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October 24

IRC block

How do I know, without bothering my network administrator, whether IRC is blocked in my network or not? I can get on IRC via the web such as Mibbit but not via standard desktop apps. I cannot even connect. Please advise. Kushal (talk) 00:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Try telnetting to an IRC server. ie. telnet chat.freenode.net 6667 -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is the output from telnet that I got:

NOTICE AUTH :*** Looking up your hostname...

NOTICE AUTH :*** Checking ident

NOTICE AUTH :*** No identd (auth) response

NOTICE AUTH :*** Couldn't look up your hostname

ERROR :Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out)




Connection to host lost.

C:\>

Kushal (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, IRC isn't blocked per-se, you can connect. I'd suggest trying the same thing using an IRC client (e.g. mIRC). It looks like it should work to me. EAi (talk) 21:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting. It does look normal. I'd do that^, see if you're getting an error back from the servers; maybe the ones you're connecting to have proxy-detection and they figure you're running an open proxy? It could be anything. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's a snippet of what I got from mIRC.

Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out) -

• Disconnected

-

• Connect retry #3 chat.freenode.net (6665) (dns pool)

- -chat.freenode.net- *** Looking up your hostname... - -chat.freenode.net- *** Checking ident - -chat.freenode.net- *** No identd (auth) response - -chat.freenode.net- *** Couldn't look up your hostname - Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out) -

• Disconnected

-

• Connect retry #4 chat.freenode.net (6665) (dns pool)

- -chat.freenode.net- *** Looking up your hostname... - -chat.freenode.net- *** Checking ident - -chat.freenode.net- *** No identd (auth) response - -chat.freenode.net- *** Couldn't look up your hostname - Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out) -

• Disconnected

-

• Connect retry #5 chat.freenode.net (6665) (dns pool)

- -chat.freenode.net- *** Looking up your hostname... - -chat.freenode.net- *** Checking ident - -chat.freenode.net- *** No identd (auth) response - -chat.freenode.net- *** Couldn't look up your hostname - Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out) -

• Disconnected

-

• Connect retry #6 chat.freenode.net (6665) (dns pool)

- -chat.freenode.net- *** Looking up your hostname... -

• Disconnected

Thanks, Kushal (talk) 17:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's another time, using Firefox's IRC add-on, ChatZilla,

irc.mozilla.org [INFO] Network view for “irc.mozilla.org” opened. [INFO] Attempting to connect to “irc.mozilla.org”. Use /cancel to abort. [INFO] Connecting to irc://irc.mozilla.org/ (irc://irc.mozilla.org/)... === *** Looking up your hostname... === *** Couldn't resolve your hostname; using your IP address instead [ERROR] Closing Link: [69.150.163.1] (Ping timeout) [ERROR] Connection to irc://irc.mozilla.org/ (irc://irc.mozilla.org/) closed. Reconnecting in 15 seconds. [INFO] Connecting to irc://irc.mozilla.org/ (irc://irc.mozilla.org/)... === *** Looking up your hostname... === *** Couldn't resolve your hostname; using your IP address instead [ERROR] Closing Link: [69.150.163.1] (Ping timeout) [ERROR] Connection to irc://irc.mozilla.org/ (irc://irc.mozilla.org/) closed. Reconnecting in 30 seconds.

. Kushal (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

---

Perhaps you should try connecting on a non-standard port (anything outside of 6666-6669) or even use bouncer.

Thanks. I will do that. Kushal (talk) 06:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone a hard from from one to another, not just create an image file?

Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone a hard from from one to another, not just create a useless image file? I looked through the lists of and comparisons of software in the pages wikipedia had, checked them all out and of the free software that works on FAT32 or does a raw copy, it all says it only creates worthless, junky image files instead of copying a hard drive to another outright. I've asked on some of the forum of those websites and they never answer. So.. Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone/copy all the contents of a hard from from one to another, not just create a useless image file?

I asked this before but the question just vanished, likely due to some vandalism burried in the history that I can't find. I don't think a mod removed it because I'd get a note about it or see an edit summary in the edit history. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 01:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

[1] did it. Suggestions were GParted dd (Unix) and Norton Ghost, with the first two being Free software. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The original question and its responses have been restored. See here. -- Tcncv (talk) 03:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 03:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I used a peice of software calle XXCopy, and it worked well and was fast. BUT

[2] Try a few of these.--99.185.0.29 (talk) 12:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are content with software that is free as in beer, and the disk you want to copy is a Seagate or Maxtor disk, then Seagate Disk Wizard does the job quite nicely, most of the time. I've used it under Windows XP, for cloning disks with several partitions, both ntfs, fat32 and ext3 on the same disk. When the target disk is larger than the source (as is often the case), one of the options is to increase the partitions proportionally to the increase in disk size. I've used this option successfully. I also tried the other option, to manually specify the sizes of each partition, but that did not work correctly. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Try Clonezilla (http://clonezilla.org). This is an excellent piece of free software that does just that i.e. copies an entire harddisk to another, or a partition to another partition. You'll get it as a downloadable ISO image file that you'll need to write to a CD, boot off it and simply follow the instructions. As well the software allows you to back up an entire partition/harddisk onto an image file that can then be used to restore the partition/harddisk later on, or onto a new harddisk/partition. It's also possible to get a bundle ISO image from this site consisting of both GParted (a disk partitioning tool) and Clonezilla. I've used it 2 or 3 times and it works excellently - on all partition types and OSes i.e. XP partitions, Linux partitions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 13:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Find parent folder of Windows Vista programs?

Is there a general way to find the actual disk folder that contains any particular Windows program on Vista?

What I am looking for is the Windows Vista equivalent of the Unix command "where" or "what" (depending on *nix dialect). For example, my Vista Home premium has MS Office Excel Viewer installed and I can call it with "excel", but there is no program file named excel. Instead, I can locate the shortcut by using the Vista command "where" where I find the filename is "Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003.lnk". Although this where is almost what I need, it requires me to wrap the program name in wildcards, and it is very slow. So, are there better ways to do this? (I already know about using control panel with Add and remove programs and Windows Search but they do not work for all programs) -84user (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Presumably there's a list in the registry of applications that can be launched from 'anywhere'... I can't find where though :( EAi (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a) the list in question, and b) in the same place on Vista, but Windows XP has a list of applications in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths that can be typed in the "Run..." dialog box. For instance, you can type winword on a machine with MS Office installed.

It's actually quite a useful way of making aliases: each key has to be called keyword.exe, where keyword is the alias you type at the run prompt, but the actual path (the default value in that key) can be anything that you could normally run from the Run... prompt. So you can set "jot.exe" to run "C:\jottings.txt", and the text file will open when you type "jot" at the prompt. - IMSoP (talk) 12:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

App Paths is listed in my Vista registry, but it holds only a subset of commands that are callable from the Start dialog. Notepad and Write are missing, for example. Also some programs listed are not callable: I have WinCal.exe and can launch it when I type the full path, but not when I type just "WinCal". And it seems Vista does not let me create aliases that way: I created keyword jot.exe with value "C:\jottings.txt" but jot still does nothing. But there is a HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications and that lists more, but not all, available commands. It seems logical there should be a list somewhere, after all how does Windows check what the user types? -84user (talk) 16:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Question about modems and Internet problems

Most of the description of what happened to me was posted Monday on the Village Pump. I looked at the modem's manual and found no details on this whatsoever.

I had no Internet access whatsoever Wednesday from the time I turned on the computer around noon until about 3:00, and then I lost the Internet again after having it for about an hour.

I thought there was a relationship between the middle light on the modem and Internet access. After Hurricane Ike, that light was blinking even when the computer was off. It's supposed to always be on when the Internet is working or the computer is off (the tech support person said there's no reason for it to be blinking when the computer is off), and it was always on after I started having problems on Monday--until I turned the computer on. When I had no Internet access, that light was usually blinking or off. This is strange, though--after the problem was temporarily resolved on Wednesday, the light was usually on even if the Internet was not.

I was finally told on Wednesday something I had never heard before--the problem weas outside my house somewhere. I never heard whether it was a widespread problem in my area. But they have fixed it.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

What is your question? --LarryMac | Talk 19:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I suppose a specific question could be why the middle light blinks when the computer is off when the tech support person said that's not going to happen. Funny, when I wrote the above I thought I was going to get responses, but now that I read it, I'm not sure what I'm asking. I was hoping someone could explain to me what happened.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

What is "The middle light" labeled as - does it have a symbol or anything against it? Does it matter that the light is blinking - I can't tell if it's causing any actual problems (beyond the light)? Is it blinking consistently or randomly? EAi (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

A simple, free and easy to use program for video conversion to Ipod compatibilty?

I recently purchased a 120G Ipod classic and I am looking for a free and easy program to convert video files so that they will play on my Ipod. So far, I found Itunes itself capable of converting Quicktime videos, but the majority of what I have is WMV, Mpeg or AVI. I have looked quite a bit for a program but so far I have not found anything that was easy to use or not loaded with advertising. Can anyone offer any suggestions? thanks so much and cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 18:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

You on a mac? Which version of OS X? Kushal (talk) 20:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

VisualHub for Mac (recently deceased) is/was good. For PC: Videora seems to be well thought of, though doesn't say it supports WMV - it's free though. PrismPlus is also well thought of, but not free, but supports WMV. EAi (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

iSquint? --wj32 ^t/c 22:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, use iSquint. It's pretty good about that sort of thing. For more complicated things, there is ffmpegx, but it's a bit more of a hassle and takes a lot of fiddling with. --140.247.10.21 (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

SUPER is good (see WP article for list of supported formats - there are iPod presets). Only for PC though. I used it for a load of videos I recently transferred to my iPod nano - works a treat. Link to download is at the bottom of this page. Booglamay (talk) - 01:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Or on Windows, try DVDVideoSoft's products (search google) --wj32 ^t/c 23:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're on a Mac you already have tools to use. iMovie and Quicktime Pro have specific features for this. Mac Davis (talk) 02:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I am using a PC not a MAC. Thanks for all the help! cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 12:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, sorry about that. Kushal (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Nuked permissions in XP Pro SP3

I ran "cacls C: /P guest:n" in a command prompt. After that, I was unable to access anything. I shutdown and booted from the OEM CD. I ran a repair install. I rebooted and put the CD in to try to finish the repair installation. It was going fine for about 5 minutes. Then I got a fatal error. I looked the error code up and it said that this meant that there were not sufficient permissions to perform the necessary tasks. Now, I can't even boot into Windows so what is the best way to fix this? Maybe resetting the permissions (if so, how)? (By the way, I have already tried cacls in recovery console and copying it onto a flash drive and running it in the recovery console. Neither work. I am dual-booting with Ubuntu on another partition, so if I need to use linux for the repair, feel free to recommend that.) --Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 22:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can use GNU/Linux to repair NTFS permissions; NTFS-3G doesn't support editing permissions. Try making a Windows XP "Live CD" using BartPE. --wj32 ^t/c 22:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

What cacls parameters did you use in the Recovery Console? The standard form for granting permission is this:

cacls C: /E /G <your username>:F

I don't know if it'll work in BartPE, but you can also try taking ownership of the files on the drive. If you do not own the files, then you cannot change their permission settings. You would right-click on the C: drive, select Properties and under Security, click Advanced, then Owner. Vista includes a command for this called takeown, and you can download an imitation version that you can include on your BartPE image.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The recovery console doesn't have cacls and I can't use BartPE because all I have is an OEM CD. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:11, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Then create a third partition inside Ubuntu and install Windows in it. Use that partition to repair your permissions for your old Windows partition.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:11, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

October 25

There is any computer program that finds the Least common multiple and Greatest common divisor???

