Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

June 20

Booting off of USB on a Macbook Pro

Here's my situation: I have a 512 Mb USB2 memory key with DSL (Damn Small Linux) on it. I copied it over to the key bit by bit from the iso of DSL. The key mounts under OSX and all of the files are usable, but how do I boot to it? I have boot camp installed, if that matters.--67.181.167.227 01:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Restart and hold down the option key and select it from the menu.

Is there any way to get an Xbox to run with an LCD PC monitor without anything in between?

Is there any way to get an Xbox to run with an LCD PC monitor without anything in between -- by using a composite-to-VGA converter, component adapter, something like that? Preferably with the ability to convert 1920x1080 or 1280x720 to this particular monitor's native resolution of 1680x1050.202.10.86.63 09:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I've used a VGA to composite adapter to output my laptop to a TV (as a second monitor). I don't see any reason why the reverse wouldn't work. The xbox running at a lower resolution may cause an out of range error on the LCD and not display anything. On another note, I tried running an xbox through a TV tuner, but the lag was very noticable, so I wouldn't recommend that.--GTPoompt(talk) 15:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I run a PS2 fine with a TV tuner. Just have to use DScaler or registry edits. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 19:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Computer clock

I have been having trouble with my computer clock for a while now. I boot up the computer, log in and the clock is usually set to something way off the real time, and sometimes the day is wrong as well. My current computer clock shows 4:34AM, but I know that it is around 8pm-ish. I try resynchronising my computer clock with Microsoft's "time.microsoft.com" server and the NSA time server, but it tells me it encounters an error when synchronising with the server. Any ideas what might be going wrong? –Sebi ~ 09:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC) P.S. My local time is +10 hours.

That usually means the CMOS battery is weak. Replacing the battery should be enough to fix the problem. At least the ntpd commonly used on Linux refuses to synchronize when the clock is too far off the real time; I don't know if the Windows builtin NTP daemon has the same safeguards, but it probably has. --cesarb 09:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, I sometimes get "CHKSUM battery failed - press F1 to continue" or similar when I boot up. Thanks for your help, –Sebi ~ 09:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Recording sound on my computer

How do I record sound off youtube using my computer? --124.181.44.233 13:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If your computer is fairly new, and you have Windows, then the program that comes with your PC, Sound Recorder will do it. Neil ╦ 15:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You could download the clip, then use VLC to transcode the audio. Splintercellguy 17:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

A question I need to ask...

My modem can play video DVDs like movies, episodes of shows, and others. But when I put in a blank DVD that has stuff I recorded on TV or dubbed on TV, it wouldn't detect it. What can I do to upgrade the modem to detecting a recorded/dubbed TV DVD without a problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs)

First, see modem. Old DVD players will not play recordable DVDs. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Some players don't want to play DVDs whose contents are burned in contrary to DVD-Video format, like simply placing the clips on the root of the DVD. Splintercellguy 17:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

What did you use to create the DVDs that don't work on your computer? -- JSBillings 18:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Text-only browsing

For the summer vacations, I bought a mobile internet card for my laptop. I'm paying by the megabyte, and would like to minimize expenses. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.4, Windows Xp. So I unchecked "Load images automatically" and "Enable java" it the "Tools|Options|Content" dialog. However, Flash animations (and images) are still downloaded. There is a "Manage file types" button in the same dialog, but the button that I would like to press for SPL and SWF objects, "Remove action", is grayed and inacessible; I only have the options of specifying which program to open the file in, or to save it to disk, which implies that it will be downloaded whichever alternative I chose. So my questions are:

1. How can I convince Firefox to ignore Flash animations?
2. Does anyone have additional advice about minimizing the amount of data transferred?
3. Is anyone aware of a utility program that I can install, to monitor how much data that is transferred? There is a tool in the software that came with the card, but I would like to experiment using my broadband connection, before starting to spend $$$ on the mobile card.

I have installed the Adblock-plus plugin, which alleviates the Flash problem somewhat, but far from totally. And yes, I have tried Lynx, but found the user interface too limited for my needs. Thanks for any advice. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You can use the flashblock or NoScript extension to configure when and where to load flash objects. -- JSBillings 18:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There are some text-only browsers, made for either people with visual impairments who use screen readers or for those with low-end computers. However, only a portion of sites support this. Many require that you have Flash or ActiveX or Java enabled to use the site properly. Also, a few sites have a "Text only" interface you can select. For example, here's a text-only, ad-free weather forecast site: [1] (Except for a few icons, such as for the Moon phase). I suggest you build a Favorites/Bookmark list of these text-only sites and use them exclusively. StuRat 18:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a plugin to Firefox that allows you to totally disable flash or any other plugin (not addon, MR Tech is good for that), I can't remember its name. It even will report to the server that your browser does not have flash capabilities, but a single click will re-enable flash functionality. (it disables flash everywhere in the firefox executable instance). I've mentioned it on here before and am running it currently but I can't remember its name. Root⁴(one) 19:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You could try Opera Mini (you'd only need a J2ME runtime for your computer). It's designed to be used in slow metered connections like that, and uses Opera's proxy to compress/optimize/etc. the page before it's sent to your computer. --cesarb 22:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(Now writing from mobile connection): Thank you all for your advice. I ended up with turning off images and java as stated, plus using Adblock plus and Flashblock. I also found an applet at http://delphi.about.com, called Network Traffic Monitor, written by Zarko Gajic, which allowed me to do some testing before leaving. I'll check out Opera Mini when I'm back. Thanks again. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

IE shortcut icon from website

OK, so putting a shortcut to the Elmo page on the Sesame Street website onto the desktop, for the young folks to click on. Most of the time, it has Elmo's face as the icon. Sometimes it has just the generic IE6 icon, and they can't recognize it. i didn't specify any icon in the "properties/change icon" box. ?? what gives? Gzuckier 18:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what caused this, but you can change the icon yourself. In Windows 98 you right click on the current icon, select "Properties", go to the "Shortcut" tab, then pick the "Change Icon" button. If you do this on a computer which has the icon, this will tell you where to find it. You can then copy the good icon to the same location on the other computers and select it. You might have a problem with the directory not existing or you not having write access to it or even the disk being full. StuRat 18:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The icon comes from the favicon file on the website. Our article does not directly address the use on the desktop, however it does mention that sometimes the graphic will be lost if the browser cache is emptied; I'd guess that is what is making Elmo go away. The disk cache (IE calls this "Temporary Internet Files"), will delete old files to make room for new ones, so if Elmo hasn't been tickled for awhile (sorry), he will disappear. To make him stick around permanently, you'd need to make a local copy of the icon file, then assign the local file to the desktop URL shortcut. --LarryMac | Talk 19:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

ah so. esoteric knowledge. thanks. Gzuckier 17:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's my continuation of the question...

Here's the explanation: I use Maxell DVD-R discs with a gold-like label with an SP mode storage of 2 hours. They can record TV and have movies and episodes of shows burned onto them. My computer is an HP vs17e with an HP modem. It detects blank DVDs with movies and episodes of shows burned onto them, but doesn't detect blank DVDs with recorded stuff from TV. What do I thoroughly need to solve the situation?

Mmm... Something like that happened to me on one of my drives whenever the CD/DVD session isn't closed. I had to borrow another computer with Easy CD Creator to close it before it would read on mine. Perhaps your TiVo or DVR or whatever you're using creates multiple sessions and the same thing is happening? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 19:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

css/html question

I wanted to add an image in a certain spot on my webpage, and I did so by adding this to the style sheet:

td#navbar ul:after{content: url("image.gif")}

and it worked great and went right where I wanted it to go. Now I'm hoping to resize it, and the first thing I tried was

td#navbar ul:after{content: url("image.gif"); width:166px}

and no amount of fooling around can get that to work. Does anyone know why? Should it work? Is there another way to make it work? Obviously I can resize my image file or go back and put it into the html manually without css, but I don't want to do any of that and I'm now curious as to why this wouldn't work. Thanks :: Registrar 18:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Be careful using the :before and :after pseudoclasses - they won't work in any version of Internet Explorer. More info here. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 18:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

gahh, good point. Thanks Registrar 19:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

UK phone numbers

hi,

is there anyone with the phone number 01234 567890? or 01234 01234? etc?

another thing...can you kind of 'personalise' your HOME phone no. , like number plates, in any way, i know you change it sometimes, ie for security reasons or if your moving house but still local, but can you just go to BT and ask to change it to something else?

thanks, --84.67.217.53 19:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

01234 is the dialing code for Bedford. 01234 567 890 is used as a placeholder number on loads of websites, so I don't envy whoever has it (if anyone does). Ofcom does withhold certain numbers for use in fiction, but it's not among those. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

More info - apparently 01234 567890 was referred to as the 'golden' Bedford number within Oftel, and was protected for some time (source). The latest information I can find is that Oftel decided to open up the 01234 56 block in August 2002 (source). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 20:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Phone them and find out?? 213.48.15.234 10:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding buying personalised phone numbers, there may be some companies that do it - i know with BT it's basically you get what you're given. If you use SkypeOut you can choose your own phone number (for a few quid a year), but most of the good ones are gone, and they're fairly limited. Also, there are plenty of companies who will bind an 0845 number of your choice to your standard line, so you might be lucky and get a good one there. -Benbread 16:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

June 21

Buying a Computer

Hey, Im looking into buying a new computer. I was wondering what some tips for what I could be looking for. Like, what are some new things that might be good to have on the computer. Im looking into a PC laptop. No Macs.

