Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Wikipedia:Reference desk/headercfg

September 21

xbox live speed problems

I have problems playing xbox live games online because the response is way too slow. Nothing uses the connection while I play and the upload speed is approx 90 - 100 kbps (tested on two different sites). The games I tried are Sonic 2 and Lumines which should be very quick games. What can I do to increase the response time, will a faster upload speed help? Thanks 86.41.159.42 04:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Online games transmit lots of tiny bits of data, so upload speed really isn't an issue. However it does need a steady uninterrupted flow of data. Perhaps your connection has lots of noise? I would contact your cable or DSL company and complain. Do you get reasonable upload speeds on your computer? Is your 360 connecting to the net wirelessly? --24.249.108.133 18:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Computer tower

Is it normal for a computer desktop tower to start making noise after several months of use. Or could that mean that the computer fan needs cleaning.--logger 04:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes and yes. Or it could be your optical drive if there's a CD spinning. --froth^t 04:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say no, it's not normal, any new sound could be a sign of trouble. The fans or hard drive are the most likely problems, but cleaning isn't very likely to solve it. With any luck, you may just have something loose (like a screw) that's vibrating. StuRat 04:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Cheap fans get noisy after a bit of use, nothing to worry about... If it's the hard drive you have serious problems but I doubt that's the case. Open it up while it's running (dont leave it open long, it's bad for airflow and cooling) and listen for where it's coming from --froth^t 04:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think most computers cool themselves better without the cover, but the noise and ugliness convince most people to put the cover back on. StuRat 05:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done tests on this and my PC runs hotter with the cover off. I have to admit it was a rather small sample size that is most likely fuelled by the fact that my computer is under my desk with little ventilation. With the cover on it was drawing cold air from the front and pushing it out the back hot, whereas with the cover off it was just kind of wallowing in hot air. Capuchin 08:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, there's no way to get cool air if it's just heating all the air around it. What could be better for cooling than cool air roaring through the thing and out the back? --froth^t 13:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Radiation will work better with the cover off, as will convection. The fan will also still blow air through the computer with the cover off, probably even better than before, since now the air flow isn't impeded by the case (having to pass through vents). Capuchin's case may be an exception, where removing the cover has little effect either way, because the computer is in an enclosed space either way. Another exception might be if they clamped hot components directly to the case so that heat conducted to the case then radiated out from there. I'm not aware of any computer that uses this strategy, however.

Also, a well designed "wind tunnel" design with one fan blowing in and another fan exactly opposite blowing out, with little blocking the flow of air in between, would work well, but computers I have seen just have one fan blowing out, and maybe another CPU fan blowing nowhere in particular, and many components blocking the air flow. This makes for rather inefficient air flow. StuRat 17:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How is a little case fan going to pull hot air away from components if the case is open? It'll just pull air from the sides instead of from the components. And any decent case will have a fan in front and back to get that "wind tunnel" design, and most high end cases will have a small side fan to provide additional cool airflow directly onto the GPU & motherboard. --froth^t 22:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I work with computers yet have yet to see a case with a fan in the front. You must work with some high-end equipment. StuRat 03:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've got fan mounting space in the front right in front of the hard drives, and my case is some cheapo no-name brand one... --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"Fan mounting space" presumably means you don't have an actual fan there, though. StuRat 16:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It didn't come with one but I put one in to cool my hard drives (they are just a few degrees below my CPU even with the fan). --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I see. This would tend to support my assertion that most computers don't come with a fan in front. I hope you have one fan blowing in and one blowing out. Otherwise, they are working against each other rather than with each other. Also, if the hard drives have those rubber covers, take them off, they tend to hold the heat in. StuRat 14:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a new HP computer i got just yesterday and it is still nice and quiet. It has an AMD CPU with cool and quiet on it.--logger 06:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, is this a continuous noise, or only when your acessing files etc? Think outside the box 16:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Learning C++

What would be a good text to read to learn the basics of C++ if I already know C? I'd prefer if it was available online. Thanks. —Bromskloss 10:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I highly recommend TC++PL; it's not just a good book about C++ but a good book about programming in general. Any tutorial you find online will (probably) be vastly inferior to this book. The free online C++ FAQ Lite is pretty good, but it's not really a tutorial. It has some more book recommendations. -- BenRG 11:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

If by "online" you mean "free", check your local library. C++ is big enough that lots of libraries have a book, and I find it's much easier learning the concepts from a paper copy. --h2g2bob (talk) 11:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thinking in C++ by Bruce Eckel is a free online e-book. His stuff seems to come highly recommended, and I found his similar book on Java very good. --Kateshortforbob 23:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

URL Questions

• First question: What kind of a site is this?
• Second question: I unwittingly followed search.fbi.gov/search?site=my_collection&output=xml_no_dtd&client=my_collection&proxystylesheet=my_collection&q=CHILD%20UNDERAGE%20KIDDIE%20PORN&submit22.x=0&submit22.y=0 <--- this link, so is the FBI going to start tracking me now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.183.219 (talk) 11:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this a joke? Are you wanting more people to unwittingly follow the link too? You will be better off asking the FBI what they will do, but I suspect nothing at all, since it looks like a prank. I have broken the link to stop others from clicking! Graeme Bartlett 12:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks like just a direct link to a search of fbi.gov for "CHILD UNDERAGE KIDDIE PORN". I doubt anyone will notice unless it starts showing up on a list of frequently-searched terms, in which case they'll probably figure out what's going on --froth^t 13:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

In Internet Explorer, it's black, but in Mozilla Firefox, it's purplish pink.

Stop linkifying that URL, someone's going to click it. I almost clicked it. --froth^t 15:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

OMG, then the FBI would be watching you TOO! --24.147.86.187 23:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

US consumers contract with broadband companies

Is there any limit on the number of PCs that a person can connect to a single broadband connection? For example, If a person has a PC, a iPod touch (which has wifi) and a blackberry which has WiFi, can we connect all three devices to the modem simultaniously? There may not be enough ports available. But thats something technical. On the legal side of it, can we connect any number of devices? If I have a device, say, which can be used to split a modem into three parts, can we use all the devices at the same time? Can I connect two PCs at the same time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.28.68 (talk) 11:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Apart from capacity share getting lower and lower, the limit is likely to be physical ports as you suggest, or the number of IP numbers available from the DHCP server. If you check your IP mask (perhaps with ipconfig) you can figure out how many numbers you can have: 255.255.255.0 can have 254 numbers, 255.255.0.0 can have 65534 numbers, so it can be large. The DHCP range will be smaller than this, but may just be one less. Graeme Bartlett 12:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the whole point of NAT routers. Do you have such a router? The NAT router would appear to be one computer and use one IP no matter how many things are behind it. If you own the router, you can set how many IPs it gives out. Now I guess, depending on the model of the router, there might be a limitation by design as to how many devices it supports on its local network side; but that doesn't prevent you from putting more NAT routers behind it. --Spoon! 12:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It is not unimaginable that some broadband provider would attempt to put some limit on the number of devices into their contract, and I believe such clauses were found before the NAT router became ubiquitous. However the question can not be addressed from a "US Consumer" point-of-view, as each provider will have its own set of byzantine rules and regulations. --LarryMac | Talk 12:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

regex question

I run into this a lot and I've never found the proper way to handle it. I want to find all relative links in HTML. It is a link in the form "a href='somepage.html'" as opposed to "a href='http://wikipedia.com/sompage.html'. What's the regex for saying "not html" as in "/a href='[^html]/"? I know that won't work (it will look for ' followed anything other than h, t, m, or l). I also know [^h] won't work because it will mistake "home.html" for being "http". I know [^h][^t][^m][^l] won't work for the same reason. -- kainaw™ 18:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

First, you should use an HTML-parsing library if at all possible. It will handle all the corner cases that you are certain to forget or ignore. Second, it's easiest just to do the regex in two steps. Here's an example in Perl:

$string = "<a href='http://wikipedia.com/somepage.html'>";
if ($string =~ /\bhref='([^']+)'/)
{
  $url = $1;
  if ($url =~ /^http:/) {
    print "Url is absolute\n";
  } else {
    print "Url is relative\n";
  }
}

But again, this code misses a *lot* of cases (upper/lower case, URLs with passwords, missing/different quote marks, "href" not in an "A" tag, etc. You should really avoid parsing HTML for anything but a toy project. Also, if you're hellbent on using a single regex, search for "negative lookbehind" here. But don't do that. --Sean 19:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

You can get the literal effect you ask for by looking for ([^h]...|.[^t]..|..[^m].|...[^l]|.{0,3}$), where the last bit (which could also be written .?.?.?$) applies when the line or string or file (depending on how your matcher operates) ends in less than 4 more characters:

<a href='b'>
Hullo!
</a>

It's really annoying that it's hard to implement negative regexps even though we know that the complement of a regular language is regular. Hope that helps. --Tardis 19:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

(?<!html)$ --Spoon! 02:12, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

What can back up old versions of text files each time they change?

What can back up old versions of text files each time they change? Is there any software that can make backups whenever a text file is overwritten like the Rewind software for the Macintosh but for PC? And the wikipedia article rewind (software) is some other software than what I'm talking about. William Ortiz 19:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How much do you want to spend? There are specialized filesystems that do this (we call it snapback. That might or might not be the proper name). Or, there are myriad versioning systems that you might like. Wikipedia itself manages diffs of text through its MediaWiki software. CVS and Subversion are other options. --Mdwyer 20:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I recommend using Subversion (or more specifically TortoiseSVN http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ from Tigris) Ronnystalker 20:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you're asking for a versioning filesystem. I'm not aware of any current operating system that supports such a feature. --Carnildo 22:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been a standard feature of OpenVMS since it was RSX.

Atlant 13:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, current operating system. --Carnildo 22:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

OpenVMS is a current operating system.

Atlant 11:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

MySQL Ordering results that have been Grouped

I have stumbled across a problem that appears to have a simple solution but has, so far, taken up 8 hours of my life trying to solve.

The situation:

I am designing an online photo gallery. 
I have a Mysql table that holds a record for each 'media file' in the web application - tbl_media_files.
I have another table that holds a record for each 'media item' in the web application - tbl_media_items.

A media item could be, for example, a picture of a Dog - lets call it 'Dog'. This 'media item' could be associated with 4 images, hence 4 records in the tbl_media_files table;

a tinythumbnail of dog (10 px by 10 px),
a Thumbnail picture of Dog (100px by 100 px),
a Midsize picture of Dog (300px by 300px) and
a large picture of Dog (1200px by 1200px).

Lets say we have another media item called Cat that is only represented by 2 files of different sizes.

a tinythumbnail of cat (12 px by 12 px),
a Thumbnail picture of cat (150px by 200 px),

Lets say we want to look at an overview of a picture gallery that shows pets. I am trying to use Mysql to;

SELECT
the file attributes
(width multiplied by height) as AREA
FROM
my media files table
WHERE
(the files have a width below=150px
AND
the files have a height below=300px
AND
the file is the picture of the Dog
)
OR
(the files have a width below=150px
AND
the files have a height below=300px
AND
the file is the picture of the Cat
)

But, I only want the largest file that represents each media item within this scale criteria . So, in some way:

Grouped by media item
ORDERED BY Area Descending

Then, lets say, i want to show the midsize item on its own. So, in theory, i should run the same query but change the max width and height to bring up the best sized image within the pages size e.g below 800 px width. For the dog, i'll get the mid size image. But becuase the largest picture of cat is 100px by 100 px, we shall have to settle with this one.

The idea is to be able to always select the largest file that represents each media item for a given 'view'. In theory it can then be extended to say, retrieve a thumnail of a video 'media item' for a gallery overview and the actual video file of the video at larger scales.

I thought i could do this query in one go using a Group by media_item_id and Order By image Area Descending. But the ordering does not seem to make any difference - thus causing a tinythumbnail's attributes to be retrieved when i know that i much bigger version of the media item is available.

I've resorted to using procedural code in a loop issueing one query per media item with a limit of 1 ORDERED by area descending. However, it seems such a simple problem that I feel I'm missing an obvious single Mysql select/join that could achieve the desired results in one query.

