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February 1

IP addresses listed on several anti-spam\open proxy DBs

Well, this has been bugging me for a while, so let's see what you guys think of it. Most of the IP addresses that are dynamically assigned to me by my ISP (*cough CTBC cough*) are blacklisted on several of the spam\open proxy databases. On a survey I've performed on 50 different IPs throughout the week, I found that most (43 out of 50) IPs are listed on average at eight different databases (I've checked through http://www.dnsstuff.com/)

This is very annoying since I am forced to get a new IP address whenever:

1. I need to connect to some IRC servers that perform open-proxy checking
2. I need to comment on certain websites that have security systems against spambots
3. I need to visit certain websites that restrict access to IPs on such databases.

It's always the same crap, and sometimes I have to try DOZENS of different IPs before I get one that works! The worst thing is that the database entries are usually 6 months older, or more! And no, it probably isn't my computer that's infected by some malware, since it's always some old entry on some database that's being pointed out as the issue. I also keep my firewall and anti-virus updated and running, just in case.

So, I believe that my ISP and\or most of its users must be worthless, careless, insecure and abusive, since they have been abused so much to reach this point. Too bad my ISP has a solid monopoly in this city, I guess. I've called tech support and was able, after several minutes (or was that an hour?), to talk to someone about this and they don't seem to have the slightest idea of what I am talking about. It's like they didn't know what an IP address meant!

Given the monstrosity this company is, and the complete control and lack of effort it has towards the city and its customers, I was wondering if there's ANYTHING on my side I could do to avoid these issues in the future. I mean, I always try to ask these databases for a recheck so the number of blacklisted IPs drop, but I'm probably the only subscriber wasting time with this, and it's a tedious, slow and tiresome thing to do.

I was thinking that maybe using Tor or some other low-level onion routing system would work, but giving mankind's taste for misuse of good tools, I'm guessing these have been abused and banned everywhere as well. I could be wrong, and I'll check that eventually... but, any ideas about what I can do about all this? — Kieff | Talk 00:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You actually live in uberland?! :o :o You could try using tor but tor exit nodes are banned by pretty much everything. I don't know of any way to resolve your situation other than moving (and who would move FROM uberland?) or maybe seeing if your ISP has a different tier of service that just happens to have a separate IP range. And what do you mean by [[pt:CTBC|CTBC]]? Do you mean DHCP? --froth^T 00:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I thought Tor would be banned by now... The name of the city is completely misleading, by the way. The 600k habitant city is really pathetic, and the only place for "entertainment" is either the single, small shopping center around called "Center Shopping", the several nasty bars (at least 1 every 2 blocks) or a few nightclubs. The city is moved by silly, shallow hedonistic lifestyles, really. I'm trying to leave it as soon as I can! The place depresses me. Oh, and CTBC is the local phone company. They control every single phone line and are the sole provider of broadband. Needless to say, it charges about 7 times as much as the others everywhere else in the country (yeah, I checked). I'm paying 30 USD/month for 224 kbit/s ADSL and that's all the choice I have! Ah... Uber-land indeed. — Kieff | Talk 00:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You might consider purchasing a dedicated server from a reputable vendor (rackspace comes to mind but $$$) and proxy through that. Droud 01:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I have exactly the same problem on the other side of the planet in Australia. I tried to join a forum which kept replying my IP was banned, what I ended up doing was going through a anonymous web proxy, which worked for me, but i don't know if it will be suitable for your purpose. Vespine 02:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista

Hi, I'm thinking of upgrading to Windows Vista (even though it is a bit self-heavy) but I'm not sure if my computer can handle it, I was looking at my system details on SETI@home in my account, and it said my computer had a 2.6 GHz Processor , 760 MB’s of RAM, and a DirectX 10 (?) and a 3D graphics card. And it says in the article Windows Vista that I need a 1 GB of memory, a 1 GHz Processor so I'm split between recommended requirements and minimum requirements, so is my computer up to it? And if it is, do I have to save all my documents, movies, music etc. to a USB drive or a CD, or is this just a recommended safety precaution?

Thanks! - 210.55.147.228 02:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Windows Vista could probably run on that machine, although it may not be the smoothest. Yes, save your documents and other files in case something goes wrong. Splintercellguy 03:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a decent computer and it will definitely run Vista, but you might turn off some of the spiffy graphics stuff if it turns out to be slow. And for the second question, you don't have to save your stuff; the upgrade keeps it for you. --Spoon! 04:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless something borks out during the install. Doesn't even have to be caused by the software - what if you have a power outage? It's always a good idea to backup your files before doing such large scale updates, just in case. You never quite know what could go wrong. TERdON 10:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It will run fairly well on 760MB of ram but not with the "glass" themes. You don't have a DX10 graphics card, they don't exist. You should save what you want to another media (another hard drive, a usb memory stick, a cd), then do a clean install over your old Windows which will erase everything. Then copy your stuff back into vista. It will probably ask you if you want to do an "in-place" upgrade which will allow you to keep all of your own files, but it will cost you performance and that's not what you need with those specs. Also, what kind of processor do you have? A pentium 4? If it's dual core (probably Core Duo or Core 2 Duo) then you'll have very good performance and you have absolutely nothing to worry abuot. --froth^T 04:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I have a celeron proccessor, will i need to get a Pentium 4 to have the glass "aero" effects, if so how much will it cost in USD? Thanks -- 210.55.148.13 07:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You will need to buy another computer, most likely over $1000, to have those effects and run them decently. I suggest sticking with the computer you have and not upgrading, Vista won't give you anything substantial worth the hassle. --Wooty Woot? contribs 08:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there a link on Microsoft where you can go to and it will examine your machine to determine if it's Vista compatible? Corvus cornix 19:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There is indeed. MS provides a neat little software called The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor which will examine your system and see if it is compatible. Oskar 19:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

google cache

I'm trying to see if google cached powerpoint notes on the site http://www.geocities.com/hawaugh2002/notes/(dir of notes) Does anyone know if google caches this or how to access it if it does? Thanks. --75.84.49.209 03:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No. You can see if google caches a particular file by searching for cache:http://url.com/blah/file.ppt but google doesn't even index any part of your site so nothing to worry about. Archive.org doesn't have it either --froth^T 04:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

UNIX shell programming

explain what the following do in UNIX shell prpogramming

1. ctrl-w
2. ls-s/home/camp>>filex
3. mkdir

Depends on the shell, but: 1) Nix the last word, 2) man ls, 3) man mkdir -- mattb @ 2007-02-01T15:05Z

In other words, 1) Erases the last word (I think), 2) Look a the man page on ls, 3) look at the man page on mkdir --froth^T 19:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, the ">> filex" redirects the output of the command "ls ..." to be appended to the file "filex" --Spoon! 00:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

1. ctrl-w deletes the word before the cursor.
2. ls -s /home/camp >> filex (note the spaces :-) lists all the files in /home/camp. -s probably displays the sizes next to the list, but check the man page. The >> filex sends the output which would go to stdout (the screen) to a file called filex. As it's >> and not > it will append the data to an existing file if a file called filex already exists.
3. mkdir creates a directory.

--h2g2bob 02:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

guys, this sounds like homework. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista ready

Can anyone tell me if these computer specs would be good for installing windows vista home premium

Hard drive 40GB Pentium 4 2.4GHZ Directx9 XP home 512 DDR RAM

--Biggie 09:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Stick with XP. Vista will make this machine grind to a halt (or, at best, a very slow crawl). yandman 09:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep --froth^T 13:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank You--Biggie 18:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The recommended spec that Windows quotes for 'home basic' version is...1ghz, 512mb RAM, 20gb hd (with 15gig available space left), Directx9 and 32mb graphics memory, DVD-rom, Audio Ouput and internet-access. There is absolutely no reason why the spec you mentioned cannot run Windows Vista smoothly enough. It is preferrable to have a faster PC and it may run 'slower' than in store, but when purchasing software you must always make a trade-off between speed/response times and the benefits the application bring. If you believe Vista is worth the upgrade then according to Microsoft's spec recommendationss your computer should be able to run the system fine. ny156uk 23:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thats why I love this commercial! It's so true! schyler 23:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not, schyler, and Ny's comment is blatantly incorrect, unless you run Vista at its lowest-level and don't run any powerful applications with it. Your computer most likely has no graphics card at all. Vista will probably not do so well with integrated graphics cards, nor your 512mb of ram or your pentium 4. If you had at least a basic gfx card, I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say "yes you can run it" but with those specs, not only do I not recommend it, I'm not sure if it'll run any faster than what Froth said. --Wooty Woot? contribs 23:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

So, let me get this right. You say that his computer doesnt need to be upgraded to run Vista, but for it run well at all, he should upgrade it. How the hell is it not right? schyler 23:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No, his computer doesn't need to be upgraded if he sticks with XP, but he needs to upgrade at least his graphics card to run Vista at any rate. Your Mac comment is soapboxing. --Wooty Woot? contribs 23:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You still didn't answer me. How am I not correct in posting that link ad how is the commercial not corect when he has to upgrade? schyler 00:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The advertisement has nothing to do with upgrading Vista... And that computer might be able to run Vista - but it will be painful. I have seen XP run painfully slow and it is no fun at all. x42bn6 Talk 00:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What?! The commercial is about PC having to go in and get all his innards upgraded to efficiantly run Vista. And that's exactly what I'm talking about: it will run painfully slow! I know exactly how that is. I was a life-lon Windows user and evrry time Windows came out with a new version, I bought it, of course after I made sure I had the minimum requirments. It always sucked. I always hadto eventually buy a new computer. This was the case with Windows 98, 2000 (professional), XP, and I'm sure it would have happened with Vista. On Mac, it just works. Now I posted my comment about the commercial, because its funny and true. I really didn't want to get in to any argument of sorts, but it seemed to have happened anyways. schyler 00:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this is entirely gibberish. The spec as recommended by Windows themselves is met (and surpassed) by this user's computer (save for the graphics card - details of which he has not given). Yes it will run faster on a faster computer...strangely enough...yes advanced features may not be available/useable on a near base-spec machine, but NO there is no reason to believe the computer spec above cannot run the latest operating system. Just like many games can run on base-specs and look half as good as on high-end spec, so will Vista run on low-spec and not look as good/work as well as on high-spec. The user may buy Vista safe in the knowledge that from the spec given nothing he mentions is not above (or equal to) the recommended spec by Windows themselves. It may be beneficial to upgrade parts on your computer to improve performance, but it is not, as suggested above, a necessity. ny156uk 01:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

OS X "just works" on old hardware because you only have one bit of color depth per pixel. Only need one; you only have 2 colors, grey and silver :) --froth^T 01:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the OSX vs Vista thing, I really do suggest that the user not buy Vista until at least Service Pack 2 comes out. And about the comment from Froth, I think it's funny some how, but I dont relly understand it. schyler 02:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Color depth and 1-bit color --froth^T 19:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, froth, your wrong. You haven't mentioned all of the colours in between gray and silver. :):) --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 08:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoa is that a new feature in Leopard? I might have to switch! :o --froth^T 19:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You want to know my graphics card its a intel extreme graphics one. i am wondering if i should upgrade the card to an nvidia G force.--Biggie 00:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Information technology & Information systems

briefly explain an organization functional department,tasks & management levels of that organization and highlight the information technology & information systems ethical decisions they make

Please, always say please, always sign your posts, and make it not look like homework. We have done our fair share of homework in our lifespans and do not want to do it any more. Thank you. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Searching copyvio

(Question moved from talk page)

Hello. I'm from Russian Wikipedia. Last week we've had a problem: We've found out copyvio in some featured articles. It was very awful. So the question is: Is there any good searh engine that can determine if an article contains some paragraphs or some sentences from other sites? I don't mean Google or other engines - it is good enough, but you must take phrases from every paragraphs to find out copyvio. I also know about http://www.copyscape.com/ - it's a good stuff, but it isn't free (as I see) and it don't work correctly. Thanks for answering. Vinograd19 00:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about Russian, but in/on English, most people use Google or another engine. Generally plagiarized text will contain certain key phrases, series of words, etc. Search for those. If you do use Google, be sure to click "show similar results". Sorry that I don't know of anything specific. 68.39.174.238 14:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How to shorten a MPEG movie

I have a Sony P72 Cyber-shot digital camera that also takes MPEG movies besides the normal JPG pictures.
I would like to take an "MPEG movie" that is large in size (i.e. 50 MB) and take out just a small portion of it.
This "nitty-gritty" part (i.e. 1 MB) then I would like to put into a Wikipedia article as a clip showing a short event.
In this process (if possible) does it then end up as another MPEG movie or something else (i.e. movie GIF)?
Is it most proper to insert a GIF movie into a Wikipedia article or a MPEG movie?
Will dial-up people have trouble with short movies (i.e. 1 - 2 MB)?
--Doug ^talk 14:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't really embed movies on Wikipedia. You can do GIFs, but you should keep them short to avoid forcing people to download a huge image. The preferred media type for uploaded video is probably Theora/Vorbis/OGG. -- mattb @ 2007-02-01T15:45Z

The easiest way to cut out parts of an MPEG movie is to plunk down the $25 or whatever for Quicktime Pro, which makes it very easy. There are some other, free solutions out there, but most of them involve either trying to make complicated editing software do what you want for a very simple job, or converting the file from MPEG into another format (i.e. into AVI) and then using a specialized piece of software for the job (i.e. VirtualDub). My recommendation, in terms of the smallest use of your time, is to get Quicktime Pro, which will take about 5 minutes total (and be useful in the future, perhaps), rather than spending the 5+ hours it will probably take you if you try to do it with semi-functional and semi-documented open source free stuff. (I say this from experience, if you can't tell.) --24.147.86.187 00:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

VLC again :D Use file, wizard and specify a start and stop time. Wikimedia Commons might accept your video, but check the rules before uploading. You could then add a link to the video on commons. --h2g2bob 01:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Also note that your P72 saves the video in MPEG-1 format. Transcoding it into, say, MPEG-4 or Theora may reduce the file size significantly, especially if you apply some good noise reduction filters while you're at it. (Of course, doing this badly is a good way of turning your video into unwatchable mush. Tweak the settings in your video editor until it looks good.) Transcoding to Theora is needed anyway if you want to upload your video to Commons. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

NTFS boot sectors...?

Is ther a virus or any software that can render all NTFS boot sectors unwritable? -- Barringa 15:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, though such viruses are probably not limited to NTFS partitions. See boot virus. Splintercellguy 16:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

what? unwritable? how the hell are you meant to do that without damaging the hard drive itself? --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What soundcard do I have?

Hi there. Hopefully this will be a easy question: What soundcard do I have? I have a found a couple of devices, though I got no idea of which it really is:

• ASUS TV7134 WDM Capture
• ASUS WDM TV/FM Tuner
• Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM)

The brand is HP if it is to any help :). Thanks, I really appriciate your help! Cybesystem 15:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS. Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, to be precise. --Kjoonlee 15:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! Now I can get the right drivers :)

computer c drive and d drive

What are the differences and why do other computers only have a c drive. Why does my c drive only have 5% used and the d drive 53% used?69.157.42.42 16:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The drive letters refer to different devices (or, even possibly different parts of the same physical device). See drive letter. Friday (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

If your PC is pre-built, chances are D is a recovery partition, keeping an image of the windows install that is copied over to C when recovery mode is run. Cyraan 18:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Per Friday, the letters refer to two different hard disks, or two different disk partitions. The different levels of use depend on how big each is and what is stored in them. 68.39.174.238 14:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Can PCI-E bus talk to the USB port of a computer

HI there. Could someone please help me. Will it be technically possible to have a PCI-E bus in a computer talk to something like a USB port on the outisde so that things like graphics cards can be connected at USB without opening the computer case . Just like any other USB device

greetings no I don't think you can do that, and to be honest it's not that hard to install a graphics card, they will only go in one way! ps dont forget to sign comments... Jackacon 16:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Not too sure if this is correct, but I believe PCIE has a much faster data rate than USB. There is, however, a mobile graphics card coming out next year that'll plug into a laptop's side port (forget the name of the technology now), that I suppose is similar. --Wooty Woot? contribs 18:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

USB (even 2.0) is too slow. What you want is a PCI Express cable, which allows you to extend the PCI Express bus several meters outside the box. --cesarb 19:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

And, if you are interested in an external graphics card, see NVIDIA Quadro Plex. --cesarb 19:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

CruzerSync

I've had this flash drive for months and I only now took a closer look. It came with three programs, one of them being CruzerSync. It automatically syncs certain files to the flash drive, so you don't have to worry about differences between content on the computer and content on the flash drive. However, it costs something awful for what little it does. Are there any free alternatives anybody knows of?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 17:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, Windows itself has a synchronize function. It may or not be as good as commercial alternatives, but at least it's free. --Wooty Woot? contribs 18:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

And I can find this...where?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 18:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Go into windows help and do a search for "Briefcase". It should do most of what you're looking for. --Maelwys 19:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I've found my way to it and installed a double briefcase that will either update the computer files or the flash drive files on command. Many thanks, my friends!--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 01:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There's also SyncToy. kmccoy (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

C++ syntax problem

Hey, I've been trying to get some programming practice at www.topcoder.com , since you aren't allowed to use LISP there I have to use C++ (or C#, java or visual basic, I'm sticking with C++ for now). The problems must have specific method signatures and class names to be submitted, but I'm getting an error (line 13, string[] BinaryCode::decode(String message)) saying expected unqualified-id before '[' token, I have no idea what this means (perhaps I need to specify something about using an array?) but I'm basically in a Catch 22 situation, I must use a specific method signature but that signature is giving me an error. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Robin

Posting your code here (or at least the relevant snippet) would greatly improve our chances to help you. TERdON 22:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem, just didn't want to take up too much space

class BinaryCode
{

  int main() {
      decode("23210")
      return 0;
      }
//string[] BinaryCode::decode(String message)
string[] decode(String message)
{
	String[] result;
	String answer;
	int previousNum, nextNum, currentNum = 0;
	answer[0] = codedString[0] - previousNum;
	for (i from 1; i < codedString.length; i++) {
		currentNum = convert(codedString[i - 1]);
		previousNum = nextNum;
		nextNum = convert(answer[i - 1]);
		if ( (currentNum - (previousNum + nextNum)) > 1) {
			result[0] = "NONE";
			break; 
			}
		else {
			answer[i] = currentNum -  (previousNum + nextNum);
		}
	}
		if (result[0] != "NONE") {
			result[0] = answer;
			}
			
	previousNum = 1;
	answer[0] = codedString[0] - previousNum;
	for (i from 1; i < codedString.length; i++) {
		currentNum = convert(codedString[i - 1]);
		previousNum = nextNum;
		nextNum = convert(answer[i - 1]);
		if ( (currentNum - (previousNum + nextNum)) > 1) {
			result[1] = "NONE";
			break; 
			}
		else {
			answer[i] = currentNum -  (previousNum + nextNum);
		}
	}
		if (result[1] != "NONE") {
			result[1] = answer;
			}
			
	}
	return result;
} 
int convert(char a){
	  int result = int(a) -48;
	return result;
	}   
} ;

I'm pretty sure that you can't implement your functions within the class declaration. --froth^T 23:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You can. They are automatically inlined. --Spoon! 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You cannot pass or return arrays in C++. You also cannot declare an unitialized array without dimensions like "string[] result;" It looks like your "result" is only going to only contain two strings. You might declare an array of two strings in your "main", and pass it (as the pointer to the first element) into "decode" to use; or you allocate an array of two strings dynamically (using "new" operator) in "decode", and then you can return it (as the pointer to the first element), and remember to free it (with "delete") afterwards. Or you can learn to use a data structure like "vector" instead of an array.

On unrelated notes, you have too many closing braces. Also, in C++ the "main" function of a program exists outside of any classes. Also, the way that you have declared "decode" and "convert", they are instance methods, and you need to have a BinaryCode instance to use them. You could also declare them static (as class methods) and then you would not need an instance. --Spoon! 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, your for loop syntax ("i from 1") is wrong. And the "string" class (at least the one in the standard library) should start with a lowercase "s". --Spoon! 01:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

decode("23210") and string[] decode(String message) don't need semicolons? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

expected unqualified-id before '[' token: You have a type declaration with no variable name. You're trying to declare an array of String, but you haven't given it a name. In addition, you need to either specify the number of elements in the array, or provide explicit initialization. One of the other of these should work depending on what you want and what a String object is: String s_array[3]; or String s_array[] = {"s_one", "s_two", "s_three"}; Wake 04:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The "for (i from ..." stuff makes me suspect that you have #defined some clever macros. If that is the case, it will be very difficult for us to spot errors in your code. Be warned that macros are evil. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Vista configuration questions

Help on any of these would be appreciated.

1. Is there any way to turn off the tasks toolbar in Explorer?
2. How do I use the full file path instead of the breadcrubs in the address bar?
3. Is there any way to make Segue UI look decent without using ClearType? It makes Courier New (wikipedia textareas) look painfully blurry.
4. What's wrong with the start menu? I've moved Administrative Tools into Accessories but windows keeps creating an empty Admin Tools folder directly under all programs. Same with Office 2007. And my custom positions for the accessories keep resorting themselves by name, even though I have Sort Programs By Name unchecked in the options. I want folders at the top, dangit!
5. Is it possible to manually register games with the Games interface?
6. What are the filenames of the .cpl control panel applets so I can disable most of them in HKCU/Control Panel?