There is any computer program that finds the Least common multiple and Greatest common divisor of a set of numbers??? 201.79.105.113 (talk) 03:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Writing one wouldn't be too hard. --67.54.224.199 (talk) 03:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

In Python this should work (assuming x,y are integers):

def gcd(x,y):
    while y:
        x,y = y, x%y
    return x

def lcm(x,y):
    return x*y/gcd(x,y)

but I haven't tested these. —Tamfang (talk) 06:26, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

They work. And the first one proves that Python is amazing. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 09:46, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

It's almost as pretty in any other language (that has the mod operator), I imagine. —Tamfang (talk) 03:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I want one that i am able to use any numbers of intergers that I want and not just 2. Is I wanted just 2 there is websites that do that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.105.113 (talk) 15:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Do it two at a time: gcd(a, b, c, d, e) = gcd(a, gcd(b, gcd(c, gcd(d, e)))), and the same goes for lcm() too. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

For gcd, it's clearly most efficient to start with the smallest inputs, if you have a choice. For lcm, I'm not sure; depends on the algo; I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's a better way than what I gave above. —Tamfang (talk) 03:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

So there is no a program that do this, and I will have to program for myself if I want one??? 201.79.105.113 (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure there are loads. I just had a go on my GNU Octave and it does it. You could download that. You can just type in what you want:

octave:9> gcd(300,45,90)
ans =  15
octave:10> lcm(45,5,2,54)
ans =  270
octave:11>  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3sJJ0Itf (talk • contribs) 17:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC) 

and it can do lots of other stuff too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 3sJJ0Itf (talk • contribs) 17:39, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Based on those Python examples, I just hacked up a JavaScript solution. Type any number of integers, separated by commas, into the first box, and click "calculate". View the source for how it's done, and let me know if it's all wrong. - IMSoP (talk) 17:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

imsop without even looking in your code i found a problem in your program (site), I calculate the lcm of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and the site gave me 90. 90 is not cm of 4. 201.79.105.113 (talk) 02:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The flaw in IMSoP's code is that apply_to_list keeps no history. It should be:

z = list[i];

for (i=1; i<list.length; i++) { z = func(z,list[i]); }

return z;

—Tamfang (talk) 05:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

D'oh! Just for the sake of it, I've fixed the page. - IMSoP (talk) 13:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If you want something less programmatic, with a GUI, there's GraphCalc. It has gcb and lcm functions. Although, as with the Python examples, it only takes two arguments at a time. - RedWordSmith (talk) 02:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It would help if we knew what the OP needs in a bit more detail: a function library? a standalone app? to be run from a command line or otherwise? —Tamfang (talk) 05:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This was the first programming homework I got! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

A standalone program. But dont need to be graphical, just something that at the start of the program that: Say "What is the amount of numbers that you will use to calculate" then the user put the amount of numbers that will be used in calculation?" Then the user put the amount of numbers used for calculation. A example 3. Then its say "insert the first number" and the user do that, then "insert the second number" and the user insert, and then "insert the 3rd number" and the user do that and then the program show the lcm and the gcd of those numbers that user inserted. Just a program as simple as that is ok. 200.242.17.1 (talk) 22:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

USB cord and iPod problems

The USB cord I use for my iPod has a burnt smell after I use it and it will no longer fit into one of the connectors of my computer, which hasn't happened before. Also my iPod has a weird black patch/line that is slowly spreading on the screen, and it's certainly not a crack. I tried restoring it to see if it would go away, but nothing. It even appears when the iPod is turned off. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:55, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

This happened to my iPod as well. The black line (in my case) were scars from electrical burns. It turned out not to be an iPod problem, but the USB port. It will fry anything I plug into it. Louis Waweru  Talk  10:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Text Messages AUTOMATICALLY FORWARDED to email

Hello,

Just wondering if there is a way for T-Mobile text messages from my cell phone to automatically be forwarded to a personal email address. Is there a certain phone setting I can try to use to accomplish this...or perhaps freeware that allows me to set this up? Thanks in advance!

See SMS_Gateway#Carrier-provided_SMS_to_Email_Gateways.WikiY ^Talk 17:11, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

files between each compuetsr

Is there anything that would enable two people on different computers to connect to a server and transfer a file between the two computers. The server would not receive the file it would just be acting as a sort of first step to link the two computers together to begin with, like give each of them the other's ip address and then the servers job is done and the download takes place between the computers themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Owattt (talk • contribs) 13:46, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

If the computers were close together, I'd just use a router, flash drive, or cross-over cable to do that job. Useight (talk) 14:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

FTP. -59.95.115.215 (talk) 15:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

FTP does not connect two IPs. It would have to receive the file first. Not at all what they asked for. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:50, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You are basically describing how most P2P protocols work. The servers for BitTorrent or Limewire or whatever don't download the file, they just connect peers. (Basically. It's more complicated than that.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:50, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Instant messengers (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ, etc.) often have file transfer capabilities that work that way. --70.254.87.166 (talk) 00:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Encryption issues aside, I think Skype works in a similar fashion. Kushal (talk) 11:33, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

OpenOffice.org 3 repository?

Resolved

I would like to know if there is any official or semi-official repository or PPA for OpenOffice.org 3? I know I can use the debs and stuff like that, but I want to do this in a "clean" way... SF007 (talk) 16:02, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I Think I found it! [3] SF007 (talk) 16:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Scalability of Linux

Assuming I invent a quad-core 2048-bit RISC processor, how difficult (or easy) is it to scale Linux so that it takes maximum advantage of the architecture? For example, I would like a standard Ubuntu distribution (and all its applications) to work on this architecture. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Most of the work is recoding the back-end for gcc to take advantage of your architecture (more on that in a second). With that done porting linux is fairly straightforward; unless you make odd choices for your processor design. Multi-processor and multi-core is a solved problem (linux runs on sparc, cell, recent intel, and a bunch more). RISC or not is essentially purely a problem for gcc (and the code generators of other languages like python, java, haskell etc.) But that 2048-bit thing is harder, mostly because a 2048 bit machine is essentially pointless. The number of applications which need 2048-bit integers, or fp precision of that massive degree, is vanishingly small. So, with a conventional RISC instruction set your massive registers will still mostly be hauling around "0" and "255" and "c" most of the time. And having to waste 2k of cache to store a single character will make you proposed processor comically slow. Now maybe you're thinking of having a bunch of instructions "horizontally" in that 2048 bit instruction word (and keeping data-words at a manageable size like 64bit). Such very long instruction word sound nice, but they haven't panned out in practice. The trouble is keeping the (in your cases hundreds) of parallel instruction pipelines full. The first generation of VLIW machines, like Trimedia and Butterfly, tried to do this statically in the compiler - this made the compiler incredibly difficult to write, and mostly the compilers failed to keep even the five pipelines Trimedia had full (Butterfly's pipelines were more numerous and more varied, but the compiler was no more successful). Second generation VLIW architectures, like Crusoe and MAJC, tried to do this instruction scheduling dynamically, with a dynamic compiler at runtime rather than a static one. They were a bit more successful than the 1st gen, but not enough to justify the increased cost complexity. So, in short, the linux port is straightforward (if your processor isn't mad), the gcc port is okay, but your 2048 bit architecture is useless. 87.115.33.241 (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

If you really did have some special single purpose for which the 2048-bits were necessary (some simulation or crypto purpose) then you'd be better to build a dedicated DSP and hang that off a regular CPU as a slave. Almost all such applications are mindless datapumps, for which even the most rudimentary OS is unnecessary. You would't want to run Linux on it, for the reasons above. And if you really do have such a single-purpose application, an FPGA or ASIC is probably a much more efficient way to do things than building a special DSP for it. 87.115.33.241 (talk) 17:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I was thinking of 2048-bit instructions. So scalability in processors is an unlikely thing I suppose. I wonder what the next big think in processor design is. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Dozens or hundreds of cores in a NUMA configuration (like Cell, but more so), although programming for that, and keeping all those cores doing something useful, is also very difficult. Reconfigurable computing. Better back-ends for side-effect free pure-functional languages like Haskell, as this seems to be the only practical way in which a normal programmer can expect to write code that effectively runs on hundreds of threads. 87.115.33.241 (talk) 13:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if I can use Wikipedia logs to invalidate patents in processor design by claiming prior art. Kushal (talk) 11:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

teachnology and communication world

1.what is the main difference between bit and brt? 2.what is the significances of ICANN? 3.DEFINE the following words; a).IP adress b).HYPERLINK c).WIMAX 195.24.211.162 (talk) 18:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk won;t do homework for you. You can probably find the answers on the relevant Wikipedia articles anyway, though I haven't looked. Ale_Jrb^talk 18:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Bit, byte, ICANN, TCP/IP address, hyperlink and WIMAX? Never heard of any of those. Now, would an online encyclopedia not be handy for little problems like that ... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I would be interested in knowing what you mean by a brt, though. Kushal (talk) 19:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Possibly bitrate. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Java IO

I'm writing a game program, designed to read from and write to the command line. I'd like it to respond to individual keypresses - you press a 5, it does something. So far, all the input systems I can find (InputStreamReader(System.in), etc) refuse to do anything until you've pressed enter. Anybody know a way around that? Black Carrot (talk) 22:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think there's anything you can do. I think the shell(?) itself buffers your input until you press enter, and then sends it to the program. So to change this you probably have to go through C and assess some OS-dependent library that deals with text environments. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 09:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there are various curses interfaces for java and things, but you will lose portability, and it will in general be more of a pain to program. If you've gotten that far, I'd suggest programming a simple gui for your game, then you can listen to all the keystrokes you want. 13:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC) Belisarius (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd hoped to avoid it, but I guess a simple GUI is the easiest way. Black Carrot (talk) 17:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're on Linux/OS X and don't mind losing portability, then doing:

stty raw; java MyProgram; stty -raw

will do what you want. --Sean 19:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Downloading a Perl Script

Does anyone know how to download a Perl script used for a form? I tried linking it in a page and right-clicking, then selecting Save Target As ... but all I get is an HTML page saying that the GET method isn't allowed for the script. It's hosted by my university for activating forms on student web pages. But I don't know what parameters to pass to it since I can't see the source code.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 23:10, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You won't generally be able to download the source for a server-side script like that unless the person running that web server has specifically given you a way of doing so. If you've got some other access to the server other than the standard web interface - e.g. a file share or shell access - maybe you could get it that way? - IMSoP (talk) 23:23, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes you can try to see if there is a file with a tilde ( ~ ) after the filename. Many text editors, like Emacs and gedit, by default save a backup file that is the same as the filename except with a tilde at the end. Other editors might use other suffixes. Assuming the person used one of these editors, that the editor was configured to save a backup file, the file is located in a directory that the web server will display the contents from (i.e. many web servers won't just display a text file from a cgi-bin directory, considering it to be a script, especially if it is executable), the file is permissioned in a way that is readable to the web server, and the person is careless to not delete backup files when he's done editing, then you might be able to get the contents of the previous version of the script this way. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 00:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. My pages are hosted on a different server from the script. So, I can't seem to find it when I telnet in. I couldn't find any temp files, either. Thank you anyway.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Clicking "Safely Remove Hardware" disconnects from Internet

OK, knowledgeable people, answer me this: I'm running Windows XP, with a SpeedTouch ADSL USB modem thingy, and it works fine, mostly. But if I click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray - say, to remove my USB keyring drive or scanner - the modem immediately disconnects from the Internet. Note that I don't mean I'm clicking on anything in that menu, just getting that menu up by clicking on the icon is enough.

