Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

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December 19

Finding a specific file with cmd.exe

If I was looking for a specific file (say, "file.txt") but I don't know what folder it's in, is there a way to search for it using the command prompt? 63.24.178.157 (talk) 00:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

C:\dir /s file.txt --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

or, to be more exact, use: dir /b /s file.txt

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Hacking into runescape.

How do you hack into a runescape acount? (Superawesomgoat (talk) 01:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

Probably the same way you hack into any account—try to find a way to guess or steal passwords. In any case, Googling "hack runescape account" comes up with a number of dubious options. Most seem to involve trying to phish for passwords, a strategy which only will work if you know how to be convincing and the person running the account you want is extremely naive about the ways of the internet. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia, how can I gain illegal access to others' account for malicious purpose and have everything recorded on the Wikipedia server? First the Pacific Mall now this? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Who said anything about malicious purpose? :) -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you think of a non illegal reason to be attempting to break into an account you don't have access to? Runescape has quite a lot of password recovery options if it is his own account and if not it is automatically illegal under US law (which is what Wikipedia follows if I recall correctly) regardless of purpose TheGreatZorko (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Firefox three

The Firefox 3 betas are out and I've installed them etc. When they release new versions or non-beta ones will my beta rv 2 version automatically update via the "check for updates" or will I have to download and install it all over again? Thanks for your help! xxx Hyper Girl (talk) 11:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As updates to beta software may contain large changes to the source code, I would imagine that you would have to download and install the newer version. However, it should have the facility to install over your current version, preserving any settings, bookmarks and add-ons you may have. Think outside the box 17:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

sue linux

can i sue linux?am a borne and bred windows user,two days ago i got a suse linux enterprise 10.1 cd.i have neva used linux before.i had 80 gb hard disk,anyway linux was hard to install and i just blindly followed the default setup options.i have know lost 20 gb hard disk.i cant see one partion.my pc is showing three partions and i have three where has one gone.please whoever is going to answer me please try to explain thoroughly,am not a linux newbie am a linux moron.i know squat bout linux,its the hardest thing after calculas.i still have the cd and i also have an xp cd.help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.22.166.182 (talk) 13:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no individual or organization called "Linux", so no. Under some stretch of the imagination you might be able to sue Novell, but there is really no reason to do so. It is likely that when you have installed Linux, you have paritioned your hard drive in a way that does not utilize all available space; However, I don't know why that would happen if you did indeed follow the instructions. I would suggest you try installing again, paying more attention this time to the partitioning part; If that fails, you should probably contact Novell for support. If you supply more details about what you had previously, what you did and what you have now we may be able to help more. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: We aren't allowed to give legal advice here - so I'm going to give you a dope slap instead.

Firstly: Linux is an operating system - not a company - it's written in much the same way that Wikipedia is - by a vast team of mostly anonymous volunteers - good luck with tracking down the one person whom you think is liable for your disk lossage!

SuSE is the German company (now owned by Novell) that compiled this particular version of Linux, packaged it onto a CD and probably wrote the 'installer' program. The software was licensed to you under the GPL (which you agreed to somewhere during the installation procedure during your 'blindly following the default' phase) and it says (see sections 11 and 12 if it was GPL 2.0) that by agreeing to this you understand that there is no warrantee and that the authors and distributors won't be held liable...yadda, yadda, yadda. I can't give you legal advice - but you might maybe want to read what it was that you agreed to here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

Secondly: You havn't "lost" 20Gb - it still there, you simply chose of your own free will to reformat it to be a Linux partition - since you were trying to install Linux at the time, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. I use SuSE Linux (I have 10.2) and I know for sure that one of the questions that you "blindly followed" was "ARE YOU REALLY, SURE THAT YOU WANT ME TO REFORMAT BIG CHUNKS OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL HARD DRIVE FOR LINUX TO USE? [Y/N]" (well, not those exact words - but you get the message). You agreed to do that - what did you THINK would happen?! SuSE's Linux installer did precisely what you told it to do...what's wrong with that?

Thirdly: The problem you actually have is not that this 20Gb chunk is "lost" - it's that Windows is too dumb to see Linux partitions. So from your Windows perspective, it's an unusable/unrecognisable chunk of disk space that it ignores. But when you run Linux, that 20Gb will be where Linux is installed - and it'll be perfectly usable. Better still, because Linux is smarter about these kinds of things than Windows is: from within Linux you'll also be able to mount your Windows partition as well as your Linux partition - so all 80Gb will be there for you to use.

Conclusion: No! (Er, that might be construed as legal advice - I struck it out so please don't read it.)

SteveBaker (talk) 14:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(This is, by the way, why I find the "just install linux!" crowd so irritating. Most people care barely deal with Windows XP; they can't deal with Linux. I don't have time to deal with linux and I'm more computer savvy than the average bear. I think it's obviously got places where it's a better OS but primarily in the hands of an expert user and/or hobbyist.) --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(This is, by the way, why I find the "linux is too hard" crowd so irritating. Most people have grown up with Windows and understand it reasonably well - the only reason they find Linux difficult is because they havn't grown up with it. My 16 year old son grew up with Linux and he managed with it just fine when he was just 8 years old - you don't need to be an expert - you just have to NOT assume it's a Windows clone. You open applications in Linux with a single-click instead of a double-click. Windows users keep starting two copies of every application - which understandably annoys them. Linux users click once on an icon on the Windows desktop and wonder WTF the icon is highlighted yet nothing is happening! It's not that one way is better - it's that they are different. (Actually - bad example - Linux is better! Why does it take two mouse clicks to do this in Windows? Highlighting the icon with a single click doesn't seem to have any function whatever - why do I need to double-click?). I came to computing from the UNIX/Solaris/IRIX/Minix/BSD/Linux route - and I find Windows difficult and frustrating. Installing Windows from scratch on a Linux box if you have little Windows experience is every bit as hard as installing Linux on a Windows machine if you have little Linux experience. Installing Windows on a Linux box SO THAT IT'LL DUAL BOOT is absolutely impossible. Why is it in any way surprising that the mirror-image operation is somewhat tricky?! There is a symmetry here that's a consequence of people not being willing to change or to learn something new. The problem is one of xenophobia - not technical difficulty.) SteveBaker (talk) 15:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Every Linux user I've met spends half of their time compiling, partitioning, mucking around in a console mode, and other sorts of things which are way beyond the technical difficulty of most computer users. Hell, I can barely get Unix-y things to work correct on something as slick as OS X, and I'm pretty damned competent! It is a rare, rare Darwin port that actually works well (Inkscape and GIMP get my unabashed approval, but so, so much is barely functional without spending hours trying to figure out what is wrong). Obviously if a kid grows up learning Linux they'll have no trouble with it—the same could be said about any operating system that a child has interest in, they count as "hobbyists" in my taxonomy, but if you wanted to make another grouping for "kids" that would be fine too, but you know as well as I do that the fact that children can use technology means really zip as to whether it is going to be impossible for most of the adult population—I'm talking about people who are not computer savvy. And for most users I have met, technophobia and technical difficulty are basically the same thing. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Can you please also state your sample size and distribution? Partitioning? Why on earth would they do that live? Mucking around in console mode? You mean that "evil little black screen with text written on it"? Heck I've seen people spend hours deleting files by a very simple rule, and they do it by opening the folder in Windows, look through all one thousand or so files for files that fit the rule and delete them, something which can be done by a one-line script in a minute. From an efficiency stand point, which is easier? Just because you have grown accustomed with Windows and its pathetic command line doesn't mean command line is evil, or useless, or both.

• Why do you think that making something not designed to be ran on a system to run perfectly is easy? Try running the exact same Linux version of the programme in Windows, would you expect it to work? This has got nothing to do with Linux/Unix, but rather your biased view point, which blames everything on Linux/Unix. Ironically, Mac OS X, something that you use, is also based on Unix, and yet you can manage that without problem. It's not the operating system, it is very capable. Rather, it is cluelessness and prejudice, people never give something a proper try, and often stumble into something unsuitable to them, like Gentoo or Slackware, when they really should be using Ubuntu or Fedora, giving bad experience and prejudice ever after.

• OK let's take the normal web-surfing, email and light office application for example. Windows, you get IE, Outlook, and Wordpad, anything more you have to shell out for MS Office (suppose the user is clueless enough to not know about OOo, which is a reasonable assumption). In a distro like Ubuntu, you get Firefox, Thunderbird, and the whole OOo suite. For someone who had never touched a computer before, which one is easier, have to install something extra and have no idea how, or have everything they need right out of the box? When they used enough of the software, they might be dissatisfied and want to get an alternative. The Windows approach is to search on Google and Download.com or whatever and most of the time return shareware which you have to pay, and sometimes fraudulent ones loaded with spyware. On Linux, you can just use a package manager (comes with the system) to search and install thousands of free, safe software with just a few clicks. For someone who had used a computer for a few months, which one is easier? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• The tone and content of your first two paragraphs make .187's point better than s/he did. --Sean 12:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

OK - I'm tired of this. 187 clearly has NO CLUE about Linux and if Sean thinks 187 made any kind of a point then he doesn't understand squat about the matter either...Every Linux user I've met spends half of their time compiling, partitioning, mucking around in a console mode, and other sorts of things which are way beyond the technical difficulty of most computer users.??? WHAT!!! WHAT??? Oh come *ON* that's utter bullshit! It's been 10 years since that was true!

Let's actually blow away this fucking stupid myth shall we? Let's actually analyse that statement.

The actual truth about a typical Linux user (such as the tens of thousands who use it in offices working for various governments and big companies - who are neither hobbyists or young or geeks) goes something like this: My wife (who now uses only Linux but who is not at all computer literate) has never in her entire life compiled, partitioned or mucked around in console mode. I very much doubt she even knows that there IS a console mode - and the word "partition" refers to what happened to Germany at the end of WWII. She auto-boots into KDE - she logs in - she clicks open some combination of browser, email, money manager, office tools, photo albums, music players - she sets her desktop theme to all sorts of horrible shades of pink and has photos of the family for her screen backdrop - and it's no different for her than when she used to run Windows - except we don't have to flush the viruses and bogus toolbars and crap out of her machine once a month and she doesn't have to call me to 'defrag' her hard drive up once a month or reinstall the OS whenever things get too screwed up - because things DON'T get screwed up. That's not because I set those things up for her - we installed SuSE 10.1 on her laptop using the default settings - and I don't think I've touched it again since.

The people who compile - are mostly the enthusiasts, the geeks, the programmers - and they do that on Windows too. As for "partitioning"...that's complete bullshit...I think it's been 10 years since I last "partitioned" - and that was when I wanted to repartition a WINDOWS partition so I could dual-boot Linux - if Windows worked properly - I'd never have to do even that! These days the OS installer does all of that stuff for you. You don't "compile" to install software unless you want to. You grab an RPM or do an 'apt-get' and you click on it to install it! That's *IT*...precisely the same as using a Windows installer.

Mucking around in console mode IS something I'll admit to doing...but I do that under Windows too (I'm a big fan of Cygwin) - for some tasks it's a million times more efficient than using GUI tools in either OS...that's your choice - the same set of file managers and CD burners and all of those common tools exist for Linux as for Windows - and these days they are all installed by default with your OS distro. I doubt I've manually installed a single package on my 'workhorse' laptop. (I *DO* install stuff by hand and compile a lot of shit on my deskside machine - and putting up a web server, firewall, file server, mail server and Wiki on various machines around my house did involve quite a bit of messing around - but most of those things are beyond "difficult" under Windows - they're either utterly impossible without buying a $1000 commercial license - or they are impossible period! But I'm a software developer - and I write OpenSource stuff - so OF COURSE I DO THAT!) You have it completely backwards. The reason you find me doing that is the reason I got Linux in the first place...it's not that because I have Linux, I have to do that!

If you only do the kinds of things that 99% of Windows users do - you can hardly tell which OS you are in. You have a bunch of 'big' applications on your desktop - you click on them to get them running - and then you sit inside the application doing whatever you do. For applications that are available on both platforms, you really can't tell. Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, OOffice, Eclipse...whatever - they are identical. OpenOffice versus WORD/Office or FireFox versus IE7 or Thunderbird versus Outlook isn't really a good way to debate this...they are applications, not OS components and they are pretty similar in operation and general reliability. I worked for 10 years in a Linux-only software house - and we certainly didn't spend any significant amount of time repartitioning drives or installing drivers or any of those "scare story" things that Windows users think we do. We installed SuSE in about the same time it takes to install Windows - and we were ready to work.

The issue of shell-based tools versus GUI-based tools is also a completely bogus non-event. You can run Cygwin under Windows and there you are in bash with the same set of a bazillion command line tools - and you can forget you aren't running Linux anymore. Or you can sit in Linux and use a butt-load of k* tools under KDE and have a command-line-free experience if that's what turns you on. It's not about that anymore either. Windows stability (in XP at least) has FINALLY caught up with Linux...in 9 months of Windows use, I've had one BSOD...that's one more than I've had Linux crashes - but not too bad.

The true differences are in areas like security: Windows STILL isn't safe to use on an open 24/7 web connection - and you've got all of these annoying "don't click on attachments, don't turn on Java/JavaScript" things to worry about - plus, if you don't have a raft of anti-malware shit on your machine, you're toast. I've been running Linux since before there was a Linux (it was called "Minix") - I've never had one single intrusion, virus, NOTHING - and I've never taken any precautions beyond turning on the firewall in SuSE. Linux is also free and open. That matters - really - for the PRECISE same reason it matters that Wikipedia is free and open. A typical user may not notice that - but if you have to get into the 'down and dirty' side of things, it matters a lot. I don't want to find that some imperial edict on behalf of Microsoft means that if my computer can't dial up headquarters every so often, it's going to lock up my system. I don't want them bundling up patches in a way that I can't pick and choose which ones to take. I don't like that IE is interwoven with the windowing sytem which is interwoven with the operating system. I want to use open standards like OpenGL without some faceless corporation deciding that in the next release they're going to deliberately make it go slowly so I'll have to switch to their API and lock myself into their inelegant interface forever. MS API's are UGLY...horrible, horrible things for a programmer to work with. I could go on. But the things that most people complain about (on both sides of the debate) are NOT the real arguments. SteveBaker (talk) 22:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Steve, take a deep breath! My point was that many Linux users have a siege mentality which causes them to bite the newbies in counterproductive ways. Linux has been my primary system since the early 90's so I'm not clueless on this topic, but I long ago realized that the sort of "but the command-line is superior" argument that Antilived made has lost before it begins. Also, FYI, Linux was certainly not called Minix; I think it was called something horrible "Freax". --Sean 13:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

The reason we have a siege mentality is that people are besieging us with that kind of ridiculous, outdated view of the operating system! If I posted that Windows sucks because you get BSOD's all the time - then Windows users would be in 'siege mentality' mode because WinXP doesn't crash a whole lot - that's an outdated meme dating back to WinME and before. Well, it's the same deal here. When Linux was new, it was very much a matter of setting everything up yourself and it was painful as all hell! But over the past maybe 5 years, that has changed dramatically - to the extent that my wife (who is about the least technical person you're likely to meet) can be perfectly comfortable with it. All the time, experienced Windows users (most of whom have never used Linux for more than an hour) spout these lies and misinterpretations - what do you expect us to do? Nod our heads and accept this bullshit?