Thanks --froth^T 23:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

1. and 2. seem to show up in ShellExView, but disabling them does nothing.
2. Above
3. Are you turning font smoothing off completely, or just clear type? i.e. go into the window appearance options, then the classic appearance menu, the effects dialog, and finally change font smoothing to Standard. If that doesn't look right, then I don't think there's any other way around it, other than perhaps changing your monospaced font from Courier New .
4. Beats me. Try just using the search feature; that is, hit the Windows key, type in the start of what you're looking for, and hit enter or click on it. It's much quicker.
5. Drag the game or a shortcut to it and drop it into the games explorer window. It won't do the advanced things (sys. requirements, last time played), but it does act as a shortcut
6. They're all in Windows\System32, with fairly self-explanatory file names. vgrd

-- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

With #6 you can open the .cpl files with control.exe to see what they are. As Consumed Crustacean said above, they are in %WINDIR%\System32. --h2g2bob 03:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

1 and 2 are both in "View > Folder options" in any normal opened file folder. 68.39.174.238 15:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

February 2

Need help buying a computer

I need help buying a computer. I would like it to have Microsoft Vista, and be under $550. I would prefer a good computer, like a Dell. Please can you help me find a computer. Thanks! 68.193.147.179 01:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Computers under $550 won't run vista well at all, and dells aren't good computers. Which is good for you since they actually sell a $360 dollar desktop computer with Home Basic preloaded. [1] --froth^T 01:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Dells are okay computers, at least at the low-end ( / "mainstream"), and some of their laptops are fairly nice. Modern cheap computers will run Windows Vista, but without at least 1 GB of memory, they won't do it well. The glass interface will also be iffy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you don't care about gaming, (which I assume you don't), there are much better options than buying a (IMO overpriced) computer from Dell, with an OS that really isn't geared for anyone not wanting DX10 (if you don't know what it is, my point is proven) - such as buying a second-hand computer, for instance, for web-browsing and word processing. You can pick up such computers for easily under $100, upgrade their RAM for smoother multi-tasking for maybe $50, and you're set. Spend the other $400 on something nice. If you're a gamer, and you want DX10, you're not going to find anything under $550 that's upgradeable or that'll work from a computer manufacturer, period. Most low to medium end premade PCs have integrated graphics controllers, cheap parts, and motherboards with no PCI-E or AGP slots, as well as proprietary everything. Local shops may be able to put together a gaming computer at under $550, but it'll be low-end at best, and I doubt that's what you're after anyway. --Wooty Woot? contribs 08:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're not a gamer, grab any relatively recent made computer with an integrated Intel graphics card, install Linux (eg. Ubuntu) and Compiz or Beryl, and you get a faster computer with way more eyecandies. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You're not going to find anything DX 10 for any price under $1000; IIRC the only DX 10 card right now is the GF8800. Linux with Compiz is incredibly slick, and runs on just about anything recent, but some newbies might be confused by the different software and lack of compatibility with Windows (at least, lack of compatibility without some effort). If I was setting up a cheap computer for someone else, I'd more than likely go the Linux route, but I wouldn't recommend they do it alone. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you guys mean dual-boot, that's an excellent setup I never thought of for a new user. Windows for anything that doesn't run Linux or in WINE, Linux for day-to-day stuff. --Wooty Woot? contribs 23:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If it was just one of my aunts who only surf the web and check their email, I wouldn't even bother with Windows. WINE runs a lot of the important applications with a little tweaking, and there are OSS alternatives for most of the basics. If Windows is absolutely needed, and the CPU supported hardware virtualization (unlikely in a cheap cheap computer), then you've got Xen to run Windows alongside Linux. No inconvenient dual booting required. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As others have said, you're not going to find a computer for under $550 that will run most versions of Vista well. If you're looking to play games, you're going to have to spend a lot more money. If you're just looking to check e-mail, browse the web, etc., I would recommend getting Vista Home Basic edition--it doesn't have a lot of the eye candy that other Vista versions do, but the kind of computer you're talking about buying wouldn't be powerful enough to see the eye-candy anyway. Linux would be a bad idea unless you're pretty skilled and experienced with computers...and if you're talking about buying a pre-made computer with pre-installed software, you're probably not going to have an easy time with Linux at all. Silver2Falcon 19:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Which computer is better?

Compaq Presario V6000Z series or Compaq Presario V6000T series 68.193.147.179 01:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems to pretty much come down to whether you prefer AMD or Intel processors. The Z is AMD, and the T is Intel, also the Z has Nvidia integrated graphics, and the T has Intel integrated graphics, negligible difference. If you plan on springing for a faster CPU however, the T would be the best bet, as the Core 2 is currently the best chip on the market. Cyraan 02:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Computer

What computer maker is the best? (ex: Dell, HP, Gateway, etc...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.147.179 (talk • contribs)

There is no answer for that because it is based on opinion, not fact. If you like, you can ask, "Which computer manufacturer has the cheapest computer right now?" or "Which computer manufacturer has the longest warranty right now?" It all depends on what you think "best" means. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It would also help id you you told what you you would b using the computer for. schyler 02:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What they said, also, if you're just getting an entry level box for email and internet, pre-built would be your best bet cost-wise. For mid-range or high-end (gaming, etx), building yourself or having a geek friend do it for you can save you a bundle. Cyraan 02:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And from the examples given (Dell, HP, GAteway), I can assume the user is looking for a Windows computer (sigh), and it wouldnt really matter. Each company you buy from will probably give you the same kind of options to customize your PC. schyler 02:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yourself. Period. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What if he's asking about laptops? Laptops are best bought, not built --froth^T 18:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Exploding Coca-Cola can

An utterly misplaced closed cola can in a backpack with over $300 worth of electronics inside. IN A DESCENDING AIRPLANE. Sigh...no real damage was suffered to my poor, poor electronics, but some inconveniences showed up. The Game Boy Micro was hardest hit, with its skimpy faceplate offering no protection from the sticky liquid. Absolutely all buttons now stick, and I'm not entirely sure how to clean them. Sure, I got a toothbrush and scrubbed around with water, producing out-of-this-world recovery, but the stickiness returned in a few hours. How should I un-stick the buttons? There are also problems with the Nintendo DS Lite. It's reliable clamshell design spared it a lot of exposure, but the volume control switch can't get to an intermediate between "mute" and "full blast," and it's ridiculously difficult to push the power switch up. How should I go about all this unsticking business?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 02:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Isopropyl alcohol maybe? I used it to unstick keys on my xbox controller and it worked pretty well, though I used the 91% stuff so theres not as much water. Cyraan 02:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Take all batteries out, possibly take the device apart, then soak in isopropyl alcohol 91% solution for awhile. Shake well, air dry at least overnight. Droud 02:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds a bit risky to me, completely soaking it. And the matter of taking it apart, which I don't think I could do, and probably wouldn't because of the risks involved.--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 02:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Soaking it is fine, unless there's a hard drive or greased/moving components. Granted that alcohol can blemish some plastics, so try it on an inconspicuous spot (blemishes will happen with a q-tip too) first. The main reason to disassemble is to clean the casing (and button rubber) with soap and water and the electronics with alcohol. Droud 13:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Try just taking a q-tip, dip it in the alcohol, and swab around the stuck buttons, them push them a few times, swab again, etc. That should work small amounts around the buttons, see if it makes any improvement. Cyraan 02:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If the thing got well saturated, taking it apart is almost a necessity. Also, be careful about total immersion in isopropynol. It is an organic solvent, and while most plastics will be fine with it, some materials will not. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T03:31Z

About the q-tip...it doesn't seem like it would really be able to get it those tight spaces, especially in the L and R buttons. And would the isopropyl permanently get rid of the stick? I was thinking of toothbrush, water, and then pressurized air canister...which probably wouldn't work, would it?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 05:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well then just kind of pour a little in around the buttons. Isypropyl alcohol has a very low vapor pressure so it evaporates extremely quickly; don't be too worried about getting it wet- but you probably shouldn't immerse it because chances are there's a clock battery inside that could short --froth^T 05:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Its not really to get down deep, the alcohol should be able to dissolve it pretty effectively on its own without being scrubbed, the q-tip is just to make sure it doesn't all evaporate before you get it to the buttons. Cyraan 05:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Would Bausch & Lomb Sight Savers be an alternative? I don't have any isopropyl on hand, and they contain it...--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 06:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure, would think as long as thats the only ingredient, it should be ok. Maybe try on a single button, or on something else to see if it evaporates cleanly (though I guess it would being used to clean glasses). Cyraan 06:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Limit cycle graph using GNUPLOT

How do I plot a limit cycle graph using gnuplot. I have a list of X,Y data points in a data file. 202.168.50.40 02:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Computer Freeze Madness

I turn on the computer. Everything is fine for about one minute, and then it freezes. I then have to restart it, and it usually freezes again after a minute. By the third time, it works fine. What could the problem be? It happens every single time. It seems to be that the computer has to "warm up" before it can start being usuable. What I did to try to fix the problem (but didn't work):
1)Scan for viruses using different programs. No, no viral problems.
2)Went into MsConfig and made it so that almost nothing loads at system startup
What in the world could my problem be? I'm going to have to format my drive and reinstall windows (or get vista) if I can't fix the problem. BTW, I've winXP.--Codell ^{[ Talk]} 03:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Try this. Download the ISO, burn it to a CD, and boot it. Cyraan 03:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Or, try Ultimate boot cd which includes memtest. At what point is your computer hanging? During POST/BIOS routines or loading WinXP drivers? Sandman30s 10:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• Whatever it is, it's not good. Make sure you get your stuff backed up while you can, just in case that computer dies on you. - 131.211.210.10 12:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is not good. Similar things for me were eventually traced to a bad Computer power supply. If you are 'lucky', the bad part will freeze out in an obvious manner, and you can replace it. --Zeizmic 13:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Your computer may literally need to "warm up" for it to work...you could have some faulty hardware element that changes with temperature in such a way as to cause this behavior. The above programs may reveal something about where the fault lies. If you're comfortable with the idea, you could open your computer and re-seat the various cards and socketed chips, which might fix the problem. But as 131.211.210.10 suggests, make sure you take steps to protect your data, because this problem could become essentially "fatal" at any time. –RHolton≡– 13:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm comfortable taking my computer apart anytime, and I often do so. My computer expertise borders around intermediate-expert. What happens is it loads everything, and goes to the desktop and loads all the icons and programs, and then about one minute later, it freezes. I have to restart, and do it twice, and the third time it works. Okay, well I'll try moving around my cards and I'll try that boot program. I know about backing up, I've already formatted and de-partitioned an old 4GB hardrive which I use and keep around my computer incase I need it. --Codell^«T» 02:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Multiple SSH servers

Hi all. Let's say I have two computers at home, and both are running SSH servers. And they both connect to the internet via the same router. What happens when I try to ssh in from externally (from work for example), which of the two servers would it connect to? Is it possible to choose one or the other? - Akamad 06:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Port forwarding --froth^T 06:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, thank you. Akamad 06:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That is, if you use different ports on both ssh services and configure your router to forward actually, all the packets should hit home. Oskar 07:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This raises another question. What if I were to forward the ssh port (assuming both servers use the same port) on the router to both the computers. Then which would it connect to? Or would the router simply not allow that? - Akamad 14:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If the router just sent the packets to both computers then they would respond normally; the problem is going to be at the client's end when he's getting 2 different sessions on the same port. Frankly I don't really know how TCP works at a low level, but I'm thinking there are basically 2 different ways it could react:

1. One computer responds first and extablishes a secure link with the client, then the other computer responds too late and the client ignores its handshake attempts (or does whatever it wants, but it can easily distinguish between the two)
2. They both respond simultaneously (unlikely I think) and neither of them successfully connect (or they both ACK and both connect until the client realizes that it's getting some very un-spec responses)

I hope someone else responds though, because they're pretty much shots in the dark. You might want to look at TCP and SSH (particularly this), I don't have time right now --froth^T 18:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you were to set up the router to forward the port to both computers, the result would be completely unpredictable. It could depend on things like the lengths of the wires connecting the computers to the router, or the time of day, or any of a number of other factors. --Carnildo 21:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Intriguing stuff (well, for me, anyway)! Thanks for your help. - Akamad 00:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Global and local

what is the difference between a global variable and local variable?

A global variable can be accessed from anywhere in a program, and all subroutines and functions share the same value. A local variable can only be seen within the scope of the variable (the loop, the function, the class, or whatever). See Scope (programming) for details. Oskar 07:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

A global variable is usually stored in the .bss or .data sections, making them easily accessible from any function. Local variables are stored on the stack as functions are entering, making it hard (or even impossible) to access other local variables. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Operating systems

imagine a file system which uses inodes to manage files on disk.each inode consists of a file name(4 bytes),user id(2 bytes),three timestamps(4 bytes each),protection bits(2 bytes),a reference count(2 bytes),a file type(2 bytes),and the file size(4 bytes).additionally,the inode contains 13 direct indices,1 index to a single indirect block,1 index to a double indirect block and one index to a triple indirect block.each of these indices is 4 bytes.the file system also stores the first 356 bytes of the each file in the inode

1. assume a disk sector is 512 bytes and that each indirect block fills a single sector.what is the maximum file size for this file system?
2. is there any benefit to including the first 356 bytes of the file in the inode?if so what will it be?if not,why not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.255.43.45 (talk • contribs) 2007-02-01T23:45:03 (UTC)

no, because you should do your own homework. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Imagine a real world where students learn in class. Each class consists of several students, each with a name (2 syllables), student id (numbers), lunch money (two bills), and a genuine desire to DO THEIR OWN HOMEWORK! Droud 13:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you research this problem and thoughtfully answer, you should understand a good deal of filesystem theory, perhaps enough to write such a driver. The imagined filesystem strongly resembles a BSD Unix native filesystem, and its descendants. —EncMstr 23:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Mirrored volume...?

Is there a way to add a mirroed volume under Windoes XP to protect data nstead of using backup? -- Barringa 08:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Volume mirroring should never replace backups. They will not protect against accidental deletions etc. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I mean in addition to backup. Unless done immediately preceeding a crash backup won't protect against sudden catestrophic failure. -- Barringa 18:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows XP doesn't support RAID1? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

These folks are correct that the function of a mirrored volume is very different from frequent backups. THe mirroring only protects you from disk hardware failure, nothing else. However, if this is what you want (it is a good idea in addition) here's how to do it i any version of windows, 2003-XP: In the control panel (classic view) choose "Computer Managment", and then "Disk manager." You'll need to turn both of your disks into "dynamic disks" byt right-clicking on the grey disk identifier and selecting that. Then, right click within the large band for either of the disks, and select "New Volume." From there, follow the wizard, selecting the type of raid that you want. If you have more than two disks, I recomend considering the raid 5 option. Good luck, 48v 07:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Font from Excel to Word

Does anyone know why isn't there a simple Courier font in Word but there is in Excel? I have tried to search for the font file to install it in the Fonts directory, but couldn't find it. In Word there is only Courier New.

Looking at Excel 2000, the Courier font is a simple bit-map font...change the font size to something large, like 50, and you can see the individual "pixels" as squares. This leads me to guess that this font is built into the Excel software, meaning that there will be no font file for it. I can't really say why, or why Word does not contain a similar "built-in" font. You might be able to find a similar font file if you search online. –RHolton≡– 12:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Try "Courier New". The difference here is between TrueType and bitmap fonts, Courier being a bitmap font. Word doesn't show Courier because it looks like crap if you try to scale it. Courier comes with Windows, not with Excel, so any software that supports bitmap fonts (most) will support that. Check out C:\Windows\Fonts\ to see all your fonts, bitmap fonts are listed with a red "A" icon on my system, while TrueType fonts have an "O". Droud 13:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Fonts with the "O" icon are OpenType - TrueType fonts have a "TT" icon. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 16:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your replies. I just needed the exact font since I would only use it in sizes 10 pt and 12 pt. And I think it's a commercial font, I tried to look for it on the Net a while ago, but to no avail. It's not in my C:\Windows\Fonts.

ADSL Connection

Any idea why the first parallel device from the ADSL line should be the ADSL modem for clear telephone connection,else a noise if a phone is connected before the ADSL modem??

Did you look at our DSL article? It covers signaling and filtering. Droud 12:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Information about AVCHD

Hi,I am a student and i have to give seminar on the topic from computer science field.i have chosen topic named 'Advanced video codec high defination'.and i want more information about it. i searched for this topic on the encyclopedia.but i want more information or any supported links on this subject.

Was this it: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC?

CSS selector

Is there a CSS selector equivalent to

tr:first-child, tr:first-child + tr + tr, tr:first-child + tr + tr + tr + tr, ...

that will select alternate table rows? I know this can be done with IE's CSS expressions, but I'm looking for something standard and cross-platform. NeonMerlin 17:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What I would do is assign classes.. like

tr class="odd"
tr class="evn"
tr class="odd"
tr class="evn"

and format them separately. This is of course trivial if the rows are machine generated:

 if(($everyOther ^= TRUE) == TRUE) print 'odd';
 else print 'even';

And if you're hand-writing it anyway it's not that big of a deal to put them in. Easy --froth^T 18:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Or just use 1 class and apply the other to the <tr> element itself. Alistapart got an article on it, zebra tables or something like that... --antilived^{T | C | G} 19:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There isn't such selector in CSS 1 or 2, but it is already included on the CSS 3 drafts as the nth-child pseudo-class. Can't wait for CSS 3!— Kieff | Talk 21:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ophcrack

How do I use Ophcrack? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.39.182.101 (talk • contribs).

Have you downloaded an run the Win32 installer from [2]? If you can't get into Windows at all, download the LiveCD, burn it to a CD with the "Write from Image" option in burning program (don't just write the file to a CD as a file), boot the computer with the CD in, and voila. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, one question, the CD burning program I have doesn't have a "Write from Image" Option. Is there another (free) one i could download? 24.39.182.101 19:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, CDBurnerXP. Splintercellguy 22:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Definitely a nice program. If you haven't figure it out yet, to burn an ISO: choose the first of the three options when it starts up, then "Write Disc from ISO file" in the File menu. You'll probably want to finalize it as well. The other options can be left on their default values. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The easy way to do it is with the powertoy --froth^T 04:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm using Toast 8. Would "write from ISO" be "ISO 9660" under burning Data? I assume under "copy" "Image File" is the correct thing to choose, but what would be the other? [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 05:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this Script Code for my monobook safe?

function addlilink(node, href, text, id, tooltip, accesskey) { //THIS function allows me to make new tabs, like the "edit this page" tab. I have no clue how it works, but everyone uses it.
        // the code below is mostly copied from addPortletLink()

        var link = document.createElement( "a" );
        link.appendChild( document.createTextNode( text ) );
        link.href = href;

        var item = document.createElement( "li" );
        item.appendChild( link );
        if ( id ) item.id = id;

        if ( accesskey ) {
                link.setAttribute( "accesskey", accesskey );
                tooltip += " ["+accesskey+"]";
        }
        if ( tooltip ) {
                link.setAttribute( "title", tooltip );
        }
        updateTooltipAccessKeys( new Array( link ) );

        node.appendChild( item );

        return item;
}

// 

if(location.href.indexOf('User:TomasBat') != -1 && location.href.indexOf('action=edit') != -1 && location.href.indexOf('blank=1') != -1) { //This one is the blanker. If you are on a page that has, in the url, all three of those things, the first meaning your userspace, the second meaning it must be an edit page, and the third being added by function 3, below
        addOnloadHook(function() {
                var box = document.getElementById('wpTextbox1'); //this in the current data
                var txt = box.value; //this makes the actual data (the .vanlue) into a variable
                var newtext = '' //this makes a blank variable
                box.value = newtext; //this saves that variable to the box
                document.getElementById('wpSummary').value = 'blanking my sandbox'; //this sets your edit summary
                document.getElementById('wpMinoredit').checked = true; //this sets a minor edit
                document.getElementById('wpWatchthis').checked = true; //this sets watchlisting, remove this line if you like, it is not necessary
                document.getElementById('wpSave').click(); //this clicks save
        });
}

if(location.href.indexOf('User:TomasBat') != -1 ) { //This is the tab itself. Now we are ANYWHERE in your userspace.
        addOnloadHook(function() {
                var tbs = document.getElementById('p-cactions').getElementsByTagName('ul')[0]; //no idea what this does, but the smart ones say it is good
                var editpage = "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:" + wgTitle + "&action=edit&blank=1" //this gets the proper link - the wiki page + the title of the page you are at + the edit + the flag that tells the second bit, above, to do its magic
                addlilink(tbs, editpage, "Blank", 'ca-blank', 'This will automatically blank this userpage'); //this calls the first script, top, and makes a cute tab for you
        });
}

--TomasBat (Talk)(Sign) 21:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh he's smart. I've added little explainations so you know what everything does and you can decide for yourself :D ST47Talk 23:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Just adds a simple "clear" link for your user page and subpages. Can I suggest that

if (location.href.indexOf('User:TomasBat') != -1 ) {

changes User:TomasBat to User:TomasBat/ to stop it adding it to your main user page, only subpages off from that. --h2g2bob 04:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Be warned that, with the code you have there, someone could try to fool you into clicking a link like this and thus blanking your user page. Of course, if you happened to do that by accident, you could always just revert it, so it's not a major risk in this particular case. For scripts where it does matter, the solution is to include some private token — such as a hash of your enwiki_session cookie — in the URL and check that it matches before making the edit. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, the code could be simplified a bit. Here's how I'd write it:

// Are you on a page in your user space?
if (wgCanonicalNamespace == "User" && wgTitle.split("/")[0] == wgUserName) {
        // If so, add the "blank" tab:
        addOnloadHook(function() {
                var editURL = (wgServer + wgScriptPath + "/index.php?title=" +
                               encodeURIComponent(wgPageName) + "&action=edit&blank=1"); 
                addPortletLink("p-cactions", editURL, "Blank", "ca-blank",
                               "This will automatically blank this userpage");
        });

        // Did you just click on the tab?
        if (location.href.indexOf("action=edit&blank=1") != -1) {
                // If so, blank the edit box and save:
                addOnloadHook(function() {
                        document.getElementById("wpTextbox1").value = "";  // blank it!
                        document.getElementById("wpSummary").value = "blanking my sandbox";
                        document.getElementById("wpMinoredit").checked = true;
                        document.getElementById("wpWatchthis").checked = true;
                        document.getElementById("wpSave").click();
                });
        }
}

The addPortletLink() function is part of the standard wikibits.js file, and is available on all MediaWiki pages. It does more or less what your addlilink() function did. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I sure do come here a lot.

The next question in the critically acclaimed Windows Vista series by Orannis! So, I'm going to install Microsoft Office 2007 very soon, and I'm going to install Vista as well, but that won't be for another month. Will I be able to reinstall Office after I've upgraded to Vista?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 21:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you should be able to. If it doesn't let you activate over the internet, you'll just have to call them up and tell them that you upgraded your OS. I've had to do it once or twice with XP due to frequent reinstallations (viruses, Partition Magic screw ups, hard drive failures, etc.), and it was easy then. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OS

What is your opinion of the best OS?

The best OS is the one that does the job you need it to. I wouldn't use Windows Vista on an embedded system, and I wouldn't use VxWorks on a desktop computer. --Carnildo 22:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Plan 9, of course. Alternatively, OS/400. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T22:13Z

Some information is at this question above (or here when it is archived). See also operating system.