Now, the questions are: 1) Why is this happening? How on earth does my modem even know I'm displaying that menu, let alone see it as a signal to break the connection? and 2) Is there anything I can do about it, because it's extremely annoying if I've got connections open that I don't want to reset (downloads, chat, etc) - IMSoP (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you getting disconnected from the internet or from the SpeedTouch modem? So in other words, can you still access your SpeedTouch modem? My first assumption would be you are getting disconnected from the modem, which could be happening since it's connected via a USB cable. But if the problem is that you can access your modem but on the internet, then I have no idea how that can happen. - Akamad (talk) 09:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the symptoms are simply that as soon as I click the icon, the Internet connection goes down and immediately tries to "redial". Normally, it picks straight back up again, but obviously all my applications have to re-establish their connections. Although, while testing it today, I've had it completely fail to come back a couple of times, and actually had to reboot my computer to reset the modem, which is odd.

Notably, the lights on the modem do not change during this process, suggesting that the USB connection retains power (otherwise it would need to reload its "firmware"). I've also upgraded the driver to the latest version from the Thomson website, but that hasn't helped.

I can only assume that to display that menu, Windows polls all the connected devices, and that polling is somehow "confusing" the modem and causing it to unsync. But I don't even know if that's the modem's fault or Windows's - most devices don't really need to stay in sync like that, so I imagine I wouldn't notice. - IMSoP (talk) 16:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• Ask your ISP an ethernet modem, (my old ISP used to replace the USB ones for free, just say you modem does not work on your operating system) it solves 99% of the problems you might have with the internet connection:

• No crappy drivers to install (none at all!)
• Works on all OSes
• No bluescreens and crap like that due to the drivers (I used to have them)
• No more problems like the ones you mentioned.

Seriously, get yourself and ethernet modem ASAP! SF007 (talk) 00:24, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

October 26

Work and privacy

While at work, I keep my GMail and GChat open. Occasionally I need to gripe about the knuckleheads I work with. Sometimes this griping to a friend on GChat involves very explicit and inappropriate language about these knuckleheads I work for. Can my job track/save/watch me while I'm on my Gchat and saying these awful things? --72.78.20.45 (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If your company controls the software on the machine you're using, of course they can. Many companies use spyware to keep track of what employees do on company time. See spyware RayAYang (talk) 03:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If you use https when surfing GMail (you can configure this in the settings), it's less likely that they're listening to you. Then your conversation is encrypted when it goes over the wires. Depending on your how evil your employer is, they could still be monitoring you using keyloggers and by taking screen-captures. But it's a lot less likely, I think. If you're going to do this, at least make sure you're using https. Belisarius (talk) 08:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are on windows, fire up task manager. Under processes, you will probably find some form of VNC. If it is there, consider yourself lucky. Your management is being 'upfront' that your screen can be watched remotely. Kushal (talk) 11:28, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If you have VNC on your work computer, it is more likely that it's there to provide remote access for your help desk than for monitoring/spying-on your activity. Typically VNC also appears as an icon on the system tray (aka notification area) and, if I recall correctly, will clearly indicate when someone has connected. -- Tcncv (talk) 14:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if they know I'm Gmail, but can they actually read my conversations and incoming/outgoing mail?--72.78.20.45 (talk) 14:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If they wanted to, probably. There are many ways they could do so. If you are working on their computer and on their network they could have set it up in a variety of ways to look at what you do. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

In the settings menu of gmail, you can choose "always use https". It's not on by default, but if you activate it, the chances that they can read what you are writing would be slim, wouldn't they? (unless they are using some sort of keylogging mechanism) --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the technical specifics of your situation, you're smarter doing the griping at home. I've had my fair share of colleagues who thought they were being clever doing things on the internet that they weren't allowed to do at work, only to find the management was monitoring them in some way they hadn't thought of. And nobody wants to be the guy who lost his job over porn. ;-) Really, if you value your paycheck, don't gripe at work, especially not over the internet, it's just dumb. Gripe when you get home, if you have to. You do not have very much privacy at work, especially when it comes to outgoing communications, which are often routinely screened. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Firefox Favorites

One of my computers just crashed and I can't boot off of the hard drive but I can connect the hard drive to another computer and access the data. My question is, is there anywhere (a folder or a file) where firefox saves the favorites? I never specifically exported the favorites list from firefox and there were quite a few favorite links. I looked through different places but couldn't find a list of favorites so that I can restore the list. Does anyone know, where foes firefox save them and what is the file called? I mean, there must a place otherwise how does firefox remember your favorites. Thanks!--69.110.132.97 (talk) 05:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It depends on your version of Firefox and operating system. This page will help you find your profile folder, the location of which is OS-dependent. In Firefox 2.x and below bookmarks will be in a "bookmarks.html" HTML file; whereas for Firefox 3.0 and above it will be in "places.sqlite" database(?) file. This page will tell you more about bookmarks. In either case, you can simply copy the relevant file(s) over to another Firefox (same version) profile folder on another computer. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 07:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Or if that doesn't work for some reason you can copy over your entire profile folder and use that in your new installation. --wj32 ^t/c 09:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Computer mouse

heading added by Belisarius (talk) 08:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC) Does mouse really stand for "Manually Operated User's Selection Equipment"? 122.162.173.213 (talk) 07:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

No. A mouse is called a mouse because it looks like a teeny-tiny cute little mouse! Belisarius (talk) 08:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

..which you could have learned by just typing in mouse into the search bar at left. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely because it looks like a mouse. Some of the early models more so than modern ones because for a while the cable came out of the opposite end to the end with the buttons - and the buttons kinda looked like ears with the wire looking like a tail. But there is definitely no truth to the story that it's some kind of acronym. SteveBaker (talk) 12:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It can be called a backronym, though our article doesn't include it (but it does seem to include a lot of mnemonics that are not backronyms at all). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Laptop LCD Problem

I have an Acer TravelMate 3260 which is ~1 year old. Today I was cleaning the LCD screen using the solution I always use - it is some non-streaking cleaning solution from Gulf Oil. In the past it has never caused any damage to the laptop. Today, however, after cleaning the bottom left part of my screen is discolored and has weird patterns. Everything is properly displayed, only that ugly discoloration/pattern is there.

http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image000yb5.jpg http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image001mz3.jpg

The above images were taken using my digital camera. They are not really clear, but the damage is visible.

I would request someone to advise me whether it is a permanent damage, or a temporary one? Will the discoloration go away by itself in a few days, or do I need to take the laptop to a service center? Will I need to get the complete screen replaced? Can I do anything at all to remedy the situation at home? Thanks! --RohanDhruva (talk) 09:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

To me, it looks a little like you've wiped away part of the screen's coating. In that case, it's fairly permanent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Washii (talk • contribs) 03:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Does the screen have anti-reflective coating? You really have to be careful in cleaning that type of screen; usually water and a microfibre cloth is best. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, it looks permanent to me too. I guess a trip to the service center is essential. In the future, only water + microfibre cloth for cleaning it. --RohanDhruva (talk) 14:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Bridging routers with a cable

I have a Netgear wireless hub (not sure about the model number, sorry) and a long ethernet cable, and a guy staying down the hall in my student residence has agreed I can use his connection (via his own router). I can run my cable to near my room, but not quite into it, and I'm out of wireless range. So my question is, can I connect my hub by cable to the router and use it to extend the wireless network?

I need to know exactly what changes to the other router are needed, cause I only have access to it as a favour. Really can't spend much time mucking about with it, or try stuff I don't understand to see what happens. Let me know if you need model numbers to answer this and I'll check them. Thanks. — FIRE!^{in a crowded theatre...} 13:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The other issue is that another housemate wants to connect too, but there's only one spare ethernet port on the router. So getting a longer cable wouldn't solve the problem. — FIRE!^{in a crowded theatre...} 13:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The name of the model might help, but I'd say there's a good chance it'll work fine, at least for basic web surfing, if you just plug it in. To your neighbor's router, your hub will just look like another computer (or possibly several, if it doesn't NAT), while your hub won't really care what it's plugged into as long as it can get an outbound route. There are a bunch of things that might go wrong, and several ways in which the setup could be improved, but there's a good chance it'll more or less work out of the box. (You do still want to configure your hub, if only to change the default admin password, but that's a given anyway.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

iPod without iTunes

I quite like the idea of getting myself an iPod, but I really want nothing to do with iTunes. Is it possible to use an iPod, connect it to my Windows PC, copy MP3s to the iPod over the USB cable, etc, without ever running or even installing iTunes? Astronaut (talk) 13:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't just copy them over but there are alternative programs you can use. There are, of course, other mp3 players other than iPod. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this true? damn! I find it kinda hard to believe since Apple sends the message of "out of the box" products... I now like it even less... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.241.122.236 (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how the linked article or the response changes the "out of the box" nature of the iPod. It still works right out of the box. Dismas|^(talk) 17:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. Trouble is though, all the Windows compatible programs require you to have installed iTunes and run it at least once to change a setting in the iPod. I don't even want to install iTunes at all. Ideally, I would want an iPod to work just like an external USB drive without any additional software - I'm quite happy managing my own synchronization by manually copying my MP3s to the iPod. Astronaut (talk) 15:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Then why not ignore the marketing and buy one of the many other digital audio players on the market? Many allow you to directly add and remove music files simply by placing them into the right folder, and support many more formats than iPods. If you were feeling adventurous, you could even try something that supports the Rockbox alternative firmware. - IMSoP (talk) 17:08, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, if you really loathe iTunes that much, go with another player. But, I should point out, iTunes is a fantastic piece of software. It's the best music organizer/database program out there, and it's the best I've seen at synching music to your iPod (and I'm one of those open-source Apple-hating freaks that only use windows when I have to, and would much rather run Ubuntu 100% of the time). Unless you have a very old computer (iTunes is heavy, but not absurdly so) or have deep philosophical objections to Apple (in which case you shouldn't buy an iPod at all), I recommend you try it. It's one of those cases where it really is as good as everyone says. Belisarius (talk) 17:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Except, of course, the people who say it is a horrible piece of software. Try a Zune ;) FreeMorpheme (talk) 18:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

(simultaneous edit)

Except that "everyone" doesn't say so; I've spoken to plenty of people who've used it and found it didn't suit them, though others (like you) swear by it.