Most Linux users don't bite newbies - but in any community (including those of Windows users) there are a few annoying idiots. If you want to see newbie biters, make a comment on the GIMP developers list for example! Ouch!!! But hang out on an actual, typical Linux User group mailing list for any amount of time (I belong to the North Texas Linux User group) and you'll find that not only are we polite and helpful to newbies - but if you are a newbie, you can bring your computer to one of our meetings and our team of crack install guys will actually install Linux for you while they feed you free coffee and donuts. Then later, we'll even feed you free pizza while we run presentations from various gurus who are visiting the area - or from local Linux experts! You'll walk away with a nicely set up (and 'performance tuned') machine, a set of free CD-ROMs with the distro on them - and some email addresses of people you can call if you get into trouble! How friendly is THAT? You even get to choose which of a dozen Linux flavors you'd like us to put on there for you! Other Linux user groups I've visited have been every bit as friendly. Does that sound like biting the newbies?

I'm also strongly of the belief that the command-line is superior for most things - but not for everything. If you look at my desktop on any given day - you'll see four tiled shell windows open to various commandlines - plus a browser and maybe one or two other tools. The real message is that it's not one or the other - but that the smart user keeps all of the tools in his toolkit rather than throwing half of them away.

Linux was never actually called anything other than Linux - but Linux's predecessor as "free Unix for small computers" was Minix - and Linus actually used Minix to get Linux going. Early versions of Linux used the Minix file system - and for a long time, even though Linux grew it's own file system, it had to be booted from a Minix partition. I transitioned from Minix to Linux - and at the time, it was hard to tell the difference (except that Linux was OpenSourced and Minix wasn't). SteveBaker (talk) 14:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that "just install Linux" is rarely a good answer to anything, the task that this user was attempting to accomplish (install a second operating system on a machine while leaving the current one unmolested) is ludicrously easier with Linux than with Windows. The last time I tried that with Windows, it just formatted my existing partitions without asking. --Sean 16:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes - indeed, it seems that the OP may actually have succeeded into doing that (With SuSE, just saying "Yes" and "OK" to everything pretty much does that)...but that's not the problem here. The issue (at least as I read it) is that Linux's re-partitioning of the drive to carve off a not-unreasonable 20Gb chunk for it's own use caught the OP by surprise. So now (in Windows at least), (s)he is "missing" 20Gb of space. It is not at all unreasonable to be surprised and upset by that - and that's not what the dope-slap was for. The slap was for expecting to be able to sue someone over it...and (worse still) asking that on a site that SPECIFICIALLY says that we can't give legal advice. SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

PS: While I'll be lining up with every one else to administer a dope slap, I'm forced to wave around the WP:BITE flag, first. --Mdwyer (talk) 17:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess someone has to! SteveBaker (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

20GB swap partition? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Grr, I like windows because "linux is too hard" and I do know what I'm talking about. Compiling anything from source these days is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Manually configuring display configurations?! Windows autodetects my displays and resolutions fine, and I've _never_ been able to get x to play nicely with my non-standard configuration despite the fact that I do know what I'm doing. My wireless card is notoriously unsupported by linux and there's not a hard ethernet jack on campus. ndiswrapper fails spectacularly on my windows wifi drivers. I love bash and have managed a linux server (command line only; gnome is crippled, KDE is ugly and annoying, enlightenment is disgusting, xfce is ok but still too minimalistic) but I'm not going to put up with linux's shortcomings just to use my personal computer. On a server I love it but I wouldn't dream of using it for my own laptop. Too many times have I tried to manually repair a broken makefile, to resolve circular dependencies in completely idiotic package managers- face it, linux just sucks on the desktop. The Right Thing for a OS to do is not the thing that won't have its users pulling out their hair. Windows has bad performance, is malware-prone (by the way, you can't just "open attachments without worrying" in linux either, what are you talking about), and is usable. Linux is beautiful, and I love its endless configurability compared to windows but I won't be using it for at least another decade; it's maddeningly far from being mature --ffroth 20:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the idea that with Linux, you have to recompile the kernel just to get the system to boot has not been true for almost a decade. Yet, it gets perpetuated by Windows users whose only knowledge of Linux comes from a small footnote in a computer user's guide. I grew up with Windows - it took me until university (at 19 years) to even have heard of Linux. At that time, Linux was not as easy to use as it is now, but I still learned it in a matter of months. Nowadays, installing Linux is mostly a matter of pointing and clicking. I don't think I have ever needed to compile a kernel, and I've been using Linux for years. If people could get past the "Linux is hard because I say it is" mentality and just try it out, I think they'd find Linux as easy to use as Windows. Many public computers in Finnish libraries run only Linux, and I have never seen anyone say "Oh, this is that hacker OS I once read about! I can't use this! It's too difficult!" Instead, they just log in, and go browse the web, like business as usual.

For the last point, Minix is an entirely different system than Linux. Minix is not free software - it's a closed, proprietary system made by Andrew Tanenbaum, who was at one time something like Linus's mentor. Linus originally named his own system Freax, but Ari Lemmke renamed it to Linux. JIP | Talk 10:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I hear too often the claim that "if people would only try Linux, they will immediately see how great and easy it is and bow to its awesomeness", but this theory doesn't hold up. I consdier myself to be techincally oriented, but my own personal experience with trying Linux has been quite unfavorable. I have tried installing differnt distributions on different computers, each time having different problems. Having a graphical installer is great, at least until the point I get an error message saying that for whatever reason the installation can't proceed. If I did manage to install, I would often not be able to run it without running into a screen that reminded me of a BSOD. When I did manage to run something, I remember having all sorts of "general usability" problems (programs not running when I run them, programs crashing, windows getting stuck on screen, etc.) On one computer sound didn't work, and after digging through help files I could at best get it to quantum superposition between working and not working. I don't think I have ever managed to get the printer working - I worked with the instructions step by step, and everything progressed according to schedule, until the part where "now your printer will print a page" and it didn't.

I'm sure installation problems aren't common and there's something probably wrong with my computer, but there was never any problem installing Windows, so there must be something wrong with Linux as well.

The best way I can summarize my experience with Windows and Linux is - With Windows, I am annoyed whenever something doesn't work. With Linux, I am pleasently surprised whenever something does work. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki systems and reversion of multiple article edits by same user

I run a mediawiki system external to WP. I am not an admin on WP so am not wholly familiar with all the admin tools. I just know what I know. I have heard of, even read about, but cannot find despite searching for an hour, information about reverting the edits made by the same user over a certain time period.

The siutation I envisage is "User:Userbot" unleashes a tranche of edits to say 1,000 articles that prove all to be rubbish edits. We need to be able to revert all those edits in one go.

Please will a kind soul point me to the documentation that tells me about it - I can't see the wood for the trees. I know it's hiding in plain sight, but I can't find it! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's a feature of the MediaWiki software (or if it is, I can't find it on my private Wiki either) - I suspect there are special bots for doing this. SteveBaker (talk) 15:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sure I saw it on the mediawiki site, but can I find it again? Not a chance. I was even awake at the time. I was researching bots and vandalism. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

And the answer is I can Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Or, on closer reading, no I can't! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Playstation 1 Emulation

I quite recently found my PS1 and a collection of games in my attic and got all exited about being able to play them again. Then I remembered I don't own a television anymore so I have nothing to plug the playstation into. Also on closer inspection the laser lense appears to have been cracked somehow. This leaves me with a bunch of games I want to play but can't. I am aware of emulation and often use ZSNES to play old snes games. What is the easiest way to run my old PS1 games in my PC? I'd quite like to be able to use my Xbox 360 controller (bought for my PC - it has a USB connection and is a fantastic pad) if that is possible. TheGreatZorko (talk) 15:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

List_of_video_game_console_emulators. Some games actualy look better emulated than on real hardware because of improved 3d rendering. 72.10.110.107 (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

So which on this list is the best? There are rather a lot TheGreatZorko (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried many of the emulators, and I think that "PCSX", is by far the best emulator for PS1. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 15:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Java, C++, C# or Python??

This isn't really a question. I'm want to hear you opinion on what you consider to the best programming language of the four: Java, C++, C# or Python, and why you think that. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Best for what purpose? --140.247.236.151 (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Just best in general —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.1.104 (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Programming languages are tools, and just like tools there isn't a "best" one (which is the "best" screwdriver?). They all have their advantages and demerits, and the same feature is an advantage in one circumstance and a demerit in another. You could talk a look at Comparison of programming languages. If you're asking because you want to know which you should spend your time learning, the big answer really is "it doesn't matter much", as they're all fairly similar. If you want one that's the easiest to learn, without being a toy, that's probably Python. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Wrong analogy: "Which is best - a chisel or a screwdriver?" ...well, you can kinda-sorta undo some screws with a chisel - and you could try chopping out a mortise and tenon joint with a screwdriver - but neither does the other's job terribly well. If you make fine furniture with hand made joints that fit together with glue and no screws...get a chisel. If you are someone who makes decking around people's pools...get a screwdriver. SteveBaker (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Asking a "Which programming language is best?" question is kinda like tossing a hand grenade into a hand grenade factory! However, I'm resisting saying "C++ utterly, utterly rooolz!" (damn! I said it) and going for a dispassionate review.

Firstly: everything (and I means EVERYTHING) depends on what you need to do with it:

1. If you need speed and you are a kick-ass programmer who doesn't make mistakes - C++ is the only answer.
2. If you need to be able to run in a web browser - Java is the only answer.
3. If you need to create masses of Windows GUI elements and if you don't give a damn about portability - C#.
4. If you need to produce one-time throw-away programs really quickly, or if you want a language you can embed into another application for scripting/plugins - then Python.

Secondly: A good programmer has a whole raft of tools at his/her disposal - including a good working knowledge of at least a handful of programming languages. You have to be ready to use whichever one you need for a specific job. Not one of those four languages you mentioned can cover 100% of the tasks you will be likely to encounter.

Here is what I've been using over the past month or so:

• I mostly worked in C++ because I'm a games programmer and speed is everything.
• I used a graphical scripting language called Kynapse to throw together a behavior to test an animated character at work.
• I used PHP so I could modify MediaWiki for my own nefarious purposes.
• I used JavaScript AND PHP AND C++ to write a fancy web-based photo album application for my son's website.
• I used Python to modify a loader for a custom 3D file format for blender.
• I used Java so I could fix a bug in a web-based car driving game I wrote for the MiniOwnersOfTexas car club.
• I used an obscure language called NQC to program a Lego robot I was playing around with one evening.

I probably know 20 languages well enough to "get by" and half a dozen well enough to program quickly and efficiently. However, mostly, if I have a quick job to throw together, I'll use C++ on my Linux machine simply because I'm more comfortable with it (after 20+ years of writing in C++ - I ought to be!) - not because it's necessarily better than the others. But other programmers might choose Python for that. I NEVER use C# - Java is better for almost everything and (most important of all) Java is portable and C# isn't - and there is nothing worse than having a program that runs on operating system A that won't run on operating system B - or vice-versa.

Overall, C++ is my favorite. It's fast. You can compensate for a missing language feature yourself - but if the core language is bloody slow (as all of the others you listed are) then there is no way to recover that. However, C++ is like an attack dog - if it's on your side and obeys your commands - it's handy thing to have in a fight - but if it ever gets the idea that you are weak - it'll assume the alpha dog position and rip you limb from limb! Bugs in C++ programs can be exceedingly hard to find and the consequences of almost any error will be a core dump with no error message. If you can program well enough that you don't often make mistakes - you can tame C++ and make it work for you - but if not...choose Java! SteveBaker (talk) 18:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'm starting to love C++, too. One difficulty I have is that the hardware hackers I work with have been using nothing but C and assembler for 30 years, so they fear it. I'd love to use Boost.org libraries, but I know if they ever saw an error message like this, g++ would be banned from the building. --Sean 12:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The thing about that is that C++ is almost a perfect super-set of C. Almost all C programs can be compiled and run by the C++ compiler and you'll never know the difference so long as you ignore the compiler warnings! C programmers can therefore transition over to C++ gradually. Picking up the features of the language that they find useful - and ignoring the ones they don't like. Practically all modern C compilers are really C++ compilers with some features and warnings turned off anyway! SteveBaker (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

NQC ROOLZ :D --ffroth 19:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I like Java best. I'm forced to use C# in my current job, but still find Java easier and more elegant. Perhaps it should be mentioned that of the four languages listed, C++, Java and C# are much more like each other than Python. Python is an entirely different paradigm, whereas Java and C# are like more elegant versions of C++ - Java more so than C#. I have a strong experience in Java and some experience in C# and C++, but I have never learned Python. JIP | Talk 19:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

C# is basically Java with Windows firmly bolted to it - but the folks at Microsoft are just genetically incapable of making ANYTHING elegant, so C# is never going to be a pretty thing. In a sane, non-monopolistic world, C# would have vanished overnight.

Java is basically C++ with all sharp, pointy objects locked away in a safe place! It's elegant alright. Java has its roots as a network-safe language. It has to run in a sandbox and it has to not allow programmers to make loopholes and escape from the sandbox.

C++ programmers can do amazingly efficient things with pointers that make Java programmers turn pale and shake at the knees...and justifiably so. However, I maintain that if you write C++ code using only the feature set of Java, then C++ is every bit as safe and elegant as Java. Experienced programmers know when to leave the sharp, dangerous bits of the language shut away in the cabinet - and when circumstances demand a full rack of ceramic kitchen knives, some bloody great meat cleavers and a chainsaw or two! The ikky problem with that otherwise, reasonable approach is that not all programmers are good programmers. It's been said that the best programmer in any large group is 100 times more accurate and productive than the weakest ones - and that's easy to believe. If you leave a poor programmer in a room full of sharp, pointy objects and he may run amok. You make one error with pointers and you've got a bug that could take you weeks to find! So if you don't need the performance you get with all of the dangerous bits of C++ - lock them away and use Java. Good programmers will hardly notice the difference - but crappy programmers will suffer far fewer missing fingers and toes!

Python is definitely the weird one of the bunch. Syntax is very different from the others - also it's lack of declarations and all of that runtime typing stuff is very different from C++/Java/C#. It's lack of those things make it more of a "read only" language. It's harder to understand a Python program that you wrote a year ago than it is to do so in C++/Java. It's OK for really short, simple scripts - or programs you're going to run once and then throw away...but I definitely wouldn't want to write something large and permanent using it.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Scaling up low-res images

Ages ago I remember seeing a number of clever programs listed here that can do a pretty good job of scaling up low-res images (that is, a better job than Photoshop, for example) by doing all sorts of interpolation and extrapolation. Anyone know what I am talking about? Any amount of pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated, thanks. --140.247.236.151 (talk) 17:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This might not be what you're looking for, but you could feed the image into VectorMagic. The resulting vector image could then be scaled without limit. See also List of raster to vector conversion software. --Mdwyer (talk) 17:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That's not what I had in mind (there were some raster-to-raster programs awhile back that I recall seeing) but I'll give that a whirl too and see what the results look like. Thanks! --140.247.248.40 (talk) 18:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If it's pixel art, you might be interested in pixel art scaling algorithms. ›mysid (☎∆) 19:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not pixel art. I recall reading about a few programs on here maybe a few months ago that did a much better job of rescaling low-resolution images than you'd expect—there were a whole host of them, I guess they were used by professionals mostly, but I can't recall the name of them and can't find any articles about them. Sigh. --140.247.248.40 (talk) 19:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The thread was a conversation about "Why does a computer draw big boxes when I scale up instead of a nice line?" Most of the thread explained pixelation and then some algorithms were mentioned along with programs that implement them. Hopefully that helps you find the thread. I'm rather certain it was at least 2 months ago. -- kainaw™ 19:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This page might be helpful; it visually compares a bunch of algorithms, and has some further links. -- BenRG (talk) 22:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone wanna help us by setting up a bot?