My answer for this went on a bit, so I put it at User:H2g2bob/OS. --h2g2bob 03:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Mac OS X :) [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 05:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Java Applet, Again

I asked a questiion a week ago about an applet in Java where I can get a character to move around the screen. Now I got wonderful answers to the question I asked, but now I need more help. I was given a few links and I checked those over, but I'm not sure what needs to stay in my applet and what I need to get rid of. Like I said I would do, I asked my teacher about it, but from what I can gather, she is just a math teacher that went to some kind of week long class how to program in Java so she can "teach" computer science and she would really probably be more comfortable teaching a calculus class. All I need is what lines I need to write to get keyboard input in a Java applet. Not where it will type it, but where it recognizes what keys you're pressing. Thank you for any help. schyler 22:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean System.in.read()? It returns an int so you have to cast it to a char if you want to display it. It's the simplest way. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay. So where do I write it? Do I have to import anything? How about having to write it each time? Sample code, maybe? schyler 02:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No imports, but you should (don't remember if you have to) use throws.

class myClass {
   public static void main(String args[]) {
      throws java.io.IOException {
      char ch;
      ch = (char) System.in.read();
      System.out.println(ch);
      }
   }
}

--Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 02:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No!!!! As I said before, System.in is for stdin, not for applet keyboard input. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 03:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yah... I know how to do keyboard input in applications. My way is a little different though. I need to know how do do keyboard input in applets. There is this site that shows some smaple keyboard input, but I dont know which lines to keep and which not need for my applet. schyler 03:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh right, applets. I think this is what you need from the page you linked:

import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class Keyboard1 extends Applet
   implements KeyListener {

   public void init() {
      addKeyListener( this );
   }

   public void keyPressed( KeyEvent e ) { }
   public void keyReleased( KeyEvent e ) { }
   public void keyTyped( KeyEvent e ) {
      char c = e.getKeyChar();
      if ( c != KeyEvent.CHAR_UNDEFINED ) {
         s = s + c;
         repaint();
         e.consume();
      }
   }

I think... I didn't get to write many applets for class, and I haven't bothered to for myself. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Great! The program runs obsolete methods! Oh well, maybe it's just not meant to be... 15:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

February 3

Keeping all applications

If i were to upgrade to vista home basic is it possible to keep all your applications from XP like the internet, virus software, and games. or should you backup all the files. My computer seems to be secure from losing any data.--Biggie 00:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Upgrading, everything SHOULD be kept, and everything is MEANT to work. that does NOT mean it will, and if at all possible, you should back up everything important to you. 24.0.52.44 00:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

All right Thank You--Biggie 05:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Rule number 1 of protecting data is that hard disks fail. Sooner or later your hard disk WILL fail. So make sure anything you want to keep is backed up. --Gerry Ashton 05:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Your use of capital shoulds and nots makes me funnily think of "RFC 2119 - Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels". Go on! -- DLL ^{.. T} 15:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hahaha! That's a gem for sure --froth^T 06:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The eternal Linux distribution question

I'm planning to reinstall Linux on my laptop. I'd like a nice, painless distribution; one that doesn't require too much fiddling, one that doesn't choke on suspend/standby, one that supports Xen, and one that doesn't cause me to wish to tear my hair out. The desktop is for fiddling, I don't want any inordinate pain on my laptop.

I've recently used Ubuntu the most, and before that Gentoo and Debian (go go Debian distros). However, the latest version of Fedora Core has caught my eye, as it apparently comes with Compiz and a nice GUI for Xen by default. Would Fedora meet my needs, and if so, what should I keep in mind making the switch from using Ubuntu (and other Debianish distros before it)?

I also need EAP-TTLS support, though I assume I'll probably need to install something else for this. Right?

Thanks for any assistance. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If you don't want any trouble installing and you don't want choking, don't use FC. Try Suse if you don't want any pain whatsoever, though it's not the best distro all-around --froth^T 04:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hrmm. After more reading and considering, I'm probably going to give Ubuntu another shot. Xen installation [3] looks obnoxious though. I've got a weekend with nothing planned, so it's probably not going to be too bad. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Though the situation with Linux, ACPI (formerly APM!), and notebooks has improved significantly since I first fiddled with *nixes on laptops ten years ago, how well everything works together is going to depend largely on your hardware. ACPI S3 (suspend/resume) is a tricky thing, and quite often will mess something up. You really ought to google a bit on your laptop model and Linux compatibility so you know what to suspect. Intel chipsets usually work well, ATI display adapters often have little issues with DRI and S3 (that is, if you want 2D/3D acceleration, many ATI chips won't get along very well with suspend/resume). Check your 802.11 radio chipset to make sure it's supported. While some distros may make things a little "easier" for an unacquainted user, it all boils down to how well various drivers for your core hardware will play along together. You may have to engage a few tricks to get things to work reasonably, though these days, you can get many laptops working pretty well without having to even mess around with kernel patches. You may be fortunate enough to have a laptop that uses well-supported hardware, but I'm afraid that you usually shouldn't expect a seamless experience complete with all the bells and whistles with *nixes and notebooks. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T04:53Z

I have a thinkpad (probably the best linux supported laptop) and everything worked out of the box (including standby and "hibernate") except madwifi for some reason wasn't installed or running or something so I had to install the rpm. Also the volume buttons on my computer didn't work until I installed some thinkpad tools module --froth^T 04:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It (a Dell M1210) worked well, last time I checked. The issues were namely that Suspend2 took ages and occasionally failed, and that startup/shutdown time was unreasonable. Considering that I'm now less of a laptop idiot and know to just Suspend, it should be okay. The main concerns I have regard the pain in installing Xen and Compiz, as well as various other little packages, and the general ease of use; they're not directly related to laptops except in that I don't want to waste time fiddling with it. Battery life may be an issue though. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Suse comes with xen set up already --froth^T 19:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Be careful with ACPI S3. There's a well-known problem with Linux and some ACPI BIOSes in which the system will still use a lot of power when its suspended. I'd check on that. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T21:54Z

Just my two cents. I used ubuntu 6.06 on my Thinkpad T42. Worked great, I had great battery life and all power management features worked as they should including intel's speedstep. Wireless (I used wpa2) and all the fn buttons worked as well. --Sish 22:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Right, I'm on Ubuntu 6.10 now. Power consumption might be slightly higher than Windows (including Windows Vista, surprisingly); using compiz takes quite a lot out of it, so I'm not using it. I'm also using Parallels Workstation rather than Xen, as both Xen and VMWare caused strange stability problems; Parallels has fast direct graphics performance, which is a fair tradeoff. Suspend seems to be having issues with my network chipset though, which is still something I'm trying to fix. I think disabling the hardware switch before suspending the computer works. It's definitely fully asleep when it does work. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

div-tag

Can anyone tell me how you make a div-block the same size of the surrounding table, and how you put a margin of x cm or inches around the text in it? - Mgm|^(talk) 09:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think in order to make the DIV block exactly the same size as the surrounding table you will have to set the padding/margin tags of the table to zero, or else set the div padding/margin tags to a negative number to offset the table's margins/padding. As for the margins, does the "margin" tag not do what you want? --24.147.86.187 13:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Generally, TABLE should be avoided for simply formatting a page, as the float and clear CSS styles often do a better job. DIV elements are set at 100% width by default, but if it is problematic, then using another TABLE instead of a DIV may fix it. Or just apply the formatting to the TD element with the padding, margin, border styles, etc. See the W3C's specifications for CSS and W3Schools' CSS tutorial for more. --h2g2bob 19:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, don't forget that the TD may have padding in addition to the DIV having a margin. --h2g2bob 19:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking for browser plugin!

I want a way to be able to download and locally play videos from YouTube. I tried downloading a few extensions but... they didn't work! Why not? [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 12:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There are a few Firefox extensions (e.g. [4]) which will download YouTube videos as FLV files. You will then need to find something that plays FLV files (I can use VLC but I have heard of people having trouble with it for this purpose) or converts them into something more manageable (i.e. MOV or AVI or whatever). --24.147.86.187 13:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The KMPlayer plays FLV files well. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 18:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Any ffmpeg-based audio media player should be able to play flv now, so add MPlayer to the list. Anyway, this is another good opportunity to plug my UnPlug firefox extension again. --h2g2bob 18:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In that vein, download mplayer and use mencoder to convert the flv video into xvid h.264 or something and then you can play it in windows media player (if you have the appropriate codec and directshow filter set up) --froth^T 19:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Transcoding video results in an incredible loss of quality. I would recommend against it. If you install FFMPEG you can use _any_ player to play .flv videos so long as you go into the FFMPEG video settings and turn on FFMPEG decoding of .flv's. --Sish 22:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Not in this case, FLV is just a container for H.263 or VP6, so you just replace the FLV container for an AVI container with no loss of quality. I use ffmpeg to do this, but mencoder is the same just with a different front-end. See this guide for a howto. --h2g2bob 02:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

crystal ball?

1. Will x86 architecture ever cease to be the dominant (only) architecture used on desktops/PC's etc?

2. Are there any likely candidates to replace it?

3. Or will rolling improvements to the architecture eventually produce something that is totally unrecognisable from the instruction set architecture in commom use today?

4. Is using such an old instruction set architecture such a bad thing? (especially in terms of improvements such as multicore, SMP and whatever else may come along)

All comments appreciated, thanks.87.102.9.55 13:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It is already being replaced by the AMD64 ISA, which fixes some of the worst annoyances of the older IA32 architecture. --cesarb 14:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the inception of protected mode with the introduction of the 80386, the very worst (most challenging to program) features of the 8086 architecture can be ignored: the segmentation model. It required loading a segment register with a new value to address each different 64 K window of the memory space. Protected mode made it possible to load the segment registers once and forget them and have direct access to a 4 GB address space (or more). Alas, there are still nuisances in the current instruction set, like only the ECX/CX/CL register is connected to the LOOP instruction, or that the internal register order is EAX ECX EBX EDX instead of alphabetical (which is only a concern to the most picky aspects of a code generator, and code which inspects the stack after a PUSHA instruction). However, these are easily dealt with and worked around. Converting to a "golden architecture" wouldn't gain enough advantage to be worth the pain of conversion.

What's happening is more like the history of the PDP-11 and VAX: The original VAXs (11/730 and 11/780) could directly execute the much older PDP 11 instructions, even though the architectures were rather far apart. Later models of VAXs dropped the emulation (at least in hardware) as the migration period ended fairly swiftly, probably because the VAX architecture had so much more to offer that developers and users embraced the new—and abandoned the old—as soon as replacement applications were stable and data were migrated. —EncMstr 18:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Now more than ever before, ISA is becoming less and less relevant. There are plenty of ISAs that one could call "better" than x86 in principle, but the more abstraction we pile on to hardware, the less that matters. x86 won't die any time in the near future simply because it's difficult to get away with breaking backwards compatibility in the PC world. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T22:07Z

The next best thing is new IA-32 instructions as introduced by MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, etc --froth^T 09:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are all examples of SIMD extensions, which don't in themselves really "improve" the ISA from a programmer's point of view. They merely add extra functionality. Some of the qualms one could have against x86 aren't really related to its support of vector math... -- mattb @ 2007-02-04T20:38Z

Computer ethics

I have two questions in InformationTechnology,databases & artificial intelligence 1.please inform me about the ethical concernes about the use of database 2.the ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence

Please ask a specific question. If you simply desire information, use a web or Wikipedia search instead.--Redlock 17:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

They look pretty specific to me.. --froth^T 19:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to disagree. Entire books on similar subjects have been written. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T22:07Z

For databases it's mainly privacy (spying, misuse of data, etc) and security (identity theft, etc). See the Data Protection Act for the UK's legal protections in this area. For evidence that people get annoyed at databases containing their personal information, just look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and its efforts in many areas including the NSA call database. Also check the Schneier on Security blog, as it must have at least something on this issue.

As for AI, there's quite a bit on the artificial intelligence page. While Hollywood worries about the risks to civilisation from AI ("three laws safe"; "Skynet became self-aware"; etc), the economic impact of AI technology allowing for automation of service industry jobs which currently require a human are more concerning the the current time. --h2g2bob 02:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by the "ethical dimensions" of AI. I have not researched the subject, but I can think of a few ethical questions without trying too hard:

• If important decisions are entrusted to an intelligent machine, and the machine makes a bad decision with disastrous consequences, who should be responsible for the decision?
• If an intelligent machine has an independent will, do we equate it with a person? Should such a machine have rights? If someone destroys such a machine, should the act be treated as murder?
• Does an intelligent machine have an identity, like a human being? If so, if someone records the state of the machine, shuts down the hardware, and then reloads the state of the machine onto two different machines to create two independent instances, what happens to the "identity" of the original instance? --71.175.23.226 06:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

—

Food for thought... Artificial intelligence is mostly used to discriminate between a series of "Yes-or-No" questions. Can naive software be accused of being racist, sexist ....or otherwise ...err... discriminatory?

That's just a limitation of the current state of technology. Intelligent systems that have commonsense, that can augment its knowledge by unsupervised learning, and that can generate as well as test interesting hypotheses are well within the goals of AI. As technology advances, it is possible that in the future, we can build machines that understand human values, that have values of their own, and that will choose what goals to pursue based on their own values. --71.175.23.226 20:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Professional ethics & I.T

please explain to me how an organization's functional department,tasks and management levels for that organization and inform me the information systems and information technology ethical decisions they make

Please ask a specific question. If you simply desire information, use a web or Wikipedia search instead.--Redlock 17:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

They look pretty specific to me.. --froth^T 19:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If wikipedia is the organisation and we are the functional department: Then the information systems and tecnology ethical decisions we make is not to answer your homework questions because that's cheating and you won't learn anything. But if you are not clear about any of your own research, we'll be gald to help. :) Vespine 11:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I.T and proffesions

tell me how information technology has been used & applied in the following areas 1.health and medicine 2.commerce and money 3.entertainment and arts

Please ask a specific question. If you simply desire information, use a web or Wikipedia search instead.--Redlock 17:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

They look pretty specific to me.. --froth^T 19:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude but this seems like a homework question.

I am going to give you some hints to point you in a direction but I won't give you a cut and paste answer.

Any time you use a computer to partially or fully automate a task that was once manual, that is essentially IT.

1. electronic patient records

2. Stock exchanges are online, ie online trading

3. The kiosks that print out tickets at movie theaters and online ordering.

While you can cut and paste what i just said, you will definitely get a poor mark if you do. --Sish 22:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

1) The movement of medical records from paper to computers allowing for easy movement of them to other doctors/instant sending of them to hospitals. It also helps the insurance industry who can receive repots faster and at cheaper cost.

2) online banking, online share trading, online stores, online commerce is pretty much the biggest change the world has undergone in recent years. IT obviously plays a part with organising the web, faster networkings/servers for improved sites - more advanced, more 'appealing' to the consumer etc. eBay, Amazon are great examples of success stories boo.com is an example of a high profile failure.

3) The raging war of online piracy of entertainment/arts ranging from songs/films to books and copyrighted material. In the legit world IT has allowed for stores like iTunes Music Store to sell hundreds of thousands of tracks in one place, giving consumers a new way to purchase entertainment/music. Indeed Apple has recently launched a new device labelled Apple Tv which will stream your movies from your computer to your tv - perhaps the beginning of the end for DVDs?

I would be amazed beyond belief, however, if somebody who knows how to get onto Wikipedia and post a question does not already know the vast majority of the above. ny156uk 22:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You could also mention that the £12 billion that the UK government is spending on the NHS IT programme (See Private Eye, Issue No.1170, pg 10) has definately increased some consultants' pot of "money", but, due to massive delays, has not yet had much success in benefiting "health and medicine"!

SanDisk Player Worst/Best Case Scenario

What's the worst that could happen if I were to reformat the flash drive of my mp3 player? Would it still work, etc..--71.249.19.4 16:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The worst that could happen is that a freak overload triggers a chain reaction subnuclear explosion and destroys the universe.  :-) The worst that's probable is that the new format would be incompatible in some way with the original format and the mp3 player would refuse to access the drive, though that is fairly unlikely. Why do you ask? Specific models of player and flash drive would help. —EncMstr 18:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

THe SanDisk players that I've seen just have a simple FAT16 filesystem. So long as you format it back to the same FAT16, it should work fine. The players usually keep their 'operating system' somewhere else safe, so formatting the storage that is exposed by USB won't do anything bad. Mdwyer 22:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd be more worried that the best case is deleting all the files on the disk :P --h2g2bob 08:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Water Level Indicator That uses a quad analogue switch (CMOS 4066)

Where can i find detailed information(circuit diagrams, layouts, component information etc)on a water level indicator?? The kind i am referring to uses IC 4066 which is basically a CMOS series quad analog switch.Daniel

Do you already have one that you want to service or modify? If so, maybe you should post the make and model # here. Otherwise, why is it a requirement that the design uses a 4066 quad switch IC? (If this is a homework exercise, you should not ask for a complete solution. Tell people where you get stuck and some people may help you.) --71.175.23.226 17:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

no u see i have already soldered the circuit and figured out how to make it work.But i need to present a printed project file also and so i require material in the the form of circuit diagrams and other stuff that i can print out.

Please help!!

If you have already built one, then you must have a circuit from which you worked. If you need to prepare a report for a design project, the diagram(s) should reflect the actual circuit built, not just any similar design that you find from another source. If your problem is in capturing your circuit in a printable file, what you need is some sort of diagramming tool. Dia [5] is a free diagramming tool that can also be used to draw simple electronic circuits. A Windows version is also available (see [6]). The tool may not be very advanced but should be good enough for simple diagrams like the kind you're dealing with. You can also use the drawing functions of popular office suites like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org. They are rather basic but again should be good enough for drawing simple diagrams. --71.175.23.226 19:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks that solves all my circuit diagram and layout problems.But when it comes to actual written material about the quad analog switch, water level indicator etc. i'm having difficulty locating anything.Links maybe??

You can find datasheets for common ICs on the web quite easily. Try search for it using

4066 quad switch datasheet

as the query terms. In your case, the IC is/was manufactured by multiple manufacturers. You can find the datasheet published by a particular manufacturer by including the manufacturer's name in your query. Different manufacturers' datasheets may include different application examples. --71.175.23.226 06:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

c++ in asp

how do i embed a C++ executable(.exe) file in my asp page?

59.180.95.113 19:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please clarify what you mean. Your question is quite vague. Splintercellguy 19:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I wish to provide a link to an external c++ executable file on my asp page such that it runs as soon as the client requests it. What is the code that i have to include in my asp file? Will it work even if the client does not have turbo c++ (or similar) loaded on it?

C++ is a compiled language, which means that the exe will run directly by giving the processor instructions (opcodes) it can directly understand. In other words, you don't need a compiler to run exes, then there would be no point in compiling it in the first place. But to answer your first question, it's not possible to have a customer click a link and have an executable instantly run on their computer. This would be probably the most insecure feature that is even possible to think up. You'd need them to download the file and then run the executable from their computer. However, if you want their clicking the link to run the executable on the server machine, that's very possible. Link to a php file and do:

exec('/path/to/executable');

--froth^T 20:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was quite useful, something I couldn't find elsewhere on the net. If you could be so good as to clarify this:
Being a novice in web technology, I am not familiar with php. Will the code work in html or does it have an equivalent in html?

Sort of. You have to set your web server to run .php files through the PHP interpreter (you have to download it from php.net) before the final HTML is outputted to the client. But the PHP code itself is embedded in the HTML of the page- the client just never sees it because it's processed by the interpreter and removed before the page is served. Because the php interpreter (php.exe) is running on the server machine, it can issue commands to the system through exec(). --froth^T 21:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The only way I can explain is by an example. A PHP file on a server may be:

 <H1>Hello World</H1>
 <?php
    $n = 1;
    print "The <I>number</I> in the script is ".($n+1);
 ?>
 More stuff here...

It's just HTML with <?php ... ?> tags added. Inside the php tags is script, and the output from this script is added to the HTML output. The client (end user) sees this HTML file:

 <H1>Hello World</H1>
 The <I>number</I> in the script is 2
 More stuff here...

The php code can include the output of exe files - the exe will be run on the server and the output can be used in the script by using the exec function. For example:

  <?php print exec(uptime) ?> 

will print the output of the uptime program, that is to say, the uptime of the webserver. You can include the output of any .exe file, eg one created yourself with C++.

If you wanted to run a program on the end user's machine - such as printing the uptime of the end user - you would probably need to write some sort of java applet, and pray the end user has java applets enabled. To use PHP on your webserver, you will need to make sure it is installed, and name the file something.php. See php.net and PHP for all the salacious details. --h2g2bob 01:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I'll check it out.

Checked it, downloading PHP not possible. Could you possibly give the code to be put on the asp page which allows the client to download the executable (and run it on their computer).

Just put the file on your server and link to it like any other file. The browser will probably decide to offer it to the user as a download, and if they select Save then it'll download it to their computer --froth^T 22:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried that, it doesn't work. It gives the option to download it when you run it as normal HTML. But when you put it on the server and click on the link, it just opens to a "you are not authorized to view this page" page. Is there any simple code which will in some way make the executable run either on the server or on the client computer?

