drivers installed for the webcam.

So, in a nutshell, your stuck with HP's webcam software, and essentially the only way to bypass this is to download a freeware webcam application, or switch to a different operating system, such as Ubuntu. Sorry. Until It Sleeps 01:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Manually backing up Hard Drive

I want to back up my Vista and XP machines. Suppose my computers each only have 1 hard drive (let's call it C: in both cases), is it sufficient to just double-click on the hard drive in "My Computer", hit Select All and copy all into my external hard drive? Acceptable (talk) 00:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, well this depends on what you want to do... Do you want to just back up all of the files on the backup drive itself, or do you want to make the external drive bootable? Until It Sleeps 01:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If you either want to do the latter or want to make a copy within a backup drive that you can later turn into a bootable disk, I highly recommend Clonezilla. (Alternatively, you may feel reassured by a product coming from a conventional corporation, and want to shell out 70 bucks for Symantec "Norton" Ghost; it won't actually be of any additional help, but maybe we should all do our bit to save large corporations.) Clonezilla will ask you lots of questions that you probably won't be able to answer; just hit Enter for the default choice every time. Well, almost every time: don't become too zonked out by the process, as although the program can "read" your computer it can't read your mind, and a couple of the questions ask you what you want to do (back up, restore? to and from a drive or an image?) and of course you have to get those right. Hoary (talk) 04:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If I'd like to just back them up, bootability is not a necessity, just doing what I described is adequate right? EVERY file from my computers will be copied over? Acceptable (talk) 04:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been running a WinXP program called Drive Snapshot (www.drivesnapshot.de) which claims to address the low-level issues in copying a complete operating system. It allows you to back up while doing other work. According to the company, you can restore a complete, runnable system from backup (including the OS), though luckily I've not had to test that. Drive Snapshot saves a 40 gigabyte XP system to an external hard disk in about an hour. (Both Drive Snapshot and Ghost cost some money, order of $70.) I would not be confident that the simple method of a 'Select All' on the C: drive would do what you want. What happens to files that are in use by the OS? Older backup programs would choke on anything that was in use when you tried to copy it. EdJohnston (talk) 05:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Clonezilla will do what you want, and it will do it for no money. However, you won't be able to do any other work while it is at work. (Incidentally, I'm surprised by your desire to copy every file but lack of interest in bootability from the result; why else back up every file?) -- Hoary (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

To be a little more specific here: generally speaking, you can't just copy the files of a piece of Windows software to another machine and expect it to work. So, typically, unless you're creating a restorable (and bootable) backup of the entire hard drive, it's not very useful to copy anything except the files that contain your work and other files you use for business or pleasure -- typically, the "My Documents" folder and its equivalents on the computer. The rest of the files tend to be largely useless, because the majority of the software on that hard drive won't be much good without the Windows registry entries they require to work. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well put. Though if copyright issues didn't stop me, I'd grab some of the fonts too. Hoary (talk) 10:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, there may be other things. Browser software bookmark files, your mp3 collection, if it's not under My Documents, game saves, that super secret porn stash... stuff like that. But the point still stands. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 12:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If the OS is running at the same time, you will almost certainly encounter locked files. Copying files to a set of DVDs or external drive will stop dead when it encounters a locked file, leaving you with a big manual job trying to decide where it has got to in the copy process. As Captain Disdain suggests, just copying "My Documents" (XP)/"Documents" (Vista) and some other choice bits that you can't replace or recreate easily, is probably the best way (and it's smaller too, so it might go quicker and it might fit on one DVD). Oh, and don't forget to backup your email files either. Astronaut (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

CSS hover

What CSS elements of divs can be changed with the :hover thingy? I tried to change a bunch of things (see testing page; the ads aren't there by any decision of mine), but all I can see that actually changes is the size of the div. What else can you change? (I'm trying to build a website completely without Java and Javascript; I realize that those would make this easier) flaminglawyer 01:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Technically, you should able able to change any property of the element using any selector. In practice, there are always a few slips for each browser, especially Internet Explorer, but it's mostly for very obscure usage of CSS. There are two problems with your code, though, here marked in bold:

div:hover {background color:gray; border:5p solid blue; color:white; height:20%}

It's background-color, with an hyphen, and "p" is not a valid unit, so it is ignored. Use pt for points. — Kieff | Talk 01:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I knew that, just typos... Thanks, my hope in CSS is restored. flaminglawyer 01:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

IE is the big difficulty with :hover. It supports it on nothing except anchor (a) tags if I recall. If you are clever about it, you can get a lot of mileage out of the anchor tags, but it is not straightforward and can lead to some somewhat nasty nesting of things. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Format a disk that refuses?