What will you be using the computer for? Gaming? If so, you'll want a good video card. Simple web browsing and maybe writing an email or letter or two? Then most any laptop will do. Lots of number crunching? Then you'll want to max out your RAM. Dismas|^(talk) 02:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hate to be commercial but I think the dell.com site is pretty good for checking out PC laptops, to see what's there and what the prices are like. You don't have to buy a dell but the website is a good benchmark for decent laptops at a decent price. From memory all the dell prices include a 2 year warranty which I highly recommend over the standard 12 months most other places offer, it's usually not very cheap to upgrade the warranty. Vespine 03:23, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you said exactly what you want to use the computer for. A mac might suit your needs better than a PC, believe it or not. Or heck, even something like System76 might be good if you don't need to run Windows apps. You might not even want a full computer at all, an N800 might be better suited to your needs. We won't know unless you're more specific than "I want a computer". -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 05:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not a Mac, they are "idiot proof", even I use one!--88.109.177.178 05:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I argree, Mac's are "idiot proof", however, I preefer to think of them as simplfied Linux. Lapot wise look for somthing with an AMD chip, they tend to give more bang for buck. OS wise, get Win XP if you must have windows but I recomend getting Linux; Fedora 7 and Ubuntu are both good distros. for good priced pc's take a look on price watch. Good Luck. --Lwarf ^Talk! 09:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I use a Mac, and remember that they can boot into almost all of the other operating systems.--67.181.167.227 13:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want Windows Vista, make sure your dream computer can support it. --Mayfare 15:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want Windows Vista, buy a Mac. (^_^)Gzuckier 17:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC) (windows user)

Save yourself the money and just buy the huge steaming pile of dog crap direct from the manufacturer. --froth^t 02:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Harsh yes, but fanboyism is unavoidable on tah inteerw3bz --froth^t 02:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Laptops have a much shorter expected lifetime than a desktop. Optomistically it will be another few years before Vista is used everywhere, until then XP will remain the most common. You need a significantly more power to run vista than XP, laptops are not well known for having oodles of power.... rather they will always be underpowered when compared to a desktop PC at the same price point. All of these add up to an even strong case of why you should get XP if you are buying a laptop. Mathmo ^Talk 02:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Its not that hard to B.I.Y (build it your self) and then istall linux, i'll take a look for a wikibook on it. --Lwarf ^Talk! 08:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

If the person is asking here about buying a computer, then it probably isn't a good idea to build it themselves. Even though in my opinion it is very easy to to, because it won't be for them. Another factor to take into consideration is they want a laptop, which isn't quite as straightforward to build from scratch as a desktop is. Thus, even though I hate that I'm recommending this.... it probably is a good idea for them to consider a dell. Here is a good little article for you to read. [2] I wish I could give the advice to build it themselves to everybody. Mathmo ^Talk 02:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Image effect

What is the name of the effect used to change an image into regions of white and black, looking perhaps not unlike a Rorschach inkblot test, yet in which the subject of the image is still immediately recognizable due to our interpretation of the black regions as shadows? A good example is the alternate album cover of U2's Boy ([our picture of it]), and also one of the two pictures of Bob Dylan in the opening sequence of VH1's program (the name of which escapes me) which plays two consecutive songs from the same artist. I would like to process some of my photos this way. Many thanks in advance. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 03:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

First choice would be whatever describes emboss in the 2D sphere. Second, and probably more correct, is reticulation. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, on second thought, I don't think either of those are correct. However, in Photoshop, the stamp filter gets the most similar effect. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:07, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you can acheive this affect with most Posterisation filters if you set them to 2 tone black and white and fiddle with the settings. Vespine 05:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Try Threshold in Photoshop (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Threshold...). I prefer a different technique which results in an effect similar to the cover of Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope (mainly black and white, but with shades of grey in between). Desaturate the image, add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and drag the Contrast slider to around 80. You can use a Levels adjustment layer in place of the Brightness/Contrast if you want more control over the effect. It works best on images with a white or light-coloured background. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Posterization does indeed look like the effect I want. I do not have Photoshop, but have GIMP and Graphic Converter (yes, I use a Mac). The former should have this for sure... The Begin to Hope effect is not what I am looking for, although it is a nice one in its own right. Thanks again, and I would still be open to hints/tips. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 14:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's under Colour/Threshold, and I would load it into Inkscape or something and use the auto tracer to trace it so it's no longer aliased (or just use the auto tracer on the original image and set the threshold there). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

In Corel Draw (or I suppose similar programs) you would go Bitmap -> Convert to Bitmap (sic) and click "Black and White" (not to be confused with "Grayscale"). Before you do this I would fiddle with the contrast a bit. Rfwoolf 10:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Firefox find

The Firefox find function doesn't search within edit boxes, making it difficult to use when trying to edit a wiki page. Any way to change this, or is the solution to use an external editor? Jooler 07:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

At least for me (Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Ubuntu), if you use Ctrl+F, it does search within the edit box. --cesarb 09:55, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• If you decide to use an external editor, you can boost functionality to make up for the lack of quick buttons. (I use the Vim syntax plugin) -wizzard2k ^(C-T-D) 15:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It works for me, with Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Mac OS X. Maybe try clicking in the box first? Abeg92contribs 21:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Two Computers

Can the motherboards of two seperate computers be connected so that one operating system (from a single hard drive on one of the computers) can use both its host motherboard and the connected one; including all the ram, processors, cd drives etc? Think outside the box 09:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

If it is possible, I doubt it's something you could do yourself. There aren't exactly "Motherboard SLI connectors". Why would you want to anyway? I have to imagine such a setup would be more costly and slower than an equal setup with a single motherboard, at least for the tasks you'd want such performance for. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 09:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it's possible at all. It would be a lot easier if you just get a dual-CPU motherboard with lots of ram and IDE controllers etc. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Does network booting count? If not, then see above. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 09:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's possible; what you want is a single-system image like openMosix (and you'll need network boot to boot the second computer, since you want to boot from a hard disk on the first one). --cesarb 09:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the questioner would be better off setting up a Beowulf system. It allows you to work at one computer, but make use of other computer's processing power in the cluster. I have note a quote I heard from one of the Beowulf designers when they spoke at a conference I was at. It went something like, "I have been asked if I can turn a hundred or so old 386 computers into a cluster. I have to answer, yes, you can - if you want a hundred or so computers that overall will function slower than a single Pentium computer, but will produce about 100 times the heat and suck up about 100 times the electricity." --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The IBM Blue Gene has a high speed interconnect between all its nodes as well. Check out the Supercomputer article about more of this technology. There are a variety of methods of achieving this interconnect, from NUMAlink with the SGI Altix to HyperTransport used in a variety of systems, and to a lesser extent, with Infiniband on Beowulf and other HPC clusters. -- JSBillings 13:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Creating backups of dvds

Hi, i want to copy my dvds onto my computer. Not as disc-images, but as avis or mpegs etc... Can anyone reccommend the best freeware to do this?

A great, open source program to do this is Handbrake.--67.181.167.227 12:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

multicore vs. multiprocessor

Dear wikipedians:

What is the difference between a system with one multicore CPU and a system with more than one CPU (multiprocessor) in it.