I look forward to any suggestion or further questions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronnystalker (talk • contribs) 20:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• You want the HAVING clause. --Sean 20:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. I would appreciate it any one can help me further and indicate how the HAVING could be used, i tried a quick test with the HAVING to see if it pulled up the correct file for each media item, but it only seemed to pull 2 items out of a possible three that i have in my test table:

SELECT
t1.col_width,
t1.col_height,
max(t1.col_width) as mw,
max(t1.col_height) as mh,
(t1.col_width * t1.col_height) ,
t1.*

FROM
tbl_media_files as t1

GROUP BY
t1.col_media_item_id

HAVING
t1.col_width =mw
AND
t1.col_height=mh

Any other ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronnystalker (talk • contribs) 22:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How about using the MAX function to return only the records with the maximum areas which meet the given criteria ? As a shortcut, you could just take the max height or width, since the pic with the max height, max width, and max area will presumably be the same (assuming the pics have the same aspect ratios). StuRat 03:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think you are right. I think I'll try first selecting the max widths, say, of all the media items I want (that are below the scale criteria) grouped by media item. Then join the results onto the same table selecting the records ON the width column AND media item column. I have not tried it, yet, cos I have circumvented the problem with a less efficient script in order to get on and finish the rest of the gallery a.s.a.p. - i will update this post once i've cracked it. Ronnystalker 03:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Your welcome. I hope it works out for you. I'll be watching for your follow-up post. StuRat 16:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

September 22

Laptop recommendations

I'm thinking of getting a laptop, but I don't need to get the latest and greatest, or even anything new. A nice refurbished model would be also be acceptable. My parameters are: 1) < US$500; 2) DVD; 3) wireless; 4) support a Linux (e.g. Ubuntu) or BSD. I don't have a lot of experience with PCs , so I don't know what is out there (or what WAS out there). I used to use an IBM ThinkPad T42 for work though, so that's my point of reference; anything small and lighter than that would be nice. Can someone give me some ideas? Thanks! TresÁrboles 05:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Less than $500? Don't go with dell. But you don't have a lot of options. Check out that price bracket on newegg. --froth^t 05:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'm surprised that you say I don't have a lot of options. The reason why is because I was walking through Best Buy and noticed that there were one or two sub $500 laptops on display (sorry I don't remember what they were). I was thinking that if I could find latest-model laptops under $500 at a brick & mortar place, then I should be able to get a wider selection online (especially since I wouldn't limit myself to latest models, but also include anything recent, or even not that recent but certifiably refurbished). I was also not looking to pack it out with tons of memory at this point, or get the biggest hard drives or fastest CPUs, and certainly I don't care about Vista (in fact, I would prefer not to have it). TresÁrboles 18:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Check out ebay, I think you should be able to get that if you look for it. Your processor power won't need to be massive on ubuntu, I would guess 512 MB would be ample. If you want a dual boot, don't expect to get Vista on it for that price too, though. I would check out the make for its general compatability with Linux though: some manufacturers (eg. Sony) aren't famed for this area.martianlostinspace ^{email me} 09:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I was looking for specific recommendations, then I can research the specific requirements for, let's say, Ubuntu or FreeBSD myself. TresÁrboles 18:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Acer's fine, that's why I linked to newegg --froth^t 15:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on Acer. TresÁrboles 18:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki formatting glitches

I have a MediaWiki-powered site at strawberrylandwiki.110mb.com, and I had trouble incorporating the Template:Strawberry Shortcake character to the site, since it displays badly in my wiki whenever I use it.

Here's the screenshot:

Screenshot of my wiki

Compare the infobox in the above screen to this:

??

Is there something missing in my site? Blake Gripling 06:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

(images → links) --h2g2bob (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh no you di-ent. Fixed. --froth^t 15:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Try copying the template over again - it probably has line breaks added somehow. It's a good idea to use Special:Export and Special:Import when uploading pages from Wikipedia to your wiki, which preserves the full edit history of the page. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Wrong place to ask, try WP:HD --froth^t 15:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Make sure your templates on your server understand the #if function. On my wikimedia servers, I had to add it as a template extension. -- kainaw™ 15:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

How? Blake Gripling 00:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I checked and discovered that I couldn't get it working, so I make a Template:If with the following content: {{{else{{{test|}}}|{{{test{{{test|}}}|{{{then|}}}}}}}}}. Instead if {{#if}}, you just use {{if}}. -- kainaw™ 12:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

To get #if working, you need to install the ParserFunctions extension. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The ParserFunctions are already there in my wiki... I already fixed the Template:Strawberry Shortcake character glitch; now the infobox Actor's messed up. Whenever I insert a picture there, it appends "colspan="2" style="text-align:center; font-size:100%;" beside the picture... Blake Gripling 23:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

How easy is it to start a search engine?

It would cost hundreds of million dollars if not billions to develop a search technology and index and store all pages in our servers and start a search engine. But is there an alternative? I recently came across clusty.com, a small website. Do they index pages? Or, do they outsource the core things to someone and just design the interface? Any other ideas for starting a search engine without any investment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.117.211 (talk) 08:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Clusty isn't as small as you think. RedHerring said (more than a year ago) that it had 35 employees and $2 million in funding (that seems to me to be very low; to still be in business now with that kind of burn rate it must surely have obtained more financing to the tune of $5 to $10 million). The size of the web means that crawling it involves a huge volume of data traffic and storage - there's no magical algorithmic solution to that. And new search engines have a much harder road than did startups Yahoo! and Google - when they started (particularly Yahoo!) the web was many times smaller, so they could afford to scale up to crawl the whole web fairly easily, and then grow as the web grew (making profit as they go). To compete with Google search (even if your algorithms are lightyears better than theirs) you need infrastructure of a similar (massive) size to theirs. I think "billions" is a bit much, but certainly tens of millions to play at all. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You could alway be sneaky and just have a 'frontend' that uses someone else's search engine but returns the results in the manner you desire. I understand there are a few firms that use google's search technology but return it in their own style. AOl do this don't they? ny156uk 11:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

AOL do, and I seem to remember Yahoo! using Google's search a while back. Smaller sites can use Google Custom Search Engine (or just hook their search form up to google.com/search?q=site%3Aexample.com, so the user gets a Google search with results only from their site), and companies who want to search their own servers can use Google Search Appliance or Google Mini — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Before the days of google's might, I used to use CNET's search.com but now they do exactly that- aggregate search results from several engines. --froth^t 15:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Wide screen Vs Full screen

It seems the battle is over. Wide screen every were. Why is it? I always have been thinking that full screen is better, but it seems every one likes wide screen. Is the wide screen every were happening because people like it or is it because the companies have imposed them? If people like it, why is it? If manufacturers have dumped them in the market, why is it? Which do you like personally? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.122.101 (talk) 13:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking TV's or computer monitors? I guess monitors because you are in the computer department. I have both types of screen attached to my computer. I like the wide screen because I write computer code using a text editor. As this code can sometimes have many characters on a line, my widescreen enables me to see more of it with less sideways-scrolling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.12.143.75 (talk) 13:58, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well they say the move to widescreen was due to a desire to get that 'cinema' experience at home. I guess with the increasing amount of online video/computer based tv there is a move to bring this into monitors as well. Presumably it is cheaper for firms if they build their monitors/tvs in the aspect ratio because they can then maybe share machine/production methods/things like that. I know i'm not particularly keen on widescreen monitors (though my macbook has one), but you get used to it pretty quickly and soon forget the difference. ny156uk 15:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I used to hate widescreen since websites generally look terrible when you even "Maximize" your browser in a 4:3 monitor, let alone a widescreen. But I got a widescreen 2nd monitor, and it's amazing. The whole purpose of a 2nd monitor is extra room for when you have a lot of stuff open, and the widescreen aspect added 280 more horizontal pixels for use over if I had gotten a fullscreen monitor. I never maximize my browser on it (which looks reallly bad for sites that don't have a fixed width) but I do maximize hammer and Paint.NET, that sort of thing. A lot of people like to fill that extra space with the vista sidebar.. the only gadget I find useful is a digital clock to look at while I have a fullscreened game running on my main monitor, but it costs ~40MB of memory so no. Does that answer your question? I got a widescreen monitor because the whole reason I wanted an extra monitor was for extra room, so why not go for even more room? I would never use it as my primary monitor though, the widescreen aspect is annoying when you're using it for anything but watching TV/movies or image/map editing, or just holding running applications like VLC --froth^t 15:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Marketing could be one reason 'widescreen' sounds better, plus the film argument is a biggy. Personnally I'm still pushing a 1:1 screen ratio - but I doubt anyone is there to listen...87.102.89.127 15:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Can't find info about what human vision aspect ratio is, but it's probably widescreen, which helps its case. And less vertical movement of the eye does make reading easier and faster. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point - and I've asked a question about " human vision aspect ratio" on the science desk because of it. I notice the 'eye-hole- is wider than it is tall (for me anyway)87.102.89.127 16:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, part of that is probably because you have two eyes positioned horizontally (and the eye is itself made to let in more light in from the sides than it is the tops and bottom, no doubt because peripheral vision is most important on the horizontal level and with a bright sun could be even impeding on a vertical level). If you stare forward with one eye closed, you can easily see that you can usually put your arm pretty far off to the side and still see it in your peripheral vision, but if you put it much higher than your forehead you can't see it without looking up. With me, anyhow, I can see a ton more to the sides and below me (I can see my hand all the way down to my belly while staring forward) than I can above me, probably for the sun reason. --24.147.86.187 16:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's because your eyebrows are in the way when looking up. They, in turn, are there to catch falling dust that might otherwise get in your eyes. StuRat 03:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't much care what the standard is, I just want everything to be in the same standard. That way, I can watch TV on my computer monitor, play movies on my computer monitor, and use my TV monitor for my computer, all without messing up the aspect ratio or having to deal with truncated portions or black bars. In the US, the FCC seems to have decided on the HDTV standard, so I hope movie makers, TV producers, and computer monitor manufacturers will all use that ratio. StuRat 03:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Imposing a single aspect ratio standard would be extremely restrictive to movie makers. 202.10.86.63 05:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Why? Aren't most films in theatres widescreen anyways? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be many different aspect ratios in use, such as panoramic and IMAX. StuRat 19:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

See Aspect ratio (image) for some information.

Atlant 13:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Making us deal with different aspect ratios extremely annoying to the people who pay for those movies. If I pay for a 40" 16:9, you'd better not be trying replace a quarter of my screen with big black bars.. --froth^t 22:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I suppose the movie makers must consider what portion of their audience is the DVD market. Some movies are direct-to-video, so it would seem stupid to make those in any other ratio. For those that go to the theater first, using a weird aspect ratio may slightly improve the theatrical experience, but at the cost of a major negative for the home audience. StuRat 16:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I own a 16:9 TV, a 16:10 one, a 4:3 one and I used to have a 5:4 one. Even if all films were released in one aspect ratio from now on, they'd still have black bars on 3/4 of my TVs. Then there'd be loads of problems for the director and cinematographer -- things like Barry Lyndon just can't be done in widescreen, and things like Manhattan or 2001 can't be done in anything but widescreen. A standard aspect ratio just gets annoying for everyone. 202.10.86.63 11:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It's kinda ironic to see all this tension between 4:3 and 8:5 and 16:9, since the first "big" monitors that I remember were called Full Page Displays: about 612×792 pixels. (Now of course I find 1024×768 cramped.) Then there was the Radius swivel monitor, which could work in either portrait or landscape mode (I think it had a mercury switch). When did They stop selling "portrait" monitors? —Tamfang 00:05, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Application/x-msdos-program

What program should I use to open a file that is of the type application/x-msdos-program ? 69.157.245.244 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 15:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a program. You don't use another program to open it. Of course, you can get anal and claim the operating system is a program required to run it, but that is just silly. Next you'll be saying the BIOS is a program used to launch the operating system. -- kainaw™ 15:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't listen to him he's being sarcastic :( --froth^t 15:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

He's right though. There's probably some name for the service that runs it but it's all tied up in windows --froth^t 15:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Under NT-based Windows, MS-DOS executables are run by an MS-DOS emulator called ntvdm.exe, which gets invoked automatically when you launch a file with the appropriate filename extension and internal signature. Similar emulators are available for other operating systems, though they're typically not as transparent. The last OS to run MS-DOS programs "natively" was Windows Me. -- BenRG 19:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes when downloading a file the browser freaks out and thinks it's an application because it doesn't recognize the extension... if you give us the extension (as in, filename.XXX, the XXX part) we can help you better. Also, if this is the case, try clearing your browser cache, for some reason I've seen that work. Kuronue | Talk 22:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Dazzle DVD recorder

Should this work ok on windows vista as having problems connecting and recording programs off sky plus. this did work on windows2000. am i able to upgrade if nessecery? alison —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.212.84.153 (talk) 21:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

According to the CompUSA website [1], it is not compatable with Vista and I saw no new Dazzle DVD recording that will be coming out for Vista. Keep my posted. monkeynoze 21:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Can not find Internet Folder

I have a new computer and recently put Windows Vista onto it. I can't seem to find the temporary internet folders although when I go to internet tools and press delete temporary internet files folder it erases, so where could it be erasing from? Is it possible I don't have and internet folder on it? And, how could I find it? (There aren't any folders when I do a search on index.dat, Contents IE5, or twmporary internet folder, why can't I find these? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.99.245 (talk) 22:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Using IE7, open the "Tools" menu (press the alt key if you can't see it) and click "Internet Options". In the "General" tab, look under the "Browsing History" section and click "Settings". The window that opens should tell you were the Temperary Internet Files folder is and you can click "View Files" to open it. 71.118.170.2 23:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's in a hidden folder. Microsoft started hiding folders (with XP I think) to prevent novice users screwing up windows by accidentally deleting/modifying something critical. I don't have Vista so I can't guide you how to turn off the generic "hide system folders" setting - but it is in folder options in XP. Astronaut 19:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Hotmail Inconvenience