And surely "it's the best I've seen at synching music to your iPod" is a bit of a feeble claim, since it's the only official way of doing so? Or did you mean you prefer it over the software available for other players, and over manipulating files directly on players that support that? - IMSoP (talk) 18:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I know I can buy other players, but I really like intuitive nature of the iPod user interface. However, I really don't like what I've heard about iTunes, it's too tight integration with iTunes Store, it's synchronization mechanism where music can get deleted, and I don't really need (or want) a "music organizer/database program". Astronaut (talk) 18:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The claim that iTunes is "the best music organizer/database program out there" is nothing more than a personal opinion. For me, it is one of the absolute worst. I use Amarok. It plays music. It organizes it - even moving the files around and renaming them so I can find them on my drive easily. It links to the artist, album, and song articles on Wikpedia while playing the songs. It links to the lyrics using a variety of online lyrics databases. It automatically updates my profile on lastfm and offers suggestions and downloads from lastfm. It has a built-in normalizer so I don't have to keep adjusting the volume with every song. But, most important, it runs on my computer. I run Linux and iTunes on Linux is terrible. You have to run it through Wine, losing most of the features of iTunes. -- kainaw™ 18:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Instead of discussing the pros and cons of iTunes, what Astronaut asked was, "Is it possibly to copy MP3s to the iPod over the USB cable, etc, without ever running or even installing iTunes?" 98.217 answered "no", which I find hard to believe. Doesn't an iPod appear as an external drive in Windows Explorer when you connect it with a usb cable, in the same way as just about any mp3 player or mobile phone these days, allowing you to drag-and-drop music files? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe the "database" has to be rebuilt before the iPod will see the new / changed files; it won't just scan the directory itself. So you have to use some kind of tool to build the "library" file after you've done dragging and dropping. (I may be wrong though.) - IMSoP (talk) 22:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Correct. You can copy an mp3 to an iPod without iTunes. The result will be an mp3 file sitting on the iPod drive that iPod ignores. I don't have an iPod, but I do have one of those Shuffle things. I use a Linux script to copy mp3s to the Shuffle in the proper directories and set the Shuffle database appropriately. I do not know if such a script exists for Windows. -- kainaw™ 01:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

ml_iPod, the plugin for Winamp, states on their website and forums that it's possible to manage and copy music to/from an iPod with their program without the need to ever use itunes. However, I believe the only way to update the firmware for the device is via the native itunes support. Nanonic (talk) 02:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Depending on which iPod you have, you might be able to Rockbox it. Kushal (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, from personal experience, it's hard, but probably possible. I am assuming that you know about the "Ipod Control" hidden folder and that mess. Well, If you just manually add mp3's / other file types to a folder (even if it is one of the right ones), ur iPod can't play it. Don't ask me why, I just work here. flaminglawyer^c 04:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Evil WMP 11 and monitored folders

My Media player 11 has taken it upon itself to monitor my desktop for files, as well as my Recycle Bin, which as you can probably imagine, is extremely annoying. The only folders it is supposed to monitor are the ones I can't make it stop monitoring, ie my Music and Rip Folders. I am running XP Pro, and rolling MP back to 10 and reinstalling did nothing.

Anyone have any ideas how I can hobble this vile bit of software? FreeMorpheme (talk) 18:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried setting the options within WMP itself? I don't know what your situation is but I would go ahead and forget that WMP exists in my system at all and go use some other media player. Kushal (talk) 19:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly what makes you think it is monitoring those folders? Secondly, Media Player doesn't "monitor" anything when not running, so clearly you've been running it, and it's somewhat silly to complain about the configuration of the software if you haven't attempted the relatively simple process of editing the list of folders it watched for media. I didn't put any details in about changing this, because anyone who calls software vile because of there own short comings isn't likely to care about actually fixing any problems (I dont actually see a problem, as it doesnt affect the system, especially when you don't run it) when they could just use harsh words to try and put down a program that is fairly good at doing the job it is intended for. Seriously though, you really know what you're talking about, I bet you put some great arguments forward for why Microsoft is "evil" and don't know anything about how the free market works. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 21:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Did you even bother to read my original post, you boobjockey? Obviously I do use MP11, everyone knows it monitors folders for files, and I already said that I have edited which folders I want it to monitor to no avail, it still goes its merry way to monitor what it wants and adds files to my Library that I don't want. If anyone with an attention span of more than one sentence has any ideas why it is doing this, please help me out. Alternatively, the only reason I am using 11 is because it's the only way I know of streaming to my PS3, if there is something else that does this then I'll use that. FreeMorpheme (talk) 09:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Hehe, boobjockey. No it doesn't monitor any folders not on the Library monitor list. If you only use it for streaming, turn off monitoring all together, that will stop it, but I wouldn't be suprised if you're actually using a toaster. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 10:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Cool it, you two! Although I am using WMP11 on Vista, this should be applicable: right-click the 'Library' tab button, then hit 'More Options'. In the 'Library' tab of the window that appears, hit 'Monitor Folders', then 'Advanced Options'. Remove your desktop, recycle bin and whatever else from the list, then hit OK/Apply. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 10:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Well I appreciate your help, but the only folders in there are My Music and the Rip folder, as I mentioned. This is why I got stuck, and why MP11 is hacking me off so much. The Rip folder is in another folder on the desktop, but I don't see why that should throw it so badly. FreeMorpheme (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.60.20.81 (talk) 11:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

XP - Programs crash on startup

Hi, on my friends computer lots of programs crash when they are loaded (with, for example "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close"). Does anyone know why this might be? Thanks 77.99.21.181 (talk) 18:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Could be a faulty Windows installation, and that's just a guess. For a start, you could try System File Checker. However, it could be anything, based on what I know. Kushal (talk) 19:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

One of the many possibilities is faulty RAM, although that often leads to BSODs as well. If you google diagnose faulty ram or something similar, you'll get a bunch of suggestions and links to various tools. I once had a PC with related problems, it was dual boot Windows Xp and Debian linux. The symptoms were: linux programs which involved heavy numerical computations were crash-prone, without taking down the entire OS. Windows was reasonably stable, except for the occasional (about once a month) BSOD. After a lot of frustration, I burned a memtest86 bootable CD, which immediately found the cause. Here's a howto. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it could easily be a RAM fault. Memory chips are susceptible to "pattern faults" where they only fail when certain patterns of 1's and 0's are written into them. In the extreme, this can result in all sorts of peculiar failures - like programs crashing only when you load certain files into them - or browsers failing only for certain websites. More commonly though, you just find the system is generally unreliable without any really specific sets of symptoms...and that's what seems to be happening here. When your PC boots, it probably does a really simple RAM check - but because time is limited, it's a very cursory check. A stand-alone RAM checker can't run under Windows or Linux - it's a very special program that you boot from CD-ROM or a memory stick. A really good RAM checker may take hours to find the particular pattern that kills your machine - so be prepared to let it run overnight if necessary. RAM is pretty cheap right now - so if it's faulty, you can carefully remove the 'sticks' of memory - take them to your local computer store and ask them to supply you with an equivalent part to replace it with. You need to be careful of static electricity when you work inside the PC. I suggest doing it in the kitchen (with the PC unplugged!) and discharging any static by holding on to the frame of the computer and the kitchen faucet at the same time for a few seconds after you've opened the case - but before you touch any of the electronics. The RAM stick(s) are about 4" long by about an inch tall and stick up at right angles to the motherboard - and you probably have either one or two of them. There should be little plastic levers at either end of each stick of RAM - push those outwards and downwards and the RAM should just pop out. When you put the new RAM in, push it firmly into the socket and push the levers back up to lock it in place. If you have more than one RAM stick, probably only one of them needs to be replaced - you can try swapping them out one at a time for a new part and re-running the memory checker to see which one fixes it. Either way, you should do one last check with the memory checker to be sure your new memory is functioning properly before you try to boot up into Windows again.

Another possibility is that your friend's computer is so laden with viruses and malware that it's just become too unstable to run at all. So if the memory check doesn't turn up anything - it's time to consider re-installing everything - or at least giving the machine a careful malware checkup.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You left out the link to memtest86. Download it, burn it, leave it running for a few hours while you go to work or watch TV or whatever. That'll tell you if it's faulty RAM or something else. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

cd stuck in macbook

Hello,

I am back again. My friend has a macbook (Intel, 10.4.11, white, base configuration). As the title says, a cd got stuck in it. We tried pretty much every trick we knew about including tilting, pressing the trackpad while booting (it makes a sound indicating it is trying to get the cd out but is unable to), flashing PRAM, using a credit card to keep the metallic slot open ... nothing seems to work. However, I wanted to ask you guys about it before I send it off to Apple to fix it (as I am pretty sure we don't have AppleCare anymore.) Any ideas? (I am also starting to feel that the CD slot was not such a great idea after all.) Kushal (talk) 19:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a tiny little hole somewhere on or near the CD drive? If so, that might be the manual eject button. Shove a bent paperclip or something in there (needless to say, with the power off). If it is, it should force the disc out. I've never had a slot optical drive though, so I don't know if this'll work. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 19:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't know about the OP's MacBook but if it's the same as mine then there isn't a hole like the one you describe. If you Google "macbook cd stuck", you'll get a number of suggestions. Dismas|^(talk) 19:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

No holes for manual eject. I have already tried google but nothing works in my case. What makes it worse is that OS X does not start anymore! Just at the same time as the cd gets stuck is when mac needs to crash. Any ideas on making the computer operable again? Kushal (talk) 20:12, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I had a similar problem and had to send it in to Apple for disassembly. Note that they got it out of the drive but did NOT send me the CD back. (I later e-mailed and asked if they still had it, and they told me they'd be happy to send it or a replacement—it was a basic OS X install disk—but they never did. They were, of course, not obligated to do so, having stated so many times when you send it in that they can't guarantee sending it back.)