I'm using WinVistax64 and detected a diskerror when TrueCrypt refused to encrypt my device. CHKDISK comes up with nothing. It won't format with the right-click+format guide, so I tried "format E:" in cmd (as admin), but it came back with something like "You are not allowed to format this volume". I am the only user and admin. I formatted another drive today as well, w/o problems. If you know a solution - great! I have no idea what it could be, since I've never seen anything like this before. Also, as a quick fix, do you guys know any bootable CD's or software that would allow me to format it as NTFS? Thanks in advance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.231.234.120 (talk) 02:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you right-click on 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as Administrator' to open cmd.exe? If not, do that, and then issue the format command.(Nevermind that, I apparently can't read) Also, I'd suggest trying to run a 'chkdsk e: /r /f' before trying a format. It may tell you how much of the drive has gone bad (sector-wise). (Washii) 63.135.50.87 (talk) 07:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Almost any bootable OS CD will allow you to format the drive (not necessarily to NTFS); at which point Windows will most likely jump at the opportunity to format an "unformatted" (read "non-windows-formatted") drive. It'll take a little longer to format it twice, but this way you aren't relying on some reverse-engineered code to NTFS format your drive. – 74  13:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

— Ched ~ ^(yes?) 14:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC) ← <* wonders if 74 is making an indirect reference to the good old "Partition Magic" disk *>

<* 74  disavows all knowledge of Partition Magic, citing this interview instead at 15:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC) *>

OP here, tried to format via the Vista DVD. Told me (after reaching 100%) that one sector was "bad". Then it said that the first and second (=all) NTFS-boot-sectors were unwriteable. Format Failed. Now what? 81.231.234.120 (talk) 18:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps now would be a good time to replace your failing harddrive with a new one? – 74  18:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's 6months old, could it be failing already? Keep in mind that it worked fine before I tried to encrypt and format it.... 81.231.234.120 (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

While not impossible it would be rather unlikely. Perhaps windows is merely confused. You could indeed try 76.167.241.45's suggestion below to NTFS format it using Linux. If that doesn't work, you could try formatting it in Linux with some other disk format, then try reformatting it as NTFS in Windows. If that still fails, it's time to replace the drive. – 74  22:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much any Linux LiveCD will be able to format it as NTFS. You can run "mkntfs" from the command-line, or use graphical programs like QtParted and GParted if available. SystemRescueCD is a good LiveCD which includes GParted and other rescue tools. Knoppix 5 is a good LiveCD which includes QtParted. If you want a more dedicated CD, GParted has a GParted LiveCD. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 21:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Firefox bog

As my link to the past or whatever, I still sometimes use one computer that has Windows (specifically, Win 2k). For a long time I was using Mozilla ver 0.7 or thereabouts on it; this seemed a fine program to me. Then I upgraded to Firefox ver 0.92 or so; this seemed slightly better. Last week, having at long last broadened the band to this computer, I thought that I should kowtow to "virus" hysteria etc via all the "security enhancements" of the latest Firefox. (Also, my beta version of Firefox did have minor annoyances; for example, worldcat.org consistently made it crash. And I even thought I'd read somewhere that newer versions of Firefox ran faster.)

So I upgraded to Firefox 3.0.6 (as of a couple of minutes ago, still the latest). But what a slug this can be! Some days, it's OK. On others, even typing a message such as this is tiresome, as it can't keep up with my typing. When this happens, if I close it down completely (and check in MemTest that none of it lingers) and reopen it, it's often as slow as it was before.

Right now, it's open in a different window. MemTest reports that it's using 56kB of memory; which I don't suppose is excessive. In order to type this, on the selfsame computer I'm right now using Opera 6.03 (yes, your grandfather's Opera; I think it dates from 2002). It's fine; no drag at all. So all in all I don't think the computer has got any malware.