Windows Vista Ultimate download

Is it possible to properly download and install Windows Vista Ultimate by Bittorrent? Jamesino 19:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It may be possible to download it, but unless you have a legit product key, you could potentially be breaking the law or at least Microsoft could sue you for breach of copyright. In fact, it's possible it may be illegal in some countries even if you did have a legit key. It's rather unlikely you have a legit product key, because if you did, you would either have a DVD or you could access MSDN. Having said that Vista does have a 30 day trial mode and I'm not particularly sure on whether it would be illegal or whether Microsoft could sue you for downloading it if you're only going to use the trial mode for 30 days and then either buy Vista or install a OS you can legally use. However I presume Microsoft has a way for you to get Vista for trying. Also, unless you have a DVD burner or perhaps a CD burner (I believe Vista has a CD version but not sure) your installation options will be limited. Oh and BTW, bittorent has nothing to do with installing products 203.109.240.93 19:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not a trial; it's to give you 30 days to activate. Ideally you activate immediately after installation but some people don't yet have internet access so they need to call in --froth^T 20:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes it's possible (and extremely easy) to download a Vista dvd image from bittorrent and install it. You'll only be able to use it for 30 days but most scene groups package cracks that stop the 30-day-countdown. You'll need to keep finding more cracks, though, as MS patches vista, which is why I bought legit. I remember reading about some study that found that most stop-countdown cracks on public trackers were fake or included malware --froth^T 20:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wonder if the old "Windows is gonna die dude" "Wait, let me turn back system clock...There! Another ten years." trick still works in vista. Haha, knowing MS they probably left it in for kicks. -- feb^talk 03:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it probably replaces an INC EAX with a NOP somewhere that ticks that countdown forward --froth^T

Most people on this reference desk page probably did not buy Vista. --Proficient 08:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

:( --froth^T 22:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Most people on this reference desk page probably do not use Vista, because franky, it sucks. Aetherfukz 13:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Crontab - simple question

I could probably find this by searching but a quick search didn't find anything and it's so simple hope someone doesn't mind answering. When you specify a range for hours for crontab, how do you specify a range past midnight if at all possible. E.g. if I want to do something from 10 am to 1 am, do I do 10-25 or 10-01 or is it not possible? OS is FreeBSD 6.2 if that's necessary. Cheers 203.109.240.93 19:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Valid values for the "hours" field—the second of the five time and date fields in your crontab file—is 0 to 23, with 0 being 0:00 AM (midnight) and 23 being 11:00 PM. To execute a command every day at 11:00 PM, again at 0:00 AM (midnight), and again at 01:00 AM, specifying the range "23-1" should work just fine. For example:

* 23-1 * * * echo blah

Alternatively, you can specify a list of hours instead of a range of hours, by separating the hours at which time the command should be executed with commas. So the above can also be achieved by specifying "23,0,1", like so:

* 23,0,1 * * * echo blah

Ranges and lists can even be combined, like so:

* 23-0,1 * * * echo blah

All of the above should have the same effect. For more details and some examples, see crontab, or the crontab(5) manpage here. Hope this helps! —Xhantar^Talk 02:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoa there! The first column, minutes, is a * in your examples. That means the command will run every minute as long as the hour matches. You should definitely specify a 0 in the first column so it'll only run at 23:00, 0:00, and 1:00. Those "23-1" and "23-0" ranges, where the second number is smaller than the first, look suspicious to me too. They don't work with Debian's cron, which shares the same ultimate source as FreeBSD's cron. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 04:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected. My apologies. —Xhantar^Talk 05:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Radeon Mobility X1600

My laptop has a Radeon Mobility X1600. How powerful is this card, and can it play the current games (macintosh)?Thanks!--Ryan 22:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Apple's website says that it's up to 256MB, there should be a program on your computer that will tell you everything that's in it. If not look at the box! Jackacon 23:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

For more information about your computer, click the blue apple in the upper left hand corner, click about this mac, the click more info. A program calle system profiler should come up that has any information about your computer you could ever possibly need to know. schyler 00:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have an x1400 (the previous px shader version I think) and combined with a 2.16ghz Core Duo and 2GB of memory, it plays every game that's out right now. Half-Life 2 and CSS I can play with maxed graphics settings (except it doesn't handle FSAA or ASF very well) and great framerates. F.E.A.R. and Prey and Oblivion are really choppy though unless I turn the settings way down to get good framerates. But it still plays fine. Of course there's a caveat- gaming on a mac sucks ;) --froth^T 06:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

February 4

Removing automatic web padding

When I design my web layout with CSS and use a "container" with code example:

.container {
	background-image:url(Bodybackground.jpg);
	background-repeat:repeat-y;
 	background-position:center;
	padding:0px;
	margin-right:auto;
	margin-left:auto;
	width:689px;
	height:750px
}

there is always a 5-10 px padding/gap at the top of the browser. I tries using margin-top:0; but there is still that padding. Does anyone know how to get rid of it? Jamesino 01:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

(note: i had to clean up the formatting, it looked ugly) Try with body {margin: 0; padding: 0;} And check with different browsers (internet explorer, firefox.. opera? safari? konqueror? asdfdsa!!?!?) Hope it helps --216.244.232.1 03:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it worked =). Thank you also for cleaning up the code. Jamesino 04:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

AOL DISK

If i put my aol disk in my computer and install aol and than take it out will aol be uninstalled?will i be able to change the logo on my main page on my computer computer for aol. will the logo be hidden?will i have to put it back in to make it run?Crocadog 02:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

For your first question, no. The AOL installer copies files from the CD onto the hard drive, so after installing, whatever you do with the CD won't really matter very much. I do not comprehend your other questions. Splintercellguy 03:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't use AOL. --froth^T 06:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

When you install AOL from the CD, it is then on your hard disk. After that, as User:Splintercellguy says, if you remove the CD you will still have AOL on your machine. If you mean "home page", I don't know, I don't use AOL. If you mean desktop, Windows can change that without AOL. As for the last question, once you have install AOL, the CD is not needed anymore for anything. 68.39.174.238 15:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

WM9 VCM Codec for Mac

Does anyone know where I can download the WM9 VCM codec for OS X? Thanks. --Philosofinch 02:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by WM9 VCM, but VLC can play the Windows Media 9 (aka WMV3) codec. --h2g2bob 08:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding RSS feeds to HTML files

How can I add RSS feeds in XML format into my HTML file? I want my html file to display feeds from http://www.cricinfo.com/rss/livescores.xml. Thanks, 64.178.105.172 03:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Use a link tag into the HEAD section of the HTML. The tag should be like this

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Insert title here" href="http://www.cricinfo.com/rss/livescores.xml">

That is detected by IE and Firefox, and lights up the RSS button. --h2g2bob 07:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The "link rel" answer above, i think, will just promote the feed to your users. If you want to show these feeds on your pages, merging them with your content, then you might find RSSxpress Lite useful, see http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/ . Its a simple way of placing an RSS feed onto your own websites with a single line of JavaScript. This is a basic version that i just made up on their website:

<script src="http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/viewer/?rss=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cricinfo.com%2Frss%2Flivescores.xml"></script> <noscript> <a href="http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/viewer/?rss=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cricinfo.com%2Frss%2Flivescores.xml">View </a> </noscript>

If you wish to hack away at the code of your web pages more, there are many other ways to present RSS or Atom feeds within your html content. These are explained clearly in a book called "Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom" by Ben Hammersley, published by O'Reilly.

Invert mouse Y-axis within Windows XP

I've recently purchased the PC version of the game Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and would like to invert my mouse Y-axis for camera movement in third-person view so that moving the mouse forward is tilting down, and moving the mouse backward is tilting up. For some strange reason, the developers decided not to include an option for doing so—the first game I've come across that don't. There is a setting "Camera free look inverted", but this seems to only affect camera movement in first-person view and not third-person. I'm trying to find a way to "natively" invert my mouse Y-axis within Windows itself, and hoping this will affect the game as well. Is there any freeware utility or registry setting available that can be used to achieve this? I'm using Windows XP and have a Logitech MouseMan Dual Optical mouse. Thanks. —Xhantar^Talk

You're definately going to either go through an option in your mouse drivers (or use custom drivers). Key-remapping applications are unable to affect DirectInput and the windows messaging queue that microsoft is pushing nowadays. I see you have a Logitech mouse. Any chance you have Logitech MouseWare installed? If you do (get it here), here's a solution that logitech, google, and archive.org seem hell-bent on erasing for some reason o_O

Re: setting orientation on each axis independently? Posted Nov 26, 2004 by Ashley Ings I've managed to set the orientation for the up/down axis.

Once you've installed MouseWare and configure you mouse, go into the registry.

Now depending on what kind of mouse you have cordless or hard wired you should have and entry under: Under hkey_local_machinesystemCurrentControlSetServiceL8042pr2Parameters I have installed a cordless mouse so the next key is CordlessOptical20000

Under this key there is an entry that set what kind of mouse you have called: DeviceModel. If you set this to TrackMan4 and start up the mouse configuration ,from the control panel or the SystemTray (right on the taskbar) you will see a new tab called 'Orientation'. With this you can reverse the Y axis by dragging in the direction you desire. So to give you the complete reg entry for my installtion of a cordless optical mouse it was:

There will be a similar one explaining your DeviceModel if you use the MouseWare install:

hkey_local_machinesystemCurrentControlSetServiceL8042pr2ParametersCordlessOptical20000DeviceModel

Hope it helps - Ashley 26th Nov 2004

Also apparently this guy has written a mouse driver to invert the y axis, but you'll have to get it from him directly --froth^T 06:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Aaah, that's great. Yep, I do have MouseWare installed. I'll give it a shot. Hopefully I won't end up with a completely disoriented mouse going around in circles and stuff :) Must...play...this...game... preferably after getting some wikisleep. Thanks again! —Xhantar^Talk 07:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Hate to burst your bubble but you just installed StarForce :( Sucks to be your computer --froth^T 09:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't had any apparent problems caused by the StarForce drivers myself (touch wood), but know it's a mission getting rid of them. Thanks for the info. —Xhantar^Talk 17:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

<rant>All this hassel for just that? A simple remap in xorg.conf will work in Linux just fine... sigh...</rant> --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

IE 7.0 Pro

Is it true the there are different and better versions of IE 7.0 like IE 7.0 Pro? If so, what are they?

There certainly are different versions of IE7 available, such as for different computer architectures and different versions of the Windows operating system, although their feature sets do not differ much, if at all. Whether a particular version of IE7 is "better" than another is subjective, and mostly depends on how (or what for) it will be used. Software updates are regularly released by Microsoft that mostly improve the software it's updating in some fashion—mostly for security reasons (see here), but again, the feature set usually remains the same. For additional features, there are add-ons available for download. Internet Explorer 7+, released with Windows Vista, has/will have some significant additions. I'm not aware of anything called "Internet Explorer 7 Pro". Hope this helps. (Note: Please remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes, like so: ~~~~) —Xhantar^Talk 05:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The Vista version of IE7 is no longer called IE7+, since it'd be pretty hard to differentiate between "IE7 for Vista" and "IE7 or later". --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 11:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, internet explorer is free (gratis); there's no "pro" version --froth^T 09:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

IE 8

Is there a IE 8 or later, where can you download it; is there a FIREFOX 3.0 or later?

The most recent release of IE is 7.0 (downloadable here). Firefox 2.0 is the latest version of Firefox for public use (available here); while early builds of what will become 3.0 exist, they're really only intended for development and testing, not for consumer use. BryanG^(talk) 04:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep. That being said, you get get the alpha builds here --froth^T 06:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Trillian Astra

I assume that the new Trillian Astra will not be free, and will require a fee like Trillian Pro does now. I looked around, both on Wikipedia and on Cerulean Studio's websites, but I couldn't find confirmation either way. I really hope it will be free, and I was wondering if anyone has found a definitive answer to my question of whether Astra will be free or not. Thanks for any help. --71.117.43.121 04:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

A comment left by "Chris Brainard" here suggests upgrading from Trillian 3.1 Pro will cost $30. There is also some discussion regarding Astra's expected cost here. It might be possible that current, registered (paid) users of Trillian Pro or older versions will be able to upgrade to Astra for free. If that's the case, it might make more sense to buy an older version now, while still available and assuming that an older version will cost less than buying Astra. Sorry I couldn't give a definite answer, though. —Xhantar^Talk 05:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that; it basically confirmed what I thought. I appreciate your help by digging through those forums. --71.117.43.121 05:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, if I was to sign up for alpha testing and was selected as a tester, does anyone know what my responsibilities would be? Would I have to regularly write reports on performance and stuff like that? If it turns out Astra will require a fee to use, will I not be able to use the alpha or beta version if I don't pay for it? Sorry about the question overload, and thanks for any help. --71.117.43.121 05:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You'd be expected to regularly report on bugs or requested features. If you stopped reporting, they could stop giving you updated versions to test. And no they couldn't keep you from still using early builds after the for-fee version is released unless they "time bomb" the code so it refuses to work after a certain date (or after a certain amount of time without an update). But if they offer any live content that could easily be restricted --froth^T 09:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Shrinking desktop icons

My desktop icons appear to have shrunk overnight, suddenly being quite small (text size, not icon size). THe address bar in IE is also tiny. Any help? Thanks,--Rambutan (talk) 07:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If everything is small, you've probably increased the resolution the display is set as. Right click the desktop and pick properties for Display Properties, and there should be a resolution option there. --h2g2bob 07:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but in that case, text would have been shrunk as well. I'd say click your desktop, choose properties, and change your theme/layout settings. --Kjoonlee 17:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

recycle bin

can anybody say how to get back things which were deleted from the recycle bin? is there any way? my brother accidentally deleted an important file of mine. i need it. can somebody say how? thank u very much

Open the Recycle Bin by clicking the icon on the desktop. Find the file he deleted and double-click it to restore it to the location that it was when it was deleted. If there are tons of files in the recycle bin and you're having trouble finding what you're looking for, sort the list by Date Deleted and it should be somewhere near the end --froth^T 09:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Undeletion --Spoon! 10:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

recycle bin 2

thanks to whoever answered my previous question under the title "recycle bin" but i think he or she misunderstood my question. i had some files in my computer. my brother deleted those files and also EMPTIED the recycle bin. those files are now not even present in recycle bin. is there any way to get them back? thank u.

There is software on the market that can recover files that have been deleted from the recycle bin. One called 'win undelete' offers a free trial. I have never used any of this software before but I understand they can be quite good at recovering work like this. I understand Hard-drives don't just write/re-write over the same area of the drive and so deleted files can be recovered because they are in a portion of the hard-drive that is 'unseeable in the os' but has not had the files overwritten by other data, obviously eventually the hard-drive will need that space for something else and then it will be overwritten. ny156uk 11:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I've tested http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html a while ago and it was good, try that. ST47Talk 12:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

this product is excellent. It might be really expensive though; I got it -er- free --froth^T 18:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes it is very expensive --froth^T 22:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You could try PhotoRec (which, despite its name, can recover more than photos). Note, however, that the more you use your computer before trying to recover the files, the harder it becomes to recover them (the computer doesn't try to avoid writing over them, after all, they have been deleted...). And, the obligatory suggestion to prevent this happening next time: make backups. --cesarb 15:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Computer related - networking

I have 2 computers in my home.I have Windows XP oopreating system in both. I have a broadband connection in one system. I would like to share my internet connection to the second system ? how can i achieve it. Please give me a simple way. Please give idea regarding IP address ,, etc

A router would do the trick. Computerjoe's talk 13:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Router definitely would be the easiest way, connect the broadband and your computers to the router and off you go. The other way of course, if you can't afford a router or whatever is to simply use a cross over cable and use internet shearing wizard. It isn't that hard to get going but if you do that, you must have the PC with the internet connection turned on even if you only want to use the internet on the other computer, with a router, either computer can use the internet independently. Vespine 21:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-Microsoft Desktop Search software for XP users

The Microsoft XP search bug is driving me crazy. Is there any software available (to buy or free) that allows me to search for files on my computer containing a given string.

E.g Working exactly like one would expect the XP search to work.

I know there are some registry changes you can make to XP service pack 2 to make it work properly, but it is a pain to do this every time i install XP on my computer.

All i need is some software that, say, would find files that contain a string if it was in the source code of an html/text/php file on my computer.

I have tried searching for such software on the internet but, due to the nature of my search query it is tricky to get good results.

My ideal software would be able to find files that contain a string such as "$monk()" if it were in a file amongst the text such as "funky punk$monk()foobar doobar".

If such software doesn't exist, anyone who writes this simple application could strike it rich. I'd pay at least $40 for a download.

I'm pretty sure Google Desktop does the job. There's probably others too, in fact, here is a list. - Akamad 12:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, i have tried the Google desktop search but it didn't scan all file types i needed. But, the list looks very handy, so that's much appreciated.

Just to keep you all updated... After going through the list, i have finally found something that can search for and pick up a string of php code within the source of an html page: The victor is: Likasoft Archivarius 3000

However, it took quite a lot digging around the settings and checking-of-boxes to get the application to index the markup of my html pages - almost the same hassle as altering XP's registry.

I also downloaded Copernic Desktop Search which i hope will be able to do it, i'm still waiting for it to index my files.

On spending all this time trying to replicate the kinds of search that is standard in Dreamweaver tells me that there is still a market for a "Web Designer's Simple Desktop Search Tool" for XP - that simply does what the Windows 2000 Microsoft search used to do - nothing more, nothing less. I guess, though, if you tried to pitch the idea to an investor they'd laugh at you - "Why re-invent the wheel, chortle, titter". I say, please re-invent it, mine's gone wobbly! Ronnystalker 16:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Vista relentlessly indexes every plaintext file on your computer; vista's search probably could have found it --froth^T 18:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

grep. Nice and simple. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, grep of course over all else --froth^T 22:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the grep suggestion. I'm not sure if it works on xp, but I learned about findstr as it was mentioned on the grep wikipage. Ronnystalker 21:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows Live messenger problem

I've just updated from MSN 7.5 to WLM, but the window crashes and whites out when I try and sign into my account, other accounts work on it and my account works on other peoples WLM, it seems that only my account has a problem with this WLM. I've reduced the number of groups I have on my contact list and it hasn't made any difference, I've also re-installed the program,none of this has an effect. Any advice will be greatly appreiciated,

Howso-Mchowsoson 13:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You could try to uninstall WLM using Add/Remove Programs, and then also delete any files that might have been left over in the WLM installation folder (typically, for WLM 8.1, this should be C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger) before re-installing. To be safe, though, rather move the entire C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\ folder elsewhere instead of deleting it, in case you need to put it back later.

I rather suspect, though, that something went wrong with the user-specific data stored on your PC by WLM for your specific user account, given the fact that you say it only happens when you try to login on your computer. Certain data, like the accounts you use on WLM, are linked to your Windows user account. Try creating a new Windows user account and see if you can login to WLM using your usual WLM username, but under the new Windows account. If using Windows XP, you can create new accounts by going to Control Panel, User Accounts.

If this does not help, you're really desperate, and willing to potentially screw up WLM entirely, try moving the C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger\ folder and its contents elsewhere (where "<username>" is the username with which you logon to Windows, without the "< and >"), and reinstalling again. WLM should re-create the folder, and hopefully also a working copy of whatever might be causing your problem.

Good luck! —Xhantar^Talk 20:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Searching for locking/ releasing mouse & keyboard codes

Hi all,I am having some difficulties in finding suitable codes (in Java) for locking/ releasing mouse and keyboard of student PC from teacher PC connected in a network, So I was wondering if anyone could provide me with the required codes, or suggest some websites where I could get some help regarding this topic,I am using WindowsXP as operating system. Many thanks.Sara

Don't try to do this, it will be trivial for the students to bypass, and it's not a very good idea in the first place. Get rid of Windows, run a server in the corner, and buy a bunch of $150 thin clients to run off the server. Use KDE and the students won't know the difference, and they won't be able to do anything to the server except write documents and stuff to their home directory. --froth^T 18:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I am a Computer Engineering student doing my senior project on Instructor Control PC,where I am stuck in the lock/release part.Sara

I don't pagree with the advice above I've used Dameware Mini Remote in a support capacity and it certunally is not trivial to bypass, but with that you have to have the desktop remotely connected to your workstation, so you'd have all of your students' desktops on your system, which would probably not be practial. I've done a quick google on keyboard input lock software and came up with this list, maybe there is something there you could use? Vespine 21:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If the student has physical access to the system he can do anything he darn well wants to it --froth

I'm really not sure why you are under that impression, where I work we have quite a secure user environment on a windows XP network, maybe you just haven't seen it implemented effectively. I work for a financial institution where insecure user environments would easily equal unimaginable amounts of money in theft and fraud, we don't use too many fancy tricks, most is native XP, trust me it is quite possible. Vespine 22:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If you have physical access to the CD drive you can put in an XP install disk and boot into XP safe mode, and the "key lock" wouldn't even initialize. One step further, if the student puts in a linux livecd then he has absolute and completely unrestricted access to any component of the computer. If you try to lock out the BIOS configuration so it will boot from the hard disk before the CD rom drive, it's easy to just short out the CMOS chip holding the config data (maybe not practical in a lab setting but definitely practical in an office at a financial institution). Take out the CD-ROM drive altogether and the hard drive can still be removed and dumped, or slaved to a secondary drive that has linux installed. (I've personally seen this done in the back of a lab when the tech wasn't looking) Now control over the machine isn't nearly as grave as control over the network, but it's still unrestricted access to absolutely everything unencrypted on the computer, and it's trivial to use ophcrack or something to get the administrator's password from windows. I suspect at a bank or whatever what they would do is keep all information on the server and do what I suggested- have a bunch of dumb clients who auth to the server and image themselves on boot. The thing you have to realize is that while the computer may be secure while you're running Windows in your restricted account, there's nothing at all running to protect it while you're not running windows --froth^T 23:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we're really looking at the problem from two different angles. I'm seeing the issue as simply stopping a user from starting a test five minutes before everyone else while people are getting ready and sitting down, you are trying to stop students hacking apart a box and shorting the BIOS chip and cracking the whole network. Granted at my financial institution all the really sensitive information is on servers but the clients here are not nearly dumb. If I connect to a client PC and lock out their inputs, user's will NOT be able to bypass them short of rebooting the PC and starting with Live CD or something like you suggested. I'm not too worried about THAT because if that happens, people will get sacked, it's not hard to work out WHO rebooted the PC, similarly I'd trust students not to completely hack apart lab boxes given even a small amount of physical security, assigned workstations, user IDs etc, PC boxes can be locked, most boxes have tamper switches, CD boot can be disabled etc.. Vespine 06:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to make it clear how dangerous physical access can be. --froth^T 17:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Sara

Computer Science/Information Technology

≥Kuganathan 15:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)kuganathan What is meant by "Intelligent Clothing" ? Where can i get detailed reference on this subject?

The article intelligent clothing gives a basic definition of the term.213.249.232.179 15:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Minimizing computer power consumption but leaving the computer on...?

I recently tested my Computers and Monitors power consumption and found that the computers drew around 130 to 150 watts while the monitors drew from 35 watts for the LCD to 50 watts to 72 watts for the CRTs. In total the power consumption for all computers and monitors is about 670 watts (1300 Powerup!). What is the best Powerdown setting under Windows XP to minimize consumption and yet leave the systems on so that Web cams, Email, security monitor and other computer dependent equipment will still function properly but at minimum Electricity cost? -- Barringa 16:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

There's really nothing you can do if you want to still use email and stuff. If you have a newer Intel processor you might be able to set it to dynamically adjust performance to reduce power consumption. And you could always lower the brightness of your monitors. And if you calculate that your PSUs are drawing way more power than they need you can replace them (although it'll be expensive) --froth^T 18:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The amount of power being consumed by each monitor, especially the LCD, is around a 60 watt porch bulb while the computer power consumption is compariable to flood lamps so even though the PSUs are rated from 450 to 650 watts they are drawing far less than their rating. -- Barringa 02:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually that existed ages before the "new" technology of the "new" Intel stuff. Cool `n Quiet anyone? Speedstep anyone? On Linux it automatically lowers the processor speed when in low load, not sure and never seen it bappening in Windows though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The hardware has to support it --froth^T 17:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes I am observing that on the exact same computer in dual boot condition. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe Vista supports it with their new creepily-extensive ACPI driver library, but on XP you need a OEM power manager from the manufacturer --froth^T 22:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

February 5

Really irritating CD Problem

I bought a Rosetta Stone language program for a bit over a hundred bucks. I installed it without problems, used it two or three times, and then didn't use it for a month. I just put the cd (unscratched - I'm not risking wasting that money) back into the computer, and it calls up an autoplay screen that gives me a number of options (install, run, register, info.) If I click run, it loads loudly for a bit and then tells me to "Please insert the correct CD-ROM, select OK and restart application." The thing is, this IS the correct CD. It's the "application" cd, and I've used it before to run the program. It isn't as if the computer and cd aren't communicating, because the autoplay came up, and I was even, in the course of trying to fix this, able to uninstall and reinstall the program from the cd. I've tried restarting my computer and ejecting the cd several times. I've tried opening it from the program saved on my harddrive. I just don't understand what the problem could be. It's a little bit irritating. How could a functional, completely unscathed cd, fail to recognize itself? Any suggestions? Should I turn my computer in for repairs? Sashafklein 02:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If all other CDs work fine, then it's a problem with this program. I'd suggest giving the software author a ring and seeing what they say. --h2g2bob 02:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Your computer is alright, it's probably some SafeDisc issue. I believe Rosetta Stone uses SafeDisc 2.9? Contact technical support for your product. Splintercellguy 02:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

If it changes anything, my cd drive isn't quite perfect. I can't, for instance, play an audio cd at regular speed. It goes really slowly and crackily. I can, however, save it to the computer and then play it just fine. I didn't mention that, because I didn't think it would've contributed to the cd basically ignoring itself. Sashafklein 02:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

While tech support will probably take time to ship out new CDs, (and possibly even ask you to return your existing product), it might be easier to download them through torrents or such, which should be completely legal, as long as you're using a bought and paid for liscense.