Hello. How can I conveniently move my e-mail messages to a new folder? Firstly, I selected my messages that I want to move. Secondly, I click on the drop down button beside "Move to". Thirdly, I click on "New Folder". I typed the name of my new folder and clicked Save. A new folder has been created, but I have to re-select those e-mail messages and move them to my new folder that I have recently made. Thank you in advance. --Mayfare 23:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Just create the new folder first and then move to it instead of using "move to new folder"? --froth^t 22:05, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I got it! --Mayfare 20:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

system administrator

my questions are to know what are the primary role of a system administrator,what role do they use,what tools do they use,what other skills do they work with,what are the certifications are needed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.235.86 (talk) 23:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

See system administrator and then come back here if you still have questions. -- kainaw™ 00:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

September 23

Saving Flash files

On the miscellaneous sight I had asked about saving a file from youtube. Someone had written that I could go to temporary internet files and copy a file from there that I had just seen and open it with another program. But, when I went there I didn't see any files resembling a youtube file. How can I do this and copy to an external drive to place on another computer? ( would like to avoid downloading a program to acomplish this if possible.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.99.245 (talk) 00:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Use something like FLV Downloader instead. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The download helper extension for firefox is my tool of choice - very easy to use and access whilst browsing --Fir0002 11:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

So it wouldn't be possible to copy a file from the temporary internet file folder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.121.105.34 (talk) 04:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It might be, but you'd have to figure out which file it was (it may not have the FLV ending, and there may be many of such files there). It is easier to just get a downloader. --24.147.86.187 15:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

UnPlug --h2g2bob (talk) 10:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

use diagram for vehicle identification

VISION:one should be able to identify vehicle and owner information using the identification mechanism.could be useful for police for theft checking and reduction,insurance companies could use it for physical verification of the vehicle,vehicle workshops could use it to better the customer service vehicle information could be accessible within punching of a button or even maybe moment the vehicle enters a premise or is near any tracker hardware —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.64.121.42 (talk) 08:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a question? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 10:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Would appear to be from here [2] - The Great Mind Challenge - 2007. At the risk of not assuming good faith maybe someone wants us to come up with an answer so they can enter it? If I'm feeling more charitable maybe they'd like us to enter ourselves as a team effort! Exxolon 13:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The basic programming challenge doesn't seem so difficult, design a database keyed on the VIN for each car, which has fields for all the relevent info. The real challenge would be in getting all the different people involved, from manufacturers, dealerships, insurers, and consumers to commit to keeping the records up to date. I can't see how you would make this happen. For comparison, I recently bought a car, and each dealership is responsible for keeping their own database of cars up to date so you can do a "dealer search" to find the dealership which has the desired vehicle on the lot. However, I found the database was so out of date as to be useless, and had to go back to calling each and every dealership in my area. In that case, there is a direct profit motive for each dealership to keep the database current, yet they still fail to do so. If they won't do so then, why on earth would they do so when there is no profit motive ? As a result, I'd expect only the automated parts to be updated reliably. For example, when a dealership orders a car from a manufacturer, that request can be assigned a VIN and automatically entered into the system.

Also, be aware that there is a "Big Brother" aspect to this. People applying for insurance don't necessarily want all their info available to the insurance companies, especially for unrelated vehicles. And used car dealerships would be angry if customers knew the real history of the car that they said was "only driven on Sundays by a little old lady from Pasadena", so you may find people have an interest in sabotaging the database and entering false data. StuRat 16:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

openssh question

I have two unix machine, A and B.

I have setup the ssh servers on machine B to accept both publickey authentication and password authentication.

Usually, when I use an ssh client on machine A to scp a file into machine B, it uses the publickey authentication and does not asks for a password.

However, for some special occasions, I want to be prompted for a password. How can I get the openssh client on machine A to tell the openssh server on machine B to use password authentication instead of publickey authentication?

I usually type

scp filename B:/somedirectory/filename

How do I force it to use the password instead of the publickey (which it is using at the moment).

202.168.50.40 00:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Add the option -o PreferredAuthentications=password --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Dormant programs

Is dormant programs consume resources of the computer?Give support to the answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.105.73 (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds suspiciously like a homework question. I'd guess you should try reading Background_(computer_software), but "dormant program" is a vague term. Exxolon 13:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

They do; that's why your computer slows down if you have too many apps running at the same time, or if your PC has spyware on it. The RAM that you have and the processor installed can contribute to that... Blake Gripling 08:16, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Functional and imperative programming time-equivalent

Both the functional and imperative (random-access) models of computation are Turing-complete, but are they time equivalent? For example, I just wrote a breadth-first search in Haskell, where I would use an array to mark vertices as visited in an imperative language, but I had to use a Set, where insertions take O(log n) time instead of O(1). Are there clever tricks that could (theoretically) be used to bring the functional algorithm into the same efficiency class as the imperative one?

BTW, do Computer Science questions belong in Computing (which seems to consist mostly of "I think my iPod has a virus") or Mathematics? --Taejo|대조 12:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The order of a function is dependent only on the algorithm, and all algorithms that can be implemented in one turing-complete system can be implemented in all the others (because they're turing equivalent). Haskell has an array type, which has O(1) insertions. 217.42.190.82 14:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

This is wrong. Turing reduction requires only finiteness. You would need a linear time reduction (where is the freaking article?) from haskell programs to register machine programs. I suppose one exists, otherwise nobody would want to use haskell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.32.213 (talk) 16:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

There was a paper proving that a certain problem can be solved asymptotically faster with a mutating algorithm than with any non-mutating algorithm, subject to some assumptions which I can't remember. A followup paper showed that there is a lazily evaluated non-mutating algorithm with the same efficiency as the mutating algorithm (so I guess one of the assumptions of the original paper was eager evaluation). I can track down the references if you're interested.

I must say, though, that these big-O comparisons are pretty dubious to begin with. Array access isn't really O(1), because the size of the array indices grows without bound. For sufficiently large n there has to be a factor of log n in the imperative algorithm to account for the extra cost of working with all those bits. In practice, of course, array indices are a fixed width, which means that log n is bounded above and array access is O(1). But then the functional lookup is O(1) too. In fact, every algorithm is O(1)! It's hard to make sense of typical big-O bounds as true expressions of asymptotic complexity. Most of the time what they're really about is the growth for "medium-sized" n, but I don't know how to formalize that. Also, the whole notion of sending fixed-length addresses over the bus is tied to the von Neumann architecture. Implementations of functional languages have to run on such architectures, but I can almost imagine that, if untold trillions of dollars had been spent on speeding up functional algorithms instead, we might have a totally different architecture in which (for example) selecting the left or right branch of a binary tree node would only require transmitting one bit. -- BenRG 20:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The formalization is a special cost model for the register machine (I don't know the correct english term, something like armotized costs or so). Every operation requires log(x) cost, where x is the size of the largest of the 3 numbers stored in the touched registers (two input, one output). The model is always implicitly assumed, but it is rarely needed directly, because the constant cost model gives the same result in O notation for most algorithms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.9.141 (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Any ideas where I could find the paper? --Taejo|대조 21:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

No Videos on Temporary Internet Diles Folder

I watched a couple of different videos on Youtube and none of them are showing up in my temporary internet files folder. Is there some way to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.122.137.214 (talk) 14:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

If your goal is to save the video files, try Video Downloader. —Keenan Pepper 15:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Norton SystemWorks

Hello. Does Norton SystemWorks block cookies at the point of entry to my computer? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 16:19, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall both do. -- kainaw™ 19:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

self made billionaire

are the three facebook founders youngest self made billionaires? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.102.198 (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

See Facebook. There is one founder. He has brought in people to help - not necessarily "found" Facebook. He has turned down a billion dollar offer to buy Facebook, indicating that it is worth $8 billion. That doesn't necessarily mean that he is worth a billion. -- kainaw™ 19:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

How doesn't that necessarily mean he's worth a billion? --froth^t 22:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Just because the owner of a company claims that his company is worth a certain amount, does not mean it is worth that amount. Someone has to be willing to pay what is asked (and nobody is offering $8 billion for Facebook that I know of). Also, the value of a company does not equal the worth of the company's owner. He retroactively named others as "co-founders", implying that they get a cut of the company's worth (even though they weren't really "founders"). There are also 300 or so employees, all getting paid. The estimated income for the company in 2006 was around $100 million. If he pocketed all the income of the company himself, he'd still need another $900 million to make a billion, right? -- kainaw™ 22:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"He has turned down a billion dollar offer to buy Facebook" ... "Someone has to be willing to pay what is asked" ... how is he not worth a billion? Someone's willing to pay it apparently --froth^t 00:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Who wouldn't turn down a billion - my guess is that in reality - the money's not there and it's all bullshit - would you pay 1,000,000,000$ for a 'crappy' networking site? - which has no physical products and income is reliant on advertising.. For that money I could buy France (smile)83.100.254.150 07:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how facebook could be worth so much. How on Earth do they make any money? It must cost them millions just to keep it running. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.12.143.75 (talk) 22:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Someone offered to buy Facebook for a billion dollars. Nobody offered to buy the founder of Facebook for a billion dollars. Therefore, Facebook has a value of around a billion dollars, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the founder is worth a billion dollars. To make that leap, you have to demonstrate that the entire value of Facebook is passed on to the founder. I've demonstrated that the value is spread among multiple "founders" and many employees. I do not know how to state it any clearer that the founder of Facebook is not Facebook. One is a person, the other is a company. -- kainaw™ 12:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

According to our article it's mainly from advertising and sponsored groups. They also make money from people purchasing gifts, flyers and polls. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It's quite possible that they are selling (or intend to sell, at some future time) user-data - whether personally identifiable or aggregate statistics. Market research such as this can be quite valuable; it is very likely that the company value stems from the potential to capitalize on its huge information resources. Finally, the large amount of capital investment in infrastructure cannot be discounted - i.e. the total value of all their servers, processors, networking gear (let alone non-technical items such as office space) must be reasonably large. In the hypothetical "liquidate everything" scenario, those assets would add considerable value to the net worth of the company. Nimur 04:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be illegal to sell that data? A.Z. 07:23, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The reference desk cannot give legal advice. The Terms of Use shed some light on what you agree to as a member of the website. The company probably has legal advisers or employs attorneys to determine the legal limits of their policies. Nimur 15:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't necessarily be illegal — practically every for-profit online site sells demographic data for targeted advertising purposes. Facebook is pretty straightforward about the type of data they collect and would use for profit purposes, and anyone who is made queasy by that shouldn't sign up. --24.147.86.187 15:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I read somewere Mark Zuckerberg, holds 30-33% stake in facebook. so, I think if facebook is sold for $3bn, he is youngest billionaire. Given roumours at 8 bn $s, he may already gone past 1 bn mark —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.122.76 (talk) 17:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

If you read this (and believe it), Facebook is in negotiations for a $10-$15 billion purchase by Microsoft. If the purchase goes through, it states that it will equate to $300-$500 million for the company. Then, Zuckerberg can take a cut of that. I hope this makes it clear, as I stated repeatedly above, the sale-price of Facebook is not Zuckerberg's personal worth. -- kainaw™ 15:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Everyone knows that facebook is merely [ a shell] for the US government in an attempt to get otherwise normal people to give up mass amounts of personal information for their direct use. Equity? Market value? Zuckerberg? Who cares! --Jmeden2000 17:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

10 ± 0.001 on a TI89?

Is the $\pm$ symbol on the TI89 functional, or is it just treated like an undefined variable/special character?--VectorPotential^Talk 18:54, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. Pressing that key will change the sign of the current number, sort of like a macro for "take buffer and multiply by -1". --Mdwyer 03:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to the combined ± key, not the individual + or - keys. Obviously adding either + or - in front of a number changes its sign. What I was wondering is if I could write a number as 10 ± 0.001 and have the calculator understand that the second number is the error, since there is a key for ±, but it seems to just treat ± as an undefined character. And yes, I'm expecting a lot in terms of understanding from a simple machine.--VectorPotential^Talk 12:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

What Mdwyer is saying is that if you have a number on screen and you press it, it reverses the sign, rather than being used in the way you want. Sorry. Kuronue | Talk 15:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

What Mdwyer is saying is relevant to many calculators that do not operate on lines of input but rather immediately react to keypresses; the TI-89 is in the former category. From my experience it is treated like an operator (correctly), not a variable, but it does not have any rules associated with it (so that $(5\pm 1)+(4\pm 2)$ doesn't evaluate to anything simpler). This makes a certain amount of sense: error propagation is complicated and there's no one correct formula. I don't have one in front of me, but I believe what it can't do is understand $\pm 1$ (as opposed to $0\pm 1$) as a known quantity with unknown sign (or a sign that depends on context); thus the $\{1,-1\}$ suggestion (note braces) from LarryMac below. --Tardis 15:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I am looking at a diagram of the keypad in the User's Guide (page 16), and I don't see a $\pm$ anywhere. However, it's been a long day and I don't have my glasses, so I might be missing it. Searching on Google for TI89 "plus/minus" was not very successful either, except to learn that "the list (1, -1) can be used in place of plus/minus". --LarryMac | Talk 20:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I was going to say the same when I originally saw the question, but never having owned a real TI-89, I was afraid I was missing something vital here. I must have spent ten minutes looking at that picture but couldn't find a $\pm$ symbol anywhere on the calculator. Perhaps the answerer has never heard of the TI-89 but instead answered in the context of your average 5 € basic calculators. JIP | Talk 15:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

HDMI everyday benefits?