Hello,

I help at a MediaWiki site, and we really need some bots over there, that DONT use IRC, as we cant use it. Anyone got any ideas or can help?

Let me know

Bluegoblin7 17:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A "bot" is a very general term. What do you want to do? Since you run your own site, it should be easy (and preferable) to set up a script on the server to handle any maintenance issues that you want. -- kainaw™ 17:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't actually run the site. I'm just an admin and one of the most active editors. But anyway, what were looking for is Anti-vandal (if its possible without IRC), Delivery, Assessment, Archive and probably sign. If you can't run it, code would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Bluegoblin7 18:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

What you do is have a script that hits the "recent changes" page. For each change, it clicks on "diff". Then, for each diff, it decides what needs to be done (if anything). Then, delay to be nice to the server and hit the "recent changes" again. No IRC is required. You can have it run on the webserver or on any computer with access through the web to the site. This is not something you want someone to write and send to you. It will certainly need to be developed through trial and error. If you can't write it, you won't be able to maintain it and will end up just shutting it down to avoid problems. -- kainaw™ 18:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I just thought - if the site owner is nice, he may let you have direct access to the database - then you won't have to screen-scrape anything and you'll lighten the load on the server. -- kainaw™ 18:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the help... Bluegoblin7 18:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You can almost surely find the code for any of the bots on Wikipedia and just adjust it for your needs, most likely. --140.247.248.40 (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

AIFF vs WAV

When I'm decoding FLAC audio files, I am given a choice between converting them to AIFF or WAV format. I intend to convert the AIFF or WAV files to AAC before uploading them to my iPod. Which should I choose, or doesn't it matter? Many thanks. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 22:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't matter - both formats are lossless. SteveBaker (talk) 22:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. You're basically talking about apples and apples there. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Picking a motherboard and CPU

So, I'd like to build my own PC. The procedure looks hard, but do-able, so I don't think that I'll hit a very major (as in, explosions, doom and gloom) snag. But I'm falling at the first hurdle: I just can't figure out which CPU and which motherboard are for me. There are an absolutely baffling number: the advice I've gotten is to make sure my specific CPU model is supported by a prospective motherboard model, which is a lot of help considering I don't know which of either I'm eyeing up.

Memory type shouldn't be a problem (DDR2 is the standard for new PCs, right?), and I'm not too bothered about out-and-out processor clock speeds - I'd much rather have an okay processor with a good quality motherboard than the other way around. I'm not aiming for the bleeding edge, but I'd like it to not be completely and utterly obsolete for 4-5 years. Does anyone have some fairly recent advice on this, or even just on how to narrow down the ridiculous amount of information there is out there to just what I'm looking for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.138.230 (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and, it might be a good idea to say what I'll be using it for: this would be my main toy at home, which means that the most used programs will be something like firefox, my homebrewed python MUD client, pidgin aka gaim, and vlc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.138.230 (talk) 22:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

For a workload like that I think pretty much any CPU will do. Of the applications you listed only VLC needs significant CPU, and any modern processor should be good enough for VLC. If you're worried about future-proofing then you might want to get a processor with 64-bit support. Aside from that I'd go with the cheapest one you can find. If you have extra money, I'd spend it on a name-brand motherboard and power supply, a good monitor and ergonomic keyboard, and quieter mechanical components (fans and hard drive). -- BenRG (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not use Windows. So, I start by seeing which CPU will work best with the flavor of Linux I will be putting on the box. Then, I get a motherboard that doesn't have driver issues. Then, the motherboard will limit my choice of power supply, memory, video card, and harddrives. Finally, I find a case to cram it all in. It usually works well. I have had problems. I found that a video card I purchased sucked too much power, requiring me to return a 350W one and get a 500W one. I purchased a case that hid the power button behind a door - what a pain. I thought a motherboard I purchased was SATA, but was actually IDE. Luckily, I was able to return the drives and get new ones. For the most part, it works well to go from OS to CPU to Motherboard to Accessories. -- kainaw™ 23:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

December 20

Suggestion for Wikipedia software.

After much frustrated searches, I have struggled to find a decent source of career/study path information. I think that wikipedia has a very thorough source which many students would find helpful in there quest. After asking around, I have encountered that this is a common problem shared by many people at this stage of their life. Therefore with the links and sources that are available to the user, i believe that a more user-friendly interface would be extremely useful to address this dilemma. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.138.99 (talk) 00:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Umm...what are you exactly proposing to change? If you'd like to make a proposal, go to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). If you would like help choosing a career path, you might want to ask a counselor to help. bibliomaniac15 00:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be a complaint that Wikipedia's search function is not very thorough. That is a well known problem and there is a reason for it. If the search was improved, the whole site would slow down and become sluggish to the point of barely being usable. That is why most people use Google with site:wikipedia.org in the search query. -- kainaw™ 01:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's sort of a lame explanation, if I say so. I don't think there's a rigorous reason why Wikipedia could never in fact have a better search engine. Ten bucks says the guys from Google could come up with a solution. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure - they have an easy solution. Purchase a few thousand extra servers. Create an index of all the popular search terms for every page on Wikipedia. Have the search function use the search indexes on the new servers instead of the unindexed Wikipedia database. Note: Purchasing more servers and placing them in more locations (even weird ones like Moncks Corner, SC) is the Google solution to their own search problem. -- kainaw™ 01:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia could "partner" with google to use their algorithms and servers in exchange for a "powered by google" logo. Mozilla already makes millions from their partnerships --ffroth 03:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be contradictory to the non-profit status of the Wikimedia Organization? bibliomaniac15 03:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, it is unnecessary. If the Wikipedia search doesn't turn up anything interesting, you just select Google from the drop list of search engines and click search again. Google is used to search Wikipedia for whatever you are looking for. -- kainaw™ 03:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Being non-profit doesn't mean you can't take in money, it just restricts what you can do with it. Mozilla is non-profit as well. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

hardware or software?

I just got an iPhone and can already see some of the shortcomings. I was wondering, of these things, which could be updated by new software or it would require new hardware.

1. Horizontal or vertical picture in all programs
2. some keys are missing on the keyboard
3. uses the edge network, not 3G
4. regular earphones aren't usable, only headphone+microphone
5. camera doesn't capture video, just takes pictures
6. after a while safari just saves the URL of the page you are at, not the actual stuff you have entered into text fields and whatnot

thanks for any insight schyler (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably all could be fixed by a homebrew firmware. Which is why people like custom firmware so much, and why the DMCA exemption committee granted an exemption to the DMCA for cell phone mods (though it has expired and wasn't renewed) --ffroth 03:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

They are going to release a 3G version next year sometime--droptone (talk) 13:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Can I use avast! and ClamWin on the same computer?

They might make the computer unstable or the antivirus might fight wit each other. Jet (talk) 04:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: I asked this question on Yahoo! Answers and I place the text into the public domain.

Gotta love yahoo answers. "they will fight and crash your pc. you can run as many spyware tools at a time you like. they play good together" --ffroth 09:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not a good idea nor is it better security to run two anti-virus programs. Even running one forces a huge performance hit and only adds a very small layer of security; adding more only increases the performance hit without increasing the security. If you want security against viruses in Windows, 1. don't run as administrator, 2. don't execute sketchy code. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

If you run them in real-time scanning / resident mode at the same time (which ClamWin doesn't have, AFAIK), you'll notice a performance hit. Otherwise, there won't be an issue, beyond the normal performance hit from a virus scanner. But yeah, avoiding sketchy executables is the best security you can get. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I am going away from the question with this. However, sometimes, there are some problems in applications in pre-vista OSes (including XP) have some problems in running without root privileges. Not that Vista is perfect, though.

regards, Kushal^t 01:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Understanding problem

sir, i could not understand this line Bi-directional language support is available for Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi message content. @ page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Hotmail at para Features -->Additional information --> Languages please help -Matt59.94.128.238 (talk) 04:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

see Bi-directional text --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 05:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

AceText alternative for Linux

Hi, does anyone know of a software with capabilities similar to those of JGSoft's AceText that will run on Linux? Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that there is a single program that does that. There is an advanced clipboard utility (klipper), note-taking tool (jots), multi-pane text editor (kate), and many word processors. They just aren't all encompassed in one tool. -- kainaw™ 13:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Does any of those allow organizing notes in a hierarchical structure, and accessing them with features similar to "AceType" and "SequencePaste"?

In any case - the features I have mentioned have to do with AceText, while minimized, performing some action when I press some keyboard combination. Is it possible to make this work if I run AceText on Wine or on virtualization software (while working on an application on the host system)? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Treepad does. The advantage of that is that you can share the data files between Linux and Windows computers. The problem is that Treepad is not FOSS. -- kainaw™ 13:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not being FOSS I can deal with, the problem is that it apparently lacks some features I require. This is certainly something to consider if all else fails, though - thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

DNS Privacy

Hello, I recently discovered that a friend blogger of mine, who got his dommain registered by OVH, got his name written in clear as an answer to a whois request.

His blogging activity being pollitical in nature and not exactly an appology of the work of his own political border (it can become -verry- critical) and the security of his job depends from nearly exclusively on two principle "Loyalty" and "STFU". So you may understand that uppon learning his vulnerability, he was a bit worried.

We are allready trying to see with the registrar if he is able to "mask" his records. If that's not the case, do you guys got any solution ? I'm a complete noob with dommain handling, so I would need your help on this one. - Esurnir (talk) 11:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but from my experience with registrars, they all offer a service to mask personal details in a WHOIS request, for a price around 10$ / yr. 132.77.4.129 (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You can just plain spoof the WHOIS information, but this is considered a violation of many terms of service agreements yet I don't think there is much enforcement of the requirement for "true" information. But I suppose the masked record service offered by the registrar would give you legit information (say some PO Box owned by the company).--droptone (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's illegal to spoof whois information, and he'll lose his domain name (opening it to attack by a target of his blogging?) if ICANN ever finds out. If you can get a 3rd party to agree to act as your official contact (which technically means they -taking your responsibility as a domain registrant- have to be sitting next to a phone 24/7, though nobody actually does this) then you can use them as your whois information. Several companies offer this service for a few bucks a month- a guy I knew online did this because he was only 15, so he registered his domain in the name of one of these contact-forwarding companies. I forget its name though. --ffroth 19:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Freeware solution for accepting 48-bit scans from an image scanner?

I have a scanner capable of outputting 48-bit (i.e. 16 bits/channel) color scans. However, none of the several image editing programs I have seem to be able to accept 48-bit scans directly from the scanner (including two that have limited support for 16-bit-per-channel images). Images imported into the editors via TWAIN would appear as 8-bit-per-channel.

Is there a freeware solution for accepting 48-bit scans from a scanner and saving the scans in a format that preserve the bit depth?

(Update) The problem is solved. Turns out that my set-up was already capable of transferring 48-bit images, just that additional configuration was needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.23.249 (talk) 13:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a version of GIMP called CinePaint that was forked off of the main GIMP branch several years ago specifically in order to add deep-pixel editing. It's been used in a bunch of movies (Harry Potter for example!) so it's pretty reliable. It's free - but it's missing quite a few of the newer GIMP features. It's maintained by a bunch of movie studios. SteveBaker (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Laptop Charger

Mine recently broke and I'm finding it very difficult to get a replacement. I've rang the shop where i bought who referred me to another shop. Although they did sell chargers they could not provide one suitable for my laptop. (mine is 18.5v, while they only did round figures, i.e. 17v, 18v, 19v etc...) They told me to go to the manufacturer. I couldn't find anything on the website and when i rang them they basically told me to go back to the original retailer.

SO I'm coming here for help. The Laptop is a Compaq Presario V5245eu and the charger has an output of 18.5v and 3.5amps. I'm in Ireland so a European/UK power source. If anyone knows where i could get a replacement charger I'd greatly appreciate it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.183.77 (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

LaptopsAndSpares.com is a UK online store that sells, well, laptops and spares. In fact, they have the very charger you're looking for, here. ›mysid (☎∆) 15:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a million, that was proving so hard to find. 213.202.183.77 (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I left my laptop (HP Pavilion) charger 200 miles away - an ended up needing a replacement in a hurry. I had the same problem. You can get a generic charger BUT make sure it provides enough current or it'll overheat and burn out in a hurry! Set it to 18v and see if your battery charges. If it does, be happy. If it doesn't, kick it up to 19v and you'll be fine. But I'm VERY serious about needing to source enough current. I'd try to find one that can source at least 50% more current than the laptop demands (if you run one of those cheapie chargers for a long time near to it's current limit, it'll get very hot). Oh - also, be VERY careful - some of those cheap chargers have fine print telling you that they only produce the rated amount of current at the lower voltage ranges...watch out for that! SteveBaker (talk) 17:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Pedagogical cfront

I'm currently helping my co-workers, who are all long-time C programmers, to become more comfortable in C++. I would love to have a book/document/tool that shows (in C) what the compiler is doing under the covers for various C++ constructs. I don't want a real C++ -> C compiler, as that will have a lot of obscure implementation details in the output. I just want to show them the moral equivalents, as in:

Here's how constructors and destructors work. The following C++ code:

 class Thing { /* ... */ };
 void func() {
   Thing first_thing_on_stack;
   Thing second_thing_on_stack;
   // do stuff ...
 }

will compile to something like the following C code:

 struct Thing { /* ... */ };

 void func() {
    struct Thing first_thing_on_stack;
    struct Thing second_thing_on_stack;

    // constructors called in order of
    // object definition
    Thing_CONSTRUCTOR(&first_thing_on_stack);
    Thing_CONSTRUCTOR(&second_thing_on_stack);

    // do stuff ...