You mentioned that your CD drive had issues, it may the reason that SafeDisc is not working properly. SafeDisc I believe relies on reading bad sectors on the CD, and if your CD can't do this properly it may have a problem. Splintercellguy 03:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, downloading it from a torrent still technically isn't legal, because you're probably uploading it to someone illegally at the same time. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It's illegal regardless of whether you own the license, and not because you're also uploading. Being an ubernode only targets you for takedown by the company's lawyers --froth^T 04:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Use Alcohol 120% to override the safedisc. :) --Wooty Woot? contribs 06:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Or Daemon Tools for a much better (and free) alternative --froth^T 17:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I've tried daemon tools, but when I select the cd drive to mount it, it instead explores the drive for ISO or whatever files. I can't get the program to actually select the DRIVE as opposed to something on the CD. I might just torrent this. That sounds right. Thanks for all the advice. Sashafklein 18:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

DAEMON Tools works on ISOs and other CD/DVD image formats. So, take an image of your CD (if you can) and mount. Splintercellguy 07:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

UPS service under Windows XP...?

How to reinstall the Windows XP UPS service? Whenever I try to start it the error message says it can't find the file. -- Barringa 02:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps run "sfc /scannow" (copy and paste without quotes to the Run dialog box)? Splintercellguy 03:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

CRO and Signal Generator connections for OPAMP as INVERTING AMPLIFIER(IC741)

I've soldered a circuit that uses an opamp(IC741) as an inverting amplifier.The feed back resistor is 10K ohms and the input is given at pin 2 through a resistor of 2.2Kohms.Now i want to give an input signal of 1 volt and 200Hz frequency to the circuit using one channel of the CRO and the Signal Generator.Also i want to observe the output waveform using channel 2 of the CRO(output is at pin 6).Howevr i am unsure of the connections to be made as far as the CRO probes and signal generator is concerned.Can anyone help??59.183.87.29 07:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you running this from two equal-but-opposite power supplies (so, for example, +/- 15 volts or +/- 9 volts)? The description below will assume this.

Connect all the grounds ("reference") points together: the circuit under test, the signal generator, and the oscilloscope.

Connect the output of the signal generator to the far end of the 2.2K resistor (the end away from the op-amp).

Connect one 'scope probe to that same point.

Connect the other 'scope probe to the output pin of the '741.

Et voila!

If you're running the '741 from a single power supply ("single-ended operation"), you'll need an isolating capacitor (of an appropriate electrical value) between the signal generator and the input to the op-amp. You may also want to switch the 'scope to "AC coupling", although the DC level coming out of the op-amp is also a point of interest.

Point of interest: Generally speaking, you can't directly probe the non-inverting input of the op-amp without dsrupting the operation of the circuit. In your particular example, the resistor values are low enough to allow you to do it, but the observed voltage will always seem to be 0 (ground)! In fact, there are microvolts of signal there, but you almost certainly won't be able to see the signal on your 'scope.

Atlant 17:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Sweet!! yes i was using a dual 15V supply and it worked perfectly.many thanks

sap

Hello friend How to u use f4 help and f1 help in report .

Hello can you tell us a bit more? At the moment I can only guess that you'd press the F1 or F4 function key. --h2g2bob 19:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Financial RSS - a source for the full story

I'm doing some (amateur) investigations in various fields (machine learning, financial modelling). (Yes, these are rather mighty challenges for an amateur). Anyway, does anyone know of a machine-readable (such as RSS) source of financial/company news (I want the full story, rather than teaser and link, without any "gunk" such as ads and navbars)? Also a source of machine-readable stock prices. Since this is only for research, it doesn't matter which market (even which country - although I'd prefer the news to be in English so I could understand it too). --대조 | Talk 18:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Free domain?

My website is currently hosted on 50megs.com, but they're very restricted on the scripting and other functions their hosting in their free package includes. I found another hosting service that has everything I want, but there's a catch. It will only work if I get a domain name to direct there.

Now, I can transfer my current domain to the new hosting service, but I'd like to have a backup of the entire site online and ready to use, just in case something goes wrong. Can anyone recommend a place where I can get a free domain main (with a relatively short URL) that doesn't require me to jump to all sorts of hoops to have it activated? - Mgm|^(talk) 18:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The only free domain services I know of are [7] and one using the .co.nl extension (don't have a link though - some Googling might find it). I know that the .tk service only shows another website but with frames and also advertises, so you'll need to use a free host elsewhere and then use .tk to 'funnel' the site. RevenDS 19:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I misunderstand, but it seems that DynDNS fits the description. --Tardis 19:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

There's also http://freedomain.co.nr/, which gives you *.co.nr for free, no adverts. --h2g2bob 19:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

They require a single small image button. A lot less invasive than frames, banners and all that. I'll look into this one.

• Thanks for the suggestions. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Excel

Do you know of any Excel (sofware or server) for a web site so that multiple users can edit the Excel sheet at the same time; I would like if it was secure and password-protected.

What about Google Documents (formerly known as Writely? Duomillia 21:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there anything else to put on a web site, something that is by Microsoft?

Not yet, I don't think. --24.147.86.187 02:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Web Hosting

Does anybody know of a good web hosting with a lot of features? 68.193.147.179 20:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

http://bluehost.com is pretty good, cheap, lots of features, and popular. http://godaddy.com also does good webhosting for cheap. Have anything more specific in mind? --140.247.250.175 21:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I vote for CrystalTech on the expensive side and DreamHost on the cheap side. Droud 21:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Ejam is a good webhost. All you have to do is register and make 10 posts. Best of all it's free. Good luck. --71.98.21.95 23:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I've heard good things about DreamHost (which Droud suggested above), but never needed to buy webhosting yet. --h2g2bob 01:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure they did this to piss me off but..(sandisk e240 - raphocity

I can't seem to efectivelly transfer music from one to the other. i've done everything in my power to get the damn thing to transfer(checked the mode, instaled updates, hell i even formated the drive) but i still cant transfer. it says it won't accept the filetype. GD.Xiaden 22:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

What is raphocity? Rhapsody? Droud 23:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

yhea... sorry, i suck at spelling on a keyboard.Rhapsody Rhapsody Rhapsody Xiaden 02:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Does rhapsody distribute mp3s or some proprietary (probably DRMed) format? --froth^T 18:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

February 6

My compuer froke

how can i fix my broken computer.

Can you tell us more? What exactly is broken? What happens when you turn it on - for example, does nothing turn on, does text appear (if so, what), does Windows / OS X / Linux start up? --h2g2bob 01:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried taking it to a computer repair shop? If you don't know how to be articulate about it you are probably not going to be able to fix it on your own. --140.247.250.21 17:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

MP4

Hi. Does anyone know of a free or open source app which I could use to convert the files from a DVD into MP4 or something that would be compatible with a PSP? Alternatively does anyone know how to do it with Nero or Media Player or something? thanks Mix Lord 01:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a good looking guide to using DVD Decrypter and PSP Video 9 to do exactly that. For most other video types, using PSP Video 9 on its own is fairly easy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I'll try thatMix Lord 06:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding Harddrive space to a laptop

So I've been looking into buying myself a laptop, and I want the best 15" laptop out there in pretty much every aspect other than graphics. I don't play games or anything, but I have enough music (about 100+ gigs right now and growing quickly) that I'll want a LOT of harddrive space (2 or 300g maybe?). But I also want the computer to be really fast, because I've consistently worn down the speed of every computer I have had through constant use of music, video, and innumerable strange programs. I've noticed that nearly every computer offering that much harddrive space is a) usually larger than 15", and b) that if I do buy, say a 120 gig harddrive laptop, the only drives available cap off at 5400 rpm, which, I take it, isn't as fast as 7200 or higher rpms, available with smaller hardrives. I have seen online, however, internal harddrives for individual sale that can hold 300 gigs and run at ridiculous rpm speeds. The question is whether I could buy one of these drives and an otherwise nice laptop with a small harddrive and then hire a computer guy to put the two together. Would this work? Would overheating be a problem? Physical size of the disk? Are these extra internal drives PC-specific? Will it really work so fast? How would you suggest I solve my conundrum? Thanks a lot, Sashafklein 03:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

No, that won't work. I suggest getting a small external HD. --Wooty Woot? contribs 04:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't get fast speeds at anything past 150gb. 5200rpm is fine. And you won't find that size in a small HDD for a laptop. --froth^T 05:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

RPM is only one factor of the speed of a harddisk. Seek time and latency need to be taken into account aswell, but having said that, maybe we are getting too technical. Assuming the laptop has a S-ATA (Serial ATA) bus check the speed of that bus (S-ATA starts at 150MBps and goes to 300, 600 & 1.2GBps) and the amount of disk cache the harddrive has. The more the better. The speed of the bus only gives you what is known as the burst speed and can only be maintained as long as there is data in the harddrive cache. The harddrive fills this up pre-emptively using complicated algorithms based on what previous data has been asked for.

What ever harddrive you are getting another tip is that if you are only going to be storing large files on it, like music and/or video, rather than "strange programs". you could increase the cluster size. This optimises the seek function of the harddrive, thus making it quicker.

So, the spin speed is not the only thing that matters, although you can get harddrives with a faster speed than 5400rpm for laptops at very large capacities, you should make sure that the drive you buy is physically compatible with the laptop you buy, but do not forget the disk cache size when buying or the cluster size when formatting the drive.

Good luck. Steve Edgington 10:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I guess I'll keep looking around. Sashafklein 03:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You could easily get a huge external drive for a fraction of the price it would cost you to get a totally souped up laptop. Surely you don't need all 100GB of music every place all the time? It seems smarter, to me, to get a 500GB external drive in the place where you actually use the music and just cycle what you think you might plausibly ever need at any given time onto the laptop as needed, but what do I know. --24.147.86.187 03:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. An external hard drive is what you need. --Proficient 08:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

NC command

I was browsing the internet and came upon a command in mac os x terminal called nc. I've figured out how to use it (man pages), but what is the practical use? As far as I know, it just sends raw data to computers. Thanks!--Ryan 04:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

netcat --Spoon! 04:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't change images on my web page

I can't change the images on my web page. I'm using a purchased template and tranferring my own images for the ones shown, following the instructions, but when I refresh the page I get a blank image space, with an icon (round,square & triangle) in one corner. I've emailed the template provider and they've said use photoshop which I already am using. I am being careful to make the photos the correct file size and even flattened them but to no avail. As I am very new to this type of work I am probably doing something really stupid so I hope you can help. Thank you.Sue latham 07:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

You either have to change the HTML so it uses the new images, or alternatively make sure your new images have the exact same names (and format) as the ones you want to replace and then simply upload the new images to the same location and overwrite the old ones with the new. I would highly recoment the first option though, getting at least some basic HTML understanding is not that hard and helps a lot. Try reading one of the many, many HTML tutorial's out there. --Sherool (talk) 08:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The icon you describe sounds to me like Photoshop's default icon for PSD images. Are you sure you are saving them in the right file format? Typical web formats are JPEG, GIF, and PNG. Anything else is probably incorrect. --140.247.250.21 17:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It also sounds to me a lot like a web browser's placeholder image icon. --cesarb 19:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all. I've managed to get the small pics to show but not the larger ones.

Assuming you've correctly uploaded your image to the web, have you checked the path name to it is spelt correctly? If you directly type in the URL of the image into your webbrowser, does it display? If not, you've likely not uploaded it correctly, or it's not in a supported file format _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 16:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

PCI express (PCIe)

Having read extensively on this bus and also having included a discussion of it in the hardware courses I have tutored over the last few years I have still not been able to find out the Frequency (Hz) this bus runs at. We are told the Bandwidth, but this is a function of the hertz rating and the amount of conductors involved in the transmission. The EIA/TIA-644 specification says that the total bandwidth is 655Mbps on a single LVDS pair with a 100Ohm load. As the bus is a serial bus one can assume that the hertz rating is therefore 655MHz, but I do not like assumptions and would like to know the actual specific Hertz rating of this bus so that I can demonstrate how the bandwidth is worked out for one or more lanes to my future classes. Thank you Steve Edgington 09:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

From our PCI Express article: "At the electrical level, each lane utilizes two unidirectional low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) pairs at 2.5 Gbit/s. Transmit and receive are separate differential pairs, for a total of 4 data wires per lane." --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

ADSL Data usage Meter

Would you'll be able to provide a link for an accurate data usage meter on the adsl broadband connection that takes only the internet data traffic volume? Some of the freeware I downloaded even takes readings on normal browser and program execution.

If you use Microsoft Windows 2000 (any version) or XP (again any version) try using the 'Network Monitor' tool that is shipped with the Operating System. This tools monitors ALL the traffic on a particular network LAN segment, so all of the traffic coming in through your broadband connection to any of the computers in your local LAN, if you use a router, or just to your PC if you have only a broadband modem.

Here is an example of what it looks like below;

File:Example of Network Monitor.jpg

Good luck Steve Edgington 18:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Wireshark might do the job, though I could be wrong. Splintercellguy 00:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

PUH-LEESSS.... use PNG --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

X_X yes please --froth^T 22:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone might also want to add that to an articel or it'll be Fair Useless. 68.39.174.238 15:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hypertext as cultural phenomenon

what might be the ramifications of the hypertext on culture? The hypertext transforms a text, which no longer has a set meaning, but how can we look upon a text as a unit when it is led into different directions by "links". There are no authors any more(in the sense that nothing new or amazing can come from an online publication), only writers and users, most of whom do not write very well. What is the future for culture when it is being degraded as it is? Also, does anyone know of any idea of where we are headed with the hypertext? What's next? Thank you for any comments on this you might have, it would be greatly appreciated. Henry Adams

Actually, some of the best journalism and writing I see comes from online sources; and yet I also don't see traditional book sales decreasing. Some writers like Cory Doctorow are embracing this new distribution method of the internet, while out of copyright works can be obtained for free (archive.org, Wikisource, Project Gutenberg etc). What hypertext does do is change non-fiction from a linear story where concepts are explained in turn, into a web of interconnected ideas. What's next - tags, which is really just more of the same. --h2g2bob 13:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hold on there - I think you are getting a bit carried away.

"The hypertext transforms a text, which no longer has a set meaning" - not really true - a text still has a set meaning - all the hypertext does is make it easier to link to other texts.

compare the above with this

" "The hypertext transforms a text, which no longer has a set meaning" - not really true - a text still has a set meaning - all the hypertext does is make it easier to link to other texts" Here I've hyperlinked several words - so you can click on them to look at what the wikipedia page says about them - the meaning of the sentence hasn't changed.

Quote "..how can we look upon a text as a unit when it is led into different directions by "links" " - my answer would be to simply read it as a unit - the links are optional - you don't have to click. Personally I only click if I think a hyperlink will be useful or interesting.

You seem to be dissapointed with the standard of writing on the internet - this is unaviodable - many people can now publish electronically their thoughts and thesises - it is off course unlikely that all of these will be of the highest quality. But I don't see any reason to believe that nothing good will come from the entire body of electronically published work.

As for the future of hypertext - I think it will stay an integral part of the 'web experience' - I've never had any major qualms about it - I see it as being similar to having many books on my desk at once with the indexed references at the back all at easy reach..87.102.13.26 15:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response... but I think you've proved my point. The note that I started with was mine (as its author, and as a "user") and it has now changed. Anyone can come along now and read the entire thing (including this), instead of just my piece that got this started. To the "new reader", this section is not just a question about hypertexts, but a discussion about them...you have changed my identity, yours, ours, and his/hers... a bad example, but hopefully you get my point. No identity is secure. When you read a page in a book, you are free to establish your own reading, but online, a text can be edited... meaning is not stable. Although I agree that links are optional they are also prompts by which to contaminate the readers reading. Any thoughts? Henry Adams

Surely it's clear to the reader and to you that this is a place for questions and answers - I fail to see how responding to you proves a point - you confused me there with your reasoning - I assumed it was an open question and that an answer would be expected..

As far as I can see your identity is secure - this page is like a transcript of a conversation - my comments are labelled separately from yours - I think it is plainly clear what you have written, and what has been written by me.

I find hyperlinks useful in finding information and as an educational aid. I agree that I wouldn't want to see hyperlinks in the middle of a novel or poetry etc, or indeed in the middle of a quotation. In this respect I think we agree. I also hope that common sense would prevent most english speaking people from doing so.

So to summarise: in a an educational text, or an encyclopaedia I wholeheartedly support 'hypertext', in a technical document they may be useful, in other contexts I would not approve of their use.87.102.13.26 15:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

(By the way if you publish work on the internet it cannot be changed - unless you specifically allow it. Wikipedia is different in that it is a collective effort - though to alter someones comments on a talk page or here is considered vandalism ie wrong to do.)87.102.13.26 16:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Hypertext only transforms a text in the sense that it puts it into dialogue with other texts. In other words, hypertext is not something which alters the text itself but rather is a system to organize texts. I think there are definitely going to be cultural ramifications for thinking about information in this way — as always being embedded within a larger mesh of information — though this is primarily a technical change. From a philosophical point of view information is always embedded in a larger world of information — language itself necessarily and constantly involves reference to a world of meaning outside the text itself. Would a rose hyperlinked to any other flower smell so sweet? --140.247.250.21 17:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• Stability and authorship are different questions. They are not necessarily linked to anything with hypertext. Perhaps here you are confusing hypertext with things like wikis, which allow easy multiple and simultaneous authorship. (Multiple and simultaneous authorship did not begin with the invention of a wiki, nor did a lack of stability of text, but it has made it significantly easier and allowed a far greater number of participants than any other mode of mass communication, so I'd say that is an important change.) --140.247.250.21 17:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The question is rather invalid because it contains a lot of logical fallacies.

Weigand Output/Interface

I am looking for information or history of the Weigand output/interface used in RFID or barcode security readers. I did not find any information on wikipedia, and several various web searches just gave me vendors. Any information would be appreciated. Jaegendar 13:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Source code website

Hi, Does anyone here know any website that provides source codes of its softwares. Thanks. Sara

Wikipedia (which runs on the MediaWiki software) is a good start, since you're here. It's free software, and it's used at a lot of other sites besides Wikipedia. --대조 | Talk 14:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I am looking for the code of a specific software for my project, and I downloaded many softwares(commercial ones) for this purpose, but unfortunetely they are not coming with their source codes files. So Taejo are you telling me that I can find what I want on wikipedia?. Sara

What exactly are you looking for? If you're trying to find the source code for commercial closed-source software, you're out of luck. SourceForge is home to a lot of Free software projects that you can glean code from (assuming you can accept the terms of their license; mostly the GNU GPL or a BSD license). -- mattb @ 2007-02-06T15:13Z

You can pretty much find open source libraries for anything (especially on source-forge). If you give us more specifics (what exactly you need, what OS and what language), we can probably give you more help. Oskar 15:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A tip: don't assume that people will have read your previous questions. Just to clarify: what I meant is that the source code for Wikipedia is a available. I read your question as you wanting to find the source code for some (any) website. --User:Taejo|대조 11:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

sourceforge didnt help me much, for more details you can check my first post [8]. Sara

I can tell you with almost certainty that this is impossible to do with pure java. Java is not designed to do that kinda stuff, it's designed to be portable and secure. At one point or another, compiled code must be invoked. I suppose you could do it with something like NativeCall that unloads the keyboard and mouse drivers. However, I wouldn't recommend it, this sounds like a very bad idea from the start. Oskar 22:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Mounted disk icon on Ubuntu desktop

I'm dual-booting my system with Ubuntu and Windows. I have my windows partition mounted (using ntfs-3g) on my Linux system in case I need a file or something from it. It's not something I do often, but it is a nice convenience. However, now my otherwise clean desktop has this ugly icon on it that says "windows" under a small picture of a disk. It goes away if I umount it obviously, but I'd rather have it mounted and not have to look at that damn thing all the time. Can anyone help me? Oskar 15:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at http://ubuntuguide.org/. I have 6.06 (http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_dapper), and I used that to mount my NTFS. Then you can create a link to it from anywhere. I hopde that helps. - Akamad 19:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's what (s)he wants. This should help if you want to eliminate the disk icons altogether. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OskarS sounds like a she-name? Dude... Anyway, thanks, that worked! Oskar 17:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes and I am a little girl in some sort of twisted online fantasy game :p. You just never know... --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

One Huge pc power supply

Ok, so say your a pc enthusiast and you have a garage with, lets say 8 computers in it. would it be more effective to use one power supply in terms of efficancy?

Also, could we expect to see houses with built in +12V, +5V ect power rails to make homes more efficant?

I guess the transformer could always double up as centeral heating too :)

BenHowes 17:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The main problem with distributing extra low voltage is that the power loss due to resistive heating of the wire is proportional to the square of the current. Higher voltages need less current to deliver the same amount of power. It's for that reason that high voltage is used for long distance electrical power distribution. So, distributing +12V, +5V, and other common power supply voltages, would be less efficient, not more.

You would have a related problem with your "common power supply" solution: as the distance to the power supply gets longer, the voltage drop gets higher, which could make the voltages fall outside of the specified range.

That said, it's common to have telecommunication equipment which runs on -48V DC, and there are proposals to use 380V DC in data centers[9]. In both cases, the computers still have their own power supplies; the difference is that, instead of the AC->DC->AC->DC conversion done by computer power supplies (see switched-mode power supply for the why of all these conversions), they only have to do an DC->AC->DC conversion. Since by using DC their UPS do not have to convert their output to AC (data centers usually have dual conversion UPS), at least two conversions are avoided, making it more efficient.

--cesarb 18:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that! I hadent thought about the voltage drop issues. theres always super conductors, but i doubt that there is any chance of saving money after installing coldheads all over the house to cool the liquid helium used in ceramic supercinductors :P BenHowes 19:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Another problem is the evolution of power supply voltages. It used to be that there was only +5 and ±12. But ATX style power supplies now also have +3.3. (See page 37 of this pdf.) What will it be in 5 years? Probably something different. —EncMstr 03:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The actual loads are already operating down at 1.8 and 1.2 volts. As someone above said, there's some benefit to distributing high-voltage DC, but there's nothing to be gained by distributing today's low voltages (in the hopes that they'll still be useful tomorrow). By the way, did you realize that many ordinary computer power supplies already will operate just as happily from high-voltage DC as they do from line-voltage AC? (But don't try it on my say-so!)