Besides the convenience of one-cable wiring, does HDMI deliver any other benefits to the average user? I know about deep color, and 7.1 surround and all that ultra high-end marketing BS. But to the everyday average consumer watching 720p stereo, is there any advantage over using HDMI vs. component cables? --72.202.150.92 20:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

You sate the lust for control of the DRM cabal, allowing you to watch AACS-encrypted content. --froth^t 22:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

What content today requires HDMI and is unviewable with component cables? --24.249.108.133 18:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

A bit like scart pressing play on your dvd player can cause the tv to automatically change channels see Hdmi#Consumer_Electronics_Control_channel83.100.254.150 06:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

File extension .do

What sort of file ends in .do? It appears to be used on webpages as some kind of script, similar to PHP, but I can't find any specifics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.250.111 (talk) 23:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've only seen those on the IBM WebSphere server. It is a web-based application (Java, I believe). -- kainaw™ 23:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've seen those within JBoss. --Mdwyer 03:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This may help. --MZMcBride 23:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Java, huh? Which leads me to my next question... Is there any way to view server-side scripts? The default action is for the server to execute the script, but surely there must be a way to request the actual file. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.250.111 (talk) 00:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Surely not. It's not possible and it shouldn't be- servers are black boxes that take inputs and serve you outputs. As far as the client is concerned, it's all done by a guy with a TV-typewriter and a pad of paper.. what do you mean script? Black box. --froth^t 00:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, that was my idiocy and inexperience talking. By scripts, I'm thinking mainly of PHP scripts, which I remember hearing there was a way of reverse-engineering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.250.111 (talk) 00:34, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That's only possible if the server has enabled viewable source for the PHP script. In most recent distributions, this option is disabled (to fit in to the "black box" paradigm). Nimur 04:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

(note that while that's technically correct, "most" basically means "all but a very few") --froth^t 06:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

September 24

ECC registered memory

My AMD64 motherboard bios has multiple settings for ECC so I know that it is supported and has in fact booted on PC2100 ECC. But I can not seem to get it to boot on PC3200 ECC. Any suggestions as to a working configuration setting for stubborn PC3200 ECC? Clem 01:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

PostgreSQL constraint

I have a PostgreSQL database with columns called value and valuelist in a table called pfm_value, and columns called Category and Rarity in a table called cards. I'd like to create two foreign-key constraints where Category and Rarity reference value, but I'd like to take it a step further and require that Category be a value for which valuelist = "categories", and Rarity one for which valuelist = "rarities". Also, PostgreSQL currently demands that for the constraints, I must put a unique on value, but I don't want to do this. (The primary key of pfm_value is value, valuelist.) How do I accomplish these things, other than by creating one column that is "categories" in all rows and another that is "rarities" in all rows? Could I somehow specify the constant "categories" or "rarities" in place of a second column of cards in the foreign key? NeonMerlin 01:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, let me check this is what you want:

pfm_value
Combined key	value	NOT unique
Combined key	valuelist

cards
Combined key	Category	Must be in pfm_value.value
Combined key	Rarity	Must be in pfm_value.value

OK, the Category to value relation and Rarity to value relation are both many-to-many, which should be done with a link table. In this case, the link table will be the list of acceptable values for the "value" attribute.

list_of_values
Key	value	unique

The link table makes the other requirements into FK constraints, like this:

CREATE TABLE list_of_values (
  value INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
);
CREATE TABLE pfm_value (
  value INTEGER REFERENCES list_of_values (value),
  valuelist TEXT,
  PRIMARY KEY (value, valuelist)
);
CREATE TABLE cards (
  Category integer REFERENCES list_of_values (value),
  Rarity integer REFERENCES list_of_values (value),
  PRIMARY KEY (Category, Rarity)
);

--h2g2bob (talk) 11:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

No, that won't do it at all. First, the cards table's primary key is, and needs to remain, (Name, Set). (Category, Rarity) won't be unique. Second, the categories and rarities on the cards table need to remain the values (which are words such as "Creature" or "Uncommon") so that the table will be human-readable in isolation. And the categories and rarities are many-to-one (since each card has only one rarity and one category). NeonMerlin 20:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The only real PK requirement in my suggestion was that of list_of_values, so the cards PK can be changed to whatever. I think the issue here is that the value column in pfm_value can have the same value multiple times, so it isn't a one-to-many. The only way around this that I can see is to make a table of only the values and link both the other tables to that. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

iPod Classic not accepting podcasts

I recently purchased an 80GB iPod Classic. I tried to download the podcast Chuck Ferrell Drums. When syncing, iTunes tells me the first episode (which is .MOV as opposed to .M4V of all the other videos) is incompatible with my iPod. Despite it being advertised as playing .MOV, I clicked "Convert selection for iPod", and it was converted to a .M4V in the "Movies" section. It now can properly sync to the iPod. The problem is, I would like this to be grouped with the other podcast epsodes, not with the movies. Any help would be great. Thank you in advance. QWERTY | Dvorak 02:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

PHP scripts...Maximum length?

I have an automatically generated PHP script which is really just a long list of calls to a single function with different parameters. When the file is under ~22,000 lines of code, it works fine - add a handful of extra lines and I get NOTHING in my browser window. No HTML output, no error message, nothing. Is there some kind of arbitary limit on the maximum size of a PHP script? SteveBaker 03:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you're exceeding the memory limit in php.ini? --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the solution I'm looking for! Many thanks. SteveBaker 15:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this is not the best way to call a single function with different parameters. Have you considered making a loop to determine the calling parameters? Nimur 04:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

My money's on that. Is there any way to just directly execute the functions as they're built rather than storing them and running the script later? Or maybe you can try just splitting the script in half if it's just a long list of function calls. The slickest way of course is to do what Nimur suggested.. instead of generating a big php file, generate a half-simplified version. I mean like if the program doing the autogenerating has as its inner loop just a simple call-this-thing-100-times then have it generate a php script that loops 100 times instead of pasting the function call 100 times. PHP will not have memory problems with long loops- I've run 10,000 iteration loops that each had an HTTP request (!) and had plenty of memory to spare --froth^t 06:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

If the large size is because you're storing data in it, then use SQL rather than storing it as lots of variables. --h2g2bob (talk) 10:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Fascinating answers gentlemen - but not what I asked. I'm fully aware of other ways to do things - I wanted to know how long a PHP script could be. SteveBaker 15:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a photo gallery generator program - that generates super-fancy galleries that can include still images (some in arcane file formats that web browsers don't support), movies (which have to be converted to FLV's) and 3D models (which are rendered into short 'fly-around' movies...wehich are converted to FLV's). There is a C++ program that generates a PHP script, auto-resizes images for thumbnails, grabs snapshots from movies and renders movies from 3D models. That in turn generates HTML+Javascript with ~1 line per image file. Normally, it works just fine - but the other day I wanted to post every single photograph I've ever taken (10's of thousands of them) and it broke the script. I'm not about to rewrite an already super-complicated thing - so I'll make it split the gallery into sub-pages. I just need to know what the limit is so I can split it appropriately. Switching to SQL is way too big a change for an already complicated system - especially since it'll probably never have to handle even 1/10th this amount of data again and I'm only going over this magical limit by about 5%. Doing the actual processing inside the PHP script is not a good idea because it involves lots of complex image processing and 3D rendering and it's running on a web server with very little horsepower. I'm sure there ARE other, better ways - but this thing works 99.99% of the time and that's "good enough - mostly". SteveBaker 16:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well if the image processing is being done by a C++ program, and it generates image0.png to image9999.png then in the PHP you do

print "<img src=\"";
for($i=0; $i<10000; $i++) print "image" . $i;
print ".png\">";

instead of:

print "<img src=\"image0.png\">";
print "<img src=\"image1.png\">";
print "<img src=\"image2.png\">";
print "<img src=\"image3.png\">";
//ad infinitum

That's what I meant, not to do any complex processing in the PHP --froth^t 23:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - but that would assume that I was a complete idiot rather than someone who earns a small fortune writing kick-ass cross-platform video games and who has been a senior programmer for 30+ years! The images are not conveniently named 'imageXXXX', they are things like "baby_with_puppy_Xmas_2005.jpeg" - and I have really strong reasons for not wanting to rename them (eg they are referred to elsewhere in existing web pages by their original names) the function in question also takes as parameters, the resolution of the image, the resolution of the thumbnail, what gamma settings it was photographed with - and with which camera - what it links to (maybe a movie, maybe something else), a text description of the image "A Baby with a Labrador Puppy photographed by Steve on 24th December 2005 at Grandma's house"...so it's not so simple. SteveBaker 19:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Additionally you can loop together many thousands of lines without problem if you do it in multiple files and just include() them. --24.147.86.187 15:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep - that's what I was thinking of doing...but if it's the memory limit thing then that's presumably not going to help. SteveBaker 15:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think some (most?) servers have limits on execution time of php scripts before it terminates them. Perhaps you're running into that? 69.95.50.15 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 15:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

No - it's definitely size. SteveBaker 15:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a long shot, but you could add flush() in the generated php every so often. Could be exceeding some memory limit on the buffered version, or some such thing. --h2g2bob (talk) 17:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I still don't understand why you are possibly running into a problem like this for such a program. I don't want to outright just say, "man, it sounds like you have gone about this in entirely the wrong way," but it really does look like that, if you are generating 22,000 lines of PHP code for an image gallery. I have made image gallery scripts with less than a tenth of that amount of code. There has got to be a better way to do what you are trying to do. I don't understand, for example, why you are having the C++ generate PHP script — that seems like a very bad way to approach it; either the C++ should generate the HTML+Javascript itself, or it should be outputting the data in such a way that a nice, compact PHP script could iterate over it in order to generate the HTML+Javascript (e.g. have the C++ output to a temporary text file, and have the PHP file read it into an array, and then just loop through the array elements and throw them up on a page). It sounds like you are writing some majorly redundant, bad-practice code.

In any case, if you really want to find out what's going on, switch on all of your error reporting in PHP to a maximum (you can do this programatically, I believe), and it should tell you something. --24.147.86.187 14:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• My PHP installation comes with a default memory limit of 8MB, which is probably what you're running into. You want to set it to something large, either on the command line:

php -d memory_limit=80M yourscript.php

or in your php.ini:

memory_limit = 80M

or .htaccess:

php_value memory_limit "80M"

Your web server error log was probably complaining like:

Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 14942208 bytes)

--Sean 16:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I figured it out last night. 8M was indeed the default, pushing it to 10M solved the immediate problem. I agree that had I known that this program (that was designed for galleries of 100 or so photos) would be called upon to do tens of thousands of photos - and had I known there was a weird limit on the maximum size of a PHP program - then maybe I'd have written it differently. Rewriting the program for a one-time-use is not worth the effort. So right now, the easy thing is to bump the limit on the server - which has 2Gb of RAM and is rarely serving more than one or two simultaneous users. The PHP code is needed because the gallery allows you to have different 'skins' and uses cookies to let users pick the skin they want so I do need to generate HTML on the fly. When there are just a few hundred photos (as nature intended) it's quicker to just add one line of PHP code per photo than to add all of the code for parsing it all in from a data file...in effect, I got the data parsing code 'for free' by using the PHP interpreter - which saved me a fair bit of effort. It would be rash to criticise the way the program was written without understanding all of the constraints...so I'll forgive you that! SteveBaker 19:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't criticize; that was someone else. I completely agree that brute force is often the best way to do one-offs. --Sean 20:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

IE versus Firefox

I can view Google maps using firefox but not with IE. Any reason why? Clem 08:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

We need more information: what exactly goes wrong in IE? Is there an error message? Can you get to the maps site at all? Have you disabled images and/or script in IE? Which version of IE (and Windows) are you running? AndrewWTaylor 12:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista - system crash when playing a game in compatibility mode

Hi all! I was initially disappointed when upgrading from XP to Vista that I could apparently no longer play the game World Snooker Championship 2005 (I checked on various internet forums, messageboards etc. which mostly agreed it was incompatible). However, I installed it anyway, and was playing around with the Program Compatibility settings ... I selected some settings which seemed appropriate (sorry I can't be more specific at the moment - I'm at work, but later today I can check the exact settings I selected if it is relevant), ran the game and found it worked. Well, after a fashion - after about 10 minutes, the system crashed without warning with a blue screen of death, and rebooted to the Vista desktop as normal. I noticed that a memory dump had been taken (pretty large, so it's probably the entire contents of the memory). Unfortunately, as the screen was only up for a short time, I couldn't see the exact error message or any of the other parameters: maybe these will be saved somewhere in a log file or something? I'm not an expert in these things... :) Anyway, I tried playing the game a few more times, and it crashed in the same way on 4 out of 5 occasions, after between 5 mins and 2 hours of playing time. The timing of the crashes has been random, with no obvious cause. So ... am I likely to do any damage to my nice, brand-new computer by continuing to play this game in compatibility mode; what might be the cause of the crashes; and other than not playing the game, might there be any ways around the problem? Thanks for any assistance, and I'll try to provide more info about the problem if it helps. Hassocks5489 12:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Vista and wireless + WPA problems?