Do you have any clue what is keeping it in the slot? One of my problems with the slot was a CD that had a library sticker on top of it, which kept it from ejecting. I ended up doing something really goofy with like an index card and a piece of double-sided tape that somehow eventually let me work it out of the drive. Not easy, though. Probably bad for the drive, too.

Incidentally, I don't like slot loading drives either anymore... when they work, they are only marginally more cool looking than other type of drive, but when they don't work... you're pretty screwed.

Keep in mind that even if you don't have Applecare you can still purchase it if the purchasing would be cheaper than the operation on it. You can purchase Applecare up to 3 years after purchasing your product, and Macbooks started selling in 2006, so it should be fine... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally - I would NEVER put a CD with any kind of sticker on it into my CD drive. If the sticker is not 100% perfectly symmetrically placed (and they never are), the weight of the sticker unbalances the drive and causes the bearings to wear out amazingly fast. As you've also noticed, the extra thickness of the sticker can cause the disk to foul the mechanism - either when it's spinning or during loading and unloading. Also the adhesive under the sticker can ooze out under the heat of the laser or even leach chemicals into the plastic of the disk and produce all sorts of ikky problems. CD's are NOT designed to work with stickers...ditto DVD's, BluRay's, etc, etc. SteveBaker (talk) 12:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It's for similar reasons I don't think slot drives on laptops are a good idea. Sounds far too easy for dirt and debris - something laptops are inevitably exposed to - to get inside and jam the gubbins. That might be what has happened here. I hope Apple have axed them from more recent models. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 12:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) - This extract is taken from a thread on the Whirlpool computer forums based in Australia - it describes your problem perfectly, and answers it pretty much as well: - **If it doesn't eject when booting with the mouse button or eject key down, and it's just the rollers slipping, you have a faulty drive, and unless you've done something stupid like put a disc covered in stickers on it, then take it in and get it fixed. It's not your fault that Apple didn't put a force eject on it, and it's a warranty issue. No point taking it up with customer relations unless you've had lots of problems and you want a replacement (though, if your CD is stuck in it, you need to get it back, so you'll need to take it in for repair first anyway). The maintenance manual is very clear about this: If the drive doesn't eject a CD when you hold down the trackpad on a restart, and a reseat of the cable doesn't fix it, then the drive needs replacing.** Thor Malmjursson (talk) 14:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

What is ""reseat if the cable"? How can I do that? Kushal (talk) 06:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This is so ... so not nice. I failed to mention earlier but the exact incident happened before, when it was under AppleCare. We got it to Apple after he got back from school at the end of the fall semester. Apple said they fixed the issue in his MacBook. Less than a year later, when we are out of AppleCare, it happened again!

So I guess they just got the CD out and never fixed the drive? I feel Apple cheated us. Kushal (talk) 14:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

October 27

Program to stitch PNG files (frames) into a movie.

I used pymol to make a series of PNG files. The PNG files need to be put together to make a movie, using an external program. What free tools are available to do this? --Seans Potato Business 00:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I know that convert can string multiple gifs into an animated gif as well as convert png to gif. I'm sure it can do a lot more. I couldn't easily find the wikipedia article for convert. -- kainaw™ 03:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It's ImageMagick. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I was going to add a note on convert, but you beat me to it. -- kainaw™ 04:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

That was the first place for me to look too! Perhaps you can make the entry look a bit better. Under unix the command starts with lower case "c" so it looks strange starting the sentence with a lower case convert. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I've used VirtualDub for this sort of thing in the past. I'm not sure I recommend it though, it's a bit rough. APL (talk) 05:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I use this mplayer command to make timelapses, works with png or jpeg (or anything else mplayer can read): mencoder "mf://*.JPG" -vf scale=640:480 -o mjpeg2.avi -of lavf -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -lavfopts format=avi -mf fps=15 Polvi (talk) 05:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I use mencoder too - but it's a tough tool to use well. It's a command-line tool with an utterly insane number of options. This makes it extremely powerful - but painful to get right. SteveBaker (talk) 12:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Quicktime Player Pro can also do this. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 14:25, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Search engine indexing

Approximately how long does it take a search engine to update its search results? For example, if I mark my userpage with __NOINDEX__, approximately how long does it take for this to take effect? -- penubag  (talk) 01:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This is nothing more than an anecdote. It is not a theory based on data. When I make a change to kainaw.com, I see updates to the main search engines within 3 days. Usually, it happens in 24 hours, but has taken longer from time to time. -- kainaw™ 03:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

About three days and my userpage will stop appearing on Google? Alright, thanks for the info.-- penubag  (talk) 04:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

No - it's much more complex than that. Most search engines check 'important' pages more often than unimportant ones. Also, after you delete your page, it'll continue to be in Googles "cache" for a while afterwards. So, for fast-changing and popular news sites, Google may update in only hours...but for a rarely-visited and low-scoring (ie unimportant) page, it may be weeks before Google gets around to re-checking it.SteveBaker (talk) 12:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're in a hurry, you can request urgent removal of your page from Google. They don't make any guarantees, but at least it'll give their searchbot a hint that your page might need revisiting. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if they were monitoring Wikipedia's RecentChanges feed anyway. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

ugh, if Wikipedia is updated a lot, why hasn't __NOINDEX__ taken effect yet? I would ask Google to take down my page, but other search engines are going to still have it up, as well as all the millions of Wikipedia mirrors sites.-- penubag  (talk) 10:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Aside from anything else - you should be using the {{NOINDEX}} template...but I doubt that'll make much difference. At any rate - Google doesn't do ranking based on the entire website - it does it page-by-page - so your user page may well be so unimportant that it won't get re-examined for ages. OTOH, the Wikipedia front page probably gets re-checked every 30 minutes or something. SteveBaker (talk) 19:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. If it's going to be ages, I might as well ask them to take it down. -- penubag  (talk) 03:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

A PROBLEM IN C++ [COMPUTER PROGRAM]

2 4 5 1 7 6 3 8 THE QUESTION IS TO FIND THE NO. OF CYCLES IN IT. FOR EG: THE FIRST NO. IS 2 SO THE 2ND NO. IS VISITED AND AGAIN THE 4TH NO. IS VISITED WHICH IS 1.AGAIN THE 1ST NO. IS VISITED. SO THE 1ST CYCLE IS ::::2 4 5 1 ONE CONDITION:: ONCE A PLACE IS ALREADY VISITED IT CANNOT BE VISITED AGAIN LIKE 4 AND I CANNOT BE VISITED AGAIN

PROBLEM:: I HAVE DONE THE PROGRAM BUT THE OUTPUT IS NOT CORRECT

#include<iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
 int a[20],temp[10];
 a[0]='\0',temp[0]='\0';
 int cycle=0,pos=0,t=0,i=1,j=0,k=0,n,m;
 cout<<"Enter no. of array elements::::";
 cin>>n;
 cout<<"Enter the array elements"<<endl;
 for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
 {
  cin>>a[i];
 }

 while(i<=n)
 {
  if(a[i]==i)
	cout<<a[i];
  cycle++;

  a[i]=pos;

  if(a[pos]>pos)
  {
	temp[t++]=a[pos];
	pos=a[pos];
  }
  else
  {
   temp[t++]=a[pos];
	k=a[pos];

	cout<<"cycle"<<endl;
	for(j=k;j<pos;j++)
	{
	 cout<<a[j]<<" ";
	}

	cycle++;
  }

  a[pos]='\0';
  pos=0;
  k=0;

  i++;
  for(m=0;m<t;m++)
  {
	if(a[i]==temp[m])
	 i++;
  }
 }
 temp[0]='\0';
 cout<<"No. of cycles"<<cycle;
}

Well...

#include<iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>

void main()
{
 int a[20],temp[10];

It's a bad idea to use 'magic constants' like 20 and 10 - you need to give them names and declare them as 'const int'.

 a[0]='\0',temp[0]='\0';

Why '\0' and not just 0 ? The notation '\0' means "a character whose ASCII code is zero" - why are you using a character to initialise an integer?

 int cycle=0,pos=0,t=0,i=1,j=0,k=0,n,m;
 cout<<"Enter no. of array elements::::";
 cin>>n;

What happens if the user doesn't type in a valid number? You need to test for illegal entries and re-ask.

 cout<<"Enter the array elements"<<endl;
 for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
 {
  cin>>a[i];
 }

• You also need to check that the user actually entered a valid number each time around the loop.
• You need to be careful that the user doesn't enter a number bigger than 20 because you'll overflow the array 'a' and probably crash your program.
• Arrays in C start with an index of zero...not one - so 'int a[20];' declares an array with 20 elements starting at a[0] and running up to a[19]. Your loop runs from 1..n. It should be 'for(i=0;i<n;i++)'

 while(i<=n)
 {

When the loop (above) finishes, 'i' will always be equal to 'n+1' - so this 'while' loop will never execute. I have no clue what you're trying to do here (because the question you started with is written so confusingly)...but whatever your goal, this will never achieve it. Probably you really need another for loop just like the one you used to read in the data.

  if(a[i]==i)
	cout<<a[i];
  cycle++;

  a[i]=pos;

  if(a[pos]>pos)
  {
	temp[t++]=a[pos];
	pos=a[pos];
  }
  else
  {
   temp[t++]=a[pos];
	k=a[pos];

Because 'temp[t++]=a[pos]' happens whether or not 'a[pos]>pos' - you should move this statement up above the 'if' statement to save code.

Around about here - I pretty much gave up trying to help you. This code is almost impossible to follow because you have not given your variables meaningful names and there are no comments telling us what's going on. Because your statement of the problem is hard to understand, I can't tell whether what you need to do is what you are actually doing...so I can't tell whether this is right or wrong. However, the profusion of little adjustments of indices and the use of arrays that start at different indices speaks of poor grasp of the algorithm you're trying to implement. I think you should start off by writing down what the program is going to do in English before you write a single line of C code. Break it down into steps and use that English as comments when you actually start writing the code. Make your variable names meaningful - and don't re-use them for multiple jobs.

Also - this is clearly a homework problem - and we're not allowed to do your homework for you. SteveBaker (talk) 12:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As SteveBaker says, give meaningful names to variables. "n" is bad, something like "length_of_input" or "size_of_array" is better.

It may help to write the problem in pseudocode (human-readable made-up code) first - not only will this make writing the program easier, but the person marking the problem will give you more marks for making it easier to follow your logic.