    // destructors called in reverse order of
    // object definition
    Thing_DESTRUCTOR(&second_thing_on_stack);
    Thing_DESTRUCTOR(&first_thing_on_stack);
 }
 

Is anyone aware of such a thing? Thanks! --Sean 14:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

When C++ was first designed, the first implementation was the AT&T C++ translator called "Cfront" that "compiled" your C++ code into C - which you could then compile into machine code in the usual way. This did exactly what you're asking for here - and that's exactly how I got to grips with the transition from C to C++. However, with modern C++, there is often no easy way to express what's going on in C terms and the AT&T translator must have long ago ceased to be maintained. However, if you care - you could download the sources for Cfront from here and compile it yourself. It won't accept all of the latest C++ features - but for the basics, it should be OK. SteveBaker (talk) 17:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm far from convinced that this is a good pedagogical idea. You don't want to explain object-oriented programming in terms of procedural programming, you want to understand it on its own terms. Donald Hosek (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

That's true - but Sean is in the position of having a lot of C programmers who work close to the hardware who need to be eased rather gently into C++. Whilst it's true that OOPS is best taught from the ground up, people who care a lot about performance and the details of what's going on do gain a benefit from seeing what goes on 'under the hood'. After all, our CPU's are procedural things - knowing how OOPS maps onto procedural is valuable when clock cycles and bytes count. This isn't an alternative to teaching OOPS - it's a way to get people like this to actually use it in their day to day jobs. I certainly found it valuable. Things like knowing when OOPS will allocate memory behind your back and when it won't - how to avoid static initialisations when programs are running out of ROM memory...what happens if you transmit a class object over a network or load and save it to disk as a chunk of raw binary...those are things that are rarely mentioned in C++ books, but they matter a great deal to people working close to the bare metal! This isn't the only thing you need to do to teach people - but it's a valuable tool for people who know enough to be dangerous! SteveBaker (talk) 21:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

What Steve says really is the crux of it. Starting out with "OOP is great because ..." is going to be as appealing to them as "Programming in Haskell is great because ...". It may be true, but it just won't sell. What I can do is show them how C++ is "like C, but more convenient and no slower" by showing them things like RAII on mutexes, which are easier, safer, and no slower than remembering to do the unlock yourself. --Sean 12:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

COPY vs XCOPY

If I read the articles correctly, then the COPY command is used for individual files and XCOPY for multiple files at a time, is that correct? So let's say I have a folder called folder and within it I have a file, file.txt and another folder, subfolder. If I wanted to copy folder and everything in it (which includes file.txt and subfolder), I would use the XCOPY command? When I tried this prior to posting, I typed xcopy folder C:\Documents and it said 1 file copied. But what happened to subfolder? I thought it would copy that also. Is there a command or line switch that allows one to copy subfolders as well as files? Sorry if this is an easy question, I'm not very experienced this. Thanks! 63.28.159.41 (talk) 22:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You need to learn the switches. Type the command

xcopy /? | more

and it will tell you what switches to use. I believe you want to use the switch /E which makes it copy directories and subdirectories.--Dacium (talk) 23:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the third or fourth question on the Windows command shell recently, so I just wanted to mention that trying to do anything non-trivial with it is *guaranteed* to make you cry. If you're trying to do any scripting, you might think about installing something like the Cygwin Unix-like environment for Windows, or using something like Perl or Python. Nobody deserves code like "if %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 goto failed". --Sean 12:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Make executable from Python code

Hi everyone,

I decided to learn a bit of programming, so I just got started with Python (seemed the best choice to start off with, though maybe a bit high level).

I'm starting to get the hang of it, but there's one thing I can't really get my head round : how can I create a Windows Executable from a Python code ?

I searched a bit on google and stumbled upon py2exe. I found it very unintuitive but I managed to make an executable, only to notice I need some DLLs to run it (obviously I have those DLLs, but people who haven't got Python installed won't).

Ideally I would like to distribute the executable to people that haven't got any Python installation. How is that possible (making an installer with the DLL files isn't really a solution) ?

I'm sure the answer must be quite simple (I don't see why it would be that hard) but I just haven't managed to find any information...

PS. I'm not using any fancy modules or anything so no worries there (basically just math and cmath).

Thanks. -- Xedi (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Python isn't a compiled language - it's interpreted. This is to say, it isn't translated into machine code - so there isn't a direct way to make a EXE file and in order to run it, you NEED the Python interpreter. The tool that you used isn't familiar to me - but I'd bet good money that it puts your Python code into the EXE file along with a teeny-tiny machine code section that pulls in the Python interpreter as a DLL - then passes the Python code to it. Hence, your EXE file still needs the Python interpreter - although now it's a DLL instead of being an EXE. There isn't an easy way for them to fix this. They could put the Python interpreter into your EXE file as well as the Python code - but now your three line Python program is about a 3 megabyte EXE file because every program you write contains the entire Python interpreter...which I guess is why they don't do that.

This is one of the problems with interpreted languages like Python - and, sadly, you're kinda stuck with it. To be honest, if you aren't already a programmer, Python is a poor choice as your first language. IMHO, you should start off with Java...although that also has problems with making EXE files - for the exact same reason as Python does. To make lean, mean EXE files, you need to write in C++.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.

But may I ask why Python isn't a great choice for a first programming language ? I agree with the Python philosophy more than any other programming language I know of and the language as a whole seems much more intuitive. Granted, it may be at a too high level to really understand many of the things that are going on underneath, but well... What reasons would you give to explain that ?

Thanks -- Xedi (talk) 04:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• There's nothing wrong with Python as a first language. The hard part of programming, the part that beginners (and non-beginners!) struggle with, is learning how to think about the problem at hand, break it down into digestible parts, and solve those parts with code. It doesn't really matter what language you're learning that with, as long as it's "composable" (so that you at least have a chance of learning the Fundamental Law of Software: "Don't Repeat Yourself"). --Sean 12:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That's true - but that's totally independent of language choice - so we can factor that out from our advice about which language to learn first. Python is really very weird compared to most other languages - learning "weird" first and then trying to adapt to "normal" later is tough. If you learn Python, for example, you'll not understand the need to declare variables or the importance of 'type safety' in most languages - the syntax of Python is utterly at varience with almost every other language. Transitioning from Python to Java/C++/PHP/JavaScript/C#/whatever will be tough. On the other hand, if you start off with Java - then you'll find it easy to pick up C++/PHP/JavaScript/C# and only moderately difficult to get into Python. Since there are many things that Python simply can't do (eg web programming, high performance stuff, etc). Python's niche is in being the scripting language for other applications - and that's not a good place to start learning! I just think you'd be better off learning Java first. Most US schools that teach programming teach Java - I'm not aware of any schools anywhere that teach Python as their first language. There are REALLY good reasons for that. I'm not saying that Python is a bad language or anything - for what it's intended for, it's great - it's just not the language you should learn first. SteveBaker (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with you, there is another factor to the problem. That is that if you're just learning programming for fun, java is probably going to scare you off. If you're a student and you can give your programming education some full time attention, you can bite through the difficulty of java and learn about important things like object oriented programming. If you're just playing around a bit on the odd saturday afternoon, you want something that will get you positive feedback quickly, otherwise you'll get discouraged and do something else. Especially important in this regard is the speed with which you can do simple graphics. In java, this is a royal pain, even if you understand the OO-model completely, and pretty much impossible if you're just learning. In python, it's relatively easy (though no as easy as it used to be in BASIC). For this reason I would suggest python for the casual hobby programmer, even if it will make the step to more strict and safe languages a bit more difficult, at least you'll get some foothold quickly. And let's face it, people that start out with the idea of learning "a bit of programming" probably won't end up being responsible for flight control system, or bussiness logic. The most that's going to come out of that is a 2D game. It doesn't matter much if you don't know about type safety when that's all you're doing. risk (talk) 15:43, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

SteveBaker, your opinion that Python is a bad first language is not one to inflict on people who are learning to program. MIT disagrees with you, for example, moving its introductory programming courses to Python (from Scheme; they've never been in a compiled language), exactly because it's considered by many to be a good and useful first language. Declaring variables and type safety are not hugely important concepts, and can be picked up for a language that requires them once you know how to program. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, py2exe puts together any files that you need (dlls included), right into the 'dist' directory. Not sure what the issue is there. Just distribute the entire contents of the directory, not just the exe file. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

December 21

Which free MMORPG is the best?

Which free MMORPG is the best? (Superawesomgoat (talk) 01:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC))

drift city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.45.237.42 (talk) 13:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. Wikipedia is not a message board for discussing which MMORPGs we think are best. If you have a specific question about MMORPGs, please feel free to ask. -- kainaw™ 13:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Totally free? Maple Story. Free of monthly fees? Guild Wars. --ffroth 19:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and don't download Maple Story unless you're already hardened to extreme MMO addiction by other games. --ffroth 19:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Weird Website

I stumbled across this weird website called Crazy.com, I was just wondering what kind of website it was.

I Found a Cat in my Hat (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks something like cybersquatting to me—a person registers a "popular" domain name, puts up a "placeholder" page, and then hopes that somebody will want to buy it from them for big bucks. The page has no content; all links just lead to search engine results. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's just a parked domain that has signed up to an related link generated service to get Pay per click revenue from viewers. It's affiliated with the Yahoo! Search Marketing advertising scheme. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 02:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Help

IE7 says scripts are trying to run when I create an html file on my other computer. Just a normal HTML files with <html>,<head,<body>,<font>, <h1> tags. Does this mean I have a virus? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.28.254.203 (talk) 02:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Or some other junk loaded on there. What happens if you disable 3rd party extensions (tools -> advanced -> enable third party browser extensions)? Are you sure it's just a plain script-less HTML file? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That really helped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.117.201.163 (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That's not a final solution, it just means that you have something else wrong --ffroth 19:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it just narrows it down. You've got some sort of rogue or simply poorly coded extension running in there. Definitely try running a spyware scanner to see if it's that; you might also try uninstalling the toolbars and such that you know you have on there and reenable extensions to see if one of them was doing it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I was having a similar problem with a non-script html file on my computer sometimes showing the "restricted from running scripts or ActiveX" message, but only after viewing certain websites. After reading your problem, I spent several hours narrowing my problem down. (In my case, disabling every possible add-on didn't help.) I don't have a solution, but have discovered a cause as described below. Maybe your issue is similar.

The following description assumes that "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer" is unchecked. --Bavi H (talk) 17:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Once Internet Explorer 7 encounters a style with an expression, content from My Computer loaded in the same tab will repeatedly trigger the following message in the Information Bar until it is allowed: "To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has restricted this webpage from running scripts or ActiveX controls that could access your computer."

For example, if I visit www.deviantart.com, then drag a text file into the same window, that message will be triggered.

Or, as another example, you can save the following html into a file, open it in Internet Explorer, then drag a text file into the same window to trigger the message.

<!-- saved from url=(0014)about:internet -->
<html>
<head>
<title>Style Test</title>
<style>
h1 { color: expression("red"); }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Test</h1>
</body>
</html>

You can suppress the message by going to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, and checking "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer" in the Security section. But that would also prevent Internet Explorer from blocking real active content, so you might not want to do that. --Bavi H (talk) 08:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What is this expression statement in CSS? I have never seen it and I don't think it's part of the standards. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Beats me if it's standard, I had to google "CSS expression" to learn about it during my debugging of this problem. It allows you to evaluate a javascript expression and use the return value as the value for the CSS property. My example above wasn't really a useful example of an expression, just a simple use to trigger the problem. For example, I found the problem on www.deviantart.com was triggered by a CSS file that contained an expression like the following

img { filter: expression(this.src.substr(this.src.length-4)==".png" ? /*...*/ : /*...*/ ); }

The problem is, when IE7 executes this javascript-in-CSS, it somehow causes it to think any other files from My Computer after that in the same tab are running scripts or ActiveX. --Bavi H (talk) 17:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem was Google Toolbar, appearantly (sorry if that's mispelled). I uninstalled it and IE7 no longer does that. 75.117.201.163 (talk) 20:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

sim theme park patch for windows 2000

I've been trying to get the know ancient game sim theme park to work on my windows 2000 computer for a while now. I know a computer programmer made some kind of update to make the game work win. 2000 (which is what i have), but is it safe and how does it work? The guy who runs the website with the homemade update isn't very clear —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.44.168 (talk) 05:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You should probably give us the URL of the site you found. SteveBaker (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

the url is: http://www.adamhearn.co.uk/games/themeparkworld/tpwwin2kfix.html.

It's something to do with fonts. It looks plenty legit, don't worry. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 00:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't see partitions

Resolved

Hi. I have just partitionned an external HD/mp3 player in FAT32 in order to have 32 GB w/ a 32K cluster size for music and a 8GB partition with 4K clusters for a load of small text files. I used CompuApps Swissknife (free). I have 2 partitions but they don't show up on Windows explorer (the drive is there as E:). How do I know what I can copy where (ie music on big partition, txt on small)? Keria (talk) 13:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Never mind I just had to unplug it and plug it back in and the partitions show as different drive letters. Keria (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this possible with CSS?

Hello,

I've been running a website in old school HTML for a long time now (http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/) and wanted to know if something is possible. I have a large archive of comics. Is it possible to use CSS so that if I change the advertisement layout on one page it will change all the other pages as well?

If so, could you provide me some pointers on where to get started?

Thank you,

--Grey1618 (talk) 14:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Your question is a bit vague. By "advertisement layout", do you mean:

• Change the advertisement from a picture for one company to a picture for another?
• Change the advertisement from a picture and some optional text for one company to a picture and some optional text (and maybe even a link) for another company?
• Change the location of the advertisement on the page?

All of these have a different answer. -- kainaw™ 15:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the vagueness, I'm running google adsense right now. I was wondering if I wanted to change the banner size or location if that would be possible. --Grey1618 (talk) 15:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Place the ad in some div or span tag with an ID. Then, in CSS you can use the ID to define all kinds of layout options - including size and location. You will want a separate CSS file that each HTML file includes. Otherwise, you'll be editing the CSS in each file. -- kainaw™ 15:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to change the "style" of something, give it an id or class and then just change the style of that id or class in the css file. If you want to change the content, you might be better off holding that information in a separate file which is then included in your page using a server-side include (for example with php).

With Google AdSense, you can now save a "style" of advert and enter the code on your pages, but then change that advert's style via your adsense account and all adverts of that type will change to reflect your new settings. This is a new feature that they have recently introduced.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 16:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Raid 5 + 1 spare drive VS Raid 6

I ould like to discuss about the diference on the folowing two implementation on diferent drive numbers: 1. Raid 5 + 1 spare drive 2. Raid 6

Let's say for 12 drives:

Raid 5 for 11 drives and 1 spare drive. In a raid 5 there is 1 max disk failure in the same time. When it ocurs the spare drive take the place of that failed drive and rebuild it's data.

Raid 6 for 12 drives suport 2 max disk failure in the same time. When 1 disk fails you must replace it and the data will be rebuid.