Does anyone have experience with wireless connection problems with Vista?

Situation: fairly new Toshiba laptop with Vista Home Premium. Wireless internet router.

The laptop is very very slow in establishing connection with the wireless network. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes until it connects.

At the same time, my older Toshiba laptop with XP SP2 doesn't have the slightest problem connecting (and never had any problems at all, actually).

The problem disappears as soon as I disable WPA encryption.

I already tried installing the newest drivers of the Intel wireless NIC, disabling IPv6... No difference.

212.153.56.10 12:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Help with perl

Is anyone willing to help me with a perl script through email and/or IRC? it's way too long to post here, but basically I'm using POE's IRC component to create a bot to run a game. I started by writing a generic bot that connects and does nothing, but by the time I've finished adding in my subroutines, the new bot won't connect at all and I can't seem to track down the elusive typo, error, or whatnot. Kuronue | Talk 15:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You do have "-w" in the shebang line, right? This enables additional error-checking that may help you locate your problem.

Atlant 17:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I've got use warnings and use strict. I'm on windows using ActivePerl, I forgot to mention that. Kuronue | Talk 19:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

If the code is too long to post here, perhaps you could put it on a pastebin site (I've seen pastey.net recommended) and post a link here? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. alright. http://pastey.net/74302-2qiq is the bot I'm trying to get to work, and http://pastey.net/74303-2m1q is the working code. I also seem to have a stray close-brace - it bitches trying to compile without it, but I've checked and re-checked and can't seem to find the openbrace it goes to, which is probably at least half the problem right there. Kuronue | Talk 19:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

ETA: the log file for genbot has four-five lines: connected to server, joined channel, and it gets versioned by two serverbots on connect. Then I kill it with secret trigger for line 5. The log file for wolfbot merely says "log opened at X time: Bot start!" - never even attempting to connect. Kuronue | Talk 19:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The line if ($found == 1 && $msg == "!kill*") { appears to contain the unmatched brace. It's good to have an editor with brace-matching (for example, in vi place the cursor on a brace and press % and it'll jump to the matching brace). You can start by pressing % on the unnecessary extra brace at the bottom of the script to see where it's matching, and then go to the brace you thought should match that one and see what it matches, and repeat until you've found the problem. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

AH! There's that brace! Thanks. I took a break to work on a paper after being up late last night looking for it. Now I can take a break from that damn paper to test... yup, now it works. Awesome. I thought the brace had to do with it. I've been coding in notepad, I really need to get a better program >.> Kuronue | Talk 21:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

A second problem, if I may: I can't get it to set modes, at all. I've changed the mode setting line to what I think is correct: $kernel->post( $IRC_ALIAS => 'mode' => $werewolf => '+o' => $NICK); doesn't do anything because the nick is already opped for testing, but neither does $kernel->post( $IRC_ALIAS => mode => $werewolf => '+t' => "It is day. !vote someone off the island!");. Also, it hangs for eternity - while it's doing a $kernel->delay, it doesn't receive any triggers, not even the kill trigger. Should it? Is there a better way to have it not proceed until it gets input? the idea was it could delay as long as the game is on pause, and keep the game on pause until it gets enough player input to unpause it... Kuronue | Talk 21:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

in fact, kernel->post isn't working at all: it's not posting a names so it thinks there are 0 players, topic changes don't work, messaging the channel, messaging nickserv to login to the registered nick... none of it. http://pastey.net/74307-1r2l is the newest revision. Kuronue | Talk 22:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Turns out my POE was hopelessly out of date. I'm getting some help now. Thanks. Kuronue | Talk 03:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• Also note that you want "eq" rather than "==" for string comparisons. You should be seeing warnings about it:

$ perl -lw
  $msg = "!kill*";
  print "the message is bang-kill-star" if $msg == "!kill*";
  print "but it is also dog"            if $msg == "dog";
  ^D    
the message is bang-kill-star
but it is also dog
Argument "!kill*" isn't numeric in numeric eq (==) at - line 2.
Argument "!kill*" isn't numeric in numeric eq (==) at - line 2.
Argument "dog" isn't numeric in numeric eq (==) at - line 3.

--Sean 16:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Mac Preferred Wireless Network

I use Mac OS 10.4 and have had trouble with my wireless network. I connect to the internet wirelessly (via Airport) and on to my wireless router. The router does require a password, but that has been added to my keychain and so I'm never prompted to put it in. The problem is, my router is not set as a preferred network, and so my computer always tries to log onto the neighbor's network first. Then I always have to manually select my network from the list. Is there a way to add my network as the preferred network so I automatically connect to it? Thanks, GreatManTheory 16:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this has worked for me in the past...Select the network, turn on/off wireless networking and it should automatically try to reconnect to the last network. Alternatively go into System Preferences > Network > Airport and then 'by default join' and select the name you need. You need to be in the airport part but it doesn't matter whether you are using an airport base-station (mine is a belkin router). ny156uk 17:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The list of "preferred networks" can be found System Preferences > Network > Airport:Configure > change "by default join: automatic" to "by default join: preferred networks" and the list will appear. You can add your network and remove his from the list. --24.147.86.187 01:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both for the help, it is working fine now. GreatManTheory 11:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Proving primes with seven gates

I just ran across this item in HAKMEM.. I'm very interested- how do you prove a 4 bit number is prime with 7 gates? I mean, is there some actual algorithmic method rather than just writing out the minterms (there'd only be a few primes from dec0 to dec15) and minimizing logic as best you can? --froth^t 17:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, given that there are six minterms (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13) to be "or"ed together and that requires seven gates in total, that seems to be the intended "way" to do it. An algorithmic attack (e.g., the Sieve of Eratosthenes) would require far, far more gates, even considering just the control logic. It would also be far slower than this "flash" (fully-parallel) approach.

Atlant 17:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's as obvious as you make it sound.. each minterm is a conjunction of 4 bits, so if you were to just do the sum-of-products as you said, that'd be 6 + 18, 24 gates if you only used two input gates. Thanks for the wikilink though --froth^t 22:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends. If you have PLA-like minterms, you have the choice of inverting or non-inverting inputs to the AND gates, so each minterm can do an exact match on the prime that it is programmed for.

Atlant 00:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh you're talking about CHEATING aren't you :) You mean just taking a 16x4 mux and factory-programming the inputs to vdd/ground based on whether they're prime, and using ABCD as the control lines? I went and actually did a karnaugh map and I got a solution with 6 gates total, but obviously there are some ORs and XORs thrown in the mix. I can't imagine how a 16x4 mux could only take 7 AND gates though.. seems to me like you'd need some kind of disjunction, like:

![control line A] AND ![control line B] AND [input 0]
OR
![control line A] AND [control line B] AND [input 1]
OR
[control line A] AND ![control line B] AND [input 2]
OR
[control line A] AND [control line B] AND [input 3]

for a 4x2 mux. Maybe I just don't understand how they work inside, but there has to be some kind of disjunction, at least electrically, right? Even if you're only talking about something similar to this --froth^t 01:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, I realized that you can define a function by what it's not with AND gates and came up with these:

P OR Q = (P' AND Q')'
P XOR Q = (P' AND Q')' AND (P AND Q)'

So obviously these can be substituted into my solution for an all-AND solution, albiet a massive one:

A'C(B'+D) + D(B XOR C)
(((A' AND C) AND (B AND D')')' AND (D AND ((B' AND C')' AND (B AND C)'))')'
(((A'C)(BD')')'(D(B'C')'(BC)')')'

Darn it, 8 gates. What am I missing? I don't think they're talking about a cheap hardwiring method.. how can I simplify this logic further? --froth^t 01:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Re-reading your responses above, I don't think you see the main challenge of the problem which is to not use any OR gates at all. You said "given that there are six minterms (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13) to be ored together and that requires seven gates in total, that seems to be the intended way to do it" and I still can't think of any direct-match type thing like a mux that could be defined with all AND operations and not be spectacularly gigantic and expensive --froth^t 01:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't say it's a particularly algorithmic method, though it is certainly systematic: I made the assumption that 4 of the 7 gates analyzed the inputs, leaving the other 3 to analyze the results of those 4 (since we must have one output); this means that no gate has any fan-out. With the further restriction that the four first-layer gates are distinct and analyze distinct inputs (though I allowed such things as a&&!a), this leaves "just" ${{2m \choose 2} \choose f}2\prod _{i=1}^{n-f}4{f-i+1 \choose 2}=47174400$ possibilities (where $f:=(n+1)/2$ for an odd number n gates and m inputs). Enumerating all of these and testing for equivalence to the prime function took (a lot of time programming and) 10 seconds and gave 10 solutions (5 equivalent configurations of unifier gates on top of each of 2 sets of initial gates): one family looks like (PR(Q'S)')'((QS)'(Q'R)')' and the other looks like ((PR(Q'S)')'(QS')')(Q'R')'. I don't know that there aren't other solutions, because of the assumptions that I made; I do know that 5 gates used as 3 initial and 2 analyzing is not enough, but it's even possible that other kinds of solutions exist for $n\in \{5,6\}$. --Tardis 23:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Cache

Where could I find the cache folder on my computer or how could I locate the cache folder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.120.230.206 (talk) 22:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Scroll up a bit (WP:RD/C#Can_not_find_Internet_Folder).. mine's C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files but if you're not using Vista or your username's not Brian (likely) then yours will be different. It doesn't seem that firefox uses that folder too. --froth^t 00:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Chat scripts

This is definitely a noobish question, but I've got to start somewhere. Is there a standard type of implementation, or else a general design paradigm for website based (non IRC) chat systems? I've seen a few, and was wondering how exactly this is achieved. I'm used to java applets being able the interface with IRC, but these new things confound me... --81.151.250.111 23:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really. AJAX is simply the best you can do without flash or java and of course there's no standardized chat API over ajax. Web sites are inherently stateless (contrary to what microsoft seems to think) and chat is difficult to implement. --froth^t 00:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You can make it auto refresh every xx seconds but that's a very crude method of doing it. Now thinking about it, how did those chatrooms back in the old days worked? --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Java probably. Also probably a frontend to IRC to save development costs. --froth^t 18:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

But I didn't even know about having to install browser plugins until the 21st century, and that was a few years before that... --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

They worked on HTTP Server Push where the client and server left the HTTP request open and the server would send more data. With the "multipart/x-mixed-replace" content type the whole page would change (and this can be used in XMLHttpRequests which will trigger a load event each time the server sends more data).

But from what I remember of old chat style scripts they mostly just an IFRAME that never finished loading, piping a data from the server line by line. Plus another iframe with an input box, these all worked terribly well and I forget why we decided to convert to and from XML 50 times to accomplish the same thing. Caffm8 22:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Mid/early 1990s computer game

When I was quite young I used to play a computer game that I can't for the life of me find information on today. It was a text-based interface from a first person point of view but used simple CGA graphics to display scenes. You could go North and West and South and all of that standard thing. The basic plot was that you were tramping around a cave and looking for treasure. It was not too difficult; I was pretty young and I could beat it. The toughest part, if I remember correctly, was a long section where you would get stuck in a labyrith or catacombs or something like that — basically a maze sequence. I am reasonably sure it was not Colossal Cave Adventure, as there are many unfamiliar elements in reading that description and I'm pretty sure the game I played was far smaller and simpler. It was played in DOS. I want to say it had something to do with pirates — you could run into a pirate at random or something like that? Anyway any help would be appreciated. I'm pretty sure I'd recognize it if I saw some screen shots. --24.147.86.187 23:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

A bit older than the 90's (although the CGA graphics are older than that too), but maybe something from Scott Adams (not the Dilbert guy)? There is a list of his games here, including links to reviews and playable versions. --LarryMac | Talk 00:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... none of those look quite right. Note that none of those which come up for any search of "treasure" or "cave" or "pirate" on MobyGames is correct at all. --24.147.86.187 00:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall it having some sort of name like "Pirate's Cave" or something like that, but nothing I find in Google with searches like that seem right. --24.147.86.187 00:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There were a fair number of text-based fantasy role-playing games: Dungeon was one that followed immediately after Adventure and was eventually commercialized as Zork. Infocom eventually produced a long line of games based on the same basic game engine.