As I understand the problem, you need to read in a list of integers. Starting at the first element in the list, use the value of that element as the index of the next element. If that index has already been visited, then stop (otherwise we'll go round in a circle). For that, I'd use the following pseudocode:

int read_integer_from_user() {
   /* you could use sprintf for this */
}
int main(argc, argv) {
   int values[max_size_of_array]; // a list of values we want to work with
   int visited_how_many_times[max_size_of_array]; // how many times we've been to each index
   for (each value in visited_how_many_times) { set value = 0 }
   
   size_of_input = read_integer_from_user()
   if (size_of_input < 1 || size_of_input >= max_size_of_array) { error }
   for (i = 0; i < size_of_input; i++) {
      values[i] = read_integer_from_user()
   }
   
   current_element_index = 0 // start at first element in the list
   while (1) { // this is an infinite loop - leave it using "break"  
      if (current_element_index < 0 || current_element_index >= size_of_input) { error }
      if (visited_how_many_times[current_element_index] > 0) {
         // we've been here before, lets get out of the loop
         break
      } else {
         visited_how_many_times[current_element_index] += 1
      }
      print "index=", current_element, "value=", values[current_element]
      // the element value is the next index, starting at 1 (our arrays start at zero, so minus 1)
      current_element = values[current_element] - 1
   }
   
   print "the end" // done!
}

I would make read_integer_from_user a function, as you use the same code several times. max_size_of_array could be done with #define max_size_of_array 20 --h2g2bob (talk) 15:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Logging Program

I am looking to have a website for people to sign in and out of study hours. It would have to log their IP address as well as the time in order to match it up to a place on campus. The user would be able to enter in the time to log out, but that time can be no later than the current time. Also, the user would be able to sign in at any time, to check their total time logged. A safety would probably need to be built in so that if they sign in from another location while they are "checked in" an alert pops up both to the user, as well as in the log.

The basic idea is to have a log sheet on the internet that matches times with locations that can be retrieved by the administrator. Is this possible? And, if so, would it be cheap? --omnipotence407 (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand all of this question, especially this bit:

"The user would be able to enter in the time to log out, but that time can be no later than the current time."

By any chance do you mean: "that time must be later than the current time"? CBHA (talk) 16:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I am also confused by the question. If students are using an on-line application to study then surely the application will log usage information ? On the other hand, if the students could be studying from textbooks etc. and are just signing in and out on a honour system, so you have no way of verifying that they really did spend this time studying, then why not just ask them to keep a record their study time and send a weekly e-mail; the administrator could manually log study time into a spreadsheet or simple database. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be based on the honor system, but with a need to verify location. There isn't an online study application, it is merely a combined log sheet for multiple locations that can checked at whatever time the administrator sees fit. The time thing is so they can put down a time earlier than the present in case they need to sign out if they forgot to when they left, however, they cannot sign out in advance.--omnipotence407 (talk) 19:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Norton Antivirus question

Sometimes when I'm using the computer, Norton Antivirus (ver 12.8.0.4) starts a disk scan.

I would like to be able to pause or stop the scan and have it restart later when the computer is not being used.

I realize this is something the software maker should answer but in my experience they make it difficult to ask a question, much less get an answer. That is why I'm asking here.

Thanks, CBHA (talk) 16:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't use Nortan, use a free antivius like Clamwin --78.150.149.70 (talk) 17:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring the rather unhelpful comment above, I can't say if this is 100% correct but most antivirus suites allow you to specify what time your regular scan occurs (3am is a common time) - check the settings. Exxolon (talk) 19:24, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Video and audio editing

I'd like to ask a few questions (couldn't find the right software to start with... by searching and googling)

1) is there any specific software that helps with video editing - cutting, merging...etc?

2) is there any software that can convert video to audio (e.g. to extract what is being said in a film and save it as an .mp3 file)?

I'd prefer free software, but any suggestions are welcome.--123.203.44.97 (talk) 17:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

1. The two most widely used video-editing programs are Final Cut Pro and Avid. These are what all the pro's use when putting together a movie. As for free versions, I've heard decent things about Cinelerra, but I can't testify to it personally. See also List of video editing software
2. There's lots of tools to do this, ffmpeg being perhaps the most famous. It is, however, command-line, so it's a little tricky to do. I'm fairly certain that Avidemux can do this pretty easily. Belisarius (talk) 17:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I would use VirtualDub (combined with CCCP) for the second one, but I don't know if VirtualDub can handle the first one. --wj32 ^t/c 05:24, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

mplayer can do it too - but it's also a fairly ikky command line monster. SteveBaker (talk) 19:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

For Q#1, I've found that good ol' Windows Movie Maker is the easiest - it can do everything that all the other free ones can do, but its already on your computer (or, if u have a mac, iMovie is the best vid editor by far for that platform). 75.66.48.112 (talk) 04:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC) flaminglawyer^c 04:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC) (forgot to sign in)

• I agree completely with Belisarius' first point. Avid is the best if you're using Windows and Final Cut Pro is the best if you're using a Mac. But if you want something easy to use, yet powerful, then I recommend Sony's Vegas Video.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 05:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

MSN on outlook

I made an email address of <user>@msn.com using the MSN explorer. Now i want to use this email address on Outlook or Thunderbird. I cannot find settings. Can anyone help? I've not paid for any MSN service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhammad Hamza (talk • contribs) 17:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This page from Mozillazine gives some help about setting up MSN Mail accounts which support POP messaging. Microsoft says that POP accounts are not available for free accounts. Try one of the other email websites! --h2g2bob (talk) 21:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Converting .SWF video into h264 .M4V or Quicktime?

I have a SWF that only contains video. Is there a way I can convert it into something my iPod or PS3 can handle? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 21:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Use iSquint. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Recommendations for a good Mac forum to join

I have the feeling I'll be needing expert specialized knowledge soon... Does anyone have recommendations for a forum on Macs? I have an old Mac system (OS X 10.2) on an old Mac G4 (AGP graphics), so am looking for a board with lots of users with experience with different types of software and hardware. Also a high-traffic site so I would be more likely to get my question answered. Not that I won't ask the fine people here (see my next question), but I've been looking to join a good Mac forum anyway. TresÁrboles (talk) 22:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I've found the Forums at Macrumors.com to be excellent--very active, with knowledable and helpful people.--Zerozal (talk) 13:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion; I'll check them out. TresÁrboles (talk) 19:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I disabled services I shouldn't have and can't start them again...

Under windows 2000, I disabled and stopped services that I thought was extraneous but my computer is weird now, skype doesn't work, etc. so I want to start them again, but it's not possible...any hints? Thanks.

Please give more details. How is it not possible? --wj32 ^t/c 05:33, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Startup prob on Mac!

I think my disk drive may be failing. The background is: icons starting disappearing on one of my partitions. After some fiddling around with opening and closing the window, and trying to list them out in Terminal with ls, and trying to find them using the Search files, some of them reappeared, but I know a lot of files are still missing. The weird thing is the ls command in Terminal won't even show the files that have reappeared, at least not if you only do an "ls" or "ls -al" (I also tried with sudo so permissions are not the problem). Using wildcards also won't work, e.g. "ls myfile*". But you can find them if you specifically name the full filename, e.g. "ls myfile.txt". Crazy! Anyway, that has been the situation for some days while I just left the Mac on (which I normally do), afraid to restart it -- I half thought a restart would fix things, and half thought it would entrench the screwiness. Well, unfortunately things were taken out of my hands, when we had a power outage at the house. When I powered back up, the disk icon for that disk partition was missing. Using the Disk Tool showed it was not mounted. (All the four other partitions of the actual 120GB hard disk were mounted.) I went to the Disk First Aid tab and ran repair (which I have never done before but it looked like an appropriate thing to do). It gave some message about corrupted nodes I think and then redoing a tree, and then said it was repaired. I then tried to mount the partition, but it didn't work. I think I then tried to run a Verify and then another Repair, and then I restarted the Mac.

Eep. After a long time, it finally got to the gray Apple logo startup screen where it continued to spin its wheels, and then it stopped and gave up. Now there is text in the upper left hand corner: "sh-2.05a#"

HELP!

(I just googled this, and it looks like it's the prompt for the UNIX monitor. I have a bit of UNIX admin experience, but still don't know how best to proceed.)

The operating system is OS X 10.2 and the Mac is a G4 (AGP). Yes, it's very old in computer years (8+ in human years)!

Please help if you can! Or recommend a good place to ask (see my previous question)! Thanks in advance! TresÁrboles (talk) 22:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that you are in the openfirmware prompt (the BIOS commandline for mac), try typing boot or mac-boot and see if that does anything. Check to see if you can view the invisible files with this command prompt, its unlikely, but a software module loaded when mac os x starts up is corrupted and is inhibiting your ability to view your files. If not, it looks like a good option would be to copy all the files you can to a backup disk using that command prompt then try reinstalling Mac OS X (it's possible that this is a software problem). If the reinstall doesn't work, then I'm not sure what else will help. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 23:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

O.K., I'll have to sleep on this first and do more research... I may want to see how I can change my startup drive to the smaller (original 20G) drive... but it has Mac OS 9 on it. TresÁrboles (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are having serious hard drive problems (and it sounds like you are), I would recommend getting DiskWarrior. It costs money but it's way more powerful than the free Mac harddrive tools. It can work some miracles. In any case, keep in mind that your goal at this point is just to get it working again, so you can get everything you need off of it. Even in things work perfectly after this episode you probably will want to get a new hard disk just to be safe. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Is DiskWarrior O.K. for my version of OS X? By the way, I've been spoiled by my Macs. I'm a Mac owner since 1984 and while the original didn't have a hard drive, I have never had any sort of problem with my Quadra 650 from 1993-2000, and my G4 from 2000 until now (even with herds of dust bunnies around). I don't know what was inside my Quadra, but the G4 came with a 20G Western Digital drive, and that's why I got a Western Digital brand for the second (ut primary in usage) drive (I forget when - maybe 4-5 years ago?) TresÁrboles (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Current versions of DiskWarrior do not support 10.2, but according to their requirements page you can contact them and buy earlier versions. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! TresÁrboles (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

October 28

How to do this in the command line...? (Ubuntu)

I would like add programs to system startup, but with the command line, what I want is to do the same thing that can be done by going to:

System -> Preferences -> Sessions -> Add

PS: I'm working on Ubuntu 8.10 (RC) and the program I want to add is padevchooser (the GUI for PulseAudio).

SF007 (talk) 00:21, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu is probably adding the commands into one of the myriad ".rc" files down under /etc/. What I would do is this: Use the pointsy-clicksy System->Preferences->Sessions->Add tool to add a command with a really distinctive name - or a really distinctive filename as a parameter - then do a "grep -R reallyDistinctiveName /etc" (you may need to be 'root') - and you should be able to find what file it got added into. Now you can edit that file manually to see what the Ubuntu gizmo added - and where. From that point on - writing a little shell script to add and remove commands to that exact file is (as they say) "left as an exercise for the reader"...but it should probably involve perl and/or sed - and will probably almost certainly need to be run as a 'sudo'. SteveBaker (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The tool SF007 is talking about relates to GNOME sessions, rather than UNIX System Services (although Unix services may be better - see Upstart for information on those). --h2g2bob (talk) 12:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Dumb question re: MacBook hard drives

I was thinking today it might be convenient to get a bigger hard drive for my MacBook. My 80GB one, which seemed so large only a year or two ago, now seems way too small—even with an external disk for my really big things, I'm still always struggling to keep about 10GB free, and that can get eaten up pretty easily with some of the stuff I work on.