As far as I can remember, I've plugged in no plug-in or extension. (I don't even have Flash.) What stunningly obvious factor might I have overlooked here? -- Hoary (talk) 03:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What kind of websites are we talking about? Do you have anything open (even in another tab) that's super-AJAXy (like Gmail or Google Reader)? They can sometimes really bog firefox down on low-performance computers (I've frequently noted that on my Eee PC running Ubuntu, Google Reader will spike to 100% CPU usage after using it for a while, bogging the whole browser down). Or does this happen if you only have relatively light-weight pages open (like Wikipedia articles).

One thing you should definitely do is to start monitoring your processes. Install Process Explorer and have it running in the background, it'll give you a little graph of CPU usage in the system tray. You'll start to notice what behaviors that bring the browser to a creeping halt (or if it even is the browser at all. it's possible that it's some other program messing with you). BTW, when you said it takes up 56 kb of memory, you really meant that it takes up 56 mb of memory, right? Because at no point in the history of any universe has firefox taken up that small amount of memory.

I would recommend you install Google Chrome (as it is known in all the lands for it's amazing swiftness), but I don't know if it works on Win 2K. Probably doesn't.

My best guess is that your computer is simply old (btw, what specs do you have?) Software from 2002 is obviously going to be running faster, because it assumes that the hardware it's on is also from around 2002. Your computer may simply be too slow for the latest version of Firefox. If that's the case, there's no shame in just using the version of Opera you have that works (but for God's sake, don't use IE 6!) Belisarius (talk) 09:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, peoples. Er, yes, not 56kB, I meant 56MB. I don't remember the specs of the computer or even how to look them up; of course it's primitive by 2008 standards and it has 192MB of RAM. It's a curiously durable laptop, and since its screen is tolerable even by today's standards and its keyboard is far better than any other I remember trying (not that my experience here is wide), I'm in no rush to get rid of it. (When it does eventually conk out, I plan to replace it with something running Debian.)

No Gmail, no Google Reader.

However ancient the computer is, it's easily good enough to run Firefox ver. 0.9.2 or whatever that was. And no offense to the hundreds of people who've together put thousands of hours into improving Firefox since then, but I see little change to the program beyond increased stability (good!), increased prettiness, and even more desperate attempts at URL completion; there's no obvious reason why it should be slower.

The sluggishness is very localized. I'm using Firefox now, and as I type this autoreferring sentence, it's fine. But when I go to type in the "Edit summary" box of this very same page, I type ahead of what I see -- which doesn't matter, but it's disconcerting (and I'd certainly never experience it in the beta).

I know that WP isn't a RS, but for what they're worth its articles say that neither Chrome nor Safari runs on Win2k. Perhaps K-Meleon, said to be slimmer than Firefox, is for me. Or, after I've treble-checked that it won't zap ver. 6.03, perhaps a recent Opera would be the thing. -- Hoary (talk) 10:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You might try disabling javascript and see if the performance improves; I've seen any number of sites that bring my browser to a crawl with poorly-formed javascript. Beyond that, there are a number of features that theoretically could be the source of the slowdown, many of which are controllable using about:config. You could go down the list disabling everything you don't need and see if the base performance improves. That being said, it is certainly possible to install and run multiple copies of Opera (just make sure to choose a new install directory). – 74  12:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Those are good ideas all. I'll try them. Consider the matter "resolved"; thank you. -- Hoary (talk) 12:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Restoring deleted files

I have an old Windows 2000 laptop that I recently dug up. It was reformatted about 5 years ago and I haven't used it since. Is there anyway I can retrieve/restore these reformatted files? I have not written anything to the hard drive since I reformatted it 5 years ago. I recall that there are software out there that will do the trick. Can anyone recommend one for an old Windows 2000 Pentium 3 machine? Acceptable (talk) 04:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What filesystem? --76.167.241.45 (talk) 09:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Windows 2000 uses NTFS. -- SGBailey (talk) 12:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd probably try the unformat command with the disk you did the format with first (old-school, may not be an option with 2K). Norton Utilities circa mid-1990's had a direct disk access disk editor (also old-school, and for techs only). I'll see if I can find the website for the Restore program I have. b-back-shortly. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 14:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This works well: http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/ --Wonderley (talk) 14:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