Atlant 12:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, but it is practically certain to me that it is not an Infocom game. It was relatively simple in complexity and difficulty, something that cannot really be said for Infocom games in my experience. --24.147.86.187 14:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to beat a dead horse, but one of the Adams' games, Pirate Adventure was also apparently known as "Pirate's Cove" and somewhere along the line when I was researching last night I saw mention of something like "can you escape the maze of pits?" On the other hand, none of the screen images I saw showed any graphics at all, although I clearly (over the haze of 20-ish years) recall Scott Adams' games having those blocky four-color type displays. Sierra On-Line had that type of display also, but I don't see any of their games with a pirate-y theme. You might want to ask at rec.games.interactive-fiction, or search more on that ifiction.org site. --LarryMac | Talk 15:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You needn't rely on screenshots: all of the Scott Adams games are now available free of charge, and there's an emulator (ScottFree) that lets you play them on modern machines. See [3]. -- BenRG 11:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

September 25

Windows local security policies

I'm looking for the option to specify how long Windows gives you to break the screensaver before it will require a password. I think the default is 5-10 seconds or so, but I want to set it to 0. I think in XP I saw the setting in

%SystemRoot%\system32\secpol.msc

but it's not included with vista home premium and apparently MMC won't add the snapin manually. I hear it's possible to manually enter settings at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System but I don't know the exact name of the value. Can someone with XP or a better version of Vista check their secpol.msc and find the name of the setting? --froth^t 00:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One silly question

If I were to ask you to suggest me ONE brand of laptop, which would be the best deal that I can get? If I had a total budget of USD 1,500 dollars (inclusive of sales tax, electronics tax, consumer recycle tax, shipping costs and what not) to spend on a decent laptop AND a printer, what would it be? Wikilink or delete thread at will. Regards, Kushal

If I were to ask you to suggest me ONE brand of laptop, which would be the best deal that I can get? If I had a total budget of USD 1,500 dollars (inclusive of sales tax, electronics tax, consumer recycle tax, shipping costs and what not) to spend on a decent laptop AND a printer, what would it be? Wikilink or delete thread at will. Regards, Kushal--Click me! write to me 00:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Deja vu, anyone?--Click me! write to me 00:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One brand? Lenovo/IBM. I've had a plethora of problems with laptops, but I've dropped this thing like 5 or 6 times now (the desks at school tend to tip when I stop looking at them) and, while the case is damaged, it runs beautifully. But it was a tad but more than 1,500 >.> Kuronue | Talk 00:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

YES thinkpads are the best laptop. HOWEVER as kuronue said they're pricy (mine was a bit..... ok WAY over $1500 >_<). Lenovo bought thinkpad out of the consumer PC market awhile ago and they've released a few designs of their own since then, using the IBM name. The T60 was still very good (though it's a bit plasticky for my tastes) but I'm not a fan at all of their latest offering the T61. What a nasty design- the screen's not centered in the fold-up flap, the body is wider to accomodate speakers on the sides of the keyboard (how dumb is that?..) and the very very slick magnesium-composite body has been replaced with rugged plastic with a "roll cage" reinforcement. Thinkpad is still by far the best laptop brand (and the most compatible with open standards if you care) with its top notch OEM utilities, quality construction as kuronue mentioned, the ultrabay (<3), the only laptop keyboard I can stand (full size!), the adored-by-many trackpoint, and renowned america-based tech sopport :P. So don't mind my earlier complaining- you'll see that a lot from thinkpad fans as the brand is polluted by the inevitable move away from solid simplicity :( As for anything affordable whatsoever, try Acer? In any case avoid mac like the plague. I can paste that quote from the guardian again if you're not convinced --froth^t 01:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I will avoid the MacBook (as read in earlier RD posts). Any more comments? Apecific brand names product codes are also welcome. --Click me! write to me 02:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you own a Sony VAIO VGN-N325E/W ? Do you have an opinion on it? Have you heard of it? --Click me! write to me 03:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to start a war, but I'm curious to see the quote that inspires "avoid mac like the plague", as a happy long-time Mac laptop user. :) Pinball22 17:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Cue 10 years of nasal bleating from Mac-likers who profess to like Macs not because they are fashionable, but because "they are just better". Mac owners often sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are.

— Charlie Brooker, The Guardian

The title of that story is "I Hate Macs". Hardly an unbiased opinion. --24.249.108.133 18:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

His argument appears to be that people shouldn't use Macs because only superficial, insecure fashonistas use Macs, which doesn't seem like much of an argument. :) I'm sure there are people who use them just because they think it's cool, but that doesn't work as a reason not to use one if it's the right thing for you... I think the right answer should be to use whatever you're most comfortable with. I use a Mac for lots of reasons, the biggest one being that it's an easy way to have a Unix-based OS in a laptop without pesky hardware compatibility issues. Pinball22 18:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

"the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are" ... :D --froth^t 21:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that quote is just silly. Bottom line: use a Mac if you prefer them. There's little to argue about hardware-wise these days (since the hardware is all pretty standard stuff) so it's down to the OS and user interface. Like Pinball22 above, I like my Macbook because it's the best desktop unix I've ever used. For whatever reasons, some people enjoy hating Macs, just as others enjoy liking them. In my experience, a lot of the Mac-haters base their opinions on things that were either never true, or stopped being true several years ago. So, look beyond the religious arguments, and use what you like. Friday (talk) 19:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do enjoy burning out the chaff products of the computing industry and purifying the minds of mac users everywhere by pasting this quote across the internet.. forcing them to realize just how many people despise mac (and mac users too, at least on the internet) and perhaps causing them to question their loyalty. And other than the religious hatred for the mac, there are some actual arguments for my intellect to chew on when my rage tanks are on empty..

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC).

And a little farther into the article..

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs.

The forces of flamedom can be too easily marshalled against someone claiming to have a mac.. so just keep quiet if you do, unless you think you can out-flame the entire rest of the internet. ... Is it just me or has this thread gotten slightly off topic? --froth^t 21:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying you're too much of a wuss to use a Mac? ;) And yes, this thread has gotten slightly off-topic. Pinball22 00:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Lemme get this straight: a machine that's "ramshackle" and that sometimes has to be slapped to make it work properly is superior? So manifestly so that anyone who dares to claim otherwise is, according to you, at risk of being flamed off the face of the net by the legions who all prefer ramshackle? Strange arguments... —Steve Summit (talk) 02:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

YES! Ohhhh absoLUTELY yes! Yes. Yes. YEs. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The point of a computer is not to look shiny and it's not to even work properly at all! The point is understanding it inside and out, from the electrons slowly trundling about in endless lines through the CPU to the helical pattern of crystals in the LCD screen. The point is working it out; the point is, like the MIT AI Lab hackers, writing your own operating system and all your own tools, breaking open the computer and sorting out the maze of wires, adding new instructions to the PDP processor by rewiring, building your own components and knowing it'll work.. the point is to work with the hardware, to be able to enter a few commands and have your computer execute millions of instructions, and know that you understand every step in between.. the point of computers is to understand them, and to control them completely, to have mastery over every mathematical nuance of its operation and programming, to know that a component under the left control panel sometimes comes loose so you know that if the tardis isn't working right you just give it a good slap. Have you ever seen Star Trek? The engineers of the Enterprise.. scotty, geordi, and b'ellana especially, they're always cannibalizing their ships, tearing out wires and replacing components. When there's a burn out in some random system they dive into the jeffries tubes with a wrench. Do you think they'd like a shiny new ship that always "just works" and never breaks and has the perfect warp field alignment, but is totally sealed and you never need to crawl through the jeffries tubes and you don't even have the ability to tweak the warp field. I'm sure starfleet command would love that, but no self-respecting engineer would ever work on such a ship. And only the utterly amoral would design such a ship. Substitute "big business", "hacker", and "microsoft". --froth^t 03:13, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. (A bit romanticized, perhaps, but as an incurable romantic myself, I can't complain. :-) ) Couple points, though:

1. You've gotta balance doing everything for yourself versus getting anything done. "Stand on the shoulders of giants -- not on their toes." [H. Spencer] (Are you reading Wikipedia using a browser you wrote yourself, under an OS you wrote yourself, running on a CPU you built yourself?)
2. When you say "Do you think they'd like a shiny new ship that always 'just works' and never breaks and has the perfect warp field alignment, but is totally sealed...", you set up a false dichotomy. How might they like a ship that "just works" and never (well, hardly ever) breaks and has the perfect warp field alignment, but is totally open and fixable if need be? (And how might they like it if the reason for the rare breakage and the perfect alignment was their own former efforts?)

(But of course this is now almost completely off-topic.) —Steve Summit (talk) 05:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I find mac laptops are easier when connecting to the internet, especially wirelessly. Less menus, etc. I'd choose a mac if you aren't tech savy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.6.88 (talk) 00:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not gonna say which platform(s) I use, because these holy wars are very old, very tedious, and ultimately very silly. But I do have to say two things:

1. I most certainly do not choose my computers just to make a fashion statement! (I'd be rather insulted if anyone thought I did.) I'm not a "joiner"; I'm not a trend-follower. I choose and use them because *I* like them, because they work better (much better) for me.
2. It's true that computers are just tools; it's true you should use the ones that work for you. But the various alternatives are not at all the same! The differences between them are much more than cosmetic; in many cases they're deeply fundamental. The technically better machines really are better, despite the self-justifying protestations of the folks stuck using the inferior ones.

—Steve Summit (talk) 02:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to spoil all the fun, I am not tech-savvy at all. But I would like to learn more about computers and Unix seems to be cool. I want college to be a place where I can get out of my comfort zone and really learn about myself. If I buy a mac and truly hate it for the next four years, I think thats ok for me because I can reflect on that in later years (if I live that long, lol).

Anyways, I am glad that we are having this healthy discussion. Please go on ... Regards, --Click me! write to me 03:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

PS: Some may call me anti-Microsoft but I think I am only a bit jealous of their tremendous market share. Does it make any sense? Not to me ... --Click me! write to me 03:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it over now? --69.150.163.1 22:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC) User:Kushal_one

I found this Lenovo machine. ThinkPad R61e Some other food for thought: Sony Vaio VGN-N325E/W (Is there any way to get this computer without vista or any OS preloaded?)

Please comment. --69.150.163.1 22:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Annoying website

Whenever i connect to internet a website automatically opens up and stays opened forever.I can not close it.The title bar always shows that web site's name even if i have opened other web sites.This is very annoying.What can i do?Pl Help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.70.74.174 (talk) 01:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Get an anti-spyware program and have it clean your system. SpyBot works well. --24.147.86.187 01:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

And Ad-aware. Can you give us more detail on how "a website opens up" ? What Internet browser are you using ? Does a new window or tab open up within that browser or is it just your initial home page ? You say you can't close it. Does the window have an X in the upper, right corner ? If so, what happens when you click on it ? StuRat 01:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the URL? Right-click on it and look for ways to find that out (depends on the browser - which one do you use?). Then block that URL (how also depends on the browser). DirkvdM 13:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Many ISPs' setup programs install a branded version of Internet Explorer, with the title bar saying something like "Internet Explorer provided by Your ISP". The poster may be describing this problem, as well as a default homepage set by the ISP. Possible solutions might include: changing the homepage, looking in Add/Remove programs to remove the branded version of Internet Explorer, re-installing Internet Explorer, and as a last resort, searching the registry for the branded phrase and removing it. --Bavi H 19:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia edit window problem

Resolved

When I edit a large page and try to highlight a paragraph (to cut and paste it into a spellchecker), the edit window wants to rapidly scroll right/left or up/down so that the text I wanted is now well off the screen. Is there any way to stop it from doing this ? I'm using the Opera browser. StuRat 02:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, I know what you mean. I think it does that in every browser. If you go into "options" and then "browsing," browsers usually let you control scroll speed. I've never used opera though, so I don't know.--130.126.67.144 02:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much the speed that's the problem. I want it to scroll up or down rapidly if I move the cursor above or below the edit window. However, I don't want it to scroll while the cursor is within the edit window. Is there any way I can stop this ? StuRat 04:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps try shift-clicking the selection (i.e., click once at the start of the text, hold down shift, then click once at the end, rather than dragging the mouse cursor across it - making the assumption of course that this shift-clicking would work in Opera). It may work; it's not really a fix, but is at least a potential workaround. --jjron 10:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that works. I do a regular click at the start of the desired area, then do a shift-click at the end. I can also do a regular click at the end, then a shift-click at the beginning. This even works if I have to scroll to get from the start point to end. Thanks, everyone, I have my workaround ! StuRat 13:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Shockwave video on iPod

I have a shockwave flash video—is there a program that can convert it to a format suitable for my iPod? There's a lot of adware out there I don't want to touch, and I was wondering if any wikipedians out there knew about a freeware converter.--130.126.67.144 02:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

WinFF [4] can convert FLV to many formats, including MP4 (which I believe is playable on an iPod). It is free and opensource, and I have not had any malware problems with it when downloaded via the official distribution. Nimur 04:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Will it convert .swf files?--130.126.67.144 04:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

SUPER by eRightSoft will do it for you; it's not the prettiest program around, but it's free, I know of no issues with spyware, etc, and it will convert almost any media files from/to any other format. --jjron 10:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If you are running Mac OS X, try Tasty Software's FLVR, it gives Safari a download button to convert FLV to MPEG-4/h.264. --24.249.108.133 18:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Microsoft Word

Word has a fancy "Research" toolbar that allows you to serach through a few sources. Several of them (especially encyclopedias) you need to register/pay for. Is there a way to add Wikipedia to this? You can add a reference by website, but it says wikipedia does not respond, most likely because Wikipedia is not set up for this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.95.240 (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What URL did you add? The Word Research function is not explicitly mentioned in WP:Special/Search, but in the "Browser Specific Info" section, it indicates that the full URL should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s. I'm not really sure if that %s would work or need to be changed. This is the only page from Microsoft that I can find about adding research options, and it's not very detailed. --LarryMac | Talk 16:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a keyword bookmark defined in firefox so I can just type, for example, wp WP:RD/C and it takes me here. This is the URL that I use: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s" but search might be better for things that might not have their own articles. Actually, why not just use your browser? :X --froth^t 18:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because he spent some five hundred bucks [5] and wants full use of that money? I am sorry if I offended you, by the way. --Click me! write to me 07:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Grin ..on the internet? Heh, don't think so. Anyway, there are plenty of features in Office that are useless- I wouldn't consider it wasted money if I never used the research bar. However if I started using aspell as a spell checker, and an external graphics library for clipart and wordart, and a browser for research, and an external formatting tool (?), (and these alternatives do their jobs better than their Office counterparts) then I wouldn't consider it wasted money, but I would consider whether Office is worth purchasing again when they think up some other superficial upgrade. --froth^t 09:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Radius on a map web site?