Atlant 13:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Any info about "exosort" sorting algorithm?

I just discovered a company -- FAC Systems, run by Farid A. Chouery -- that's selling an implementation of a sorting algorithm known as "exosort". They seem to claim it offers significant time savings over quicksort in practical sorting problems, although they don't appear to claim that it performs better in asymptotic analysis. Anyway, Google and friends don't really seem to know anything about the algorithm, and I'm curious if anyone has any more information about this "exosort". Is it in fact a new algorithm? Is it described anywhere, or is it basically a trade secret? Are there any independent tests of its performance? --Ryguasu 17:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

First off all, it cannot have a better analysis than optimized quicksort, because optimized quicksort (unlike the regular kind) is computationally optimal for the problem of exchange-sorting. You can get better results using non-exchange sorts, like Radix sort, but that only works on limited kinds of data (most often numbers). Second, I doubt that this tiny company has outsmarted a whole world of academiacs that have long considered quicksort one of the best sorts there is for general data. Google shows all of three results. I call bullshit.

If they do have some sort of algorithm, it is most likely a slightly modified variant of another sort. The 60% (if it is even true) might come from a comparison using regular, un-modified quicksorts worst case (quicksort has a horrible worst case of O(n^2)) with their algorithm. I wouldn't believe them for a second. Oskar 21:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's impossible. Quicksort is O(n log n); if their supposed algorithm is 60% faster, it would still be O(n log n) (it's just a multiplicative constant). That could be done, for instance, by somehow optimizing for cache behaviour (which can make quite a difference on modern computers); in fact, optimizing for cache behaviour is the only way I can see they could beat quicksort on the average. However, even if it's possible, I agree with you that it's very unlikely. Instead of something unproven like that, I would prefer to use an optimized version of the introsort algorithm (which retains quicksort's average speed but avoids its worst-case behaviour). --cesarb 03:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It is possible to get decent linear speedups from sorting algorithms by careful consideration of cache issues for the specific sort of data concerned. I remember seeing a paper on this topic at a conference a couple of years ago. --Robert Merkel 03:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Unlock Code For Samsung A707

hi, I've got a Samsung A-707 handset but a'm unable to find a permanent network unlcok code for it. Can you please help me out and send me one on my email address - <email removed> Thank You very much.

Poetry software

Does any software exist specifically for the purpose of composing verse. I was thinking of something along the lines of a word processor, but able to compute meter, rhyme, etc. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Thanks! Bhumiya (said/done) 21:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft Word? --Proficient 08:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft has hidden depths! Where is the "compute meter" command? I think the OP's best option is to find a rhyming dictionary. Don't know about a meter-computing tool (at least for English) --대조 | Talk 11:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, rhyme was actually the least of my concerns, since so many rhyming dictionaries exist already, and rhyme isn't strictly necessary in poetry anyway. It occurred to me that a lot of poetic devices could be turned into computer functions, possibly within the framework of a word processor, or possibly as a stand-alone program. But I suppose its appeal would be very limited. Bhumiya (said/done) 03:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Headphone socket on external DVD drive

I bought a new external dvd drive to sit on my desk as my box is behind the desk. I noticed today that in the back there is a headphone jack. I'd like to use this to listen to my headphones as an audio out but haven't been able to figure out the procedure. I've tried a few things including playing with the digital out under the drive's properties (Win XP), but I'm still coming up short. Any suggestions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.199.159.98 (talk • contribs).

Ah! A true engineer! When all else fails, read the instructions! --Zeizmic 02:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Noticed the little button next to the eject button? Put a CD in and press that and you should have music... although the jack should be on the front not back. Normally it completely bypasses the computer, and as long as you got power, it will act like any other CD player. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

February 7

Computer Programming - Images

I am doing a project for a school club where I have to design a computer game. I have the game itself done but do not know how to make images display. I have the images saved in a file. I am using a Microsoft Visual Studio.Net 2003 compiler and my code is in C++. If anyone could help me with coding for images that would be great. (I could also use C# if necessary). Thanks. 71.240.130.95 00:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)Lauren

OpenGL or GDI+? --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Web Hosting

Hi, I have my website coded and finished and would like to upload it. What are all the steps required to host a website on the internet? As well, how does the domain name registery thing work? Also, if I register a domain name, can I switch webhoster and still keep the domain name? Thanks. Jamesino 02:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, you have to find a host, then upload the files there. The domain registry basically registers a domain name, and then the servers map that domain name to wherever the web host is. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

First, get a host. There are lots of hosting services out there. Usually when you sign up for webspace (say, on bluehost.com or godaddy.com) they will throw in domain registration for free or for cheap. The domain name and the web host are two different things, though, and if you switch hosts you can always redirect your domain name to the different host. --24.147.86.187 03:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Another Vista Question

Can the upgrade software CD'S for the Vista OS be run in s regular CD-ROM drive or just a DVD drive.--Biggie 08:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

DVD drive. --Proficient 08:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep. But I have the DVD version and it says on the bottom of the case "Includes 32-bit DVD and information on obtaining 32 bit CDs or a 64-but DVD, additional fees may apply." I threw away the paper that came with it with the "information" but I think I remember it being pretty simple to get CDs from microsoft once you own the DVD --froth^T 18:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you as always.--206.251.1.250 19:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Running full-screen programs in a window

Does anyone know any software to do so if it exists? Thanks. --Taraborn 12:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• You don't need software for that. That's a setting in Windows. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be that sure. Try to do that for Starcraft, for example. --Taraborn 14:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's directx, try this app and "force windowed" --froth^T 17:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Taraborn 19:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

xp and bios

right i have two major problems the later mainly my fault the first windows fault. i have a computer that i cnat acces the bios on due to a password and no1 nows the pasword (got from a friend)on it it had windows nt and novel client server thingy. i thought i would just install xp over the top and not worry about the server stuff as i dont need it. after making boot disks and after multipe attempts ( never quite gopt the right service pack version on the disks) i got windows to install however during installation its says it cant find "cyclad-z.inf" and "cyclom-y.inf" fine i skipped these files and carried on installing without problem. then when it tried to load windows up afterwards i got blue screen and system lincense violation, checking the error code on microsoft says its cus i installed xp over nt, but why is there a problem and what can i do to sort it?

second issuse is then i thought lets try and get into the bios and alter boot order and perhaps disable some stuff the blue screen message gave me (shadow caching?) as the password wasnt anything obvious and the motherboard has no "clear cmos" switchs i tried reflashing. searching for the bios on the manufacturs website i downloaded the most recent and reflased, went well however the moniter no longer works tried two moniters and tried on both the intergrated and graphics card points and neither works, but the moniter is getting a signal as it says no input when i disconnect the moniter. motherboard was s26361-d 1170 a11 gs2 and a reflashed using file a1170_00.omf any help is most appreciated--137.205.8.2 16:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well first of all flashing the bios shouldn't affect the r/w CMOS memory on which it keeps its settings. Also, to clear your BIOS settings password manually you can always unplug the computer and take out the battery on the motherboard for a couple of hours. Finally, why are you burning boot disks to install windows xp? --froth^T 17:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

cus i couldnt set the cd drive as primary boot device as i couldnt get into the bios cus of the password so i was using the 6 floppy boot disc thing, wouldnt taking the battery out the motherboard compelty wipe the bios? ie leave nothing at all?

No it won't. The BIOS is on a flash chip, which is nonvolatile. When it detects a discrepancy in the realtime clock it resets the CMOS memory.. and the clock needs the battery to run. --froth^T 22:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning Laptop Monitor

Alright, well this might expose my naivety with laptops, but I'm in need of some good advice. I received a laptop (Gateway) this Christmas and it's working very well. The only problem is that, despite the fact that I don't touch or mess with it, the screen has a couple of smudges. Now, these aren't noticeable, but for a perfectionist like I am right now, it's becoming a slight pain. What can/should I do to remove this minor smudges. I read something about a damp cloth, but that notion makes me slightly nervous. Help me out, guys! Best, Yanksox 19:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The new gift aura has lasted this long?! Impressive!  :-) Damp means wet, but not dripping: wring the cloth out well. But rest assured, even if some raindrops fall on your laptop, nothing bad is likely to happen. When you do eventually spill a coke on the keyboard, just turn the keyboard upside down immediately to get the excess out. For coke, which contains phosphoric acid a light rinsing and drying of the keyboard is in order right afterward. I'd power the PC down first for that. —EncMstr 20:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh phew. I came here after reading your (EncMstr's) edit summary expecting you to have advised Yanksox to wash his monitor with Coca Cola lol. Glad I was wrong. Anchoress 20:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I guess "damp cloth & coke" wasn't the best thought out of summaries. Though now that you mention it, Coke should be a fairly good solvent for removing unknown smudges. Hmmmm.... —EncMstr 20:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh, it probably would be. I was thinking about the sugar residue, though, which would be a magnet for future smudges. Anchoress 20:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And really sticky, too Oskar 21:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And not particularly clear... it would be a big smudge itself --froth^T 22:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you brave the RD page history? Impressive. --froth^T 22:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Diet Coke shall solve all your problems, just keep it away from mentos. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Command Line Apps in OS X

Hi everyone. Is there any way, in Mac os X, to send the output from one command line program to the input of another? Thanks!--Ryan 23:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that this has little to do with your OS and everything to do with your shell (OS X defaults to some csh variant, I think). What you're after is the | (pipe) character. I'd highly recommend googling for a guide to the shell you use. -- mattb @ 2007-02-07T23:56Z

Mac OS/X runs the tcsh by default and like all Unix shells, it supports piping from one app to another. (I note that that tcsh article says bash is the new default, but not on my systems; maybe the article is wrong?)

Atlant 01:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Bash is the default on my Mac. Probably you have done upgrades, leaving old settings files in place, or you have a transfered personal configuration file (if you for example transferred your home directory as part of an upgrade or purchased a new system) that would override the system default. TERdON 23:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

C++ question

Hi. I am writing a command line c++ program for Mac os x (using g++ compiler), and I want to make it able to open another command line program (that I didn't write). How is this done? thanks in advance!

My (maybe wrong) advice would be to try to use some kind of System() command and call the other program through the shell --froth^T 00:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've never programmed on a Mac, but if it has a compatible library, look at the exec() and spawn() calls in process.h. —EncMstr 00:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you want the ANSI C call system(), or the Unix call popen() or so? --Tardis 00:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

fork() is another interesting article. In fact, "forkandexec" is practically just one word. Once you penetrate the mysteries of this, you too will be able to say "fork off and die" with a straight face. But system() is probably enough for what you want.

Atlant 01:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

There are two cases: if you just want to run the program, you can do this:

system("ls -l /etc");

but if you want to capture the output of the program, you could do this:

FILE *fp = popen("ls -l /etc");
if (!fp) { perror("popen"); exit(1); }
char line[1024];
while (fgets(line, sizeof(line), fp))
    printf("Got this line: %s", line);
pclose(fp);

There are probably nicer ways to do this in more idiomatic C++, but I don't really know that language. The above is straight C. --TotoBaggins 21:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that system() will also let you collect the exit status. Sometimes, that's all you need.

Atlant 13:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

February 8

Including RSS feeds on websites

This is probably way more involved (i.e., going to require some coding, etc., if even possible), in which case I'll understand, but any pointers to further reading material would be appreciated. I'm trying to figure out how to include (embed) certain elements of an RSS feed onto a website, e.g. as part of a forum signature, etc. Specifically, there is an RSS feed at http://qdb.us/qdb.xml. My idea is to use a random element of the feed as part of my forum signature, with the forum software allowing the use of BBCode and HTML as part of the signature... or, if that's not possible, just displaying one of the elements on a website. Furthermore, if possible, would it be possible to randomize which element is displayed, and perhaps limit displayed elements to those at or smaller than a certain size? —Xhantar^Talk 00:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What you're trying to do is embed dynamic elements onto a webpage without access to any scripting. I don't think this is possible with HTML (it is certainly not possible with BBCode). —Mitaphane _?|! 01:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The only way it would be possible is using, say, PHP on your own server to generate an image, and linking to that image from the forum. This would require you had access to a web server with PHP, and unless you can find a solution that's already coded it would also require some work of your own. I managed to locate three such scripts, [10] [11] [12]. The last one there doesn't require you have a web server or anything, but it is fairly hideous and has an advertisement on it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

For the image, you could use SVG, which would make it easier. This seems the only way, unless you have admin access to the forum server. --h2g2bob 03:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggested / meant to suggest using PHP to generate a standard image, such as a JPEG, which could be linked externally from the forum in question and would be dynamically changed by the PHP script. I'm not sure how SVGs could come into play; no forum software that I know of supports them, and few browsers do. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You were clear, I probably wasn't :D I was suggesting that in PHP generating SVG is probably easier than generating JPEG. But you're right about lots of browsers not supporting it, so I guess it's not actually such a good thing --h2g2bob 04:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. My web host is running PHP 5.0.4 as well as the GD extensions, so that and the links you provided gives me something to play around with. Thanks again. —Xhantar^Talk 05:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I ended up getting this to work quite well. See [13] - refreshing the page will display a random quote from the http://qdb.us/qdb.xml RSS feed as a PNG graphic. The source code is available at my sandbox, if anyone is interested. Cheers. —Xhantar^Talk 17:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

unix mail app

How do you read mail with the unix command line mail app. I can send mail, and when I send to an external account, it comes from (myusername)@(myipaddress). When I send mail to this (from outside my network and from within), I type "mail" and it always says, "no mail for (myusername)". How to I configure it to receive mail from computers inside my network? THanks!--Ryan 04:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The system needs to run a mail transfer agent of some kind. See list of mail servers. —EncMstr 20:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Information technology

What is SAP? What are the courses offered by SAP? And which course is suitable for MBA student who has specialised in marketing? Which course is suitable for MBR[HR] student?

(Sigh) What is the meaning of "do your own homework!"? What are the reasons you must do your own homework? And which course is suitable for people who don't do their own homework? Which course??? Which!!!!! --Wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

(depcapitalised above Q & A) It doesn't look like a homework question. In the context of an MBA, SAP probably refers to a Standard Accounting Program. However, we have no idea what courses would be suitable, as we are not psychic, and do not know what country you are in, what kind of level of course you are interested in, and what you want to do. Proto::► 12:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

In the business world these days, I'd guess that SAP would be the giganormous eponymous software package sold by SAP AG. -- mattb @ 2007-02-09T03:49Z

AI Program

Hi Friends,I have been interested in observing and working with AI Programs.I heard many say that there are free AI programs in internet, but I can not find any such except for a trial demo versions. Could you guys get me the link for any free AI advanced utility program for eg like plain old ELIZA or ALICEBOT?..Thanks in very advance guys

SourceForge has many --h2g2bob 19:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Batch and multiple replacement

Is there any Microsoft Windows software that does:

• Read a number of text, HTML, CSV or any other text-based files.
• Do multiple replacements to each file (e.g., Jan -> January, Feb ...).
• Save the files.

It would be great if the software supports regular expression and numerical ASCII, Uncode expressions (&#20; ^p, ^n ...). Better be Free Software. -- Toytoy 12:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at unxutils. gawk or sed can probably handle the editing. As far as how you specify the files, perhaps use a shell (e.g. bash, tcsh, etc.) where you can program a script easier, use the 'find' command (again, unxutils), or just use ls | gawk and generate a batch file (one command per filename) from the file names. --TRosenbaum 14:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

NetBeans IDE Help

Friends,I have just began using NetBeans IDE and I have a problem with passing command line arguments in the IDE.The catch is that the input window at runtime vanishes even before I move my cursor in the textarea and I get the output as 0 arguments for a simple print statement. Someone suggested using Scanner class which works really well, also I can pass the arguments at the System Prompt,so there is no problem with the logic.I need to make a lot of Projects using IDE and this KNOT is hampering my progress.<PLEASE HELP> JITHIN59.182.60.146 15:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Script Manager

I sat for 2 HOURS here waiting for the page to "Retrieve my other scripts". Its not like I have 666 scripts or use dial-up Could you give me some type of information in the time length when dealing with this "script manager". GRRRRRRRRR --Darkest Hour • ¿? 03:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's an experimental tool. Ask at the talk page and see what they say. --h2g2bob 19:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's not pretty much instant, then it's not finding the script it' strying to look for --froth^T 22:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

printer control program

How do I close my printer control program on my LexmarkX63, so I can use my 4 in 1 machine

I can't work out what you mean by your question. A Lexmark x63 is a Multifunction printer and manuals are available online at the lexmark site here. Where is your printer control program running? Do you mean on your PC or on the printer it self? Closing the control program should not be difficult, perhaps it is waiting for you to configure something before it will let you close it. Vespine 21:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Trail Version

Is there a way to continue running free software than only has a specific trial period? Thanks. 24.39.182.101 18:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Most software like this allow you to purchase the product, enter an activation key and not have to uninstall/reinstall on purchase. I'm sure there are hacks out there but I would be surprised if that was not illegal in your country. ny156uk 18:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Besides using a crack or keygen (or paying for it, for that matter), I've found out that in some cases if you set back your system clock a month it will allow you to continue using the free trial, but it doesn't work for all software. --Emery 22:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Some Adobe trials immediately expire if you change the system clock. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 00:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Over the top way would be to run within a virtual machine. Splintercellguy 16:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Video Clips

Hello,

I have a digital camera that takes movies but when i put them on to my PC they are in .mov format and im having trouble playing them (i have managed to play them with windows media player (the latest one) but they dont have any sound). Any suggestions?

Also does Youtube take any format of video?

thanks, --84.71.9.155 20:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

.mov should play with Quick Time, and YouTube automatically converts films into the right form I think! Jackacon 20:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you upload to youtube in any from a list of supported formats / codecs; and it gets converted to H.263 Flash Video by YouTube's servers. Try VLC to play the movs. --h2g2bob 22:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Also you might want to make sure that your camera has the ability to record sound, as well as video. Some digital cameras simply can't record sound, and maybe that's why no sound is playing. Check the camera and look for a small hole, or just take a gander at the owner's manual to confirm whether your model can record sound or not. Hope this helps. --Emery 22:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

HKP server for Debian?

I'd like to run a private HKP server to gather PGP keys for people in my organization. I have a Debian server that can be used for this purpose. I only really need HKP support, but one of those neato web frontends wouldn't go amiss. It looks like "pks" hasn't been updated in about three years, and is no longer packaged for Debian. What do people running OpenPGP keyservers do? grendel|khan 21:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

And once again I should consult apt-cache search openpgp|grep -i server before checking in here. It's called onak, and I've got it up and running now. grendel|khan 01:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

PHP/Apache Include() Path Errors Not showing up

I have a php 4 script that is trying to include another script using the include() statement. I know that this script cannot find the script that i'm trying to include (because i have not uploaded it yet.)

However, when i view the page it doesn't tell me that it can't find it. I used to get an include path error when this happened. I suspect that my hosting company has altered some settings on my server/ini file.

I am seeing parse errors ok.

As i use included files alot, i'd like to see an error displayed when they are not being included properly.

So, which php/apache settings restrain such errors?

So far i have:

1. added this line into my .htaccess file "php_flag error_reporting on"

2. ensured that my custom error reporting script is not being used (commented out any set_error_handler() lines)

3. tested the script with the following line added to the top of my scripts: "error_reporting(E_USER_ERROR | E_USER_WARNING | E_USER_NOTICE);"

None of these seem to make php tell me it has had problems including the file that doesn't exist.

Any help and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance Ronnystalker 21:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello Ronnystalker. I have somewhat limited experience when it comes to PHP, but have had instances before similar to what you described. A few suggestions that I'm hoping might help:

• If the setting log_errors (boolean) is set to true in the server's php.ini file, have a look at the server's error log, if you have access yourself. Errors are usually logged to a file (defined by the error_log setting), or via syslog() if the special value syslog is set for the error_log setting. I realize this won't help with displaying runtime errors, which is what you're trying to achieve, but we'll get to that shortly and it might still be helpful to be aware of the info logged to the error_log file or syslog(), whichever the case might be.
• As a way of troubleshooting, I'd suggest making the following changes to php.ini, if you have the access:
  • Set error_reporting to E_ALL. This can be set during runtime, using the error_reporting() function, as you attempted, but also see below. The available error level constants are listed here.
  • Set display_errors to true. This can also be set during runtime, using the ini_set() function - but again, see below.

Values in php.ini can or can not be changed for the duration of a script's execution, at runtime, as defined by the following constants (copied from here):

• PHP_INI_USER: Entry can be set in user scripts or in Windows registry
• PHP_INI_PERDIR: Entry can be set in php.ini, .htaccess or httpd.conf
• PHP_INI_SYSTEM: Entry can be set in php.ini or httpd.conf
• PHP_INI_ALL: Entry can be set anywhere

For the settings referred to above, they are changeable as follows:

• error_reporting: Changeable PHP_INI_ALL
• display_errors: Changeable PHP_INI_ALL

So it should be possible to define the level of reporting for runtime errors in your particular script(s) by using the ini_set() function (or using .htaccess), even if you do not have access to php.ini and your hosting provider has decided to set a more restrictive level for error_reporting there.

Note that when using .htaccess, you will need to add "Options" to your AllowOverride specifications for the directory or webserver, if it's not already allowed. See here.

Hope that helps. —Xhantar^Talk 07:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

February 9

MySQL Query for Returning Most Played Songs

I am writing a system which shows users' recently played songs. When a user listens to a song, details of this song are sent to my website which then inserts the artist, song, time and username into a MySQL database table. What I want to do, however, is show the 10 most listened to songs in addition to the most recent songs. I've got the most recent songs query working absolutely fine but I am facing problems with getting a list of the most played songs.