129.97.225.195 14:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

With a multicore, you have one processor - so you have one connection between the processor and the motherboard. With a multiprocessor, you have multiple processors. So, you have multiple connections between the processors and the motherboard. With one processor, much of the handling of multiple code running at the same time can be handled inside the processor. With multiple processors, the motherboard has to handle the handoff between one processor and another - or, as is usual, just ignore one of the processors and waste resources. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Multicore CPUs are lower power and heat than symmetric multiprocessing designs and take up less space in the system. Since they're on the same die, that means faster communication between the cores. I believe they also share cache, which has some speed advantage but I think it reduces the total per-node cache overall. I think one of the biggest limitations now is that most apps aren't written to take advantage of multicore CPUs. -- JSBillings 14:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The above sounds pretty right, I'd only add a couple bits: Multicore tends to be cheaper than multiprocessor, because it's cheaper to produce (essentially) two CPUs on one chip than two chips, and because the motherboard to support the processor is cheaper that way. It's true that many apps aren't written in a threaded way to take full advantage of multiple CPUs/cores. But, this should be improving as multicore chips become more and more standard. Even if a given app isn't taking advantage of it, the system still feels faster because it will slow down less under load. Friday (talk) 14:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for hijacking here - how well do operating systems handle multiple/multiple core CPUs? If I have two processors and one application which needs loads of CPU time, will Windows give it exclusive use of one of the processors and put everything else through the other, for example? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 15:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

No. It is not that simple. You don't have two computers in your computer that can run side-by-side. You have two processors (or cores) that can handle very basic functions like shifting some 1's and 0's right or left. There is still only one overall computer that decides which programs can access memory, which can access the processor, which are in a waiting queue, which need to be killed off... --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

But it's not as complicated as you make it out. The processors can actually handle a bit more. The compiled code will talk to the OS to get permission to have exclusive access to a piece of hardware or memory, etc. A program written with threading in mind will be able to spread its load across multiple processors (whether in a multicore CPU or multiple chips, or in some cases, multiple distributed machines), see multithreading for more discussion. From the CPU's perspective it's all code. There will be periodic hand-offs between an application and the OS as resources are allocated/freed. But it's not uncommon in a 2-processor system to see one processor spiked while the other is mostly idle. Donald Hosek 18:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Either way, a multi-core or multi-processor computer doesn't necessarily speed up processes. Most programs aren't designed to optimized performance with two cores or processors.

Kevinwong913 ^{Speak out loud!} 20:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Accidental adding of a misspelled word to a dictionary

I accidentally added a misspelled word to the Firefox British dictionary, how do I undo that. PS: I tried reinstalling, and it didn't work. Thanks, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 16:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Lifehacker has instructions on how to remove words from the dictionary here. If you're on Windows make sure you open it in Wordpad rather than Notepad - the latter messes up the line breaks. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 16:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked really, really well, so, again, thanks. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 16:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

HTML redirect

I have a domain but I don't have a main page yet. I'm setting up the forum right now, so for the time being, I'd like users to get redirected from the main page automatically to the forum. The forum resides in its own directory. What's the easiest way to get the users automatically redirected to this directory? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 23:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Make the main page for your domain (index.html on Apache machines) just contain <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=http://your.forum.address"> Youth in Asia 00:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 01:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

A better solution is to ridirect with http headers (in php it's header("whatever");)- Location: http://www.example.org/. An even better solution would be to make apache rewrite the location to the forum directory so it's transparent to the end user. Unless you actually want a "redirecting.." notice to be seen, refresh redirects are generally a terrible way of doing it. Be considerate of those using lynx! --froth^t 02:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Which part of that do I put in the index.html file? Basically, where do I start the copy/paste? Dismas|^(talk) 03:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

That you need PHP, but isn't also possible to do <meta http-equiv="Location" content="http://www.example.org/"/>? --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Froth's suggestions are fine if you have access to install PHP or change your Apache config file. For normal users, using a meta tag is best. Antilived's "meta location" suggestion is the proper one. Youth's "meta refresh" works, but it isn't the proper tag. You are abusing the refresh by saying "refresh in 0 seconds to..." instead of simply saying "change to location...". As for Froth's lynx concern, I use lynx regularly and it accepts meta tags. It will refresh or change locations fine. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I put Antilived's in and it didn't redirect me at all. So back to Youth's I go. Dismas|^(talk) 13:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent) Hmmmm the http-equiv=Location way doesn't work at all, maybe because by that time the header is already sent and a Location header is invalid by then? The best way would be either header() or rewrite, but if you don't have PHP or don't know how to use Apache Rewrite (or don't have Apache), http-equiv=refresh is the only way to go... --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, the forum that I put up is written in PHP and it's on an Apache web server, so I would presume that I have what you're talking about. Dismas|^(talk) 01:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Then just copy an paste <?php header("Location: http://www.example.org"); ?> into the very top of your index.php and you should be all set. Remember to delete index.htm or set Apache to go to index.php first though. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

And to do it fully server side, put this between <directory /whatever/dir/you/want/> and </directory> tags in your httpd.conf:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/directory/relative/to/the/one/above/filename\.html$ /another/directory/path/filename.html 

--froth^t 16:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

June 22

GPU as extra processor

Can a gpu be set up to be an "extra processor"? For instance, could a graphics card be added to a core duo system to make it triple core?--67.181.167.227 00:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Like the AMD Fusion? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but with a "normal" graphics card.--67.181.167.227 00:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Then in a way, you're already doing it with a normal computer. If you mean letting the GPU do non-graphic intensive calculations, it won't be very proficient at it, since it's not a fully capable CPU. So the benefit would be a big chunk of energy fees for running the GPU at full with minimal improvements. You're better off getting a Quad Core or a dual Dual Core or something in that case. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed- CPUs are so optimized for.. well take a microprocessors/digital logic course, the point is that your GPU would only have a trivial computational contribution compared to the CPU except for graphical operations. --froth^t 02:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Also agree, except for one thing: GPUs' graphical capabilities can also be used for calculations, and by far outperform normal CPUs in some areas. The article on General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units looks like a good starting point for more information. --Dapeteばか 08:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, GPUs can be used for non-graphics calculations, be at least a few (if not a few hundred) times faster than CPUs. But, such performance can be achieved only on certain workloads (data parallel computations, or SIMD). Multimedia data and database data are good prospects. But software has to specifically take advantage. Unfortunately, very few market software is tuned to exploit this power. So, if you use your GPU, the softwares that you have will hardly benefit. --soum ^talk 18:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Router security

I have recently installed a wireless router in my house. However, I have two computers linked up to it by wire. Is my router still sending wireless traffic at the moment? My main concern is that would other people be able to use my wireless signal and gain access into my home network? It is a D-link Gold Series router and it says I can "log into" the router, but how do I do that? I am using Windows XP home. Thanks. 74.111.82.91 03:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes the router could very well still be sending out wireless. what you need to do is go to the run command and type in cmd and press enter, that starts a command prompt, in there type ipconfig. Some stuff should come up including an IP Address for your default gateway which is your router. Open up internet explorer and type in that number. That's your router, from there I'd suggest consulting the manual that came with your router. Vespine 03:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

You want to disable the wireless antenna. Vespine, not exactly a number :). Splintercellguy 04:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

To address one of 74.111's concerns, it is not likely that somebody would be able to access your home network. Yes it is possible, assuming bad intentions on the part of the person using the wireless signal, but it is much more likely that a person would just use the wireless signal to get to the internet.