I am looking for a map web site, such as Mapquest, Yahoo! Maps, or Google Maps, which might have a feature in which one can enter an address and a distance (say, 25 miles) and have the site generate a map displaying a circle centered at that address with a radius of that distance. Does anyone know of such a site? Thanks for your help. --Metropolitan90 03:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

So, which cities are you planning to nuke ? :-) Seriously, it sounds simple enough, but I'm not aware of any site that does this. StuRat 04:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this request was inspired by the fact that diplomats from certain countries are limited to traveling within a 25-mile radius of Manhattan when attending the United Nations. --Metropolitan90 05:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You can sorta do that with the ruler in Google Earth. Straight westward you can go a little past Madison. Northwards you land in something called Nyack. Eastward you land in Levittown, NY. Southwards you land just on the coast of the Atlantic at the south border of Raritan Bay, basically at the Highlands. Cheers! --Oskar 06:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Correction: southwards you actually land pretty much smack dab in the middle of the Highlands Army Air Defense base. Many diplomats who'd want to go there, I imagine :) --Oskar 06:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's a pretty silly way of doing it: use this site, plug in a value of 41000 kt, and the largest visible circle should be exactly 25 miles. --24.147.86.187 14:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If you can get your hands on a copy of Microsoft MapPoint, that can give you both the distance radius and the time radius (the further you could travel from a point in a given time). You can download a free trial from Microsoft or might be able to use the online "Test Drive" function.[6] Laïka 16:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There are many simple Google Maps API users out there with something like what you want. [7], [8], ... --Sean 16:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! The second link cited by Sean [9] is the exact kind of utility I was looking for. --Metropolitan90 04:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

MSN Virus "image36.zip"

A lot of my friends have been getting this MSN virus, you know the type which sends the virus to all the victim's contacts and says something along the lines of "hey can i put this pic of u on my myspace?". On this latest virus the message varies somewhat (one time it said "you seen me naked yet?!" :P) but the file name is always "image36.zip". Anyone know how to get rid of this virus cuz it's driving me and my friends nuts... --Candy-Panda 11:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I recommend you do a full virus scan on your computer to eliminate the threat. If you don't already have a virus checker, you can download and use the free AVG Anti-Virus (website). --Andrew (My talk) 12:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Combining black and white and colour images

I have two photographs which are exactly identical except for in two ways: 1) One of them is in greyscale, while the other is in full colour. 2) The black and white image is of much higher resolution than the colour one. Is there some way to use the colour image to "colour in" the greyscale one, without significant loss of detail from the greyscale? (In case you are wondering what caused this unlikely chain of events, for some reason, the image I need from the FHWA site is only available in large greyscale or small colour image - don't ask me why) Laïka 16:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried overlaying one over the other at 50% transparency? Without the images, I can't be certain which of the many methods is best. It is my gut opinion that colorizing the black and white will look poor. -- kainaw™ 17:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• I just tried that, and it looked pretty good. I'm not too clever with the GIMP, so I'm sure someone more experienced at it could do much better using the B+W image as a layer mask, etc. --Sean 17:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If I did that, I'd probably end up with a with Bleach bypass of the original image, which would screw up all the saturations. It's moot now, anyway, as I've managed to find a similar Creative-Commons image of higher resolution. Thanks anyway. (In case you're curious, these are the two images - I'm not sure as to the copyright status of the black and white one, though, so I've gone for the CC alternative, Image:Snow sweeper Helsinki.jpg) Laïka 17:11, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You'd have hell combining those anyway. They are not cropped the same, so you'd have to spend hours playing around until the images lined up. -- kainaw™ 18:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• All you have to do is zoom in on a small item in the image, set the top layer to 50% alpha, and line them up. It's easy! --Sean 23:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It isn't that easy. There are two images. They are cropped at different spots. They are set at different aspect ratios. They are saved as different sizes. So, to line them up, you have to know how much to resize both the width and height (being a different amount each, since the aspect ratio is different), and then hope the images aren't slightly rotated - which it appears they are. -- kainaw™ 14:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, it could be done. First you'd have to align the two images: one way to do that would be to use a panorama stiching program like hugin. Then export them into a raster graphics editor (such as Photoshop or GIMP) as layers of a single image, and combine them so that the luminance channel comes from the high-res b/w image and the chrominance channels from the low-res color image. Depending on the program, this may be as simple as changing the blending mode on one of the layers, or you may have to mess around with channel decomposition. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Polygon union

I have a set of n polygons defined by their sides $((x_{n1},y_{n1}),(x_{n2},y_{n2})),\ldots ,((x_{nm},y_{nm}),(x_{n1},y_{n1}))$. (these are zip codes) I want an efficient algorithm for merging adjacent polygons into single polygons. These are not necessarily simple polygons, and even if they were, once I've begun the union process, it's very likely that I'll end up with enclaves. It's also likely that I'll end up with situations where the shared boundaries will not be entire sides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Donald Hosek (talk • contribs) 17:00, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One method is to leave them as separate polygons in some type of structure which notes that they are unioned together. Then, if you want to determine if a point is within the unioned polygon, just determine if it is within any of the individual polygons. This also makes it simple to remove a polygon from the union later. One thing that this approach doesn't do particularly well is allow you to determine the total area, because there will be many overlaps. BlindMoglin 17:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this is that it makes rendering the polygon as an overlay in google maps inefficient. Donald Hosek 17:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The answer depends very much on wether your data is perfect or not.

In case of perfectly aligned polygons, which share any common vertex on the exact same point the problem is merely combinatorial. In this case the best way is to find the "triangle points" where common borders of polygons start or end and then split all polygons at these point and finally recombine the line segments to new polygons. You can find these points by comparing polygons pairwise. It is not necessarily easy to cover all special cases, but it can be implemented fast, even on huge datasets. If you have zip code areas from a single supplier, the data is probably perfectly aligned (the vendors of these datasets aim for it specifically).

In the case of arbitrary polygons, you will have to use a general line intersector (sweepline) to find all intersections, split all polygon boundaries at their intersections and create a topological datastructure containing vertices, lines and faces. Then apply the desired set operations on the faces and regenerate your merged polygons. This approach is slower than the first, mainly because of the intersector.

If you don't know what I am talking about, by all means use a library. You cannot solve the second case without good knowledge of algorithmic geometry. Try the java topology suite for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.24.216 (talk) 00:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Forum Spammer

Hello, I'm a forum moderator, and we're having quite a bit of hassle from our resident spammer. They keep getting in and flaming members, excessive smilies and being a pain!! I ban the username, the email and IP address, but he keeps getting back. Obviously, he is changing his IP and there remains little I can do about it, apart from adding new ban triggers for his list of new IP addresses.

Any idea how I can combat him? or is it a case of just banning his IP everytime he gets a new one? - Fred Riding —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.6.88 (talk) 19:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of anything automatic off the top of my head, but can you make the sign-up process require manual approval? That would also be a pain, but only for you, not for all of your members. --LarryMac | Talk 20:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

"Never get in a fight with a pig; all that will happen is that you both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it". Maybe just stop playing this game, which he's obviously enjoying? Put up with his excessive smilies, and eventually he'll get bored or discover girls, and life goes on. --Sean 20:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The other thing you could do is use WHOIS to determine the ISP of the offender and contact the admin cntact (many ISPs list an abuse contact). If you tell them the IP and the timestamp (UTC) of the abusive edits, they can determine which of their users was loged on at the time and make sanctions. Chances are they are breaking their ISP's terms and conditions of service. — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 02:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

As a former Forum Administrator, a quick ranged-ban on IPs stops things. Mind you, make it quick, just enough to annoy them, but not too much so as to stop wanted traffic. You can make a list of their IPs and see if they are in a specific subrange, so the range doesn't have to be very large. And off the top of my head: See if you can enforce a smiley limit (say 5) so it doesn't get annoying or lag, or censor some of his common words. Or simply enforce post moderation temporarily (this annoys people, though). x42bn6 Talk Mess 03:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Depending on the forum software, you could annoy him as much as he annoys you. For vBulletin software for instance, there is a mod available that can be used to make life on the board hard for a particular user. It's called the "Miserable User Mod" and is available at vbulletin.org. Basically it makes life hard for a particular user. Certain actions have a failure rate percentage applied to them so that if they try to go to your forum's home for instance the user has a 25% chance of actually getting the page. The other 75% of the time, they get a server time out error or something similar. Dismas|^(talk) 04:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, some good ideas. Only being the Mod, and not the admin means I'm restricted in what I can do. I'm using forum SMF version 1.1.3. I don't think i can apply a blanket ban. But some nice ideas anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.6.88 (talk) 11:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I once heard of a forum that put annoying users in limbo. That is, instead of blocking the user, the forum admin made it so only he could see his own posts. That is, to everyone else, he disappeared, but he thought he was posting just as normal. After a while, when they don't get any reactions they just go away, and even if he doesn't you don't get to see his posts. Just hope he doesn't figure it out :) --Oskar 09:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Change IP in wiki editing??

You know those little links in an IP discussion page, telling where they came from? I'm not sure what they are, but when I plugged in some IPs from a recent vandalization from another wiki to "WHOIS", they all point to different directions! Some claim to be from China and some from Germany. The IPs are all radically different, yet all their edits are links to the same "get free 'spyware'" website. How did they do that??

Proxy. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 23:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Or possibly a virus that has compromised insecure computers all over the net. — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 02:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

As Timotab said, see botnet. -- kainaw™ 14:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

September 26

Is it possible to transfer a hard drive to a new machine and still use it to boot?

A co-worker of mine is going to purchase a new PC, and has offered me his old one with everything minus the hard drives (a substantial upgrade from my current box). How difficult and what are the procedures for getting my hard drive (more specifically, my copy of XP) to boot the new machine? Thank you in advance for any insight you can provide. (Edit to say links to reputable guides on this sort of thing are just as good as answers and to remove redundant wording). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.222.160.8 (talk) 01:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I would expect it would be as simple as physically installing your hard drive in the new computer (most likely as the "primary master"). Do you know how to do that ? StuRat 01:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That I can do. For some reason I was thinking it would be a more involved process. Thank you, StuRat. Also, I remember reading somewhere that XP uses a "ticket" system for hardware changes; something like each XP install gets x number of hardware changes before invalidating itself. Does anyone know of this? 161.222.160.8 02:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You know, I tried this once and it didn't work. Although the hard drive was running OEM windows, so I'm not sure if that was causing a problem. The OEM windows wouldn't install on the new machine either, so you might have different luck using if your XP was store bought or "free." As for the ticket thing, I've been told XP can tell if the motherboard type magically changed, and OEM versions self invalidate when this happens. Not sure if that's the really case, but...maybe. Someguy1221 02:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

WGA generates a hash based on your hardware configuration. If it changes enough to be considered by microsoft to be a different computer (this can be as little as upgrading your graphics card and memory, or just your motherboard) then you will be unable to run windows. The program phones home every week or so to make sure your installation is still "genuine." This is clearly spyware behavior, and you should not be subject to microsoft's arbitrary licensing restrictions if you've purchased the software. Our article on WGA says that microsoft is being prosecuted for this unreasonable behavior, but I doubt it'll amount to much seeing as how microsoft's already bought legislation to defend itself- DMCA. --froth^t 03:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Now I have some pondering to do. Even if I purchase a new copy of XP I think it will still be cheaper than upgrading my current box (about the only part I want to keep is the case :)) Thank you all for taking time to answer my question. 161.222.160.8 04:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You can call Microsoft and re-activate your Windows over the phone. You need to tell them that it is because you upgraded your computer and that you still only have Windows installed on one computer. --131.215.166.122 04:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You will probably have to reinstall Windows XP and call Microsoft to get a new reactivation code. Should be no problem as long as you back up the data on your hard drive prior to reininstalling Windows. --Hdt83 ^Chat 04:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You'll almost certainly have to re-install Windows, and nothing to do with licensing reasons. Your Windows simply won't have the correct drivers installed to talk to the new hardware. Your basic hardware (motherboard, controllers) are detected on installation, when the built-in Windows drivers are installed to interface with them. You'll have to run the setup again to go through this detection and installation phase. It will probably give you a blue screen at boot-up. Zunaid©® 10:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And yes, as you know you should remember to back up your data before attempting to reinstall --Click me! write to me 07:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)windows.