I have some sort of Toshiba drive in there now. (TOSHIBA MK8034GSX) Is there any requirement about the type of drive I can get? Or can I just get any generic "laptop drive" and expect it to work once it is formatted, installed upon, etc.? Obviously I don't really just want any generic one—I'll spend time finding one that looks good and reliable and right—but I just mean, do I have to worry about the specific settings or type of drive or whatever? I'm assuming not but thought I would ask since some hardware obviously has to be matched very carefully to the motherboard requirements (like RAM) and things like that. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed the SATA/ATA difference. I suspect that is rather important... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

My brother had this same question a couple months ago. The Mac genius guy told him (paraphrased) "he had to have a special Mac drive because the Macbook case provided no cushioning for the drive. Therefore, the Mac drives have cushioning inside the drive. If you try to use a normal laptop drive (which expects cushioning in the case), you can easily damage the drive just by moving the laptop around." I disagree with the Mac genius. I've taken many laptops apart and I've never seen "cushioning" around the drive. So, in my opinion, you can use any drive - and yes, you will need SATA if it is a SATA port that it plugs into. -- kainaw™ 02:27, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

How strange. I know that Mac HDs have their own plastic housing but I didn't think it was unique to Macs (though I've only taken apart Mac laptops). In any case it is removable (could take the housing off of the existing drive and replace it). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:02, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Make sure that the drive is only 9.5mm high not the larger 12mm --Trieste (talk) 15:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Did you know that you do not need to have 10 GB free space? If you already have an external storage device, I'd suggest you don't worry about it too much. Kushal (talk) 22:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This is MacOS X. I'd be very uncomfortable with less than 10 GB free, because in my experience, it's not uncommon for the system to use 5+ GB of that for swap files. --Carnildo (talk) 23:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

D Programming Language

In the std.algorithm package in Phobos, functions are passed as strings. How does this work? eval()-oids? Or is it all compile-time? Thanks, *Max* (talk) 03:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC).

Quote from std.algorithm webpage:

Many functions in this module are parameterized with a function or a predicate . The predicate may be passed either as a function name, a delegate name, a functor name, or a compile-time string.

It's compiled. --wj32 ^t/c 05:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't know how I missed that. *Max* (talk) 00:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC).

Stopping Excel from minimizing sheets

I’ve Googled and run around the tech blogs, but no one seems to come close to a sensible answer to this one. When I copy-and-paste a column of numbers from a website spreadsheet (e.g., http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CPIAUCNS/downloaddata?cid=9), and paste it into my own Excel spreadsheet, two things happen. First, I am instantly jerked back to the source web page (not such a big deal). Second, and this drives me crazy, the Excel page (e.g., “Sheet 1”) pops out of maximized size (the sheet, not the program, shrinks). This makes the scroll bars disappear and causes a host of other problems.

Stats: XP Professional SP2; Office 2003

Is there a simple way to tell Excel to knock it off? DOR (HK) (talk) 05:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't have that version of Excel or that OS, but have you tried the Paste Special options? Try just pasting the "Values" and see if that works. Excel (and most Office products) go totally wonky when you try to paste from web browsers because they try to adapt the formatting. If you tell it to only paste the "values" it usually ignores formatting and works better. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Been there, done that. I "special paste" to avoid any formulae.DOR (HK) (talk) 06:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Roaring Fan on Dell XPS

I have a Dell XPS. After reformatting, the fan began to roar sporadically. It is important to note that the reformatting was the trigger that began the issue, and so dust or bearings being the issue is unlikely.

Additionally, the monitor mounted speakers will not function if plugged into the back port - where the soundcard is. The speakers, however, work perfectly if plugged into the front. Other speakers work when plugged into the back. It is a mystery.

I don't have to look far to find similar problems with XPS systems, but solutions are far more rare. Does anyone happen to know what could cause these symptoms after a reformat? --24.241.228.210 (talk) 10:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Does it only do it once in a while? Is there any correlation between you plugging in the computer after a long time and the roaring sound coming? Please let us know. Thank you. Kushal (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

trapping a generic keydown event in C#

In c++ I simply used the syntax

switch (msg)
{
case WM_KEYDOWN:

but in c# the test on the event can be only associated to a control like a textbox, AFAIK. Am I wrong?

Thank In Advance.

--Ulisse0 (talk) 14:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, but that is not as limiting as it sounds. Just about every visible element in a dotNet windows application is a descendant of Control, including the Form class itself. To demonstrate, create a new C# windows application (using the template), display the properties page for the the main form (right click > properties), set KeyPreview to true, click on the events icon at the top of the properties page, and double clicked the KeyDown event. This created the function below to which I added one line.

       private void Form1_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
       {
           Form1.ActiveForm.BackColor = Color.Red;
       }

Now, run the application, press any key, and the form turns red. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

CAD and 3D softwares

It may be a dumb question, but what is the difference between a 3D computer graphics software and a CAD software? Is the RD software a genre of CAD? Thanks. 85.112.95.14 (talk) 14:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, CAD might be only 2D - but 2D is just a subset of 3D - so let's assume you're talking about 3D CAD. Firstly - CAD is "Computer Aided Design" - it's a lot more than just graphics. However, the graphics part of CAD is essentially just a tiny subset of 3D computer graphics - although the latter term has come to mean stuff like video games, computer-rendered movies and stuff like that. In general, CAD users are much more interested in the precise geometry than they are about flashy surface rendering. They care a lot whether two parts accurately fit together - where (in a computer game, for example) - it may be perfectly acceptable to let them overlap each other if it makes things go faster without looking too terrible. Most non-CAD 3D users are very concerned with realism - so lighting and shadowing and surface textures and such are really important - where CAD users quite often only use 'wireframe' rendering so they can see things clearly without confusing surface clutter. So the practical disciplines of 3D graphics do provide the underpinnings of much of CAD - but it's only an area of overlap - probably only 1% of modern 3D graphics algorithms would be found in a typical CAD program - but then perhaps only 10% of a CAD program would involve graphics.

I'm not sure I can explain that any better - but if you have more specific questions - I'd be glad to answer them. I've been doing 3D computer graphics since the early 1980's. SteveBaker (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It may be an oversimplification, but CAD is used to design something that you can measure, analyze, and build. Here you are more interested in materials, dimensions, tolerances, connections, and manufacturing details. 3D graphics applications are used to design something to look at maybe play with (such as in video games). Often the emphasis is more on appearance and rendering speed, than on function and precision. Uses range from pure art, to architectural conceptual representations, project planning, advertising, animation, and of course gaming. As you can guess, there is much overlap. 3D graphics are used to display CAD models, and many CAD techniques are used to construct objects for 3D graphics applications. -- Tcncv (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I found your answers excellent. I just got what I wanted. Thanks again. 212.98.136.42 (talk) 13:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Team Communication

Hi there, I was told that Wikipedia has the ability for online team communication and/or task management types of software. Is this correct? If so can you provide details? D —Preceding unsigned comment added by DarleneRE (talk • contribs) 18:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking. We have a list of project management software if that's what you're after. If you want to use a wiki for team communication, MediaWiki (which Wikipedia runs on) is free and open-source. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 18:58, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well - we have 'talk:' pages - those are a kind of online team communication. But I'm not aware of any task management features. Are you sure you're thinking of "Wikipedia" and not Wiki's in general? Wikipedia is just a big database built with a software package called "MediaWiki". There are many other pieces of software that call themselves "Wiki" and provide features somewhat like MediaWiki - both with and without other stuff rolled in. For example - there is a commercial software package called "ClearSpace" (from Jive Software) - which integrates all sorts of features into a Wiki. In some respects, it's a lot more powerful than MediaWiki because it rolls in these other features. However, it's one of the most awful Wiki's you'll ever see - so I wouldn't give it a second glance. There is a fairly complete list of Wiki software packages in List of wiki software and we also have a Comparison of wiki software - although it doesn't have much to say about task management and such. SteveBaker (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

TI-89 Assembly-Language Programming

I have written a program in C that I wish to transfer from my computer to my TI-89 Titanium, but the file is listed as "Incompatible type" in the transfer window (even after changing the extension to .89z). What should I do? (The program can be found on my userpage) Lucas Brown (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you successfully compiled your C program into Ti89 assembler and linked it with whatever library code you might need? You have to do that on your PC using either TI Flash Studio, or TIGCC. (Sorry if this is obvious - we have to start with the basics and work up!) SteveBaker (talk) 19:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

BlackBerry SIM cards (solved)

Hi all,

a friend of me recently acquired a BlackBerry 8830 (Verizon branded, US) from some friend, but he can not insert a standard German SIM card in it. What is the difference and can he clone the sim card onto a smaller one?

HardDisk (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Verizon does not operate on GSM, thus their version of the 8830 does not have a removable SIM card. This article, while dated, seems to cover the details. --LarryMac | Talk 20:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the picture at the bottom of this cnet article, there is some slot on the left for a sim card, and according to the article it is multi-mode (GSM and CDMA compat). Yet a SIM card fits only half in the slot :( HardDisk (talk) 21:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

After quick scanning through its menus, one is able to switch it from Global to GSM. That's quite cute, I can do emergency calls. This means the GSM part works. But why can't I insert a standard SIM card? Do I need some uber-small one? I mean, there are couple of SIM card related options in the menus of it, so the slot MUST be SIM, but it is not :( HardDisk (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

After all, there was a tiny piece of the inside cover distorted, which prevented full insertion of the SIM card... fixed it, now it works. HardDisk (talk) 22:19, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Linux keyboard logger

I recently changed qwerty to dvorak. Most of my writing is (sadly) something Englishey, but I also type Finnish and wouldn't mind getting background for relocating the ä and ö keys. Is there any program that could collect some more sophisticated stats of my typing? I seem to have too much spare time. --194.197.235.221 (talk) 23:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, there seem to be some free keylogging programs about (search for freeware keylogger) and of course there's the things that plug between a USB keyboard and the computer (search for USB keylogger) - but how sophisticated they'd be I don't know. I'd guess they'd count keystrokes but not the gaps between them ("where's the blasted ä?") and possibly not the sequences of letters. AJHW (talk) 12:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Mutation in computer viruses

Do any known computer viruses make random functional changes to their payloads when they replicate (rather than simply changing their signatures to make them harder to detect)? NeonMerlin 23:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know of but they can have quite sophisticated behaviours. You might find Core war and Digital organism interesting. Dmcq (talk) 08:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

October 29

about wikipedia

how can i use it more efficiently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.102.42 (talk) 06:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

For a start, asking more specific questions will generally inspire more helpful answers. —Bkell (talk) 08:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Amongst the vast array of pages at your command on Wikipedia via the search box on the left or by using a search engine like Google there is a page devoted specifically to 'it'. Hope that was more helpful :) Dmcq (talk) 08:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay I relent, how about phrasing a question like:

How do I phrase queries in the search box so I don't get irrelevant things?