Once you have determined the IP address of your router as Vespine describes (by the way, typically, D-Link routers use IP 192.168.0.1, so you might try that before using ipconfig), you will probably receive a login screen. The default username is "Admin", just leave the password field empty. You should then see the web-based configuration utility, which will have various tabs. Somewhere in there you should be able to find the option to turn off the wireless portion of your router. If you don't have the manual, you can download one from D-Link; their main support page for D-Link is [3]. You'll need the exact model number of your router, but they have a pretty well laid out site which should answer any questions you have. --LarryMac | Talk 13:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Mac or PC

I have been a PC user all my life. I feel my Pentium 4 is getting too old and am thinking of a new computer. I havent really looked into Windows Vista, but from what I can see and from playing around with them at BestBuy, I find them sort of slow... I have also been looking at Macs. I'm not too worried about the learning curve of a different operating system, but more the software that's available to it. I am a graphic/web designer and I want a computer that is good at that, while able to play games like the Rainbow Six series. As well, many TV commercials demonstrating software uses Macs, such as on G4TechTV. What are some pros and cons of choosing Vista or a Mac OS X? Thanks. 74.111.82.91 03:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

WinXP isn't obsolete yet... Why not get a new computer with WinXP that is Vista capable for the future? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu. See also Comparison of Windows and Mac OS X and Comparison of Windows and Linux. But srsly, Ubuntu. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 04:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Opinionated me says no to Vista. Ubuntu for sure, perhaps dual-booting with XP. Splintercellguy 04:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu, with virtual machine running WinXP for all your web developing needs (Photoshop, IE etc.), and dual-boot for games. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu or Mac, run all your windows programs/ games with crossover, or dualboot with win xp NOT vist(Vista has a lot of compatbily problems hardware and software wise) --Lwarf ^Talk! 08:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm also upgrading from a P4. I would suggest a middle-line geforce 8 series card like the 8600GT and a Core 2 Duo processor. Vista has some compatibility issues but for newer games they are unlikely to pop up - however if you are concerned simply buy a OEM version of XP. Dual-booting Ubuntu is indeed a good idea. Don't buy a Mac, you'll end up overpaying for a UI and software suite you could use with Windows and a stability component you could have with Ubuntu. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 07:33, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Even one of MAC's recent ads admits this: Macs are good for anything creative, and PCs are good for anything business. Well, that's actually rather simplified. I would say that macs tend to have good screens and graphic cards - so if you're editing a movie, designing animation, or doing anything fine-art, then perhaps a MAC might be worth of consideration. Aside from that, Macs are painful. They're more expensive, they have one mouse button (and no wheel), they have their own file-system (not the end of the world), and there's so much more software and development for the PC - so a lot of the programs you'd like either take longer to get to mac, or just aren't available for mac. It's very much a PC-dominated market.

I've been in graphic design for a while using PCs, and I'll tell you PCs are just as capable as MACs with graphics: you can edit movies, use photoshop, Corel Draw, CS2, etc -- which are all available for the Max (except I think for Corel Draw).

Having said that, there are positives about the Mac OS - less viruses, apparently less bugs, etc. But I have no real problems with XP.

As for Vista, personally I don't think I'm nearly ready for Vista - I'm sticking to XP for as long as possible - I think Microsoft paved the road to hell with VISTA - they've completely overcomplicated the concept of an operating system. Rfwoolf 10:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Macs might come with a single mouse button, but any, and I do many any USB mouse you can buy for ten bucks will give it two button functionality. Complaining that macs have a different file system is... well, stupid. Of *course* they do, NTFS is MSonry (not to mention a horrible filesystem). Complaining that a mac isn't like windows is like complaining that 'Channel 7 In The Evening' is different from 'Channel 5 at 5'. Of course they're different, different doesn't mean worse.

The latest Macs now have two mouse buttons (no more ctrl clicking for me!) --Lwarf ^Talk! 10:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Just get a PC with Windows Vista. It's a great OS. Mac will lock you into mac software, hardware, service and greatly limit you. Unless you're a huge geek, forget about Ubuntu, it sucks. dell outlet has cheap laptops and desktops.

A problem with the Windows Sound Recorder...

I have Windows XP on my computer, and I like the Sound Recorder. But now, there's a problem. It doesn't pick up a sound when it's recording. It used to pick up a sound, but now it doesn't. How can I make the Sound Recorder pick up a sound in recording again?

• Check your Recording mixer. In Control Panel, Sounds and Audio, click the Audio tab, and click the Volume button under Sound Recording and make sure the proper input is selected, with an appropriate volume level. You may have to make more options available from Options -> Properties. -wizzard2k ^(C-T-D) 14:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

¿ʞɔəɥ əɥʇ ʇɐɥʍ

I copy-pasted this from digg. How did he write this upside down? What shud I do if I want to write more?

He's probably in Australia.? 213.48.15.234 13:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Part of it is IPA, it just happens that those chars are available within the common set used on the web. --66.195.232.121 14:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Just clever use of Unicode characters. There's a user script to do something similar to whole pages here, and a list of 'upside-down' characters in this source code (under the comment "# turn ascii text upside-down, using unicode") — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 14:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ahhh.. thank you. I see it now.

You might also enjoy http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html although it's not what you saw -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 23:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

java programming

would you pliz refer me to the best sites for personal learning of java programing language and to start me off would you pliz show me how to draw a rectangle using an applet.

Tutorial; rectangle. --TotoBaggins 17:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The official website from Sun Microsystems (the creators of the Java language) is java.sun.com and should be your primary reference. All the javadoc pages are available online. Also, tutorials exist for the Java Standard Edition (J2SE) language here and elsewhere on the site for other Java technologies. Nimur 17:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Highlight To Copy, Middle Click To Paste On WinXP

Is there a utility that I can install on WinXP that will enable copying by highlighting and middle-clicking to paste? --Seans Potato Business 17:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for Xmouse copy and paste; that may help direct your web searches. I know that Microsoft's tweakui tool enables some xmouse functionality but I do not think it includes copy/paste features. Nimur 18:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

This developer has released a tool to do exactly what you seek. I have never tried it; use at your own risk. Nimur 18:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it works. It includes the annoying feature of focus follows mouse and you have to click on the bar at the top of the window in order to bring it to the top, though. I'll see if I can find a way to activate only the highlight-copy/paste thing. --Seans Potato Business 10:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Expansion Card Questions

I recently upgraded a number of components on my PC and I have lost my multiple monitor capabilities. My old motheboard had PCI slots and an AGP, running 2 ATI Graphics cards (1xAGP & 1XPCI). My new MSI K8N Neo4 motherboard, has no AGP slots, but PCIE. I also recieved a newer NVIDIA GeForce 6600 graphics card, which I went with, because it's either that or the PCI one on it's own. But now I want to run 3 monitors again (I believe I can only run two from this card), so:

1. ) Can I run an ATI card with an NVIDIA card?
2. ) Do all kinds of NVIDIA cards run simultniously?
3. ) Would my second card need to be a PCI card or could I run a second PCIE card? My mboard does have small slots named PCIE.

1- In this setup, the second card is basically only there to give you another monitor connection, so you should be able to. 2- Again, in this setup, the cards will not run together, the second one is just there for the monitor, 3-Those PCI-e slots are for other things, the ones graphics cards use are PCI-e x16, there might be some very weak ones there but I wouldn't use them overa cheap PCI card. Unless you have something like SLI or Crossfire, you can't use multiple graphics cards at one time (at least, I think so, I can't imagine it's a good use of your time and money anyway) -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 23:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't most modern graphics cards support multiple monitors anyway? Getting a decent Geforce 7 or Geforce 8 series graphics card should do it afaik (I'm even less sure about ATI because I've never bought a ATI card), though I might be mistaken (never used more than one). -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 07:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Like he said, he wants to run 3 monitors. I beleieve the only graphics card that can do that is a Matrox Triple Head, which won't give very good visual performance. Like I said, a secondary card to use as a dummy VGA port should work fine -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 05:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"Swelled" Favorites Menu Bar

Hello. I installed Norton Confidential 2007 available from my Norton AntiVirus 2007 CD. When I select the address bar and press Alt+a, my Internet Explorer 7 Favorites menu bar swelled. There is space after the arrows and after the last folder. How can I fix this? --Mayfare 18:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)Screenshot

Are you sure it's to do with installing that software? Can you post a screenshot somewhere please? enochlau (talk) 01:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I am sure. Now that my Norton Confidential 2007 free trial has expired, I uninstalled it. The problem is gone. I tried to upload a screenshot to Wikicommons, but an administrator deleted it. Otherwise, my favourites menu bar is no longer swelled. Thanks Enochlau. --Mayfare 15:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure there wasnt any entry that wasnt taking up the extra space? (Maybe the software used some non standard fonts, so it didnt render). --soum ^talk 18:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Domain-name secondary market

What is the market price of a two-letter .org domain name? NeonMerlin 22:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It would depend on the name. Something like qx.org is probably worth less than something like hi.org, although .org shouldn't be as competitive as .com. Keep in mind you could also go with another country's domain, and save some cash -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 23:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, all domains under 4 characters before the suffix have been taken, so you'll need to buy them off the company with which the domain is parked. This would cost a few thousand dollars at least for a two letter domain. JoshHolloway 01:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

June 23

SD card packs?