1. For disk space will be the same: 10 * 1 disk space.

2. For read and write speed I will be needing some discussion and benchmarks.

3. For the price of controlers ???

4. Any other point that may came in... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drealecs (talk • contribs) 15:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess you are asking what's the difference between RAID 5 + 1 spare and RAID 6? But this is comparing apples to oranges. The spare drive does not help during recovery. It only makes sure that a replacement drive is available so that it can rebuild the RAID. RAID 5 + 1 spare will not recover if 2 drives fail at the same time (assuming one of the failed drive is not the spare). RAID 6 allows 2 drives to fail at the same time without losing data integrity. Since RAID 6 uses 2 parity drives, disk space will be lower then RAID 5. The spare is just an extra, RAID 5 array will not complaint if the spare fails. Read speed is the same for RAID 5 and 6. RAID 5 probably writes faster since RAID 6 needs to calculate 2 parity bits but there's no reason why both parity can't be calculated at the same time. The price of new technology is always more expensive at first. As RAID 6 becomes the norm, it will not be more expensive then RAID 5 controllers. For more info on recovery using parity see Parchive. NYCDA (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Poser and daz 3d

Dear Friends,

I am looking for a user who is able to create some simple pictures (artficial rendering of humanlike figures) with Poser or daz 3d for using in WP. It may be not a difficult task. Any suggestions? rendering, artificial images, figures --Carl (talk) 16:45, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

You might ask my son, he does 3D work in Blender - but he can animate humans pretty well. His web page is http://oliverbaker.org - click on the 'About' link to find his email. You can see some of his work on his Portfolio page. You'd better describe what you want and what it's for if you want to attract his attention though! SteveBaker (talk) 17:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What's that blender plugin where you can get a basic human form and use sliders to tweak it to your liking? That would be quite useful here. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hm ... I thought about something like this [1] to explain morphological things, but in a sideview two and a image of the full body, realistic figure without any expression. --Carl (talk) 02:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

You may want to look into MakeHuman (see the Wikipedia article on same). Also the previously mentioned Daz 3D Studio is pretty easy to get started in-- much easier then Blender, but not as flexible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.130.188 (talk) 03:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, MakeHuman, evolved considerably since when I first came across it. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Online Jobs

Is there anyone to make me clear about the online jobs by google AdWords. Without having a clear idea I had joined in some sites by paid some reasonable money.

Pl make me clear with the following doubts.

1. Wat is AdWord? 2. How can i get money from it. 3. I had got some tutorial book from Adsence (Paid seperately) (soft copy acrobat file). It is mentioned there that I was given a license to resell that material to the maximum cost that i can decide. So how can i sell it. 4. It is also mentioned that for every click on my add I have to pay the money. So how can i geting profited in it??

Pl ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.23.205 (talk) 21:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Google AdWords are advertisements shown beside the search results. Google gets money each time they are clicked. Advertisers bid for places like in an auction: the person willing to pay most gets the top spot. You can get money by placing the advertisements on behalf of other people. If you're considering placing adwords for people, you should learn to automate the process, have good record keeping, and place adwords in an efficient way (ie minimising cost per click by changing what you bid most highly for). --h2g2bob (talk) 00:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

December 22

iPod Touch to iPhone

Not sure where to post this. Everyone in our department at our corporation got a snazzy new iPod for Christmas. But I really want an iPhone. What can I do? Only two stores sell iPhones in the US and the iPod was purchased at another store (a major big box electronics retailer). What are my options? --24.249.108.133 (talk) 01:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Sell the iPod on eBay, buy the iPhone? If you haven't opened the iPod you might be able to return it for a refund, but it's unlikely (especially without a receipt) -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 01:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep the IPod touch, from all that i heard is that the iphone isnt very good and there are better things out there that cost less. It bassicly just for like "omg dude i have a iphone" popularity thing. BonesBrigade 02:20, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Itunes Video + PSP Questions

Alright, folks, I got a couple questions for you. Firstly, what format do Itunes videos comes in? You know what I mean, like what sort of file is it, like mp3 (that's probably not it). Secondly, if I download a video from Itunes, can I run it through PSP Video 9 in order to make it playable on the PSP? I need a way to get videos on my PSP and this seems like a good way to do it, if it will work. Thanks guys. DoomsDay349 01:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

game deletion problem

I own the game sim theme park and whenever I try uninstall the game it says,"Unable to locate the installation log file unistu.something..." I tryed to go to add/remove programs and that didin't work. I've also tryed other methods of deletion. What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.38.78 (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Simple!, run installation again and then uninstall. To me most of such cases had occured and I had solved it that way...This seems to be a kind of corruption of your uninstall log file. Try running registry cleaner before installing it again.I guess it's one way to solve...If at all you don't wanna re-install that game, then delete it from HDD folder and run registry cleaner which will clean all registries including this game ones which don't have correct directory(which you have deleted). Then safely you can remove other shortcuts from all programs.Hope it's ok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 06:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Bare bones linux

I'm trying to set up a bare bones linux system under Qemu emulation. I just want it to have bash, a basic kernel, and apt-get. If it works out, I'd like to make it a liveCD. Could anyone out there help me out? I'm running OS X Leopard. Thanks in advance! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.125.175.118 (talk) 04:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

See Linux From Scratch. But please make sure you're comfortable and experienced with Linux, or you will be frustrated and become a LiNuX-h8Tr. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

HDD performance or lifetime quality?

Hey guys,I've had this doubt for a while. I heard from many saying that the HDD must be partitioned to multiple root directories inorder to get the maximum data transfer. This particularly indicates that the data retrieval is always faster when the volume you acess is of low disk size.Searching a data in a high volume drive takes a longer time hence increasing the latency.Instead of configuring 160GB drive as (80+80)GB, it's good to configure as (40,40,40,40)GB. But recently to my surprise, and confusion I saw this note in one of the IBM technical refence manual for laptop denoting that partitioning more the HDD will reduce it's life. Out of these, which one is true?...Any true story behind this?.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.59.222 (talk) 05:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know any technical details myself, but what makes you think it must be one or the other? The claims that partitioning the hard drive 1)reduces latency, and 2)reduces its life, are not mutually exclusive. It could be both, and it could be neither. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I do have a lot of expirience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.125.175.118 (talk) 14:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll assume you are the OP. Where did I in any way refer to the amount of experience you have? I was merely commenting that your question is logically wrong (especially the "which one is true" part). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleted file/folder recovery

Can anyone recommend a free means of recovering deleted content from a hard drive? I have not reformatted it. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 06:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

perhaps see Undeletion --Spoon! (talk) 06:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

PhotoRec. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Pop ups for real?

When we browse through the sites, we get series of pop ups. Ofcourse we've got lots of tools to block that, but however there are some pop ups or sites which offer contest and it says participating in that will make you have the chances of winning some 10 Million dollar. Is it all true?. Like some pop ups ask you to shoot the monkey or answer some question to win 10 million or more dollars. I have never been into that but just wanna know if it's true.Anyone knows how deeper this goes into?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 11:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you think that companies are in the habit of handing out prizes of 10 million dollars?

(Apparently many people do think this. These people are commonly called "stupid".)

How "deep" does it go? Spyware and trojans (for those unfortunates still using the World's Favorite Operating System), I'd guess. -- Hoary (talk) 11:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Even if we believe them: What are the odds of winning? Will the prize be awarded by a particular date? These things are never stated up-front - so they can basically do whatever they want. They may have made the odds of winning so astronomically tiny that they will never (realistically) have to pay out. As for "Shoot the Monkey" - I don't think your browser even tells the advertiser where on the image you clicked - and I'm very sure they can't tell the timing of the animated GIF - so there is absolutely no way that can be a game of skill. SteveBaker (talk) 02:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Based on the previous replies, I'd say that they're just not worth clicking on. Some of them could be even scams or worse. --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 08:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

A lot of them are flash based. I used to play them absent-mindedly.. they're great fun if you can block the popups they generate when you do actually punch the monkey. --ffroth 20:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

iTunes/WMP

I was thinking about getting an iPod Nano, but I personally detest iTunes and want to avoid using it at all. So I have two questions: firstly, I assume WMP can still put songs onto iPods, yes? And, if so, will WMP also put album art onto the iPod too? Because I like to look at the art. (: Obviously someone with personal experience will be able to answer this. Thank you! 86.146.170.27 (talk) 12:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

No, WMP doesn't support iPods. I have iPod Nano 2nd Gen, and I have successfully tested it with:

• iTunes
• Winamp (with ml_pmp and pmp_ipod plugins, both are in "full" install)
• foobar2000

Album art not tested.

I'm not sure about the 3rd Gen Nano, though.

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:29, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

This article should help you: Comparison of iPod managers

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

installing software in linux

Hi...I have got a .tar.gz installation file of quicktime for linux but I don't know how to install the application. Please help... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 13:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to assume basic linux knowledge here. Start using the command gunzip on your file. Then use tar-xvf on the file. Then you have it completely uncompressed. Inside the new folder there will probably be a readme file. That will give you directions for the rest of the way. If you don't want to use the command line, your distro might have a gui decompressor installed.

tar will usually be able to call gunzip by itself, you just have to use tar -zxvf. Remember the space, "tar-zxvf" is not a command. z will tell tar it's supposed to call gunzip first, x will tell tar to extract, v will tell it to show you what it's doing, and f will tell it to expect the filename next. When you have uncompressed the package, there should be a file called "configure" there. cd into the package's directory and run "./configure". It will test if you have all the packages the application needs installed. If everything is OK, configure will create a file called Makefile. Then simply run "make" to build the program. If it succeeds, your program is now ready to use. If you want to have it in use for the whole system, become root and run "make install". JIP | Talk 08:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

JIP's advice would ge great in 99% of the cases (indeed, I started to write the exact same answer - but deleted it). Our OP is installing Quicktime for Linux - I'd be very surprised if it included sources or used a 'configure' script. Sure, use "tar xzf" to unpack it - but after that you'll need to follow the instructions on the website you got it from or look for a README file. It's annoying that there is no 'apt-get' or RPM for this package. SteveBaker (talk) 13:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Some Linux programs are indeed distributed as binary only. One example is Sun Java, which comes in a pre-compressed RPM format. Installing it is simple: become root and just run the downloaded package. It launches its self-contained installer which decompresses the RPMs and installs them. I don't know what installation method QuickTime uses though. JIP | Talk 17:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree - but whatever the mechanism is, it's astronomically unlikely that it'll be "configure". SteveBaker (talk) 14:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no official QuickTime release for Linux. You can install one of the media players written for Linux, such as Mplayer or VLC. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:23, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Mobile phone

Hello to ALL !I want to buy a mobile phone,but really not know to which one i select as the best one .so i am telling i need i smartphone which is running in Symbian OS OR Windows Mobile.Includding 3.2 megapaxial camera,ducoment viewer,screen size 2---2.6 inch,touch screen,as small as sony ericsson p1i and good at perfomance.And Finally one other ...........I can pay only 450 dollar.so please tell me .thank you ........usman

Dell computer configuration

What do you think about this computer configuration and price? is it a good deal? Please let me know. [2] Thank you Kushal^t 15:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not the greatest deal. Look at mysimon.com, amazon.com, and other computer stores. For a computer function at dual 1.5ghz, you should be able to pay 600-700 dollars. Also, before you buy a PC, I seriously urge you to go to an apple store and consider purchasing a macintosh laptop-superior in so many ways. Besides, Dell is known to have bad tech. support —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.231.40 (talk) 17:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. any more takes? Kushal^t 04:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

71 would be correct - if this was a desktop. As it's a laptop, $1000 is about how much you should be paying for a C2D with 2GB RAM. Good config, but I'd get it from NewEgg. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I am overcautious of AMD processors but this still seems to be a good deal [3]. What do you think? What about this [4]? --Kushal^t 01:13, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The Toshiba with the Pentium D is crap, but the newegg Acer looks good, if not a little heavy. It's got a better video card, for one, and a larger screen. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

facebook Safari problem, mac os leopard,

I use safari on my macbook and am having trouble accessing facebook. I can access in the sign in page, but sometimes when I sign in, I am directed to a page that says;

Safari can’t find the server. Safari can’t open the page “https://login.facebook.com/login.php” because it can’t find the server “login.facebook.com”.

Othertimes, I get this message while I am logged in and surfing the site.

Does anyone have any advice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.231.40 (talk) 17:17, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Does this happen to you only with Facebook or with other sites, too? What Internet connection are you using? --Ouro (blah blah) 18:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It just happens when I'm using facebook. I am using wireless (wifi I think) internet or whatever wireless a Macbook uses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.231.40 (talk) 01:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that sometimes when you try to log on, the network is clogged up so much with traffic that you can't get through and subsequently lose the connection. This coupled with a wireles internet connection could be it. Sometimes traffic-demanding servers have narrow connections to cut costs or because of laziness, it shouldn't be so with an oh-so-popular-and-great website like Facebook. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Its weird though, because if I go to standby then boot up the computer again, everything works just fine, any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.231.40 (talk) 04:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Building a new computer from scratch

I've just built a computer almost from scratch for the first time. The only pre-installed components were the motherboard, the CPU, and the memory. I added everything else myself. Now I'm worried if the computer will break when I power it up. It cost me 730 €, so I'd rather not have it break. What I installed is:

• The power supply. This is what most concerns me. I had to plug in three connectors directly to the motherboard: one for the CPU and two for the motherboard itself. The motherboard power connector has 24 pins, the power supply has two plugs, one with 20 pins and one with 4. I plugged the two into the same socket, with the first one taking the upper 20 pins and the second taking the lower 4. Is there any chance I might have plugged them in the wrong way, and if so, will it break the motherboard?
• The storage devices. The hard disk is SATA, the floppy drive and the DVD drive are IDE. I left everything configured as it was, as I couldn't find any jumper configuration table on any of them. I presume all three devices are configured as master. Is there any danger these might break my motherboard?
• The video card. I plugged it into the only slot it would fit in. I don't think it will break my motherboard, but is there any danger of the card itself breaking?