YEP ... that's the one, know I have it in my little toolbox somewhere - just couldn't find it that quick. Good deal Wonderly! — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 15:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

250W PSU and a new Video Card

Hi all. I was wondering if you could recommend any half decent video cards that would work with a 250 watt PSU. I have a HP A6632F with 4GB RAM, 2.4GHz E220 DuoCore processor, and Vista Home Premium. This computer uses PCIE 2.0 x16. I used to have a ATI Radeon 9800XT for my old HP (200W PSU), and I liked it quite a bit. I'm hoping for something a bit better than that, but an equivalent would be okay, I guess. I'm not sure what else in the way of information I should provide, so feel free to ask. Thanks in advance, --AtTheAbyss (talk) 04:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that nobody has recommended such a graphics card yet, and I won't either. You've got a pretty good machine, I wouldn't recommend spending money on a bottleneck-esque video card. I'd recommend the 8800GT as good bang-for-the-buck, but you'll need a PSU with at least 400 watts. But if you're going to purchase a new PSU, perhaps future-proof it a bit and get some more wattage. Useight (talk) 20:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Konqueror, Firefox and openSUSE

Earlier I was updating the Kenn Borek Air article. This involved going to Transport Canada's database and searching for the aircraft registered to Kenn Borek, which gave me a list of 38, with 15 to a page. In Firefox I seem to be stuck on page 1, clicking on the links for page 2 or 3 just reloads page 1. If I use Konqueror I can look at each page but the "common name", "serial number" and "owner regist. since" fields are all blank, with that information on two lines just below the "return to search" and above the "38 matches found" and looks like "Beech B 42 1992-12-03 Dehavilland 311 2000-10-11 Beech BB 7 1992-09-17..." Any ideas why that is happening and how to solve it. By the way it's not a problem with Firefox in Windows. I was able to work around it by clicking on "printable version", so it's not a major problem but it is annoying. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 08:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The page is using IE-specific javascript. Specifically, it is manipulating an object named 'frmsubmit' (e.g. frmsubmit.action), where "frmsubmit" is the name= of a <form>. Both js and css (which was evidently an afterthought) is quite amateur.

IE5.0/Wine saves the day; I'll post the contents of the list to your talk page. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I missed the bit about you already having it. -- Fullstop (talk) 09:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. At least I know now that I can't cure it. And I fixed my error above. Just went to work and checked it with Windows to be sure and it doesn't work. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 11:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Blackberrys, Outlook and Exchange

Hello....what are the different options for connecting a Blackberry to an Exchange Server? There's Web access via a browser, and OMA which I believe is also done via a browser. Is there not a Outlook client that runs on a Blackberry? I keep running into OMA, which I don't think is a client in itself. I don't have a Blackberry here to check and I need to make some recommendations...unfortunetly I'm not super fluent with those devices...69.180.160.77 (talk) 18:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Time Zone Software for OS X For Scheduling Appointments

I often need to schedule phone calls in different time zones. While the dashboard world clocks are great, they only tell me what the time is now in a given city. Is there any software for OS X where I can enter any time (e.g. 8:00AM in two weeks) and it will show me when that time is in selected cities?

Thanks --Grey1618 (talk) 18:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

MoWeS to Real Server

I have installed MediaWiki onto my flash drive (as a wiki on a stick), as part of MoWeS. That was recommended to me here That includes Apache, PHP and MySQL. Now I am wondering how I would go about turning that into an actual website. I know I need to buy a domain name, like at GoDaddy. What else would I do? Thanks, 99.224.117.66 (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You'll need to explain more about what you really want. If you want your MediaWiki install to be used by people over the internet (and not just inside your school or office) then you 're really best to get a web hosting package and install MediaWiki etc. there. While you could host it on a regular home machine, you'd need to use Dynamic DNS or get your ISP to give you a static IP address - and even in that case, I don't know why you'd want to have the software on a USB stick. I'd have thought the only reason you'd install someotng on MoWeS is for purely personal use, with you the only person accessing it. 87.113.100.227 (talk) 21:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