Anyone know where I could buy packs of SD cards at a reasonable price? I'd seen a two pack of 2GB cards, for 50$... compare to the 2GB card itself only costing 13$. A pack of five or ten for around 50 or 100$, respectively, would be ideal, but anything would be nice to see. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 00:00, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

$10 for a 2GB SD card? I really wouldn't use it on any critical work as it may well have been fake ones using chips that are marked as "bad" (ie. can't stand for many rewrites). --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

13-16$. A microcenter near where I live sells cheap cards, I've never had a problem with them though. They also sell USB sticks, they just have them in baskets near the counter. I think they sell them at cost or with very little profit, since they put their name on them, I'd assume that they're advertising. Anyway, I'm talking about buying in packs, which almost always should make things cheaper, not more expensive -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 03:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Fastest Processor

What is the fastest processor made or that is going to be made? 68.193.147.179 00:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Nobody can predict the future; but the industry is shying away from faster clock speed in favor of parallel architecture. At present, you can probably commercially obtain processors at a maximum speed of maybe 3.6 or 3.8 GHz. You should also note that in general, faster clock speed does not even mean faster computation; it most certainly does not directly equate to better overall performance. Nimur 00:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Yea, the 3.8 GHz don't have that much advantage over 2.8 GHz. Nowhere near a 25% increase in speed. The limit of the current technology is almost at its limits in terms of speed and heat, which is why they're exploring the multi-cores. Of course, the theoretical limits would probably be somewhere around the speed of light, I would imagine, but who knows if we'll ever even get there, much less when. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 02:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

At the moment: []http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115021 probably this]. I expect the market to shift to quad-cores within 5 years, and perhaps increase to even more after that. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Last I heard, Intel is getting ready to introduce 8-core processors sometime Soon™, and they've also been working on a quad core laptop that I think should be out this year. I expect now that core speed in GHz is going to become increasingly irrelevant, and the main figures to worry about are going to be number of cores. I read something about intel already testing out a 64-core processor setup; although it had very few performance gains over an 8 core, the fact that they're working that far ahead is amazing. I will eat my hat if, within five years, non-multi core processors are still in popular use. Of course, I don't actually own or wear hats, but it's the thought that counts -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 03:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well yeah, I'm sure they can pack a lot of cores into one processor (the PS3's Cell processor has 8 "Synergistic Processing Elements") and I'm sure gamers will keep buying them up (look at how expensive the processor I linked to is). I think at this point the slowdown will be with software manufacturers forced to keep up with the ever-expanding amount of cores. Widespread adoption of any technology will only happen when a good chunk of new software supports it, and computer manufacturers, often catering to the "i don't want to know how it works just make it work" crowd, don't want to adopt a technology that might not be fully stable and compatible with various applications. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 07:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Even though I know how to program to take advantage of multi-processor systems, I don't think I would buy something above a dual core at this point. Only best case scenarios can increase performance much, and it's not actually like dual core effectively double the processing power. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 09:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The current best performers in the industry standard SPEC single-core benchmarks are (higher is better, picking the best performers from different processor lines):

IBM POWER6 (4.7 GHz) at 21.6 int, 22.3 fp

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz) at 18.5 int, 16.2 fp

Intel Xeon 5160 (3 GHz) at 18.5 int, 15.6 fp

Intel Itanium 2 (1.6 GHz/24 MB) at 15.7 int, 18.1 fp

AMD Opteron 2222SE (3 GHz) at 14.9 int, 15.2 fp

Fujitsu SPARC64 VI (3 GHz) at 11.3 int, 12.4 fp

The integer (int) score is the most relevant for most tasks, but the floating point (fp) score is important in many kinds of scientific applications, and I suppose current games need some fp performance as well. These are SPEC peak rates, reflecting the performance reachable on a single core after performance tuning. Intel actually has a published score of SPECint peak 20.8 for Xeon X5365 (3 GHz), but for whatever reason they don't show a FP score for that one. 84.239.133.38 10:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

How do you create new (winnable) sudoku levels?

Or levels in any puzzle, for that matter. The methods of solving sudoku are complex, so I'm curious how one would go about generating a playable level? Much help appreciated! Xhin Give Back Our Membership! 04:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a better question for the mathematics desk, i'm sure they have a simple enough method for it, but I use GNUdoku to generate sudoku puzzles when I'm in the mood for it.

I can think of one approach:

1) Write a program to solve a sudoku puzzle (fairly easy).

2) Start with a finished sudoku grid, then remove numbers and run it through the solver until multiple solutions are found. Then back up one step and remove a different number instead. Repeating this process, you will eventually end up with a puzzle which has only one answer and is solvable, but where removing even one more number would make it have multiple solutions. StuRat 04:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you overestimate how "complex" sudoku is. See computational complexity theory; you will find that Sudoku is really just a set of linear equations (off-hand, I would imagine it's probably solvable in time proportional to the grid size. Just because it is "difficult" (for a human) does not mean it is "complex." Nimur 06:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the article on Sudoku states that it is NP-Complete, and thus it is not likely to be solvable in time proportional to the grid size. Note that Sudoku does not have linear equations, but requires solutions to be integers. 213.237.10.244 13:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Very helpful. Xhin Give Back Our Membership! 07:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

programming

i wanted to design an application that istructs the user to enter inputs for instance marks or income for a period of time then later computes the total.which programming langage does it best suit? and what are the links for the tutorials? unsigned by 80.255.43.45.

Almost any computer language could do this job. You need to be able to display and receive input from a user, and store data in a file or database and retrieve it. Most computer languages have these facilities. Do you know what platfrom you want to run it on, could it be just one PC, or a network of computers around the world? If you have multiple people entering data it is much more tricky! Is this your first program? One simple way is to use a spread sheet such as Lotus 123 or Microsoft Excel, and store the marks for one person in a row, each person can be a separate row. GB 07:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does it have to have a database? The user's question is very similar to the tasks I've send that students do when learning Delphi (Object Pascal) for example - and they don't use a database. They simply use variables. Yup, that means when you terminate the application all your data is lost - of course you can then store the variables in the registry or an .ini file or something. But my point is, databases are definitely one of the more advanced things to learn for novice programmers - I'd say let them learn variables first. Rfwoolf 10:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Spreadsheets!

A Windows analouge to wget?

Is there a something included in windows that does something similar to the unix tool wget? That is, downloads a file from somewhere on the internet without using a browser (either command-line or GUI)? I realise that there are versions of wget for windows, but I'm looking for something that is included with the installation. 217.174.67.69 13:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

• wget will work for you on windows. Get cygwin and install wget package. --BACbKA 13:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

• • Yes, I realise that, but I meant something that came with windows, as I wrote in my question. If I just wanted wget, I'd just use one of the native windows versions 217.174.67.69 13:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

    I'm sorry, but you are going to have to either use the command-line ftp client, the command-line tftp client, or perhaps you could try to do something with the Windows Script Host. All three are often used by malware to download things; I've personally seen one use the ftp client, and I heard of malware using the other two. Unlike most Linux distributions, a default Windows install doesn't come with a lot of useful utilities. --cesarb 13:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks 217.174.67.69 13:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Upgrade RAM or Video Card?

I run Windows Vista on a Gateway machine with 1GB DDR2 RAM and an Intel Graphics Accelerator 950. I want better performance in general to photoshop, edit video, watch movies and even just run Aero smoothly. Which should I upgrade first, the RAM or video card? Any suggestions? Thanks. 68.39.175.57 15:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you upgrade to at least 2GB, re-evaluate the applications you're running, and then probably upgrade your video card as well. -wizzard2k ^(C-T-D) 15:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing runs Vista smoothly, it's way too needy. You might as well go with a video card, since even 4GB of RAM (the max a lot of motherboards will support right now) won't help Vista run quickly. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 15:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

My point was mainly for his applications, not really Aero (I think thats a lost cause for now). I wouldn't even do those things on XP with only a gig of ram. -wizzard2k ^(C-T-D) 15:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I know that the Intel Graphics Accelerator actually saps physical RAM from your system since it doesn't have its own dedicated RAM. For this reason I thought maybe upgrade video first. 68.39.175.57 15:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Upgrade the RAM first. You really want at least 2GB of RAM for Vista to start with. Photoshop obviously likes lots of RAM, as does video editing. A video card actually makes little or no difference to programs like Photoshop anyway. --jjron 17:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Political Blogs on the Internet.

Which political blogs (both liberal and conservative) are the most trafficked on the Internet.