Thanks! JIP | Talk 20:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If the video card fits (without excessive use of force), it's probably in the right slot. (If the card and the motherboard are both new, it's probably a 16x PCI-E slot, and there will be no other slot long enough for the card.) If the disks have wrong jumper settings, they might not work, but I wouldn't expect that to break anything. The only part I'd worry about is the power — not having ever actually done that myself, there's little I can do to help you there, except to advise you to double-check the manuals (particularly the power connector layouts) for your motherboard and PSU. Of course, all the usual disclaimers apply — don't sue me if you follow my advice and your computer explodes or anything. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Double and triple check your wiring before you power it up --ffroth 23:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

No your computer will not spontaneously blow up just because of bad wiring. If it fits, it's probably in the right place. I have never tinkered with 24-pin motherboards but I don't think the older 4 pin 12V connector will fit in the extra 4 pins socket, as they have different shaped contacts. If it fits, it will probably work. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried plugging the 20- and 4-pin power connectors into the 24-pin socket every possible way, and only one way worked. So I think that's the right way. But I am still unsure about the fan power connectors. There are four fan connectors on the motherboard, one for the CPU fan (already installed and plugged in), one for "power fan", whatever that is (the power supply already has its own integrated fan), and two for case fans. The case fans are installed but not plugged in yet. Both of them have a small 3-pin connector with only one wire (yellow) going into it. I am supposed to plug these into the motherboard, right? What puzzles me is that each fan also has two 4-pin IDE power connectors, one male and one female. Where am I supposed to plug these in? The power supply's IDE power cables? JIP | Talk 08:46, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

4-pin is molex, not IDE. I would assume one is for power and the other is for letting your motherboard know how fast the fans are spinning and controlling them. This is a good thing. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I was calling them IDE power cables because they usually go together with IDE data cables. So the actual power is coming from the Molex connector and the one wire on the 3-pin connector is only used to control the fan? I thought it looked weird when I read that the pins were labelled "rotation", "+12 V" and "ground", and only "rotation" had a wire going into it. Does it matter which Molex connector in the power supply's cable I plug them into? And why are there both male and female Molex connectors on the fan? JIP | Talk 09:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't matter, though putting them all on one line might make it easier to avoid a bunch of messy cables (you can have only one stretched across with the others tucked away. As for the male/female thing - I saw this on a fan once and wasn't sure - just use the one that works with the power supply (I believe it's male on the fan and female on the power supply, but I forget what they look like right now). -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the idea with the male+female molex connectors (I assume you probably mean one connector with a male and a female end, and wires coming out the middle) is that you can stick it between an existing pair of connectors, such as those connecting your hard disk to the PSU. That way, adding the fan doesn't reduce the number of molex connector available for powering other devices. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to plug both ends of the fan connector into something — if you have a free molex connector dangling from your PSU, just plug it there. You can always plug something else into it later if you need to. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, I wouldn't suggest plugging the fans into BOTH the motherboard and the PSU. I'm not sure what effect this would have but it's not necessary. Choose one or the other. I suggest the motherboard. The two options are simply there for your convenience. Have you switched on yet? --Seans Potato Business 19:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

With the setup JIP describes (single wire to the motherboard connector), you are supposed to plug in both. The fan will work just fine with only the molex connector plugged in, but plugging the "rotation" wire to the motherboard will allow the speed of the fan to be monitored. (The reason for not getting the power from the motherboard as well is presumably either a) to allow the fan to be used with motherboards that don't have (enough of) the appropriate connectors, and/or b) to reduce the power load on the motherboard.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:45, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You definitely have to plug them in both to the motherboard and to the PSU. The PSU provides them with power, the motherboard controls the logic. The rule of thumb I discovered is: look at the wires going to the motherboard. If there is only a yellow wire, your fan isn't going to be doing squat unless you plug the Molex connector in somewhere. If there are all three wires, the fan gets power from the motherboard, and the situation becomes what User:Seans Potato Business describes. JIP | Talk 20:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Nintendo DS - "The Golden Compass"

Is there a forum where one can ask questions as to how to make progress with this game? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried GameFAQs? Dlong (talk) 02:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

December 23

Whois

If I do a whois query: http://samspade.org/whois/121.218.65.141 it comes back "ERROR: IP Range Reserved by IANA.org". What does that mean? —Moondyne 00:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Use http://www.dnsstuff.com instead. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:18, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Grabbing data

I am not a programmer. Are there any easy to use, automated ways of grabbing certain data off of a website and then taking that data and inputting it to another website? Both sites require a log in. Any help would be appreciated. 70.162.25.53 (talk) 00:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

You definitely need some programming experience for these kind of things. Can you please elaborate more on your requirements of the tool before suggestions can be made? --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

If you were a programmer, there are libraries that make this sort of thing easier (I've used snoopy for PHP before, which is pretty useful), but to my knowledge there aren't any "easy to use" or "automated" ways of doing this which don't require at least scripting knowledge (and a good understanding of how HTML works, especially forms). The problem is that every web page is going to do things differently, and the information you want is probably stored differently on the site you want than on any other site, so coming up with "one size fits all" solutions is not usually feasible. But if someone knows better than I, I'd be happy to hear it! --24.147.86.187 (talk) 03:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Unless your website has a API, you're pretty much stuck with screen-scraping, which is bad for the website (bandwidth) and difficult to script. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the bandwidth that bad? Whenever I do scraping I just pull the HTML text and not any of the images or other bandwidth-heavy things. Even if you're requerying a site 100 times, if the page is only 30K that's not really that much bandwidth, as far as things go (which is to say, for a lot of sites that is a lot less than if you just queried the site once with a regular browser). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Keeping an HTA window on top

Good day wikipedians, i have written a small HTA to help me manage some repetitve tasks, and i was wondering how you can set it so that the HTA window will always be on top (like floating above other windows even if inactive).. Thanks a heap in advance :)

Unless I'm mistaken, HTAs are shown in IE browser windows. To my knowledge there's no way to tell a browser to stay-on-top using its own code (imagine what malicious webpage creators could do with that!), but if you google around for "application stay on top" you can find a few third-party applications that can make any window stay on top, presumably including the HTA's. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

winners of super bowls and national championships

What players have won both a super bowl and a national championship in american college football?

You may find another reference desk page more helpful, this one is for computing-related questions. 86.146.169.2 (talk) 13:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

dancer/sometime actress

I saw something about a dancer named Africa Miranda. It's also read that she is also an actress. Is everything true? Is there someone with this name?72.229.136.18 (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a cute someone bearing this name, and her website is [5]. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

ObComp: STFW. —Tamfang (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Stdout in C

Hi. I have four little C programs that have their standard inputs and outputs piped together, so that a feeds data to b, b feeds its data to c and c its own to d. They do this by using printf(). Only d can be directly quit by the user, as it contains the GUI. Is there any way I could have these programs to notice that the program they're feeding their stdout has been terminated? (This is a Linux system) ›mysid (☎∆) 15:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• This will happen automatically, in that when they try to write to the closed program they will receive a SIGPIPE Unix signal. However, if they are buffering their output (as printf() will), it might not work as you expect. --Sean 16:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • They will only notice that the program has been closed until after they try to write to it. Sometimes this can make a difference. Also, within the limits of ISO standard C, this will lead to the program quitting. You can use the signal() function to make your program do something different when SIGPIPE happens, but then you're writing Unix-specific code. JIP | Talk 17:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Oops, don't use signal(), use sigaction(). JIP | Talk 17:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Actually, it would have done that if I had really terminated the program d. All I did was close the window, and forgot to connect the GTK delete event to exit. ›mysid (☎∆) 17:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

components of verbs

deleted because posted in wrong section: should be in language. don't know how I stuffed this up. The ibis in the corner (talk) 16:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Computer price difference

My father's company recently bought a new desktop PC for one employee. It has mostly the same specs as my new home desktop PC: a 3 GHz dual core CPU, 4 GB memory, 500 GB hard disk, DVD drive. The employee's PC has a better graphics card than mine and comes with Windows Vista and Small Business Office, while mine doesn't come with any software. Her PC is also a brand-name HP desktop, while mine is assembled from components. Her PC costs almost three and a half times as much as mine. What are the primary reasons for this huge price difference? JIP | Talk 16:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

One - brand PCs cost hugely more than self-assembled PCs. Two - better specs usually mean the equipment costs more, as does software, even when they say it's bundled for free. Three - her PC's costs cover labour costs, shipping and other such things that are not included in the price of the equipment you bought. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The software costs go remarkably little to explain the differential. The costs (to a large system builder) of the OS and office platforms really aren't as high as a high-street consumer might believe. Even the single-use OEM license for Vista Ultimate costs less that half that of its retail counterpart - large makers get steep discounts from Microsoft (how steep is a trade secret, but it seems to go as low as about $20 US for XPpro, for example). And big builders subsidize their product further with all that "crapware" they ship - for each trialware antivirus or feature-limited DVD burner they get a couple of bucks from that software's maker (likewise for tie-ins with default search engines and dialup providers whose signup-apps are on the new machine's desktop). And they get co-marketing funding from Microsoft ("we recommend Windows Vista Gigantoslug Version" stickers on the PC and logos on their print ads, for example), which lowers their overall cost. So for a big system builder the OS is almost free and the office package a pretty modest cost. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

So the most important reason is that while her PC is a ready-made product from HP, shipped ready to operate and with full guarantee, mine is just a bag of components saying "you've bought these, now the rest is up to you, and if you break anything, tough luck"? JIP | Talk 17:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

More or less. Basically, few people buy the components separately to assemble because few people know how to put them together as they should and have the need to use a truly custom, powerful machine that they know the insides of - most of the population just needs 'a computer'. You have the freedom of choosing what you want exactly and have no sealed case preventing you from upgrading your PC by yourself. I've always had a custom machine - it's more convenient that way. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you about people not knowing how to put a PC together. I know more about assembling PCs than the rest of my family put together and even I had trouble figuring out where to plug all the power supply cables to. The shop assembled the motherboard for me, but I've had to do everything else myself: the power supply, the IDE and SATA devices, and the fans. Sometimes I feel glad I work as a software developer and not as a sysadmin. Sysadmins don't have to worry about project deadlines but they do have to worry about pretty much everything else. JIP | Talk 19:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Safely remove hardware

Why shouldn't I just unplug the hardware from the USB port? --Taraborn (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Your OS (I assume Windows) might be buffering written data in memory to speed operations up. If you just unplug the device, data still in the buffer won't appear on the hardware itself. Safely removing the hardware forces the OS to flush all buffers onto the actual device. JIP | Talk 18:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)If the USB device is a disk (or disk equivalent, like a flash drive) there may be unwritten data pending (or being written right now). By stopping / unmounting the device you ensure that the system has flushed all that stuff out to the device before the system says "okay, we're done" and you can safely remove it. If you pull out such a mass-storage device you risk a "torn update", where only part of a change has been written (leaving a corrupt file or corrupt file system). In practice, if the LED on a flash drive isn't flashing (isn't in its "stuff happening right now" pattern) then it's generally safe to pull out the device without stopping it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't, though. Often when I have moved several megabytes of data onto my USB stick, and I "safely remove" it without the LED having flashed for a long time, the OS still writes a big heap of data, possibly almost everything I've copied. ›mysid (☎∆) 18:44, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. --Taraborn (talk) 18:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up question: isn't it so that the system (also) shuts the power to the said USB device when we choose to 'safely unplug it'? --Ouro (blah blah) 19:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It should be so, yes. Linux works just like that. Upon powering down, it automatically unmounts all storage devices, no matter how they are connected. I don't have enough experience with Windows to know if it works like that too, but I should think it does. JIP | Talk 20:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That's not what he asked. I don't think it can "cut power"- the USB controller is hard wired to give power to the device. My external hard drive makes a distinctive spinning down sound when I unplug it, and it doesn't do that when I just "safely remove" it until I actually unplug it. My nice IBM optical mouse doesn't power up until the OS recognizes it though. --ffroth 20:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Froth! --Ouro (blah blah) 20:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Partitioning USB flashdrives

Is it possible to partition an USB flashdrive (Apacer something, 1 GB) from Windows?

You should be able to. I have bought USBs that came pre-partitioned with a bunch of software loaded onto one of the partitions (which annoyed me, though I know some people like that sort of thing). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

sorry, forgot to say: absolutely no software was provided (even no drivers for Win98).

and if it's possible, then how? what software do I need?

I use Windows XP Pro SP2. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you see it as an ordinary drive in Windows? If so, can you see "Format..." or something in the context menu (right-click on the drive icon)? ›mysid (☎∆) 13:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, you'll probably need to disregard that, I thought you're just going to format it. ›mysid (☎∆) 13:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Win + R (to bring up the run prompt), type in diskmgmt.msc and voila, you have the disk manager where you can repartition your drives. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

FCC Rules Part 15

A few days ago I was remodeling my room and came across my tv tuner's instruction manual and on the cover on it was something that made me curious. On the cover was written that my tv tuner complied with part 15 of the FCC Rules and that it's operation is subject to 2 conditions, that the tv tuner was to cause no harmful interference and that the tuner must accept any interference even it may cause undesired operation. And then I remembered that I saw those exact provisions on all my PC parts from the CPU to the hdd from the graphics card to the power source to the monitor and my question is why? Why must any component accept any interference regardless of the efects if might have?

I think "accept" means "it's okay to blow up, so long as you don't re-emit bad stuff" or "even receiving harmful interference isn't an excuse for emitting harmful interference". It doesn't mean "even if you put this tv tuner card into a running microwave it must still receive tv signals perfectly. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The tuner was just an example, I want to know why is it required by law that any PC part must accept any intereferece regardless of it's efects.

My answer holds for everything, not just for TV tuners. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what question you're asking; as I read it my answer covers everything. Please ask the part you're unsure about again, in the most succinct manner you can. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the confusion is because really the two sections means the same. The first means "don't give off bad signals" and the second means "don't give off bad signals, even if you think you've got an excuse". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, what you say holds true for the first condition "That the devices are to cause no harmful interference", but not the second condition "That the devices must accept any interference even it may cause undesired operation" which is the one I'm asking about.

The FCC's job, in this context, is to protect the radio spectrum - nothing else. So that's the limit of the regulation. "That the devices must accept any interference even it may cause undesired operation" just means that devices don't have any excuse to emit harmful signals; even if they're receiving harmful signals; even if, to avoid emitting harmful signals, they're have to explode and shower little children with jagged fragments of burning plutonium, even then they mustn't emit harmful signals. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Part of "must accept" means is "no active countermeasures". If your cordless phone is getting interference from your neighbor's cordless phone, it's not allowed to send an "off" signal to shut it up. --Carnildo (talk) 02:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Scanning on Windows Vista

I'm trying to scan on Windows Vista with HP PSC 2510 Photosmart and I was wondering if anyone on the Reference Desk knew how to from scratch.

Hopefully you just install the driver and associated software from http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=303770&lang=en , and in addition to the drivers it'll have an HP specific scanning program. Unfortunately my experience with Vista (not with HP, hopefully you'll have better luck that I) was that many drivers (for older equipment) that the manufacturer says work don't, or don't work well. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Name that Bioshock tune

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Georges Bizet.

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

December 24

First words e-mailed/posted/etc. - famous?

Most American schoolchildren learn (and I sure remember) the first words over telegraph ("What hath God wrought"), over telephone by Bell ("Watson, come here, I want you"), on phonograph ("Mary had a little lamb..."), and radio - (IIRC, the letter "s.") My question is, do we have other famous ones for e-mail, for posts on a network server, and so on, for the computer age? What are they? And, if not, why not? Was there so much development going on at the same time that one can't really trace the actual first, or perhaps the action ws so frenetic that people didn't think to record the first? Or, were people in the 1800s and early 1900s just more cognizant of historical achievements and therefore the "firsts" were more widely recorded?Somebody or his brother (talk) 01:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

This, this and our own article on the first emailer all agree that the exact wording of the first message has gone to the great bit bucket in the sky. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Copy-and-paste in Microsoft Excel

I'm working on a spreadsheet in Excel, and I copy-and-paste a series of cells a few times. Then I type something in a single cell, or edit a single cell. Then if I want to go back and paste the repeated date some more, it's not available to paste anymore. Why does this happen? I didn't copy anything else into the clipboard, so shouldn't it still be there the next time I want to paste? — Michael J 01:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you'd think so, but it doesn't ... there does not seem to be a good reason for this. Mind, if you press CTRL-C twice, you should get the Excel clipboard, which will facilitate multiple pastes with intervening edits. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I didn't know Excel had its own clipboard. I thought it used the same standard clipboard that everything else on my computer did. I will try the CTRL-C thing. Thanks again. — Michael J 11:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It's even worse than just having its own clipboard; it has a super finicky clipboard that usually only works if you have the thing you want copied actively selected. It's totally inconsistent with every other program, yet another wonderful "feature" of Excel. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

So to copy something you have to "actively select" it? What's so outrageous (and unusual) about that? Incidentally, it's actually the Office clipboard as it works across all Office applications. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

What's outrageous and unusual is that "paste" can require you to select the item you want to duplicate. --Carnildo (talk) 02:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

What it means is that even if you have said something is to be copied, if you don't have its rows still selected when you go to paste it then it won't paste. In, say, Word, you can select a word, hit copy, and then go and do whatever you want, and as long as you don't copy something else to the clipboard then the original text you put there will stay there. Not with Excel; if you have gone and selected something else or edited another cell then it won't let you paste the original stuff again. Totally stupid, totally useless. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 18:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Excel and PowerPoint don't originate with Microsoft; they were "bought out" when Microsoft was trying to first assemble its Office suite. As such, they each came with their own set of quirks and rather than force the 12 original users to learn something new, Microsoft has left many of these quirks in the programs even now, decades after the original releases of the programs.