Game Maker 7.0 Pro

Does anybody have the registration key for Game Maker 7.0 Pro? --Dudforreal 06:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure they do, but I imagine sharing it here would be illegal, and Wikipedia does not encourage illegal activities. --jjron 09:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Check the interwebs. Wikipedia is located in the US (florida) so they have to have rules against posting content illegal in America.. which, because lobby groups have very deep pockets, includes license keys. Illegal number :o Ridiculous? yes. Illegal anyway? Unfortunately. We can't help you --froth^t 11:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Speed cameras

what category of technology would speed cameras fall into? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.23.231.70 (talk) 10:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

visual image capture, velocity measurement, digital image processing. Plus the various technologies involved in converting a number plate number into a letter saying "your car was detected as speeding"87.102.32.155 12:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

also 'traffic control technology','road safety technologies' .. could be any number of technologies - could you be more specific87.102.32.155 14:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

According to the road safety camera wikipedia page, Law enforcement equipment, Traffic law, Cameras by type, Applications of computer vision, Road transport, Street furniture and Speed cameras --h2g2bob (talk) 17:47, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "speed camera", and it depends on how you categorize technology. -- Diletante 00:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Changing Keyboard Shortcuts

For work I have to use Windows 2000, and my job requires me to ALT-TAB through thousands of documents. I am starting to get RSI and I want to know if there's a way of reassigning the shortcuts so I can change it to something a bit easier to get to. Can this be done?

Thanks 195.60.20.81 12:13, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What software are you using to view the documents ? If hitting the two keys simultaneously is the problem, perhaps you could use sticky keys. StuRat 15:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with StuRat. Just press [shift] key on your keyboard for some eight or nine times continuously to activate it. Let us know if that is not what you want. --Click me! write to me 07:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm not sure that will work. With Sticky Keys, the keys only stay down for one use before reverting. I need to use ALT TAB or CTRL F6 for hours at a time, and being able to change one or either of these shortcuts to something a bit easier (or even to rotate them so I'm not wearing out the same muscles/keys) would be really handy. 195.60.20.81 10:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

A keyboard macro program such as AutoHotkey will let you redefine practically anything to mean practically anything. It does require a basic level of programming skill, but it's almost certainly worth the investment in a case like yours. (The investment of learning time, I mean; the software is free.) -- BenRG 11:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

computing

--~about online leave management system,how to use it,its benefit to a company. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kathambi (talk • contribs) 15:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

1) People could request leaves online, without disturbing their supervisor.

2) A computer program can figure out if too many people are requesting leave simultaneously, such that the company will be shorthanded, and request that applicants for those leaves reschedule. If they refuse, the supervisors can be notified to make the decision about who will have their leave denied or if other actions, like hiring temps, are needed to provide adequate coverage.

3) Recording who has taken how much of their allocated leave becomes a simple matter. Those who fail to request leave before it expires can be notified in advance. This can avoid angering employees who later find out their leave has expired. StuRat 15:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Karioke Track

Hello! Is there any free software, like Audacity, that can remove the vocals from an MP3 file to produce a karioke (pardon my spelling) track? Thanks!--El aprendelenguas 15:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The only way to remove the vocals properly would be if they were on a separate track to begin with. I don't think the MP3 format gives you this, you only have the final mix. I suppose some software could try to recognize the human voice and remove it, but I'd be rather skeptical about this process working very well. StuRat 17:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Typically, music is engineered so that the lyrics are centered in the stereo stage, while all the backup sounds are spread across the stage. So, if you take the left channel, invert it, and sum it with the right channel, the identical things (lyrics) will cancel out, leaving just the differences between the two channels. This, honestly, doesn't work very well, though. You generally end up with a mono file with lessened lyrics and a really bizarre equalization. Some software -- Goldwave comes to mind -- has an automated lyric removal filter that will do this operation for you. --Mdwyer 21:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I tried it with GoldWave on Take Me Out (song) and uploaded the results. It's a little squealy at the beginning when there aren't even any vocals but it's still impressive. --froth^t 09:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Multi-listen start

Template:Multi-listen item

I know that XMMS has a voice-removal plugin. Sometimes it works ok, sometimes.... not so much. -- Diletante 00:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

ASP.NET and Linux

I have to write ASP.NET code on Windows for my job. Back at home, my computer is 100% Linux-only. My current distro, Fedora 7, comes with Mono pre-installed. Does this mean I could just take my ASP.NET code from work and have it work on my home Linux system as well? (Minus the Windows domain authentication of course.) JIP | Talk 18:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I am assuming that you are developing ASP web pages. You will want to see Apache::ASP for running ASP pages on Apache (on Linux). -- kainaw™ 18:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You assume correctly. From what I gather, ASP.NET web pages are just like JSP pages, only you don't have to code the HTML controls yourself. I'm glad this is supported on Linux as well, ASP.NET looks like too good a technology to waste on BillOS only. As for the Windows-only features, like the Windows domain authentication, I can live without them. JIP | Talk 19:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

If by good you mean bloated, slow, cumbersome to write for, and completely inappropriate to the inherent statelessness of the web page, then I'd have to agree with you --froth^t 09:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

NTFC (NTFS?)

my computer uses FAT32 can I put NTFC software on its drive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.109.201 (talk) 21:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean NTFS? Software generally doesn't care which filesystem you use. However, if the software requires the enhanced security of NTFS (permissions, etc) then, it might not work well under FAT32. --Mdwyer 21:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be confused. NTFS is essentially the same sort of thing as FAT32, they're both filesystems, you can have either one on your hard disk, but not both at the same time (technicalities such as partitioning aside). Imagine a hard disk as a long list of ones and zeroes, you need some sort of system that tells you where a file begins and ends. This is what a file system. In order to use use NTFS on your drive, you will need to reformat it (which means emptying it, and reinstalling windows). The clearest advantages are safety (files will be easier to retrieve in the event of problems), security (user based permissions are possible) and size (you can have files larger than 2 gb, which isn't possible with FAT32). risk 22:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Someone's confused, but I don't think it's Mdwyer; perhaps you were referring to the original questioner? In any case, it's entirely possible to upgrade a disk from FAT32 to NTFS in place. For example, the WIN2K installer will do it for you if you wish.

You're right, I was resopnding to the original poster. I didn't know it was possible to convert disks to NTFS with data intact, though. risk 13:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Atlant 11:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a point in the case, popular distros of GNU/Linux may not support NTFS writing properly out of the box. I am not sure if it pertains to you,but just wanted you to know of the pitfalls. --Click me! write to me 07:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, last I knew (which may now be too long to be accurate), Mac OS X could read an NTFS disk but not write them; that is, they were mounted to the underlying Unix as read-only file systems.

Atlant 11:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Two-nots problem

I'm stuck on solving the two-nots problem. Does anyone know of a solution somewhere on the internet? Or maybe you could just help me here; I have it down to a very specific question.

KNOWING:
A      A'     <--Important
B
C      C'     <--Important
A+B    A*B    <--Somewhat important
A+C    A*C    <--Somewhat important
B+C    B*C    <--Somewhat important
(A+C)' (A*C)' <--Possibly important

NOTING:
(A+C)' = A'*C' per de morgan's laws
(A*C)' = A'+C' per de morgan's laws

FIND:
B'

I am totally stuck- I'm reasonably sure this is where I need to be but as far as I can tell there's no solution for B' that doesn't involve additional inverters.

To find A' and C' I went a really crazy roundabout way.. I found (A+C)' and (A*C)' first. I noted that:

For A:
If (A+C)' is true then A must be 0
If (A+C)' is false then either A must be 1 or C must be 1 or both must be 1 so
 AC
 01
 10
 11
 A is only 0 when C is 1 and (A' OR C')
A' = (A+C)' + C(A'+C')

For C:
If (A+C)' is true then C must be 0
If (A+C)' is false then either A must be 1 or C must be 1 or both must be 1 so
 AC
 01
 10
 11
 C is only 0 when A is 1 and (A' OR C')
C' = (A+C)' + A(A'+C')

So completely unnecessary since I could have just inverted A and C in the first place and easily had (A+C)' and (A*C)', rather than inverting (A+C) and (A*C) and going backward to A' and C'. But I'm hoping that something similar can be done for B'.. it doesn't work though, there's no definite solution :( pls? --froth^t 22:17, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Wireless Networks

What exactly is it that makes some wireless networks private, or security-enabled. And even if your network says it is security-enabled, how can you be sure that others don't tap into your network and view your pages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.200.184 (talk) 22:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Wireless networks are generally made "private" by using some type of encryption. As to the second question, I guess, there really is no way to be completely and absolutely sure. Even the highest security can be cracked. The best you can do is to be "as sure as you can", to do that you just have to keep up with the contemporary best security practices. That's things like using the latest security available to you, using strong passwords for the key, enabling more then one security measure on your network, also pro active things like monitoring your network usage, keeping backups of critical data, etc. There are a LOT of things you can do to be "more" safe, just HOW safe you want to be is entirely up to you and your requirements. Many people have made careers out of consulting on this type of question. Vespine 23:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.200.184 (talk) 23:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Credit card transaction processing

While tidying up credit card, I became rather curious how there can be multiple transaction processing networks, if any credit card number can be used to deposit money in any merchant account. Or is it that any merchant that advertises that they accept e.g. Visa, must be capable of using all of the networks that any Visa-affiliated card-issuing bank must use, and the various credit card associations have overlapping sets of networks that they require? Is there a canonical list of these networks which could be documented in Wikipedia somewhere? -- Beland 23:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Merchants get their card processing service from card processors; it is the card processors who need to be able to access the different networks. --71.175.68.224 12:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

September 27

The little server that couldn't....

I just installed EasyPHP (that is, MySQL, PHP and Apache) to try to run a few silly web things. It works fine if I type in "localhost", but I wanted an address I could remember so I used No-IP.com to get one of those mysillylittleserver.no-ip.com but when I tried to connect to it nothing happened. Figuring that they might be slow to update their DNS database, I connected directly to my IP, but that didn't work either! Figuring that maybe my ISP is blocking port 80 (although I doubt it) I changed the port, still didn't work. Figuring that maybe the Windows firewall is cockblocking me (pardon my French) I turned that off (and btw, I did both of the last things at the same time, to make sure that not both were happening), and now that that doesn't work either I'm just about out of ideas. I mean, the server works, if I use 127.0.0.1 or localhost (which is the same, I guess), it's all peachy, but not when I connect directly to my public IP, nada. Ohh, and I don't have a router, so it's not a NAT thing. My ISP couldn't possibly filter all incoming HTTP requests, could they? I mean, they're very nice, they let me bittorrent all I want and they don't do any shaping. Help appriciated. --Oskar 03:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• First, are you sure that you are not behind a NAT router? (broadband modems and stuff often have them built in) Go to the command prompt and do "ipconfig"; what does the IP say?
• Do you have another software firewall or anything like that?
• Check your Apache config to make sure that it isn't just listening on localhost
• Portscan yourself (with nmap or something like that) to see if your port 80 is responding at all

--Spoon! 04:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Aha! The httpd.conf file contained the line "Listen 127.0.0.1:80" and when I removed that the firewall (I started it again because apparently it wasn't the problem) perked right up and asked for permission for Apache. Now it seems to work fine! Thanks! Ohh, and you couldn't just test going to xxx and see what happens, just so I can be sure it's working? Don't worry, there's nothing bad on there, just a test message :P Thanks, again! --Oskar 05:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC) Not necessary, I got confirmation elsewhere --Oskar 05:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

usecase

sir please give me any sample project that contains USECASE diagrams.iam doing a project so i want to have a glance of any project.i read usecase diagrams topic but i had a doubt.so please provide a sample project with usecase diagrams —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.64.121.42 (talk) 04:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

HTTP in the file system

I'd like to have HTTP access through the ordinary file system so that I can reach, for example, the Wikipedia main page as /http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. What would be the standard way to do this? And why doesn't such a useful thing come preinstalled in distros? (Cause it doesn't, right?) —Bromskloss 09:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing exactly like that (that I know of), but there's a FUSE module for http called httpfs. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it only binds a particular URI to a file, and doesn't provide a browsable directory structure. This is probably because most web sites aren't very much like a directory, it is difficult to translate a page full of links into a directory full of files. There are protocols like WebDAV that give you the ability to use http or https to serve a filesystem, but that's not what you're asking for. -- JSBillings 12:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't expect file listings, of course. The httpfs you mentioned, is it only used for mounting disk images or can I use it to access any file? A quick search revealed that there are at least experimental things that do what I look for, but I was wondering if there was some software that was generally preferred. (Like you usually use Apache whenever you need a web server.) —Bromskloss 13:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

internet and proxy

If I wana find my pcs "proxy server" by using CMD and this fomular:
c:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" /v ProxyServer
! REG.EXE VERSION 3.0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
ProxyServer REG_SZ yourproxyhere:port
c:\>

What EXACTLY do I type in the "C:\>" Screen? Thanks!!! Hyper Girl 10:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The first line you have written? :) Splintercellguy 13:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Generic Macro in Excel

Can anyone explain how to construct a Macro in Excel which will work anywhere on the spreadsheet and does NOT use cell addresses. In Quattro Pro a Macro can be written which will look like this:

{editcopy}{right 4}{down 3}{editpaste}

This will copy the contents of a cell from its present location to a position 4 cells to the right and 3 cells down and will work anywhere the cursor is placed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.238.8.15 (talk) 11:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)