It depends on how you define those two terms, which are not mutually exclusive. AllanHainey 11:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It also depends on how you define internet traffic... Nimur 06:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Mapquest prints

When I try to print a regular Mapquest map, it doesn't even attempt to print what is actually on the screen, but instead prints "Sorry! When printing directly from your browser your map may be incorrectly cropped. To print the entire map, try clicking the 'Printer-Friendly' link at the top of your results page." This is aggravating in many ways:

1) They wasted a piece of paper and ink, instead of popping up an error message with the same text.

2) They won't even let me try to print what was actually there. The cropping, if any, may have been acceptable to me.

3) It seems they are being dishonest, in that the real reason they want me to pick the "Printer-Friendly" link is to display (and print) more ads.

4) They simply crop the map severely before the print, when you hit that button, there isn't any magic that allows the uncropped map to be printed.

5) Them "taking control" of the print function like that seems like malware, to me. I never gave them permission to change the way my computer works to refuse to print certain pages.

I can work around this annoyance by using Print Screen, pasting into Microsoft Paint, removing the ads, and printing from there. But, I'd like to know if there is a way to stop Mapquest from taking control of the print function. Any ideas ? StuRat 17:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Might not be mal-ware; CSS can be used to print something entirely different from what appears on-screen. Other than that - I always use the PrintScreen method myself Rawling4851 22:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Yup, looking at the HTML source, Mapquest uses different CSS for when the page is printed. IE7 picks this up in the print preview. Looked to me as if the whole map was on there, but again, that's IE7's improved (compared to IE6, at least) printing abilities. MapQuest isn't evil, it's the CSS standard being correctly interpreted by your browser that lets something be printed that is different from what you see on screen. At least you get something similar; your computer could be instructed to print something entirely different. Rawling4851 23:28, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, is there any way to ignore the CSS and print what's on the screen without going through the whole print screen method ? It seems quite reasonable to me to expect to be able to print what I see, as opposed to whatever the authors of the web page feel like sending to my printer. StuRat 02:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Google Maps is the best.. tru dat.. DOUBLE TRUE..... --froth^t 13:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Screeching computer with flashing power light

My computer makes a screeching noise, the power light flashes, and the computer won't turn off.

zerula

That sounds really bad. I'd pull the plug out to stop it immediately, to prevent any further damage, then worry about fixing it later. StuRat 18:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Hold down the power button for 4 seconds to turn off. When you switch on your PC, your system speaker will bleep once. Anything else - such as a constant note - indicates hardware failure. Consult your motherboard's manual to see what error is reported. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a PSU is going out to me. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 20:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I was asked to look at a computer that was "screeching" once. It was the "overheat" warning going "beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep". So, it is important to define what "screech" means. Youth in Asia 13:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed- I'd say from the description (at least the first two parts) that it sounds like a hard drive problem, but it could be any number of things if screech is undefined. A screech could be anywhere from a beep to nails-on-chalkboard -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 14:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

How to Merge Partitions

Can someone tell me how to merge to HD partitions from windows XP? I have attempted this via a bootable disc, but I am not having an easy time as nothing seems to boot properly, even though it is set to boot from CD/DVD first in the bios.82.153.69.54 18:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC) PS: This is a laptop.82.153.69.54 18:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely impossible without complete data loss on both partitions. And there are no native tools that come with xp to do this, you'll have to upgrade to vista or use the gparted livecd or something --froth^t 13:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Pooh. I tried gparted, but it wouldn't boot (like everything else!).82.152.168.118 16:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

hi , you can use Partition magic for this its a very good and simple to use.

gop.com

GOP.com doesn't respond when I click on it, does it not work in general or is it because I'm not in America (but in Austria). Thanks, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 19:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Works for me (from the UK) Tomgreeny 21:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Is it, maybe, because I'm in a German speaking country? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Works from Germany. --Dapeteばか 21:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't it work here? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:44, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Times out here (UK). Maybe the server's experiencing downtime? JoshHolloway 22:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

My theory is that the GOP people only want to allow Americans on by looking at the IP addresses but if it works 2/4 times in other countries then... Jeffrey.Kleykamp 22:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(From Australia). GOP.com doesn't work for me, nor does RNC.org, but GOP.gov does, if that's any clue as to what's going on. - Akamad 01:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

This article from November, 2004 states that they are blocking international access. - Akamad 01:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

GOP.gov probably works in that it is the House Republican Leadership website. An nslookup points to 143.231.169.175, and 143.231.0.0/16 is assigned to the House of Representatives, so it stands to reason the GOP couldn't restrict access on that basis. GOP.com and RNC.org appear to be owned directly by the party, and their IP's belong to what it appears to be a provider based in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

I'm also a little dubious of the justification quoted in the article for disallowing access from abroad. It's not as if the security concerns aren't the same that any other high visibility website wouldn't have to face. Maybe they don't think it's worth the additional bandwidth and utilization costs to provide that kind of access, but it seems a little short-sighted to me. –Pakman044 03:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Works for me (UK). Use a coralized version by adding .nyud.net:8080 after the .com, like this: http://www.gop.com.nyud.net:8080/ Coralizing should pick it up (hopefully in the US) and feed it to you through several proxies. It takes a lot longer than normal to load, and may get strange formatting marks, but probably won't timeout. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

LaTeX to Powerpoint

I have a large number of equations in Latex that I want to put into a powerpoint presentation. What is the neatest way to do this? deeptrivia (talk) 22:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

You can use TexPoint, it's free for 30 days. There's also TeX4PPT (which I believe is free). I've never used either myself but it seems to do the trick. I guess you can also use print screen, but that might not look nice if you have coloured backgrounds on the slides. Hope that helps. - Akamad 01:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

All these create non scalable images. Is there a way to get Latex equation to Microsoft Equation Editor format, or atleast scalable image format. deeptrivia (talk) 02:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

It's quite easy to get PostScript / PDF output from TeX, either with pdfTeX or by producing a standard DVI file and running dvips / dvipdf on it. However, to make the output truly scalable, the important thing is to install and use vector versions of the TeX fonts instead of the pre-rasterized fonts generated by METAFONT. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest Beamer instead of powerpoint? I used it for my Master's thesis, and I was very happy with it. You also might want to reconsider presenting a large number of equations in a presentation, as the audience will have a hard time quickly processing them. Which of the following do you think your audience would prefer? "Since $|\{x\in \{0,1\}^{*}|x\sqsubseteq y\}|<\infty$ we have..." or "Since y has finitely many prefixes, we have...". 213.237.10.244 13:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

June 24

Linking a domain name and an IP address

I have an IP and DNS addresses for a local DSL Internet connection. I know I can point a domain name at the DNS addresses but is it necessary for the ISP to add the domain name to the DNS table so that the domain name is linked to the IP address? 71.100.3.132 00:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Most domain name registrars will ask you to give them your IP address, which is then linked to your domain in their nameservers' tables. The only time your ISP would be involved in the process is if you were purchasing the domain from them. Shadow1 (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Just nitpicking... The registrars ask for your DNS server's IP address, not your IP address. Your DNS is what maps the domain name to your IP address. If you do not have a DNS server, you will need to get one (or create one - which is a pain). There are many cheap/free DNS services on the web. Some even allow for roaming IP addresses, just in case your ISP changes your IP address on you. Youth in Asia 13:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay how does the domain name know which IP address in the DNS belongs to you? Does it link to it automatically using the IP address your are connecting from to do the domain/DNS setup? 71.100.3.132 18:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

A DNS service is specifically designed to take a domain name and return an IP address. It is your job to tell the DNS server what the IP address is for each domain name. When you hire a DNS server (I use secure.net), you have to say, "I just got superglobalmegamax.com and I want it to point to 64.23.54.2." Then, you tell the registrar what your DNS service's IP address is. When joe schmo types in superglobalmegamax, they will initially get the DNS server IP (ie, secure.net) and then the DNS will tell them the IP. Nameservers - the one that talks to the DNS - will commonly cache requests so it doesn't have to go to the DNS every time you type in the same domain name. You can even cache lookups on your local computer to speed things up further. Youth in Asia 19:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that if you do not work with your ISP, that they probably have a PTR_record#Types_of_DNS_records for the IP provided to you, so any time a third party tries to resolve the IP, they'll get the hostname the ISP defined, not your domain name. You'll have to get your ISP involved if you don't like that. -- JSBillings 16:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Two NAT related questions

Dear Wikipedians:

I have 2 NAT related questions for which I cannot find answers in Wikipedia's NAT page.