SOrry, I should have said that I want to move it off the flash stick. I would like for it to be available over the Internet, to anyone. I had heard about Dynamic DNS, but wasn't sure. I am pretty sure I have a static IP address, as I have the same one now as I did in the previous post (is that correct?). I would use my home machine only to save the costs of using a web-hosting service. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 21:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You can get some very cheap hosting solutions, from people like DreamHost and GoDaddy; remember that hosting it from your desktop machine means that a) that machine has to be on all the time (24/7/365) burning your electricity and warming your home. And if that machine needs to reboot for software updates, or because it's crashed, or runs slow because you're playing GTA5 on it, then the web service suffers. Worse, that A in ADSL stands for asymmetric - your upstream is much much slower than your downstream, which means that only a few visitors to your site can exhaust your upstream bandwidth and make your site very unresponsive. Hosting centres, by contrast, have high-bandwidth symmetric connections, so they're not handicapped in this way. Now all of this is fine if you're the only user of it (like you're just connecting home when you're elsewhere) but if other people are going to use it they're going to be disappointed in anything that's hosted in your home. If you really still want to host at home, then you'll need a guaranteed static IP address (you rarely get that without asking for it explicitly, and paying extra) or a dyndns (or the like). Then you buy a domain and have your hosting company set their name servers to point to your static IP. Then someone can access your machine at home as easily as if they were in the next room - including all the ports you left open and the services you didn't disable (which makes security a real headache). 87.113.100.227 (talk) 22:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

After reading that, I think that I probably will end up going with the paid hosting services. It's just a lot easier. Thanks a lot for your help! Genius101^Guestbook 22:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What is the best web browswer for Windows?

I've been trying to figure it out for a while now. IE 8 looks promising, and it may be even more secure than the other browsers. Opera has always been an underdog favorite of mine with lots of innovative features. Firefox is thrusted towards the top because of its ability for extensions and add-ons. I've never liked Safari, but Safari 4 seems and sounds to be really good. What do you guys think is the best web browser for Windows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.46.229 (talk) 21:02, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Notice at the top of the page: The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions... Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Of the browsers you name, IE has been (for years now) the slowest, buggiest, least standards-compliant, and overwhelmingly least secure browser. Alleged improvements have always been in the next version, whatever than version will be, but it's consistently failed to catch up. Of the others, Firefox has the advantage of lots of extensions, Opera tends to be a bit faster and a bit further up the standards curve. Safari is perfectly good, as is its cousin Google Chrome. Beyond that it's a matter of taste; there isn't a "best" out of Opera/FF/Safari/Chrome. 87.113.100.227 (talk) 21:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You may also be interested in Comparison of web browsers and the bunch of comparison articles linked in its see-also section, including Comparison of layout engines (Cascading Style Sheets). 87.113.100.227 (talk) 21:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Without any doubt: Google Chrome. It is fast, stable, modern and has a simple and non-ugly UI. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

And we were doing so well at maintaining neutrality (well, except for IE, but that's quite understandable). – 74  22:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

My response was neutral, because 71.117.46.229 didn't ask "What browser is the best?" but rather "What browser do you guys think is the best?". There is indeed a subtle difference. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking for something that says "Ready" when startup finally finished, and requires entering a key code to allow computer use

I have Win XP, set to autologin (*). After startup has technically finished, the resident antivirus scanner and ccleaner keep the computer busy for a few minutes more. During this time the computer is very slow - I prefer not to use it. Is there something I could install that would show a sign on the desktop indicating the computer was now ready to use, all scanning and cleaning done? I imagine it would be put in one of the startup folders. I would also like it to stop anyone using the computer until I enter a secret key of some kind. ((*) Note - you might be thinking of suggesting that I no longer use autologin, and use the password login option instead. But this would be much slower and much more inconvenient as I would have to return to the computer twice - once to switch it on, then wait a long time, then return the second time to enter the login password, and then wait several more minutes for stuff to finish. ) 89.241.154.51 (talk) 21:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Transfer contributions list to new account

I finally opened a new account after being an anonymous contributer for some time. I wanted to know is there a way to transfer my contribution list that is associated with my ip address to my new account. Does that make sense? Is that possible and if so how? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zramjg (talk • contribs) 22:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Just for future reference, questions like this should be asked at the help desk. I believe that it is not possible, but someone else will probably know for sure. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought that's what this page was. Sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zramjg (talk • contribs) 22:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's no problem. I got confused my first time too. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 22:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)