And yes, it blows.

Atlant (talk) 00:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft is in my opinion just irresponsible with their software. This is the true danger of a proprietary monopoly realized — they create poor software, make it industry standard, and then have obscenely long development cycles (years and years) with software that has known bugs, non-standardized GUIs, and that every user knows requires endless amounts of struggling just to do simple things. It's a lousy, dangerous situation to be in, and neither competitors nor open source have really taken up the slack to make BETTER products (and not just knock-offs of the Microsoft ones), in my opinion. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 18:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Install GNUCash on Mac OS X

How can I download and install GNUCash on a Mac OS X (Tiger)? --Kushal^t 03:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The documentation for Mac installation is here: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_to_install_on_Mac_OSX.3F and here: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/MacOSXInstallation SteveBaker (talk) 05:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Kushal^t 05:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

DVD playback software

What do people recommend in terms of Windows XP DVD playback software? --121.219.224.205 (talk) 07:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh and doesn't have to be freeware or OS --121.219.224.205 (talk) 07:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

VLC media player. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Media Player Classic --Ouro (blah blah) 09:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Second on VLC. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme (talk) 17:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Third on VLC.

(feeling compelled to check VLC out) --Ouro (blah blah) 09:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Nah Nero Showtime is much more sophisticated. One of the things I really like about Showtime is the dynamic audio feature - a lot of DVD's have really quiet audio tracks and this boosts it up pretty well. --Fir0002 11:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Using the quadrature signal of the Digital Down Converter

Hi again. This is a DSP question and probably a hard one, but well. I have programmed a digital down converter and it works fine. But it has two outputs, and I have no clue as to what to do with the "Q" one? I'm using only "I" and its data seems erroneous at times, and I'm wondering if I should somehow combine it with Q. Thanks. ›mysid (☎∆) 11:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, answering my own question. Apparently, what I want to do is to convert this quadrature (I+Q) signal into a real signal. I would have to filter all negative frequencies out. I'll figure out how to do that. ›mysid (☎∆) 13:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

php/apache

i've recently installed apache2/MySQL/php5 on my pc and edited the httpd.conf file for apache, with
LoadModule php5_module "G:/Server/php/php5apache2.dll"
PHPIniDir "G:/Server/php/"
AddType application/x-htpd-php .php .html
i then created a php file <? phpinfo(); ?>, and placed it in htdocs in apaches folder
when i goto http://localhost/phpinfo.php, instead of displaying php info it asks me to download the php file instead, what can i do to fix this?--90.207.96.179 (talk) 16:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty sure you have a typo in your AddType line, though I don't know if that is the problem. It should be: AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html --24.147.86.187 (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

yah thank you it works :P--90.207.96.179 (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Home Recording

My Dell has a fast processor, plenty of RAM, and a SigmaTel HD Audio card. Could I get good recording quality by simply plugging instruments into the microphone jack? -- Sturgeonman (talk) 19:05, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

You will never get any quality recording by using the microphone jack. It has very high impedance and requires very low signal source. Because of this high gain, a lot of noise is introduced. If you want to record from an external source, like the headphone output of a CD player, use the line input instead. The quality of the recording depends on many factors many of which you cannot control. One that you could and will greatly affect the quality is the volumn of your source. You want to use as high a volumn as possible yet not introduce any noise. Start recording at a set volumn. List to the recording carefully. If you detect noise, lower the volumn and repeat (if you don't hear any noise, increase the volumn). You want to record at the highest volumn w/o noise. NYCDA (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - use the 'line' input if you have one. It also depends on the instrument. My son's electric guitar needed a pre-amp plugged into the line input in order to get any quality. Also we needed to wire up a splitter plug to get signal onto both sides of the stereo image (some guitar effects boxes create stereo signals). SteveBaker (talk) 19:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Mystery image

What is this? --Seans Potato Business 19:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a two-dimensional barcode. It works just like a 1D barcode except there is room for more information. The three squares in the corners allow the thing to be aligned properly. SteveBaker (talk) 19:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, a QR Code. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I was curious about what it said so I had a hunt for a decoder. http://www.hafenscher.net/qrcode/ has a downloadable decoder, and the image Sean linked to decodes to http://seo-labo.sblo.jp/ - the domain name of the site it's on. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahh these look like they are the things I read about in The Economist a while back. They are starting to pop up all over the place in Japan - you take a shot of them with your phone-camera and it decodes and provides relevant information. They are on things like bus-stops where the data shows bus timetables, or they are on movie-posters so you can find out more about the movie, included a link to the trailer (that sort of thing). I think they were talking about expanding to having them provide information on food-stuffs in stores so you can get more detail on nutritional content/recipes things like that. ny156uk (talk) 11:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Can they encode more information in less space than the traditional practice of printing real letters/symbols? I would be irritated if I had to rely on one of those for bus timetable information (as if it isn't confusing enough) --Seans Potato Business 22:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they can store links to web-sites that give real-time information, that sort of thing. The idea being that you simply photograph it on your phone-camera and then it auto-opens the appropriate area. And yes space wise it could store huge amounts more than traditional text could within the same space. Not the same but there is the thing called rainbow storage which, if it came to play, could store around 250gb on a sheet of A4. Even allowing for a minute realisation of this potential you could easily store more information using this 'barcode' like system than with traditional letters/symbols. Also look at dataglyphs (http://www.parc.com/research/projects/dataglyphs/). PARC (Company) (Palo ALto Research Centre) is responsible for churning out some of the most impressive developments in the history of the modern computer. Sorry kinda gone off on a bit of random computer-technology rambling, oh well i've typed it now. ny156uk (talk) 23:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Rainbow Storage (yes, we do have an article about it) has been utterly debunked - it's just nonsense dreamed up as a theoretical possibility by someone with no grasp whatever of the underlying technologies. (I actually had a hand in the debunking - so I know!) There is no conceivable way to pack gigabits or even megagits onto a single sheet of paper. The PARC research suggests 1 kbits per square inch (100kbits per sheet of paper) is a realistic upper limit...and even that hasn't really been realised in practical devices because paper changes size quite markedly depending on humidity and temperature and using colour for encoding doesn't work well for long-term periods because most dyes and pigments change colour over days to months after printing. These issues can be circumvented - but only at the cost of having scanners that are vastly more precise than the data they are scanning. Such scanners are going to be horrifically expensive - and in ways that don't get better as technology progresses. Paper storage technologies have their place - but they aren't going to expand greatly from the niches they currently occupy. SteveBaker (talk) 00:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Cool - cheers for the info SteveBaker, kinda mildly gutted though as I remember reading about this somewhere and think - wow that's a great little idea. Oh well. ny156uk (talk) 15:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

DVD Remixing

I have a film, both on VHS and DVD. The DVD version has a key scene cut from it that is present on the VHS. I wish to insert this scene from the VHS version into the DVD version. By chance, I have a capture card in my PC, so I can record the VHS scene (although directions on quality would be welcome). I'm more concerned with ripping the DVD in such a way as to preserve its superior quality. Hopefully I can just edit the particular chapter the scene is meant to appear in; is there a particular piece of software that can work natively with the relevant file(s, one for video and one for audio?) off the DVD, or will I have to recode the video twice, and if so, how can I best preserve the quality? What program could I use to insert the VHS footage? How do I re-burn the entire thing as a DVD-video disc at the end, hopefully preserving the menu etc.?

Many thanks, and Merry Christmas.

Rawling4851 21:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The World Is Flat

I am currently reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and I was wondering about the validity of a certain passage in it: "And the terrorist geeks in al-Qaeda are increasingly uploading their own news reports, threats, and speeches, not waiting for the BBC or CBS to come to talk to them, and then they're zapping their terror messages directly into your computer, via AOL or MSN." I can understand the first part of the sentence being the videos that surface and then are analyzed by everyone, but for the second part of the sentence, the way it's written, such an approach seems implausible. Can anyone elaborate on what the author meant? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

At the end, did it say, "Send this message to 20 of your friends otherwise you will have seven years' bad luck?" I have not read the book, but it sounds like he's having a laugh. I shouldn't worry too much about it. --ChokinBako (talk) 23:43, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it just seemed absurd to joke about relating terrorism to the concept of flattening. He does have a sense of humor in the book, so I'll go with that. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 01:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Vista Question

I have two questions.

1. How do I stop Vista from going to sleep and eventually switching off, every time I go to do something else for a few minutes? I mean, how do I disable the 'sleep' thing?

2. How do I adjust the sensitivity of the mouse, as very often, when I move the mouse across the screen it highlights half the page? (I know this is a hardware problem, but is there a control in Vista to sort this out?).

Cheers --ChokinBako (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The first will be in the Power Managment settings which are somewhere in the control panel. The second will be under Mouse on the control panel. I don't have access to a Vista machine right this moment but those are the headings they are under 82.31.4.72 (talk) 01:17, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It will be called "Power Options". You can choose a plan and change the settings for each plan. --Spoon! (talk) 01:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Click the Vista orb (start button) and type "power options" in the search box. In the search results, click on "Power Options." Under your "Preferred Plan" (the one with the checked radio button), click "Change plan settings." Choose when you want the display to turn off and the computer to sleep. You can access the mouse settings by searching for "mouse" as you did for "power options." —Wayward ^Talk 10:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I did it. thanks! I am a mac user normally, so this is a little new to me.....--ChokinBako (talk) 10:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

December 25

.ivr format

What is .ivr format? I have a video that was sent to me in email, that plays with Realplayer with no problem, but I don't know what the .ivr format is. Corvus cornix_talk 00:37, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Internet Video Recording (IVR) is a proprietary video format used by version 11 and later of RealPlayer when streams are saved on disk. ›mysid (☎∆) 08:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Corvus cornix_talk 18:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Nokia 2610 USB port?

at the bottom of a nokia 2610, between the charger plug and the headphone plug is a port which looks like a USB port. Does anyone have any idea what that is? the phone has a TOTAL memory of 2 MB so the port can not have much use as a data port, can it? Kushal^t 03:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Graphics Card

I have purchased a game that requires "Nvidia Geforce 6600 or better, or ATI Radeon 9800Pro or better" I have tried searching around to find out what better is, and cant really come to a conclusion. Is there some sort of list or ranking of the cards that defines what, in this context, the better cards are. I currently have a Radeon X600, and it isn't new and wasn't state of the art when it was, so I'm assuming that it wont work, especially since it has trouble with a lower spec game. Though this seems partly because the game thinks it doesnt support Direct X 9.0c. So can someone offer me guidance to supported cards and how good they are? ΦΙΛ Κ 15:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I use gpureview to compare the cards. Sorry, looks like you're out of luck :( Also, how good am I answering questions on christmas morning!! --ffroth 15:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

So you think this card would do the trick? And if I did purchase that card, how long would it be before I'd be in a similar situation where retail RPG games would be demanding more than this could give again? ΦΙΛ Κ 17:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly high-end but it's still a very solid card. You should never count on being able to play future games (it'll be low range in less than a year and worthless in 2-3) but it will be able to play basically all games out now if you have a decent cpu. --ffroth 17:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I dont want to overspend, as I only play games for a bit of fun, nothing remotely serious, but I'd like a card that is still mid range within a year, is that achievable? Or am I being overly hopeful. 172.200.130.39 (talk) 20:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Optimising Euler Project 5 in Ruby

Below is Euler Project Problem 5, implemented in Ruby. However, the algorithm takes ages I stopped it on about 100,000,000 and I was wondering if you could provide some suggestions for speeding it up? Also if anyone wants to tell me if I'm close or if there is an error and I've stepped over my bounds, please do. The program works fine for faster cases of range_low and range_high. 217.44.16.75 (talk) 15:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

# Find the smallest number divisible by every number between range_low and range_high.

satisfy = false
range_low, range_high = 2, 20
target = range_high

while (satisfy == false)

	for i in (range_low..range_high)

		if (target % i == 0)
			puts target.to_s + " mod " + i.to_s + " OK"
			satisfy = true if i >= range_high
		else
			break
		end

	end

	target += range_high unless satisfy == true

end

puts target

gets

The result grows rather rapidly as the range gets longer: in particular, if the range is 1 (or 2) to N, then the answer will be the primorial of N. To avoid integer overflow errors, you should probably be using BigNums. Also, I don't think target += range_high is quite correct; if the upper end of the range isn't a prime number, the answer doesn't necessarily have to be a multiple of it (just consider the range from 3 to 4).

In any case, your algorithm is an extremely inefficient one, since it ends up trying a lot of wrong answers. It would be more practical to write a routine to compute the least common multiple of two numbers (hint: use Euclid's algorithm) and apply it repeatedly. Note that you'll still need to use BigNums to represent the answer if the range isn't very short. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood the problem statement. It seems that we are looking for the LCM of all numbers in the range. It doesn't have anything to do with primorials, and by definition it is a multiple of any number in the range, the high end included.

You're right, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I wrote the parts which I've now struck out. *slaps forehead* Probably something like "lowest number that shares a prime factor with each number in the range". —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is extremely inefficient, and that the sane method to do this is using the formula ${\textrm {lcm}}(a,b)={\frac {ab}{{\textrm {gcd}}(a,b)}}$ repeatedly, each time adding the next number in the range, and using Euclid's algorithm for finding the gcd. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

USB Hard drive structure

Yesterday my cousin opened his USB hard-disk(these HDDs are also known as portable hard drives) and found that USB hard-disk is just a laptop hard-disk with a USB interface attached to it. Are all USB hard-drives are made up with same structure? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhammad Hamza (talk • contribs) 17:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't claim that all USB harddisks are built like this, but those I've seen either contain a 2.5" laptop harddisk or a regular 3.5" harddisk, with a simple USB/IDE or, these days, an USB/SATA converter. I assume it's cheaper to use standard harddisks than building special ones with USB interfaces directly on the circuit board. --Dapeteばか 18:09, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You can even buy an empty chassis 2.5 or 3.5" that includes the USB interface and plug in your own HD off the appropriate size. It's a good option if you already have a suitable drive knocking around or if you want to replace the drive that's in your machine. A 3.5" drive might be designed to take less trauma than a 2.5" drive though. --Seans Potato Business 22:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

December 26

Blackberry Pearl Input

My new blackberry used to 'predict' what i wanted to type when i hit each key once, but now it is in the 'ABC' input mode, where i have to hit each button a certain amount of times to reach the letter. How do i revert this change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.239.184.31 (talk) 00:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

From Ask Dave Taylor:

1. Go to the main applications view on the Pearl.
2. Choose Options (it's the little crescent wrench icon) and select it.
3. Scroll down to Language and click the trackball.
4. Under "Input Language" you want to either select your language with Multitap (to enable Multitap, that is the ABC mode you are in now) or without (which puts you into the predictive SureType mode). So, select English (United States) to get the predictive SureType.
5. Now just click the menu button and select Save and you're back to normal.