Question 1: If NAT disrupts end-to-end connectivity, then how is it possible for me to initiate an MSN conversation to my friend and to have her see my first message popping up on her computer when both of us are behind our respective ISP's NAT (i.e. worst-case NAT scenario: both ends behind NAT). And how can I use the "MSN" principle to visit her personal IIS web server she has hosted on her MSN computer?

Question 2: How long does NAT keep a (internal IP, internal port -> external IP, external port) mapping available in its memory?

Regards,

76.65.14.155 01:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

For the first question, you and your friend are not directly connected to each other. Instead, your MSN clients are both connected to a central server, which relays messages between you two. Not sure about using the "MSN" principle, though your friend should port forward in her router. Second question, dunno. :) Splintercellguy 01:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reply. By "MSN" principle I mean can I call up her personal IIS web server in the same way that I call up her MSN messenger? Particularly if she couldn't do any port forwarding because she has an extremely nasty ISP (like Rogers in Canada) that dumps all of its non-business customers into these NAT pig-pens and refuse them any access to the routers? (But even for my friends who are imprisoned behind Rogers evil NAT I could still initiate connection to their MSN messengers). 76.65.14.7 05:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

A kinda bulky and impractical way I can think of top of my head would be for your friend to host the IIS server as a Tor hidden service. Splintercellguy 06:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

A less bulky and impractical way would be to use IPv6 on both machines, either using Teredo or another tunnel broker. That way, both machines would get a real IP address, and you could do anything you would normally do with a real IP address. --cesarb 11:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

huaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! That is juuuuuuuuuuust what I'm looking for. Thanks a lot cesar and splintercellguy! 76.65.13.119 15:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Steam adjusting prices for me based on where I live?

Does Steam automatically convert the listed prices to Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, etc if you browse it from Canada, Australia? On its front page, http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php , Dark Messiah and Thief are both listed as $19.95. Is it the same for everyone else? 202.10.86.63 17:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I was just reading this the other day- short answer is that no that's USD --froth^t 18:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Linux root filesystem

Can linux at boot time use smbfs as its root filesystem? Can it use image file stored in smbfs as root filesystem (this would be more important)? (It would make possible booting linux from network (using windows server with tftpd32 and somewhere shared (over smb) root filesystem image)). Articles linux kernel and Linux Startup Process did not contain information about root filesystem mounting. initrd has data about use of plain NFS as root FS, but no data about SMB or SMB/loop -Yyy 19:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

No - a minimum of the Linux Image and GRUB would need to be on a filesystem GRUB can understand. You might be able to symlink some of the other folders away to SMB. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you don't even need GRUB (you can network boot, which is what is being asked about). As to using CIFS as the root filesystem, I don't think anyone ever tried that; it should be possible in theory, as long as you used a Samba server correctly configured to use POSIX permissions with the Linux client. You could also in theory use a loopback image from a Windows server (but it wouldn't be similar to NFS root then, since the root image would have to either be not shared or not writable). --cesarb 09:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, i have been able to load kernel through tftp, there probably is possible to use ramdisk as root FS (image loaded through tftp), but it would be inefficient. I intend to use loopback image from a Windows server. Limitations are acceptable (for example ability to boot knoppix (or something similar) to real hardware (not vmware or something similar) without ever writing a physical CD). Thanks for the answer, this question reduces to configuration of initrd to: load network card driver module; load CIFS module; get IP adress from DHCP; mount SMB share into initrd filesystem; mount root filesystem image over /dev/loop (at the end to be moved over to /). -Yyy 15:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Lightbulb from PC

I hooked up a lightbulb to my computer but it won't turn on and I don't know why.--71.185.138.224 23:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Last I heard, PCs don't have lightbulb sockets, so I think we need more information. Is it a USB light? A special device (such as some sort of electronics kit)? A 50-year-old valve-powered computer? Confusing Manifestation 23:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

X10? —Steve Summit (talk) 02:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

June 25

hexadecimal in javascript

Is there any command in javascript to convert a number into a hexadecimal string? — Daniel 00:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Yah. 54321.toString(16) returns D431 (for example). --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to work in my browser. According to w3schools ([4]) that command converts dates to strings. — Daniel 16:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It only converts dates to strings if you use it on a date. This works fine on Firefox and IE for me:

i = 255;
document.write (i.toString(16));

...will write ff. You can change the base too - changing the 16 above to 2 gives 11111111.

— Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Aparently, it needs a variable (such as i in the second example). — Daniel 18:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If you don't want to use a new variable you could just typecast it - parseInt(255).toString(16) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 18:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Darwine x86

Has the darwine (x86) project gone under? All of the links on all of the mirrors of the x86 version are broken. Can anyone explain why, or give me a link to the newest version?--67.181.167.227 03:19, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

PSP

I really do not know if this is the right place to be asking this question but I will ask it anyways. Does anyone know how to store videos or DVD's on the Sony PSP? I know it has something to do with the memory stick card but can you download DVD's free to this card? Thanks for any responces.68.120.229.30 04:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There's a way to do it manually but PSP Video 9 might just be simpler. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 21:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A problem with Windows Movie Maker...

I tried to make an AMV with Windows Movie Maker, but there is an error every time after I drag the first clip down to the storyboard or timeline. I've sent error reports, but there's still an error. I s there a way to fix this problem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sirdrink13309622 (talk • contribs).

What error do you get, exactly? And does it happen with all clips or just with specific ones? --Dapeteばか 10:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, asking a computer person to fix your problem without giving an error number is like telling a car mechanic that a light won't turn off. What light is it? -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 10:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

My Windows Movie Maker is on Windows XP. The error said that if I was in the middle of something, the information I was looking for might be lost. It didn't say the number but I told you what it said. Now, is there any way I could fix the problem?

Go to tools -> options -> compatibility and uncheck every box there. See if you can still play your clips. If not, go one by one and check one box at a time, checking each time to see if you can play your clips (audio and video). Once you get playing clips, stop. Basically, there's usually a bunch of codecs sitting around in WMM and WMM doesn't like all of them. So you need to narrow down which ones are absolutely vital (playing your video) and leave the rest off. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 21:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

All in one computers?

I know we used to have an article on this, but I can't seem to find it. Does anyone know of companies that make all in one computers? Obviously there's apple, and if you consider that HP monstrosity a desktop HP, there's also cybernetman and that weird sony thing, but there don't seem to be any others from what I can see. By desktop, I mean a computer that cannot feasibly be used as a laptop. Say, if it would be impossible to reasonably take it out and use it in an airport. Also, it preferably would conform to some standard, such as ATX or ITX. By all in one, I mean the computer has at least the monitor and motherboard/tower components as one unit. I'd also like to see keyboard computers, like some of cybernetman's, and the old C64s, but not as much. Mainly I ask because I'd like something that's somewhat stylish (like an iMac), but I don't want to pay Apple's hardware prices and then overwrite the OS with linux anyway -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 10:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A laptop computer? There isn't any commercially produced desktop computer that integrates the keyboard AFAIK. Also does it have to be small sized? Does a side panel-mounted LCD on a normal sized computer count? --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Did you... read... my...post... at all? Really now, I made it very clear. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 10:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes I did, and I clearly said there isn't one that integrate the keyboard on the market (at lest not one that I know of). It's relatively easy to cut apart your side-panels on your tower and stuff your LCD monitor behind that, does that count as an All in One computer? Does the iMac G4 form factor count as your "All in One?"? Please clarify what you actually want. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I did, very clearly. If you don't know of anything on the market, you obviously don't have the answer to my question do you? I know they exist, I'm just looking for more. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 10:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I dont remember the model numbers, but Dell has a few where the mainboard cabinet is hung behind the monitor. And I saw some Sony models (there were calling it tabletop or something, I dont remember now), which was basically an 21 inch LCD monitor with a laptop kbd and touchpad hinged from the bottom of the monitor. The cabinet, in this one also, was hung benind the monitor. Better check some Sony World outlets out. --soum ^talk 11:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I remember those dells too, the cabinet was really small like the size of a first-generation tablet pc and was hung behind or next to the lcd monitor. Keyboard not integrated though, that would be kind of dumb --froth^t 13:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There are still some I-openers out there, but that's pretty under-powered. I thought I saw eMachines or Compaq systems that fit your description, but I can't find anything like it on any stores, and I seem to recall they had integrated CRTs. I think a bunch came out after the iMac, but not since. -- JSBillings 12:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have seen pictures of computer built into keyboard, but not the actual device, so i am not sure if these are mass produced. It had a DVI port on back and optical disc drive in side. Inside there were some ITX or smaller form factor mainboard. There also were PC type computers shaped like iMac computers (if i remember correctly, these were even mass produced for some time, i cannot remember company name, which produced them, though.) -Yyy 12:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You both are thinking of eOne, and Yyy you're thinking of Cybernetman which is what I talked about first. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 13:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 DIPLOMA

I need to find a diploma work on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Powerdesa 10:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC) I am allso doing one and would like to compare with more of them. Are there any links to diploma library? Powerdesa 10:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Using sftp with a public/private key pair from the command line.