The table schema is as follows:

listenid - int(10) unsigned auto-increment key (the key row)
artist - varchar(255) (the name of the song's artist)
song - varchar(255) (the song name)
fulltext - char(64) (the artist and song name concatenated and run through MD5 cyphering - I thought this would help for counting rows since only one column needs counting as opposed to two, which I don't think is supported)
time - int(10) unsigned (the UNIX timestamp for the time when the song was submitted to the site)

Basically, I need a list of the number of rows with matching song name and artist, ordered descending. I tried using the following to no avail:

SELECT artist, song, COUNT(fulltext) AS times
FROM nowplaying
GROUP BY fulltext
LIMIT 10

That query returns an error message saying there is a problem with the syntax near 'fulltext)'. Any ideas? RevenDS 01:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

See if this works:

SELECT MIN(artist), MIN(song), COUNT(fulltext) AS times
FROM nowplaying
GROUP BY fulltext
LIMIT 10

—EncMstr 01:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Fulltext is probably a MySQL keyword, escape that field name with quotes or backticks or whatever MySQL uses for escaping fields. The MIN() and MAX() functions shouldn't be used on character types, either. What's more, this design won't scale well at all because of the aggregate function on a character field. However, if you don't plan to have a few million rows in this table it should work okay. From what I can see, there's no need for the fulltext field anyway; you can group aggregate functions by multiple fields:

SELECT artist,song,COUNT(*) times
    FROM nowplaying
    GROUP BY artist,song
    ORDER BY times DESC
    LIMIT 10

-- mattb @ 2007-02-09T03:26Z

I believe you hit on the optimal solution just before I did. Nice work! —EncMstr 03:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, the original syntax error that User:RevenDS mentioned—"problem with the syntax near 'fulltext)'"—was because the field was renamed to "times" using AS times, and so GROUP BY should refer to the same name, i.e. GROUP BY times instead of GROUP BY fulltext. If AS times was omitted, you should use GROUP BY COUNT(fulltext). Feel free to correct if I'm wrong. —Xhantar^Talk 07:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I can see why you might consider that, but group by count(*) wouldn't give a useful result. Group by doesn't have to reference a field which appears in the select_list. COUNT(*) AS times creates a new variable, so to speak. I had trouble escaping fulltext to prevent MySQL from using it as a keyword: and that's what the errors I got seemed to be pointing to. —EncMstr 07:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You're mistaken, I'm afraid. The syntax error is because fulltext is a MySQL keyword. -- mattb @ 2007-02-09T07:38Z

Thanks a lot, mattb, your SQL did the trick. I did not realise you could use GROUP BY on multiple fields. For clarity, I was refering to this; this is the SQL that will successfully retrieve a list of the most-mentioned artist/song combination:

SELECT artist, song, COUNT(*) AS times
FROM nowplaying
GROUP BY artist, song
ORDER BY times DESC
LIMIT 10

Thanks again. RevenDS 19:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

RAID 1/0 Setup

I have two SATA 160 GB drives that I would like to arrange such that there are three small RAID 0 partitions for WinXP, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu and a large RAID 1 partition(s) for important data. Is it possible to have the same drives set up like this? Is it complicated? --Seans Potato Business 06:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is possible, yes, though the instructions I lack. Splintercellguy 16:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You want to triple-boot into two kinds of Linux and one kind of Windows, using RAID for all three of your boot partitions? If you're using hardware RAID, I doubt you can create RAID sets at the partition (rather than drive) level. Linux has its own software RAID, but Windows won't work with that. I think you'd have to change your parameters at least a bit. For instance, you could get an additional smaller drive, run your triple-boot system off of that, and run your (hardware) RAID 1 partition across the two 160GB disks. If you'd asked about booting various types of Linux off of that setup, I'd say it's likely possible, but if you're going to be booting Windows as well, you'd need a kind of RAID support that Windows doesn't have. I'm going to lean toward "no" for the answer, absent some kind of magical cross-platform partition-level RAID tool. grendel|khan 18:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, I posted too soon. See Non-standard RAID levels#Matrix RAID; you can get one RAID-0'd block device and one RAID-1'd block device out of your two drives. Install your operating systems on the RAID-0'd "drive" (good luck with the triple-booting thing) and the rest on the RAID-1'd one. grendel|khan 18:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that need a driver in Windows? If it needs a driver in Windows that means it's still a soft RAID and thus might not be supported in Linux. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I'm using an AMD motherboard and certainly don't want to have to change it, should I just forget the whole thing? --Seans Potato Business 15:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Designing my website

Is there freeware for website design, best if it is WYSIWYG (probably) ... that I can use to design, test, and demonstrate my website without actually publishing it to the web on a server? My 'site', I suppose, would be a file that could be viewed by my browser (or I can send the file to someone else who could view it on their browser...), as though I were online, but without actually being online where my incomplete or confidential information might be accessed. (...hate sounding like such a rookie, but you go to war with the army you have, so to speak...)

WYSIWYG is somewhat counterproductive for actually learning these things. If you're dead set on it anyways, there's three free software editors that I can find: Nvu, Mozilla Composer, and Amaya. Web browsers can view saved HTML/XHTML/CSS/etc. files the same as though they were uploaded to a webhost, so there will be no problems for you there. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Browsers can render SGML and derivatives whether it's local or being sent from a server. Also, your site will definately be more than one file (and much more if you use a WYSIWYG editor that insists on exporting everything to common files) --froth^T 18:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as "as though I were online", you might want to actually run a web server on your own computer temporarily. If you're just making static HTML pages, it doesn't make any difference, but if you have any dynamic content beyond Javascript or so you'll need the server to run them. You can prevent outside users from connecting to this server if you like, although even without such precautions it's relatively unlikely that someone would find it without being told about it (and with many common home network setups it's impossible without your help). --Tardis 20:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Signing X.509 certificates with OpenPGP keys.

I have an X.509 certificate which is being used on our local mail server. I want to sign this certificate with my OpenPGP key so that someone who trusts me trusts me will trust the server. I have an inkling that this is possible (we're using Enigmail with Mozilla Thunderbird), but I have no idea how to go about it. Is it worth doing? Is it possible? I fetched the cert with openssl s_client -connect myserver:993, and I have it in ASCII armored format. I'm using GPG to manage my OpenPGP keys. grendel|khan 16:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Where can I find a FREE program that tapes/records streaming media and converts to mp3?

Where can I find a FREE program that tapes/records streaming media and converts to mp3? Im ooking for a free program that can record streaming, realmedia, online radio, youtube sound and music and convert them into mp3 files. The best I found so far was audacity although I came across a demo of a very goo dproduct that recorded just the song and not the background sounds on the computer. It even blacked out lags in the sound.--Jacobin1949 17:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Streamripper can record MP3 or OGG/Vorbis streams, mainly Shoutcast streams (such as those one Shoutcast.com). Unplug or the videodownloader website can download Youtube/etc. videos; they can be converted to some other format with SUPER. Not sure about real audio or windows media audio; doing it manually with Audacity may be the only choice. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Try Audacity [14]. It can record, edit and save mp3 and ogg/vorbis files. 84.250.227.44 19:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

With Screamer Radio, you can record the streaming content. Anchoress 20:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Adobe/Macromedia apps

GAH! This is terrible. Somebody on the computer let one of the Adobe or Macromedia apps use the internet, and they all disabled themselves. What do I delete so that either I can use it, reinstall, or something? For some reason Distiller and Acrobat Pro 6 have not been affected. If that cannot be helped, I need a program to convert three flash documents I created into movies. .fla into .swf Thanks for any help! [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 18:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Uhh, they were warez'd and were disabled by the product activation? Get a new crack? Or is something else occurring? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes! They were. Eek. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 20:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggest attempting to delete the preferences and repeat the installation. 68.39.174.238 15:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Did that! I am pretty sure I deleted all the preferences and it won't let me reinstall. I also deleted registration files (I didn't register), and probed Application Support. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 22:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Registering a Domain Name

I want to register a domain name for my first website. What is the best registry? Ie, which website registry offers the most trustworthy service for the least money. Ideas? Many thanks.

The "best" depends on your needs. However, I do agree with the List_of_top_ranking_domain_registrars if that can help :) → Icez {talk | contrib} 20:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Network Solutions --froth^T 22:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Froth. I currently host 306 domain names for clients (I used to host a lot more before I "quit" the hosting business). I've never had a client have trouble with Network Solutions. I've had six instances of a client losing an unexpired domain name through GoDaddy because some punk tricked their system into allowing them to take over ownership. Then, to get ownership back, you have to pay GoDaddy well over $500 to "investigate". The punks know this, so they only charge $450 to give the domain name back. I also had a client lost all of his domain names when the "free domain name" company he went with went out of business. He just quit instead of trying to get them back. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Connecting two computers in a network

Hello, I have connected my laptop and the home PC in a network, I have done the necessary configuration so that I can access shared drive of both the laptop and the PC. But the problem is that I can't access the shared drive of the PC from my laptop, it displays the following message " (PC name) is not accessible, you might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of the server to find out if you have access permissions", Any idea why is this happening? Note: I am able to access the shared drive of my laptop from the PC. Many thanks.

Is your firewall setup to allow the incoming connection? By the way, I'm assuming you're using windows xp on both machines. - Akamad 21:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking the machines are on the same network. I think it's the result of some group policy or whatever barring the ability to open shares without passworded account authentication. Splintercellguy 00:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

They are on the same network, and yah I am running windows xp on both sides. I am able to view all other things on the PC from the laptop such as shared printers and faxes, but only the shared folder of the PC cannot be accessed.

Reassociating .JAR files

I know .JAR files can be launched from the command line (java -jar file), but how do I reassociate them with Windows to open on a double click? I recently upgraded my JRE/JDK to version six, however removing version five of the JRE/JDK apparently broke the file association. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Kyra_~(talk) 22:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Open an explorer window, go to Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types, find .JAR, and edit to your content. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wifi connection in Win XP MCE 2002 SP2

Hi folks,

I'm having some trouble setting up a wireless network adapter in a PC running Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2002 with Service Pack 2 (*gasp for breath* longest OS name ever!).. after faffing around for a while and having no joy getting it to recognise the card at all, it occurred to me to wonder - does MCE2k2 actually even support wireless networking? I can't seem to find a straight answer on that anywhere, but unlike newer versions of XP, when I go into the network connections panel, there are no references to wireless networks at all. It DOES have the 'Wireless Network Setup Wizard' in control panel, but I don't want to create a new network, just connect to an existing one. Normally what I'd do is (assuming the card was correctly installed) go into Control Panel/Network Connections/Wireless Network Connection, and work from there.. but.. there appears to be no such thing in this version of XP. Am I just nailing jelly to a wall here?

Any advice welcome, thanks! --Cryptess 22:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as a former WinXP MCE user, I can confirm it does support wireless networks. Is it possible it doesn't recognise your wireless network adapter? To check this, go into device manager (can't remember ho you get there, and no longer have windows on my PC) and see if its there - if it is, see if there's a red "x" against it. Cheers, Davidprior 01:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to suspect that the card is defective. Device manager doesn't recognise it - merely shows it as an unknown ethernet device. Neither the supplied drivers, nor the latest version from the website helped.. I've emailed the company's tech support for more info, but it's good to know that at least it's probably not the OS at fault. I'm aware that XPMCE2005 supports wireless, but wasn't so sure about 2002. Cheers :) --Cryptess 01:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Outlook Question

In Outlook 2003, how do you re-send/receive to receive old emails that were alreaded deleted in the program.

Assuming that Outlook is connecting to a POP3 account, and its set to delete messages after it has retrieved them, its not possible. If this isn't the case, can we please have some more details. Cheers, Davidprior 01:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are connected to an Exchange server, talk to your Exchange admin. Deleted message are actually stored on the Exchange server for a certain number of days (configured by the admin) before being permanently deleted. --Robertstinnett 16:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How do you get RE-send and receive messages; so that would be dulicate messages? 68.193.147.179 01:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Three-part answer:

• You'll be able to resend it if it is still in your sent box - there may be a "proper" way to do so, but I don't know how, what I don know is that you could simply forward them from there (deleting anything which indicates a forward).
• If you've deleted them but not compacted your personal folders, there may be some way t do this, but its beyond me - perhaps someone else can advise...
• If you've deleted them, and compacted your personal folders, I cannot see any way to do this, short of proffesional (expensive) data recovery.

Hope this is of some help, Davidprior 02:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Outlook Question 2

How can I make outlook automatically send and recevice messages when I am not on outlook or when my computer is off? 68.193.147.179 00:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• When your PC is off, there's not much it can do, including sending or receiving e-mails :-) In seriousness, you may have a device that uses less electricity than your PC, but can check your mail acct(s) and beep (or similar) if you have a message waiting - I think some routers can do this (some versions of the Linksys WRT54G series could certainly be made to do so). I believe some ISPs can even send you a txt message if you have an e-mail waiting
• If your PC is on, but Outlook is not open, I'm not 100% sure, there are definitely programs that can check for email (assuming your provider uses a common protocol such as POP3 or IMAP) and alert you if a message is waiting - there may even be applications that can retrieve these messages and add them to the .pst file in which Outlook stores messages - however, given the proprietary nature of this file format, I'd guess this is unlikely

Cheers, Davidprior 01:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you using Outlook on a home computer or an office network? Anchoress 02:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

a home computer

February 10

AMD Athlon XP 2100

Is this CPU a 32 bit or a 64 bit processor? Warren —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.155.224.155 (talk • contribs).

It is a 32 bit processor. I have two of them in this machine.... —EncMstr 01:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Export

I was trying to put together an MS Excel file that contained worldwide coastal cities broken down by continent, country, and then city. I wanted it to be worldwide and I was happy to find wikipedia has a category called "Coastal cities". My question is what is the best way to transfer that list of worldwide coastal cities on wikipedia to MS Excel? Is there something to export the wikipedia database?

Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.211.147.138 (talk • contribs).

Look at Special:Export for an XML import. Or maybe just copy and paste to a text file, format it up a bit and paste that into Excel.... —EncMstr 01:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Excel software

Do you know of any Excel software, besides Google Docs for a web site so that multiple users can edit the Excel sheet at the same time? 68.193.147.179 01:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

for free on-line spreadsheets, Google gives lots of results [15], but I don't know which (if any) of these allow multiple users to edit the sheet simultaneously (this seems like quite an advanced feature - wouldn't it need cell-by-cell locking?). Cheers, Davidprior 02:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Does anybody know a way to put the spreadsheet right onto a domain (ex:www.domain.com)?

iTunes

My iTunes will not import songs that do not come off a music cd. It'll go through the motions, but then the songs just aren't there. I have WinXP and iTunes 7.0.2.16. Would uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes fix the problem, or is there something else I can try? 71.220.127.97 01:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Trouble w/ the Sims

Problem: When I try to play the Sims: Makin' Magic, no music plays except for when it shows the company logos, and I can't enter into lots, the program quits when i try. Attempts: Unable to find reinstall, i just installed the whole thing a second time, while foolishly not deleting the old versions. I'm going to keep working on it. Any suggestions? Thanks ahead of time. Oh, and i'm using a mac.-an anon

Do sign your posts with ~~~~. With the given information, I would suggest removing all traces of the game, then doing a clean reinstallation. Splintercellguy 04:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That worked. Thanks!63.231.243.111 16:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

WMP 11 distortion

When I play an online embedded video in Windows MP 11, the proportions are distorted (too wide,) and I can't install WMP 10. I tried reinstalling 11, but no change. Scienceman123 talk 02:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this happening for all videos or only from a certain site? Droud 04:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Multiple, for instance the wmv files on [www.retrojunk.com] Scienceman123 talk 03:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Monitor screen refresh rate

Well i finally have vista on my desktop and for some unknown reason i can not get the monitor refresh rate back to 100 hertz which i use the most so my computer does not have those flicker issues. are there any ways to fix it up. The options to change the hertz are not availible. It says only that i can use the hardware default.--Biggie 02:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

First thing to ensure is that you have the latest drivers for your video card. If this doesn't work then, there's one small registry edit that might. Make a new DWORD registry key at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\DirectDraw\ForceRefreshRate (with regedit), and set it to the decimal value of your desired refresh rate. If you choose something your monitor doesn't support, you might have to boot into safemode to revert it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice--Biggie 03:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

info about computers

i am a computer dummy ! who or where can i go for answers to basic questions about setting up and /or learning this devil machine ? Dumm 03:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC) signed Dumm

See if any of your local colleges, senior centers, or learning annexes have 'intro to computers' type of classes. Having a real person to show you the way is always better than reading some book. (at least in my experience). --72.202.150.92 03:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ask at your local library. Libraries sometimes help directly, but if not will normally be able to point you to somebody else who can help. Searching the internet for "(program name) tutorial" may also help. --h2g2bob 04:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If your PC uses Microsoft Windows, you could try wikibooks:Basic Computing Using Windows - for a single-page, printable version see [16]. Might also be worth looking at wikibooks:Computers for Beginners. Cheers, Davidprior 13:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How can I make sure my computer is free from Keyloggers?

At work, I routinely access my personal email account. How can I make sure there isn't a key logging program running in the background? I am running the latest public version of Mac OS X. --72.202.150.92 03:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It's nearly impossible to be "sure" that there are no keylogging facilities on a a given machine. The keylogger could always be built into hardware or, in software in some part of the OS that is inaccesible to the user. The best you could do would be to run spyware scanners that can detect the most commonly used keyloggers. Diletante 18:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Check and make sure the keyboard plugs directly into the computer and not into a little shunt/adapter at the backpanel. That's the most common hardware location (Assuming you're not up against a really well heeled Mallory). 68.39.174.238 23:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

To see just how tough it is to be absolutely sure, check out Van Eck phreaking. You'll just have to take the usual computer hygeine precautions (don't run programs from sketchy-looking entities, etc.), and take comfort in the fact that presumably, like the rest of us, not many people are interested in your personal emails. --TotoBaggins 04:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Internet History Statistics

Is there a program/extension, perhaps for Firefox, that provides statistics on what websites one browses? --Proficient 08:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean other than the history function? Just type Ctrl-H. If you don't like it grouped by day, click on the button at top right of the sidebar. Oh,... I see what you mean: it doesn't show dates and counts like Netscape Navigator, Mozilla and SeaMonkey do. If you use the Adblock extension in any of these browsers, filter rule entries show hit counts, which is close.... —EncMstr 08:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be cool though if it broke it down in a bunch of graphs like some of the old edit counters did. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 14:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It would certainly be possible to make a firefox extension of this - try asking on MozillaZine. The history is stored in a file called history.dat on your computer, so if you know some scripting language like perl you could do some analysis yourself. --h2g2bob 03:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Program to convert existing video files to an iPod compatible format

Are there any effective programs (for MAC) that can easily convert an existing video file to a format that can be seen on the newer iPods. I searched around for far to long and ended up buying a program online that didn't bloody work - after about a week and a half of battling, I managed to get a refund for it. Anyway, I'm looking for something preferably free and easy to use. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think VLC media player supports conversion as well as playback. It's available for the Mac as well. http://wiki.videolan.org/IPod --Kjoonlee 20:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Roxio Popcorn is by Roxio, and therefore great. Quicktime, iMovie, and Garageband are able to export to iPod movie. If it takes Quicktime Pro, import it into iMovie and export from there. Quicktime Pro, I do however recommend. Seven bucks if I remember, or you can input a serial from <DMCAOMG> [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 22:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've actually got QuickTime Pro - I just haven't been able to get it to import a bloody thing. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[17], [18]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I've had the Handbrake program (the first link by CC above) for a few weeks, and it seriously kicks ass. Anyone looking for an elegant, easy to use program to get your DVDs to your iPod should download this ASAP. As far as what I was looking for (conversion), I'll give iSquint a try. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't actually tried iSquint. A better one yet might be VLC. Try [19] (skip down to "Convert MPEG2 to MPEG4"; works with most any video format, not just MPEG2) or [20]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 10:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Translation software

How do translation functions(such as on search engines) on the internet work? D Cowen

Well, to be honest, in most cases they don't. At least not well. TERdON 16:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

They begin with a word-by-word translation. Then, they go through grammar improvement rules. This is OK for European languages, but fails miserably when a single word can become multiple words in the other language. For example, "ta" in Mandarin means "he" or "she" or "it". So, if you are translating "ta bu pang" to English, what should "ta" be? You need to know something outside of the words/grammar in the sentence. The current translation programs cannot do it. Some are nice enough to translate it to "[He/She/It] is not fat". --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Modern translation software is based on sentence structure and hinting (such as using "he" as a pronoun when the nearest noun is masculine, or believed to be) as well as word translation tables. This allows them to reorder the sentence structure, as required between English and Spanish for example. Still, as above, any language which would require comprehension to translate is entirely unsuitable for computers. Droud 03:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

product of regex's

Assume you have two regex's, such as a(ba)*b and a*ba(b)* (those are: a followed by some number of repeating "ba" and ending in a b, then some number of a's followed by ba and ending with some number of b's). Is there a general step-by-step rule for combinging the regex statements? For example, if the first as regex A and the second was regex B, what is the step-by-step rule for producing "A and B" and "A or B"? I have no problem writing small regex statements and this would be a great tool for turning a handful of small ones into a large complicated one. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Regexps don't really support boolean logicals like that. You can start alternate branches with the pipe character ( | ), but to accomplish the "AND" functionality you're probably best off using boolean logicals in whatever programming language you prefer or reworking your regexp to more specific. The two regexps you gave will indeed match some of the same strings, you really just need to figure out exactly what you're looking for and write the regex to accomodate that. -- mattb @ 2007-02-10T19:13Z

I think that you can even possibly try and create a nondeterministic FA from this, and then try and convert it back to a deterministic FA by subset construction. Either that, or write out the finite automata and then try to unify them by hand.

That is how I do it now. It is rather straightforward to create a FA for each one, join them, and then create a regex from them. However, I figured some brainchild must have simplified the process at some point and I just never heard about it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a standardized process: make a NFA, then use subset construction.

Encryption in Apple's Mail App

Hi. I am trying to get encryption to work in my Mac OS X Tiger mail app. I created a key (public and private) for myself in the keychain utility. The help document says that a lock should appear when sending and viewing encrypted messages, but non show up. Could someone give me a tutorial on how to set up encrypted mail for me ad my friends? We all use Tiger. I would prefer that the setup does not use keys from outside vendors, that we should be able to create our own. Thank you very much!--Ryan 17:00, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Macworld had a good article, Signed, Sealed, & Deliver in the November issue, and here's another article from the same issue on it[21]. [Mαc Δαvιs] X (How's my driving?) ❖ 22:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That's great, but that requires downloading a key from Thawte. I'm pretty sure its possible to make my own key, and if it is, i would like ti use it. Thanks again!--75.0.67.112 03:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Crazy arrays in C

Hi!

Please do tell me what's wrong here 'cause I AM going crazy! It is written in C. If I would set it to "= 1" at REFERENCE 1, then the program would get stuck right there. This holds true even if I would set it to "= 0". But if I would set it to "= -1" then the program would crash. However, it would NOT crash If I would remove the line at REFERENCE 2.

What makes it even more interesting? If I would move the decleration of semiCryptoCharValues to AFTER the decleration of realWheelLengths, it would run smoothly, no matter what.

What's going on here!?

Big thanks in advance, even if you just read it! PureRumble 21:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

NEW EDIT: By the way, I'm using Cygwin on windows XP home edition, compiler gcc. I have Pentium 4 Hyperthreading, 3Ghz, 512 MB RAM (can't swear it is DDR, probably SDR).