›mysid (☎∆) 08:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Windows media player 10

I am wanting to listen to air traffic control feeds on live ATC.net, however when i click on a feed to listen to the browser goes to another page that says This program cannot display the webpage and the media player does not come up. I have checked the firewall settings and that seems in order but the feeds still won't load. Can anyone help.--logger (talk) 00:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at this page which I assume is the one you are using. When I click the "Listen" button (black text on green background) I always get an error message similar to the one you are. However, when I click the related text link (in my case, "KBOS - Clearance Delivery - Boston, MA") the feed sometimes works. Which is weird, cause they're both the same link. I am able to listen to all the feeds I've tried using VLC player, if you're able to try that. You might have to force VLC to open .m3u files. (Create a dummy file: test.m3u. Right-click on it, choose Open with. choose VLC and tick the Always open with... option). Hope some of this works for you.--Kateshortforbob 20:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

PS. Thanks for pointing out that site - it's really interesting.

"Animor8"

For Animor 8 as the program itself I'm trying to download the file onto Vista yet their complications with how it is properly downloaded. Is anyone a user of the Animor 8 under Vista and knows how to properly complete the installation? Or of any Windows affliation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.250.175.113 (talk) 02:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Operating System not supported

"OPERATING SYSTEM IS NOT SUPPORTED

Your operating system Linux i686 is not supported.

This service currently available only for Windows and Macintosh. "

(tg4.tv [[6]])

Is there a way to get Firefox to identify itself as a different operating system, for example an addon? --Duomillia (talk) 02:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Try this. Essentially, it's all handled via user agent and you need to spoof that you're using Windows through that. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Masquerading as Windows doesn't help, as it requires ActiveX. I don't have a Mac user-agent string though, can anybody give me one? (And when will they learn, those ignorant morons...) --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What pathetic little site. Sucks there is such a limitation, but I urge you to email them with complaints, asking for a cross-browser website. — Kieff | Talk 07:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Camera as Web cam

My girlfriend just got a camera for Christmas. it is a Kodak Easy Share M853. Can it be used as a web cam? Thanks --Omnipotence407 (talk) 03:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know specifically how toset it up. But granted that it connect to your computer, yes. 24.47.171.124 (talk) 11:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Most if not nearly all standalone cameras cannot be setup as web cams. Even thought it can be hooked up to the PC, there's no way for the PC to tell the camera to take a picture therefore it won't function as a web cam. NYCDA (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not, is it a software issue? Would an appropriate program on the computer do the trick? --Omnipotence407 (talk) 18:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is more than likely a firmware issue - firmware being the program that is stored in the camera. I just spent some time on the Kodak site looking at the specs for the M853, as well as the user's manual and other info, and see no indication at all that there is any support for streaming video directly from the camera to the computer. When a digital camera is connected to a computer, the computer basically sees it as a storage device, little different from a USB flash-drive. Windows might flash up a "wizard" that is specialized for the type of device, but when all is said and done, you can access the files that are available on the device and that's about it. --LarryMac | Talk 18:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Do monitors affect computer performance?

Do monitors affect computer performance by some having more lag than others? I always thought the only thing that affected the performance was the computer itself, not the monitor.

Situation: I just got a new monitor for Christmas, but my games have tons of lag now. I was just playing the same games a few days ago on my old monitor and they worked fine. They now say that my system does not meet the requirements. The only answer I can come up with is the new monitor. My old monitor is much older than my brand new one so the new one should work much better anyhow. Can someone please help? Thankyou. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 03:05, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Your new monitor may have a higher display resolution than your older monitor, meaning that your video card has to do more work when rendering for the new monitor. You might want to try lower the resolution (check graphical settings) in whichever games you are having performance issues with, or turn the graphics detail down. Otherwise, you probably would have to upgrade to a newer video card. If it's the same resolution as your old monitor, there shouldn't be any specific issues between monitors. --Kopaka649 (talk) 03:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

RAM Speed Vs Quantity

I have two 512Mb dimms installed on my machine. One is rated at 266mhz the other at 333mhz. My understanding in this setup is that they will now both run at the lowest speed, ie 266mhz. Question then in terms of overall system performance, is it better to have one dimm installed running at 333mhz giving me less memory but higher speed, or both installed giving more memory,but lower speed ? (Computer is used for mostly office type applications, internet, email, occasional photo editing, etc--196.207.47.60 (talk) 06:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As you might expect, the answer will vary. As long as you're not using more than 512 Mb of memory, it would, in principle at least, be better to remove the slower module and thereby increase the memory speed by 25%. If you have any need for the extra memory, however, the gain from having it available (and thus not having to resort to swapping) will most likely by far offset any speed decrease. It's also worth noting that modern operating systems (besides being memory-hungry like most modern software) tend to be good at finding uses for any extra memory you may have; in particular, they'll use spare memory as a disk cache, often significantly improving disk performance.

Besides, any applications whose performance is bound by memory speeds are also likely to be ones that use a lot of memory, and thus could benefit from having more available. All in all, particularly given the workload you describe, I'd definitely recommend maximizing memory size over speed. Things might be different if you were into modern 3D gaming — but even in that case, I'd suggest trying it both ways and seeing which gives you a better frame rate. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 09:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You will get more performance boost if you used 512MB. Please note using 333MHz memory instead of 266MHz memory will not give you a 25% boost in overall performance even in the best case scenario. System performance is a weighted total of all it's components. In the case you describe, you will not notice the speed decrease from 333 to 266 at all. But if you run Word, IE, Outlook and photo editing applications at the same time, you will notice a vast improvement using 512MB over 256MB. NYCDA (talk) 16:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What we have here is 1024MB vs. 512MB, so I take it you meant that 1024MB is better? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes I mean 1024MB at 266MHz is better then 512MB at 333MHz. NYCDA (talk) 23:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Display problems with new computer

I recently upgraded my entire computer to a new system. It is working otherwise fine but I am having problems with the display. When I originally plugged everything in and booted the system up, it showed fine in text mode but graphics mode was messed up: it was shifted too far to the right, and when I got Fedora 8 to boot up after installation, the vertical size of the picture had somehow doubled so that the lower half of the picture was missing. The resolution (number of existing pixels) remained the same, but one pixel now took twice the amount of physical vertical screen estate, leaving me with an elongated upper half and an invisible lower half. When I got it to log in to Fedora 8, I managed to switch the update frequency from 60 Hz to 75 Hz, and that appears to have solved the problem. It's still shifted too far to the right though - I shifted the picture on the monitor all the way to the left and it's still missing a couple of pixels.

It says on the box that my graphics card is an ASUS EN8600GT but Fedora 8 reports it as nVidia Corporation GeForce 6100 nForce 430. Are these the same thing? I don't want to risk losing the picture altogether trying incompatible graphics card drivers. The motherboard has one VGA output and one DVI-D output. The card itself has two DVI-D outputs and no VGA outputs. Only the VGA output shows any picture. The card came with a VGA-to-DVI-D adapter, but when I tried it with the DVI-D outputs, none of them showed a picture. What is happening here? What is the cause of all this? How can I fix it? JIP | Talk 11:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

DVI connectors.

It's not actually a DVI-D adapter, I was just going by what my motherboard manual says. All three output plugs have holes for all possible pins in a DVI connector. The adapter, though, has 4 pins and a horizontal bar on the left side (like DVI-I and DVI-A shown here), and only six of a possible twenty-four pins on the right side. The pins are in the two upper rows, with the three pins nearest to the 4-pin left side on each row. The bottom row is empty. What kind of connector is this? JIP | Talk 12:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As for the first part of your question - it appears you have to play around with the positioning and size of the display on the monitor more in order to get it right (uhm, what type of monitor is it?). Sometimes it happens. I tend to switch monitors about every half a year (due to moving and relocating, not because I wear them out!) so it just is like this. I can't help you with the other problem, though, but fish around fedoraforum.org, the support forum for Fedora. G'luck! --Ouro (blah blah) 15:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I did play around with my monitor settings. My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 913N. I had to drag the screen as far left as it'll go, and it still leaves a few pixels cut off. The monitor settings don't even have size settings, I'm stuck with what it autoconfigures as. The vertical settings are OK. JIP | Talk 16:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I also prefer monitors by Samsung. I see yours is an LCD monitor - it won't have a size setting (I don't think most of them have, as opposed to CRT monitors, most of them do). Mayhaps you need some special driver or other utility to configure it further? I also have to sacrifice a few pixels, but I don't care enough to tweak it further, I'm satisfied with what I have now. --Ouro (blah blah) 17:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I submitted the same question to Fedora Forum. Hopefully I'll get a reply there. The same monitor worked fine with Fedora 8 on a 32-bit system with ATI Radeon 9200 Pro, so it's not the monitor or Fedora 8. It's most likely the graphics card. JIP | Talk 17:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Fedora Forum gave m a reply. All I need to do is:

su -
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
yum install kmod-nvidia

I did this and it works all OK. JIP | Talk 20:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

How to access files from another partition.

I have just recently installed Ubuntu on a partition on my Vista machine. Both work very smoothly together, and I have minimal problems with the Ubuntu (just teething troubles on my part). However, I was wondering how (or if!) it would be possible to access files on one partition from another. I have both operating systems completely partitioned, and they are not running simultaneously.

I also would like to know if it is possible to get Japanese language support on Ubuntu, so I can type Japanese.

I have a few more questions, but these will do for now.....Thanking you all in advance! --ChokinBako (talk) 12:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Linux should be able to use Windows partitions. They are accessed through the same devices as your normal Linux partitions, i.e. /dev/hdxn or /dev/sdxn, where x is the disk (a, b, c etc) and n is the partition (1, 2, 3 etc). You just have to know the correct file system type and mount them. msdos should work for FAT16 and FAT32 partitions. ntfs should work for NTFS partitions, but most Linux distributions don't have proper NTFS support yet. As for the other way around, Windows is completely ignorant of Linux partitions. Sorry. JIP | Talk 12:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, but that still does not make sense to me. I have only just started with Linux, as of today. Is there any way I can search across partitions, and if so, how? --ChokinBako (talk) 13:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Expandoing on what JIP said, a broad-brush kind of an answer is that in Unix and Linux, each disk partition mounts as a separate volume (~"disk"). So if disk "a" has three partitions on it, you'll see three apparent disk drives: /dev/hda1/, /dev/hda2/, and /dev/hda3/. So you can use paths like "/dev/hda?/" to specify all of the partitions that are part of hard drive "A".

Atlant (talk) 16:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You can use fdisk to view your partitions. Become root and type fdisk /dev/hda (or fdisk /dev/sda or something, depending on your computer's setup) and it will give you the fdisk menu. Type p to see the partition table, and q to quit fdisk. As long as you don't actually let fdisk make any changes, it's completely safe. The best way to be safe is not to use any other command than p. For example, it might show that /dev/hda1 is an ext3 partition (Ubuntu) and /dev/hda2 is an ntfs partition (Vista). Then you just mount /dev/hda2 as ntfs at some mountpoint (i.e. directory). You should be able to read your Windows files, but I don't think you'll be able to write them back. JIP | Talk 16:56, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Atlant's reply has a minor technical problem. It confuses devices and mount points. In Windows, these are the same thing. In Unix, they are different things. A device identifies your disk. A mount point is what you access it through. For example, if you have a directory called /vista, you can type mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 /vista, and if everything works, you'll now see your Windows Vista C: drive in /vista. You could try, for example, to run "/vista/program files/applications/notepad.exe" (but remember that unlike Windows, Unix has case-sensitive filenames). [[User:JIP--ChokinBako (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)|JIP]] | Talk 17:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, so, first things first. how do I 'become root'? When I login I have no choice but to use my username and password, so I believe that is not what you mean. You mean change directories in the Terminal? If so, how do I do that? I am new to Unix (sounds silly coming from a predominantly mac user, who just got his first Vista, and now wants to go back to Unix based computers). I am totally lost here.--ChokinBako (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You become root by typing "su -". It asks you for the root password. If you installed the system, you know it already. Otherwise ask whomever installed it. Changing directories in the terminal is done with the command cd, like in Windows, expect that when Windows uses \, Unix uses /. By the way, MacOS is nowadays much more Unix-like than Windows. If you have used the Unix command line in MacOS, the one in Linux should be very similar. The major difference is that the underlying OS is different - Linux is a collaborative effort made from scratch, while MacOS is a commercial product by Apple. JIP | Talk 19:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Windows can access Linux ext3 partitions with a driver such as Ext2 File System Driver for Windows. There are a couple of other driver packages as well. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, progress has been made! I have got as far as the bit where it asks me for my password, but it says the password I input is wrong. I was the one who installed it, and I only use one password on the whole system (both windows and ubuntu). Is there a default password or something, because during installation I only ever remember putting my password in for login, and this seems to be incorrect (which is impossible, because I am logged in now)? Yours, frustrated, but challenged. --ChokinBako (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I have never used Ubuntu. I have installed a Fedora system, and during installation, it asks me for a root password. This is mandatory. After installation, it asks me whether to create a normal user. I always reply yes, and it asks me for a password. These passwords are separate. When you log in to Ubuntu, use your normal user name and password. Then, after you have logged in, open a terminal. If the prompt says "#", you are already root. If it says "$", type "su -" and type the root password. This usually different from your own password, but it doesn't have to be. All this comes from the experience of a typical 1990s Linux user. If Ubuntu has any shortcuts around this, I wouldn't know about them. JIP | Talk 20:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

On Ubuntu, the root account is disabled by default. To enter a root shell, type sudo -i, and enter your user password, since the account that the Ubuntu installer creates is privileged to use sudo. Splintercellguy (talk) 23:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Like, omigosh, 2 CPUs???

What's the difference between a dual core CPU and two physical CPUs? JIP | Talk 18:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

To be so vague as to be nearing incorrect... With 2 CPUs, they can only communicate through the bus. With dual-core, they can communicate directly and even share the same on-chip cache. -- kainaw™ 18:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I was under the impression that 2 CPUs is inherently better, but this is obviously not so. It seems that 2 CPUs is cheaper on the CPUs but more expensive on the motherboard. This question is mostly academic anyway - I am typing this on a dual-core machine right now but I'll probably never have a system with multiple physical CPUs (I've used some at work, though). JIP | Talk 19:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There are pros and cons; see Multi-core (computing) for details. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

My computer screen

Hey guys, my screen went black and then turned itself upside down. I'm not sure if it's related, but I've been getting a higher than normal number of blue screens. Help? YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 12-26-2007 • 20:56:00

Never mind... Restarting worked YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 12-26-2007 • 21:12:38

Maybe your video driver needs updating or is conflicting with some other drivers etc.

--TreeSmiler (talk) 22:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)