Hello!

I have generated a pair of keys and am able to

• use WinSCP to sftp files with my private key
• use PuTTY to ssh into my account with my private key

However, when I try to use sftp at the command line, I get

$ sftp -oIdentityFile="/cygdrive/e/my_key.ppk" username@host.com Connecting to host.com... Enter passphrase for key '/cygdrive/e/my_key.ppk': Enter passphrase for key '/cygdrive/e/my_key.ppk': Enter passphrase for key '/cygdrive/e/my_key.ppk': username@host.com's password:

Is IdentityFile not the right thing to pick? If I choose a non-existent file, it jumps straight to

username@host.com's password:

So it must have some idea of what's going on. Could it be because my passphrase is about 30 characters long?

Use this script from the command line. Save it as publickey.sh instead of publickey.txt. Run it from the command line with the syntax like "sh publickey.sh kainaw@wikipedia.org". It will ask for the password to the remote server, log in, set up your keys, set permissions properly, and then quit. After that, you can "ssh kainaw@wikipedia.org" or "sftp kainaw@wikipedia.org" without a password. -- _(¿ʇɐɥʍ) ʍɐuıɐʞ 15:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I am already able to log in without a password. I know that my keys are set up correctly. I can tell this because when I use GUI clients like PuTTY for SSH and WinSCP for SFTP, I can do so using my private key, passwordless. My real question is how to tell the standard command-line sftp client to use the key I specify. My guess was sftp -oIdentityFile="/cygdrive/e/my_key.ppk" username@host.com which seems to be wrong. Thanks for the help, by the way!

Norton Confidential 2007

Hello. My Norton Confidential 2007 free trial has expired. I uninstalled it via Add/Remove Programs and restarted my computer. However, whenever I run Liveupdate in Norton AntiVirus 2007, Liveupdate shows that I still have Norton Confidential installed. I double-checked Add or Remove Programs in my Control Panel; Norton Confidential is gone. Is Norton Confidential 2007 actually uninstalled off my computer? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 15:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding urls to del.icio.us

Forgive my tone of voice; I'm feeling a tad irritated. My question: is there a way to simply add bookmarks to del.icio.su without sticking those buttons on the browser I'm currently using? The other bookmarking service I use, a more obscure one called MyBookmarks, does this by default. If del.icio.us doesn't offer this feature, why the **** not? (TO be precise, I just want to be able to stick in a bookmark by pasting the url and giving it a name; I don't need any other song and dance.) $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 17:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

http://del.icio.us/post — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 18:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Setting up a link between an IP address and a web site on a personal computer

I purchased a domain name and hosting service but the hosting service turned out not to be Full Trust as required by the starter kit I was installing. Although I cancelled the hosting service I still had the domain name. I wanted to point the domain to the personal webspace provided by my ISP since it at least had one canned cgi script I could use to get responses from visitors to the site. Although the domain name provider offers a direct link from the domain name to any IP address it does not seem to be working. An arbitrary domain name generated by a DNA service, however, will point to any IP address I select and is currently pointed to the personal webspace provided by my ISP.

However, I would like to point the domain name at a website I have created on my personal computer although I realize the connection will be slow. What I need are step by step instructions as to how to setup my DSL modem, router and computer so that this can be done.

Are there any instructions on the Internet for doing such a thing?

71.100.3.132 17:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Windows Speed vs mac Speed

This may have been asked on the help desk a few months ago, but I was unable to find a conclusive answer. I have 3 computer with identical technical specs, one with Windows XP, one with Windows Vista and one with Mac OS X Leopard. Which of the three computer would be the fastest in a) normal everyday browsing, b) graphic/web design and c) games? Thanks. Acceptable 18:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC) EDIT: sorry, I didn't realize Leopard wasn't out yet. Please use the newest version of of Mac OS X instead.

Since Apple's MacOSX Leopard isn't out yet, it'd be hard to make these estimates unless you were using one of the developer seeds. Also, in the case of a), it depends on the browser, comparing the default browser of Explorer on windows to the default browser of Safari on macosx, you're going to see vastly different speeds depending on the test. It might be worth comparing the same browser (say, Firefox or Opera) on each. b.) You can check some of the benchmarks done on the MacPro running MacOSX and Windows XP, [5]. For c.) I can't think of any cross-platform games that are CPU intensive. I know that some games were announed recently for MacOSX, but they're all running under API emulation provided by TransGaming Technologies. -- JSBillings 18:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Export windows network drive mappings.

I routinely work on multiple PCs throughout the day, but on our network, the only default network drive mapping is for the personal dirctory. If I create drive mappings on a PC they stay, but they are not imported if I log onto another pc. Is there a way to export the drive mappings to a file so that I could import the drive mappings on any PC hat I wanted to use?

Thanks! -Czmtzc 19:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocking access of computer on router

I have two computers linked to my D-Link Gold Series Router. Is there anyway that I can block the internet access of Computer B using Computer A? Acceptable 19:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

For some routers you can block/allow access for special ips. Don't know if this is possible with an D-Link Gold Series Router. 84.160.217.154 21:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You could do MAC filtering. Splintercellguy 22:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Apple Pages Page Numbering

I am using Apple Pages, and want to create a document with the page number for left-hand pages at the bottom left and vice versa. I have followed instructions and selected 'Facing Pages,' but still it formats the footers the same... What do I need to do? It's driving me mad!

Many thanks,

--Fadders 20:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Installing Linux --- difficult case

I upgraded my old box with a new hard drive and a second ethernet card and now I'd like to install an up to date linux version.

The problem is that the new linux is on dvd while the box can only read cd, so I need to install via nfs from another machine. Now that I've never done that before this would be enough of an adventure, but, to make it really interesting, the old linux version refuses to recognize any of the ethernet cards (error "SIOCSIFADDR: No such device") which worked fine up until today.

I can boot with an ancient version of knopix and access the internet fine and easy, so it's not the hardware that's wrong.

All valuable data have been saved to the other machine yesterday so special care is not a point.

Any ideas what could be done? And do you think the old version is alive and in fear of death?

84.160.217.154 20:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Most major distros come with a bootable live CD from which you can download the necessary stuff. CD, not DVD. --User:Krator (t c) 22:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Conversion

Hi, does anyone know of a good program to convert DVD video files into MPEG-1 files? 24.19.234.96 22:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

MediaCoder is a nice and good program for just about any conversion. --User:Krator (t c) 22:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Your download will start in several seconds ...

Many websites use a page that will pop up a download in several seconds, with the ever-present "if your download does not start, click here" link. Why do these website use such a method? I would think that direct links or something that does not delay the download works better. Is this a security/bot prevention thing? --User:Krator (t c) 22:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

They may want to keep your eyes on their web-page for a few extra seconds so you see their sponsored ads. Or, their web-server may actually be querying a database, running a background program, or other "slow" process, to deliver the file to you. Nimur 23:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The page will redirect to the actual download link, instead of getting you to the actual link. Some browsers don't support automatic redirects, so clicking the link will initiate the download.

Javascript and long variables

Hi.

I am trying to make a website to host some recipes and photos of mine. My plan was to have thumbnails of the food arranged in a bar on the left side of the page, and when you click on the thumbnail, a photo and the recipe pops in the main part of the page.

I wrote a very simple javascript to do this:

function ChgPodium(freshpod, captiont) {document.img_podium.src=freshpod; document.getElementById('captiontxt').innerHTML=captiont; }

See? When you call the function, you give it the location of the image and you type in the recipe in captiont. The problem is, the recipe has to be written out all in one line (if you line break, it screws everything up). And, although it worked great on my computer, when I tried to upload it, it looked like lines could only be so long. What should I do? 65.94.220.211 23:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I would avoid doing it that way completely. What if someone wants to link to a specific recipe of yours? If you're switching the content like that, they won't be able to. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)