  #include <stdio.h>
  
  int main() {
     
     int firstIndex;
     int secondIndex;
     
     char* semiCryptoCharValues = malloc (1000*sizeof (char));
     
     char realWheelPrints[5][73] = {0};
     char realWheelLengths[5] = {0};
     
     firstIndex = 0;
     
     while (firstIndex < 2*5) {
        
        secondIndex = 0;
        
        while (secondIndex < 73) {
           
           realWheelPrints[firstIndex][secondIndex] = -1;//REFERENCE 1
           
           secondIndex++;
           
        }
        
        firstIndex++;
        
     }
     
     semiCryptoCharValues[0] = 5;//REFERENCE 2
     
  }

Your firstIndex is ranging from 0 to 9 (< 2*5), but it's only allocated up to 4 (char realWheelPrints[5][73]). You are scribbling over unrelated variables on the stack; see the buffer overflow article. --cesarb 21:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

..... oh please don't you think I'm that stupid ;.( I have NO IDEA how I could miss that!!!!!! Thanks man! PureRumble 22:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It's very common to miss mistakes in your own code. Your brain sees what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote. One of the best ways to get unstuck when your code doesn't work is to try to explain it to someone else (even if that someone doesn't know about programming!), since having to explain it forces you to think about what the code means (and the person you are showing the code to often can spot the inconsistencies in your code). Other tricks are to go do something else (sometimes even getting up to get a cup of water is enough) and then look again at the problem, and to print the code (I use a2ps for that) and read it on paper.

On a completely unrelated note, I suggest you turn on warnings (-W -Wall); your code has at least three places where the compiler points you are doing something incorrectly. --cesarb 23:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

One way to avoid this specific error is to #define the values for the array sizes. This makes it easy if you need to change them. Setting the arrays as = {0} will not set the whole array to zero, probably only the first element. You can use calloc to set memory to zero. You could also use for instead of while to make the code a little clearer. --h2g2bob 03:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, setting it to {0} (or {{0}} for the bidimensional array) does set the whole array to zero. Just look at the code gcc generates with optimization disabled (with optimization enabled, it notices the whole function does nothing useful but call malloc and elides almost all of it):

	leaq	-400(%rbp), %rdi
	movl	$365, %edx
	movl	$0, %esi
	call	memset
	movl	$0, -16(%rbp)
	movb	$0, -12(%rbp)

It's calling memset to zero the first array, and using direct moves to zero the second array. --cesarb 13:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

And beyond what any one specific compiler does, the C standard says initializing aggregate types like that must zero any bits not mentioned: § 6.7.8.21 If there are fewer initializers in a brace-enclosed list than there are elements or members of an aggregate, or fewer characters in a string literal used to initialize an array of known size than there are elements in the array, the remainder of the aggregate shall be initialized implicitly the same as objects that have static storage duration. Christ I'm a nerd. :( --TotoBaggins 21:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I stand well and truly corrected --h2g2bob 00:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

How Secure is Vista w/o additional defence?

Headline says it all. I just got my Vista ultimate installed, though my AV/FW won't install. Though since Vista got both "Defender" and "Windows Firewall" I feel a bit safe. Still, many people feel secure in XP w/o security. But since Vista is so new, there is not any great ways of hacking it? Or? Do I really need any more defence in the comming weeks? 213.64.150.116

You can't really defend yourself against exploits, except keep UAC turned on and make sure you know exactly what's happening when you press Yes. --froth^T 22:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

What's Windows Update set to? You may be alright now, but if you fall a few security updates behind for a prolonged period of time, you could be in trouble. 68.39.174.238 23:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't need a firewall/antivirus if: you don't download executables from strange sources, you don't run ActiveX controls from strange sources, you have a router, and you keep on top of updates. Using a non-IE browser can also help. Anything else would have affected you whether or not you have AV/FW protection; i.e. brand new, unpatched browser exploits and the like. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The most important thing (for any operating system) is: don't run untrusted code. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done, because in the past Windows has made it very, very easy to run untrusted code. Consequently, lots and lots of expectations have taken root that presume, for all sorts of "ordinary" and allegedly non-dangerous operations, that easy execution of nontrusted code is not only possible but routine. A website wants to let you install their nifty customized toolbar? Sure, no problem, just one click to install it. Some exotic new kind of dynamic webpage content wants you to install the plugin that will let your browser display it? Sure, no problem, just another click. An email message contains an attachment which you need to view? No problem at all, just click it, and whatever needs to happen will happen.

Windows has (rather belatedly) begun inserting various "are you sure" prompts, in an attempt to protect you against untoward consequences from untrusted code (and other content) which you didn't mean to trust. As Froth mentioned above, Vista includes a new subsystem called UAC, and from what I hear, UAC ought to protect you from most malware. Theoretically, Vista ought to be quite secure, right out of the box, as long as UAC is turned on.

Unfortunately, from what I hear, UAC is flawed. Not that it doesn't work, but in that it asks you for confirmation about all sorts of stuff. Consequently, it is very likely that you (or any Vista user) are either going to (a) become annoyed by UAC and turn it off, or (b) become reflexively adjusted to automatically clicking "OK" every time a UAC dialog pops up, without necessarily reading and thinking carefully about every one.

In the past, Windows security depended on every user assessing the safety of every email attachment and every webpage link, and deciding not to click on the dangerous ones, and never making a mistake, because just one wrong click could lead to total pwnage. Tomorrow, it sounds like Windows security is going to depend on every user reading and thinking about the implications of every UAC dialog that pops up, and declining to accept the dangerous ones, and never making a mistake, because just one wrong click could lead to total pwnage. The implications here are left as an exercise for the reader.

External links:

• Windows expert Scot Finnie admits that he'll be turning UAC off
• Apple's irreverent take on the issue (video, .mov]

—Steve Summit (talk) 16:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's because it doesn't have that weird timer that sudo has on GNU/Linux. You know... how you don't have to type your password twice in 5 minutes. Of course, I'm just guessing. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 21:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

outlook

Is there a way to import all of your messages into outlook 2003 even messages that you already imported into outlook

http programming

Is there anyway of learning how to do basic http programming, without having to pay a thing? Asics talk 22:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

HTTP meaning learning the protocol? As far as I know, the specifications are open/RFC nature. As to what language, there are probably multitudes of free examples that can be used. 68.39.174.238 23:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

HTTP is not a programming language. I assume you are referring to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. There are at least a thousand free tutorials for each on the internet. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you want a program like Apache web server? The technical specifications for HTTP are created by the World Wide Web Consortium, and are here. --h2g2bob 03:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I did mean html, that's why I didn't know how to find it, because I was searching for the wrong thing! Thanks again. Asics talk 13:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Abstract images generation

Hi,
Maybe this question would be better suited on the Misc section, but I'll try here anyway. Does anyone know of the software/techniques which is used to make images like this: [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]? Or even a tutorial that could help me start on something like it... Thanks, --Fir0002 01:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Try Apophysis, it's one of the best programs for this sort of thing (fractal flames) out there. — Kieff | Talk 02:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The Gimp has a lot of extensions for creating random backgrounds and such. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

open proxy

When i was looking at www.ninjaproxy.net or a site it was linked to I pressed feed and got the open proxy(im not using it now i managed to get off of it and return to my orignal ip) But do i have to pay for the open proxy? sience thay dident say anything about it and dont have a forum whare i could ask them im asking it here on wikipedia?--Crocadog 03:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Which website is it? I doubt you will have to pay for the open proxy, unless you gave away personal details. It is almost impossible to track someone on the internet, because the internet provider wouldn't disclose the information without a good reason. --[|.K.Z|][|.Z.K|] 04:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

i dident give away any personal detales so i wont have to pay for it.--Crocadog 14:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If it was something you had to pay for, that fact should have been made explicit, and you would have had to agree to it. I can't imagine any company would allow it without securing payment (eg you giving credit card details or something) first, so I wouldn't worry . _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 15:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

February 11

Using custom icons in XP

I'm having trouble finding out how to use custom icons in XP. Here's the deal: I have some .ico files on my desktop. I want to use them for shortcuts (to folders) on my quicklaunch bar. The problem comes when I try to change an icon by right-clicking -> properties -> shortcut -> change icon. The list only presents a few icons embedded in SHELL32.dll. When I try to browse to my .ico files, it complains that they "don't contain any icon files". What is the simplest method of using custom icons in the manner I have described? Thanks in advance, 82.46.44.59 11:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Display encrypted email in Outlook 2003's "Reading Pane"

Folks -

I've just setup Outlook 2003 to work with encrypted (S/MIME) email backed by a digital certificate. It all works fine, but I'm annoyed that I can't view encrypted emails in Outlook's "reading pane" (A message This encrypted e-mail cannot be displayed in the Reading Pane is displayed). I've had a quick search on Google and not been unable to come up with a solution. Anyone know if this is this possible and how?

Thanks, _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 14:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Firefox "confirm close" extension?

I just spent about an hour composing an answer over at RD/S, and then I accidentally closed the tab, losing my work forever. Is there a way (perhaps via an extension) to get Firefox to prompt for confirmation before closing a tab (or window) containing an unsubmitted form?

[Note 1. How did I "accidentally close the tab"? What was I thinking? It really was an accident -- I was using my trackpad to move the mouse pointer to check something in another tab, and the mouse pointer happened to pass over the "close tab" button, and I've got that oh-so-convenient but oh-so-risky "tap touchpad for mouse clicks" option turned on, and at just the wrong instant, a wiggle in my finger or a glitch in the touchpad driver got registered as an unintended click.]

[Note 2. It took a long time, but text editors and word processors eventually got pretty good about not losing your work. They'd prompt you if you tried to close without saving. They took steps to save -- and let you recover -- your work if they crashed out from underneath you. Now that so much editing and other "real work" is done via web forms, web browsers really, really need to work as hard at protecting the unsubmitted contents of HTML forms against accidental loss.]

—Steve Summit (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

No need to prompt for confirmation. If you close a tab by accident, just unclose it (History > Last closed tabs). This is one of the most useful new features on Firefox 2.0. I just tested, and it does not lose the form contents. --cesarb 16:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You can get firefox to warn you when you close tabs but i turned it off it was annoying me Jackacon 20:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

cross-platform encrypted subdirectories?

Background: I've got a USB thumb drive which I'd like to carry some of my files around on. I'll be connecting it to Linux machines, Mac OS X machines, and sometimes even Windows machines. Some of the files contain personal information, so I'd like to keep those files encrypted, in case the thumb drive is lost. Not all of the machines I might be connecting the drive to will be "mine", so I'd like to carry the necessary decryption software (for all platforms) on the drive itself. And, of course, I'd like this all to be reasonably convenient.

At the very least, I could just encrypt the sensitive files using PGP, and then keep Linux, Mac, and Windows copies of PGP on the thumb drive, so that I could manually decrypt and reencrypt the files as necessary. But what I'd really like is a way to mount the directory containing the sensitive files as an encrypted filesystem.

I know that there are packages that can encrypt an entire drive or partition, and then let you mount them as a filesystem with convenient on-the-fly encryption and decryption (i.e. so that you can access the files using any application, without having to perform explicit decrypt steps before viewing and explicit re-encrypt steps after editing). I think there might be packages that let you do the same for individual files and directories. I'm hoping there's such a package that's cross-platform, but I've never heard of one (but I haven't exhaustively looked).

Anybody know of any crypto filesystem packages that might do what I want? —Steve Summit (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not think there's any package that does it (it would either need filesystem support for encryption, which does not exist on the FAT filesystem used on USB thumb drives, or something like union mount). A simpler alternative would be a loopback-mounted filesystem; TrueCrypt is one option which is able to do that. With that you would have a large encrypted file (containing the filesystem) on your thumb drive, instead of encrypting the whole thumb drive. --cesarb 16:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

How about just zipping up your directory with a file archiver like WinZip or whatever, and storing that on the drive? This comparison of file archivers will tell you which ones have both encryption and the platform support you require. --TotoBaggins 01:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Images blocked on my computer

Further to my query regarding image changes on my web page. I'm using a purchased template for my web site and transferring my own images for the ones shown, following the instructions. The new images showed on the "pics" page but not on the previewed web page. Becoming very frustrated I copied the pages onto a CD to send to a friend to ask her advice and when I checked the CD to see if it opened OK, there were all my pictures in the right places. So I guess there is something in my computer which is blocking these images. I'm using Norton Anti Virus. Does this block images from one place to another internally, without being online? If so how can I change it? Does it also mean that my finished web pages will show the images when put online or not? Thank you to anyone with helpful suggestions.Sue latham 16:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's norton (if anything, Norton should be more strict for CDs). Can you open one of the HTML files which has images on it in notepad or a similar program. Do Edit, Find (or Edit, Search) and search for "D:" or "E:" - I'll bet that it'll find it in some text saying "<IMG src="D:\something\pics\something.jpg" ..." or "<IMG src="file://D:/something/pics/something.jpg" ...". If this is the case, do a Edit, Replace to replace all "D:\something\pics\" (or whatever) with "pics/" - see Path (computing) for what this is all about. If that doesn't come up with anything, then please say so, and say what format are the images in (.jpeg, .png, .gif, &c...)? --h2g2bob 18:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

recovering deleted files after formatting?

I accidentally deleted some files 4 months ago and after that i formatted my PC. is there any way to recover them? I know there are s/w available to recover files after they have been removed from recycle bin but is it possible even after formatting?

After the format: possibly; but after 4 months: not really much of a chance. Try an undelete program anyway, there's nothing to lose - I've never come across a good one, so I'll be interested in what the others have to say. --h2g2bob 17:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Try PhotoRec, but it probably will not find much. --cesarb 21:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleting Document History in MS Word - Office Professional

I use MS Office Professional at home and whenever I open MS WORD I see a column on the RHS that lists a selection of previous documents that I may not want other household users to view. How can I empty or remove that list of saved or archived documents please? Thanks in anticipation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.145.241.59 (talk • contribs).

You can disable the list. Go to Tools --> Options, select the General tab, and uncheck the Recent Files option. SubSeven 21:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Spreedsheet

Does anybody know a way to put the spreadsheet right onto a domain (ex:www.domain.com)?

You might see if your spreadsheet software has a "save as HTML" option, then copy that HTML to your web page. --TotoBaggins 22:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Auto Full-Screen When Connected to TV

I like to keep my laptop connected to my TV (Samsung LNS3251D) in order to play videos on the TV. Problem is when I open a video when I'm connected to the television, they automatically take over the entire TV screen. I'm unable to remove the full-screen mode in order to do things like minimize the window, exit the video, move forward in the video, etc; its quite annoying. I'm just wondering if there is something I can do to remove this feature. Perhaps I'm missing something simple, but thus far I've been unable to fix it by tweaking any of the video card (ATI 9600 PRO) display settings. Anyhow, thanks in advance for your help.

February 12

"telephone" character

I saw a "telephone" font-character once in a Wikipedian's signature; it was actually the shape of a rotary-style phone. Is that a Unicode character? And what's the code to recreate it without tracking it down and rigorously copying and pasting? --128.113.149.103 00:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

U+260E (☎) and U+260F (☏) are symbols for black and white telephones, respectively. See Miscellaneous Symbols. --Spoon! 00:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

External harddrive

I have an USB-connected external hard drive. If i back-up all my files onto it, will I be able to boot and run my computer from the external hard drive if someday my internal hard drive malfunctions? If so, is there any additional procedures I must undertake for this to work? Thanks. Jamesino 02:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Also it's a bad idea so you don't want to undertake any procedures --froth^T 03:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes you can do that, if your BIOS supports it. Well it's not as much of a "bad" idea, just that it is gonna be slow. External harddrives are quite similar (and in many cases the same) to internal ones. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah if by copying all your files you mean copying the MBR is well, then yes. Otherwise you will need to install a bootloader first. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's not just the BIOS that has to support it, but also the operating system (which has to read part of itself from the disk). The operating system also has to be able to find which disk it's booting from without getting confused. --cesarb 14:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wireless Routers ?

My ISP (MTNL, India) provides ADSL internet connections. With the package, they also provided an ADSL Router to me. Now, what I am supposed to do is, take the jack of my phone line, put it in the router, and connect the ethernet/usb to my computer. That works just fine. However, I wish to make this a wireless connection. I have heard a lot about "Wireless Routers", but I cannot find any details on them. Are they compatible with ADSL ? Or I still need to keep my ISP's router ? Also, my desktop pc has no provisions for wireless internet, from the hardware side. So, will the wireless router have ethernet ports as well, to provide for the older desktop pc ?

Thanks ! --RohanDhruva 03:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You'll need to buy what is commonly sold as a "wireless router". Some of those have an integrated ADSL modem and you will probably be able to discard what your ISP sold you. Alternatively, with can buy one without it and connect the "ADSL router" to the "wireless router", usually via Ethernet, but some also provide an USB interface. I don't know if you really meant your ISP sold you a wireless router (which I take as having NAT functionality) or if it just a modem. In the former case, you may get into some trouble because you would be behind two NAT boxes. Most of the wireless routers will have extra Ethernet ports, usually 4 (with the ASUS WL-330g being a notable exception), so you would be able to connect your desktop. --Cataphract 03:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You could run into problems here. I would suggest that you use this great resource and read up on router, etc. You have to assess exactly what you have before you can move on. --Zeizmic 13:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Figure out checksum

Hi, I need to figure out how a checksum is made. An UDP data field has two bytes for a checksum, a x0A byte, a byte with the length of the rest of the data, and the then an arbitrary sequence of alphanumeric characters (let's call this sequence X)

Example (hex): 6D 85 0A 61 (X = "a", in this case, because a=x61)

I've captured the following checksums (hex), function of X:

X	1st B	2nd B
a	6D	85
b	6E	86
c	6F	87
1	3D	55
2	3E	56
aa	CF	5B
ab	D0	5C
ca	D1	5F
cb	D2	60
bb	D1	5E
wv	FA	9C
ww	00	9D
aaa	36	94
baa	37	97
caa	38	9A
bda	3A	9F
aaaa	98	35
baaa	99	39

It's easy to see that incrementing by 1 any of the characters of X will increment by 1 the first byte and by y the second byte, where y is the position of the changed character, counted from the end. The 'wv'->'ww' example also give an idea on how it "resets" the byte. I can't, however, find the general rule and help on that direction would be appreciated. Thanks --Cataphract 03:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Our User Datagram Protocol article has a copy of the general rule. --cesarb 13:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Converting .tar.gz TO .exe Executable Installer

• Tar (file format) (article) states it has an extension of .tar and is contained by (article) Gzip, which gives extension .gz.
• In article SourceForge you will see that many developers make open-source softwares.
• I downloaded one, but it had an extension of .tar.gz and I want to convert it to an Installer type .exe. Can some one help me out in this matter? And is there a free software that automatically does this for you? --Maclean1 04:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't. It doesn't make sense. A tar.gz is just a compacted bundle of files. An installer type .exe is a program that installs something (usually another program). Maybe you mean a self extracting archive? --Cataphract 04:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think he meant compiling the source code inside the tar file and make an executable. Anyhow, it is too complex for you to do that in Windows (I don't think it's just ./configure&&make&&make install in windows) and you should just download the binary in the first place. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to install the software to my Windows XP Computer. Please Help. I am Computer Savvy. --Maclean1 04:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Good! Being computer savvy will help. Your best bet is to check the downloads area of the web site, and if they have a version that says something like "Win32 binary", get that. There is no way to automatically turn a .tar.gz file into a windows executable. You might also look into the Cygwin Unix-like environment for Windows if you're feeling exceptionally savvy. Good luck! --TotoBaggins 05:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of the SourceForge projects do not have Win32 binarys. --Maclean1 05:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is because free software culture, including SourceForge, has a stronger following among Unix people than Windows people, for various reasons. Your options are: Cygwin, install Linux or similar, or just seek out whatever free software is available for Windows. --TotoBaggins 14:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

And I would really appreciate if some creates an article (not redirect) for Win32 binary due to its Top Importance. --Maclean1 05:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

EXE says all you need. A full article on "Win32 binary" would just be a dicdef. That is: "Win32 binaries are typically executables for Win32". Not too exciting, to be honest. The reason for unavailability of said binaries depends on which project you're talking about. Some of them are only designed for POSIX systems. Some are incomplete and have Win32 versions planned. Some are coded in interpreted languages. And there are a plethora of other reasons. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Computing/IT

What fraction of a millimeter is a nanometer? mando

10^-6, that is, 1:1 000 000. See SI prefixes. --Cataphract 04:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Windows Media Player

I upgraded to WMP 11 and for the life of me I can't figure out how to add a folder to the Library or add just a singular audio file to the library. Thanks in advance. Deltacom1515 04:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Drag and drop.

Intel 82845G chipset

Hello again im wanting to see if i can intall a 1GB DDR RAM module into the chipset described in the subject. I am unsure if it would work for my motherboard, However i do have a 2.4GHZ pentium 4. Would it be a good idea to install the 1GB module into that chipset if anyone happens to know about those chipsets/motherboard.--Biggie 06:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Google shows that it's a graphics controller... It'd help most if you can give the maker and model of the motherboard, assuming that's what you're doing. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

i look on device manager and click the system devices but im not sure which one of those devices is the motherboard. I need to know the keywords in that system device menu to figure which one is the motherboard.--Biggie 06:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleting Document History in MS Word - Office Professional

I posted this question yesterday but discovered today it had been deleted, without apparent explanation. If I am doing something wrong here, will the person responsible for deleting my post please have the Cojones to advise what the problem is? I am getting utterly fed up with Wikipedia for this and similar behaviours by some (though clearly not all) of it's "editors". I repeat the question here: I use MS Office Professional at home and whenever I open MS WORD I see a column on the RHS that lists a selection of previous documents that I may not want other household users to view. How can I empty or remove that list of saved or archived documents please? Thanks in anticipation.

Your question was answered above by SubSeven (it's about 11 questions up) - "You can disable the list. Go to Tools --> Options, select the General tab, and uncheck the Recent Files option." — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

How to close an alert box from a script?

Hello! Can I somehow close an alert dialog box from my script, without user having to press OK?

Maybe there is some method, for closing it. I have a script auto-submitting some values through a browser window. It worked fine, but now the designers of the site changed it a bit, and the page that is shown after submitting the form, pops up an alert saying that data are accepted. So my script cannot proceed any further until the user clicks OK, and, since there is no user, the script is stuck on it. Can I close the box from my script (which is currently written on Visual Basic)?

Alternative approches that I can think of, can be: 1. Using HTML-filtering engine such as Proxomitron to filter out the alert code 2. Killing the browser application forcibly each time after submitting a form, and opening it again to procees the next one.

Any solution which is simpler and more straigt-forward than those, will be very appreciated. The browser is IE, but I can switch to any other if it turns out I can use it for this task. You might ask, why I don't just POST those data from a perl script without use of any browser. The reason is that I use some scripts from the page where the form is situated. If I did it without a browser, I would need to emulate those scripts.

Crocodealer 14:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)