How come Google gets things on Wikipedia which wiki itself doesn't?

Will I get full marks if I copy a article from wiki?

How reliable is wiki when it says somewhere is a hellhole and no-one in their right mind would be seen dead there?

Has wiki been compared for accuracy to other encyclopaedias?

Can I put my personal research into wiki?

Anyway you see the idea Dmcq (talk) 11:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:Welcome, then the Wikipedia:Tutorial. --h2g2bob (talk) 14:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

what is strategic procurement ?

i want to know abt the strategic procurement . What is it and how can one go abt it . What is the essentials of it. How it can benefit an organisation ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggosain (talk • contribs) 07:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming this is as much a homework question as it appears to be, does the glossary of your textbook indicate that another term for "strategic procurement" is strategic sourcing? -- kainaw™ 13:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Thank you. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 15:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you start at Strategic sourcing and Procurement, then check the external links, references and 'see also' lists at the bottom of each article and go from there. Exxolon (talk) 23:08, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Mac Installation

I am using an iMac, running on 10.4.11, but the system has become corrupted. So I need to re-install. Obviously best to wipe and start over... but on Mac OS I do not know which files I should first back-up. (i.e. The iPhoto library). Naturally I have back-ups of all my working files. Shall appreciate guidance.86.194.251.131 (talk) 09:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)DT

You should be able to reinstall the OS without wiping the hard-drive, thus saving your required files but replacing the OS. In what way has the system become corrupt? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why you think you need to wipe out everything. Dismas|^(talk) 14:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Previous experience has shown that just replacing the OS is a stopgap if there is a deeper problem. Better, I feel, to wipe the disk and start over. But I don't (yet) understand OS X, and I can't find any guidance from Apple. So, please folks, what are the essential stored things within the OS (such as the iPhoto library) that I should back-up ?86.194.251.131 (talk) 16:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)DT

Save your ENTIRE home directory and the home directory of other users and you will be fine, afaik. Kushal (talk) 21:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Assuming your applications are well-behaved (and by now, they should be), you need to back up the "Users" folder, and should probably back up the "Library" folder.

However, MacOS (unlike Windows or Linux) is self-contained. A simple re-install (without wiping the hard disk) will completely replace the OS with a new version, while leaving your documents and applications intact. --Carnildo (talk) 23:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, just what I wanted to know.86.197.148.142 (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)DT

Network printers compatible with PS3

The latest verion of PlayStation 3 system software adds the following "Under [Printer Settings] > [Printer Selection], you can now select printers that support network connectivity" But I can't find either a list of compatible network printers, or details as to which protocol(s) they'd need to support.

I've tried asking Sony through their online support tool

Is there an updated list of compatible printers (expecially network ones) after the 2.50 firmware update? All I can find is (really long URL) with no mention of HP/Network printers that're now supported.

But I didn't have any joy

Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for your recent correspondence. Unfortunately we do not have information on future game, download releases or updated compatible printers. For further information on these topics, please visit either of the following websites: Official PlayStation Website at: http://uk.playstation.com/ or The Official PlayStation Forums at: http://community.eu.playstation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55&langid=4 I hope that this information is helpful, but if you should have any further queries, then please call the Network Gaming Careline on 08702 422 299 (national rate) where a member of our team will be happy to help you further. Please quote your Reference Number: 1176010 Our operating hours are between 8am - 10pm Monday to Friday, and 10am - 6pm Saturday and Sunday. Yours sincerely, Farrukh Mahmood PlayStation Network Gaming Careline Sony Computer Entertainment UK

Does anyone have any ideas as to what's compatible? Cheers, davidprior (talk) 13:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Stacking transparent GIFs using CSS

Say I have some HTML code:

<img src="grass.gif" />
<img src="tree.gif" />
<img src="sprite.gif" />

All the images are the same size (32x32).

How would I go about stacking them without using absolute positioning? All besides the bottom layer have some degree of transparency.

All the images are within a single table cell, 32x32 pixels. I tried using position: relative; top: -32px; but it didn't resize the table cell's height.

Bad CSS would be OK as it's only a mockup. x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't you just make one image in Photoshop? If you don't have it, I'll do it for you - just poke me on my talk page. DendodgeTalk^Contribs 15:32, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

That might not be a good answer. He may be generating either the web page or the images on the fly. However, it's still possible that a PHP script could combine the images so that the user only has to download the single combined image APL (talk) 20:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Though that can be pretty processor intensive unless you set up a caching system. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Try using a negative margin-top. e.g., position: relative; margin-top: -32px;. In Safari on OSX that resizes the table cell as well. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

changing motherboard on dell vostro 1400 laptop

I am Taradas from india. Recently, i had contacted dell support center for changing my motherboard. I would like to insert a new motherboard having NVIDIA 8400 video card for better game performance. Can u please tell me what could be the possible price for changing motherboard, in indian rupees. Or is it possible to change my video card which is a MOBILE INTEL 965 XPRESS CHIP SET FAMILY. Please respond at the earliest......... Remember my laptop is DELL VOSTRO 1400.

I'm not sure such a thing is even possible. Unlike desktop computers, the motherboard on a laptop is proprietary to the particular brand and model of laptop. Dell laptops are supposedly built to order and customers are expected to choose from the small range of options available when placing their order. You could go back to Dell Customer Support but, unless the laptop is faulty in some way, I doubt you will get much help. Astronaut (talk) 17:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep - I agree. Laptops are simply not designed to be upgraded or modified in any way. There is zero chance of getting what you want. You'll either have to stick with what you have - or buy an engite new computer - but you should strongly consider getting a regular deskside PC instead. If you don't need the portability of a laptop (or if your existing laptop is good enough for 'mobile' use - and you could live with only having fancy graphics when you're at your desk) - then a deskside PC is a vastly better choice. My trusty deskside PC is now over 15 years old and originally ran Windows 3.11 - but since every single part of it has been replaced and/or upgraded perhaps a half dozen or a dozen times, it's as up-to-date as you could possibly wish. (If I'm honest - I probably haven't replaced the power cord!) The Ship of Theseus paradox applies here! Laptops a re a disaster in that regard. The stuff it's equipped with on the day you buy it is the stuff that'll be in it the day it gets hauled off to the landfill. You can maybe increase the amount of RAM - and probably replace the hard drive to get more space - but that's about extent of it. SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD OMGWTFBBQ!!!!

Alright, why the HELL do i keep getting BAD_POOL_HEADER bsods every damn time i start up my computer? What is a BAD_POOL_HEADER! This only happens when the following software is installed: TI-83 Application SDK and TI-83 GRAPHLINK. Yes, i uninstalled them completely (and just for fun deleted anything related to those programs including registry stuff, which i know how to remove, so that's not the problem) and i am still intermittently getting these error messages. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG!!! (PS i know i'm rather profane in this question, i'm just completely fed up with this computer (and myself)) 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Try this (second post). x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

AHA! i've found the problem. the file TICALC.SYS (my calculator driver) was overwritten by both the SDK and GRAPHLINK, causing errors in the registry concerning version info and such. THIS was the cause. I reinstalled the CORRECT driver from the TI website and now everything works fine. THANK YOU x42bn6! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

SFRIO600.DLL

Question moved from Talk:Computer virus by Astronaut (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a virus or something else, or a joke, but it runned itself when I plugged my USB memory into my computer. I have "Show all files" turned on, so I see there are two hidden files: 'SFRIO600.DLL' and 'AUTORUN.INF'. Upon activation it started to run the harddrive. I tried to "Disconnect saffely" (the USB memory), but it couldn't, so I plugged it out (then it showed a message that memory is not present (obviously the virus was requesting it)). I tried to turn of the computer trough menu, it stalled (saving changes to Windows). I tried the power button, it didn't turn off, I didn't want to press and wait, so I flipped the power switch on the power supply. (I write (from a different computer) here about this because virus reporting on the antivirus programs site suck really)

My antivirus program didn't react at all (AVG). Searching the web for 'sfrio600' I found nothing. Searching just 'sfrio' I've found a lunatic site called: 'sfrio.com'

What is this? What to do next? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.101.85.164 (talk) 09:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything about a sfrio600.dll, but I did find something about a sprio600.dll that said that DLL is used by Rio 600 MP3 players. Do you have a RIO device?Laenir (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I got that virus on some of the computers on University here. That's the trouble with public computers - never know who visitred what and why. Maybe somebody has what you asked... Why? My guess is that 'sfrio.com' has to to with it (the text they wrote points to it). Maybe that's what term 'poisoned site' refers to... if only I knew what 'poisenod site' means... if there actually is such term...

Search for one type of Wikipedia templates

Is this possible?

I've formulated a new WikiProject named WikiProject Haystack, which aims to highlight the most essential in Wikipedia by gathering the most important information into special templates. However, it would have full potential only if such templates could be searched separately. So before I officially propose it I'd like to know - is it possible to sort out such templates in the search-engine. One example would be to add another namespace, such as Essentials:(Article name). If it's impossible, could the search engine be modified to search through templates of a certain category? Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The namespaces is hardcoded in, so it would take alterations of the media wiki software to make this possible within the wikipedia software. Other than that, external applications could be made to cross index Special:Whatlinkshere with a search output. Taemyr (talk) 17:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, perhaps it would be worth to make those alterations in the software. Since several pages might link to each template, and not only the main article, I don't see how the Whatlinkshere would help. Could there perhaps rather be some kind of marker inside each template that search engines (preferably Wikipedia's own one) could snap up? Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

What links here marks those pages that a given template is transcluded onto. So those pages on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:AfDM marked with (transclusion) are the articles that are currently up for AfD. Taemyr (talk) 18:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I see. Still, it seems like those templates need to have an additional marker or something like that to separate them from any other templates transcluded into the articles. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

should I make an old swap partition fat32 or ntfs?

I have an old computer (666 mhz pentium III w/ 256 mb ram) I installed windows xp on. I wiped and created ntfs for the main partition, but also created a second partition for the swap.

Should my swap partition be formatted fat32 or ntfs?

Thank you!

If you are only using Windows XP and do not plan to dual boot, go ahead and format it as ntfs. Kushal (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

it wouldn't be slower? this is a very old machine!

Shouldn't matter. A swap file is a single large file; if it's the only thing on the swap partition, the differences between the formats won't be noticable. --Carnildo (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say its a smart move on your part if you have swap in a separate partition. By the way, I wonder how easy it is to have the home directory under a different partition too ... documents and settings in different partition takes you to PlanetAMD64. I am only suggesting this if your computer has recently been formatted and therefore does not have any documents yet. Defragmenting in my Pentium 4/1.5 GHz, 40 GB hard disk was not that fun. Kushal (talk) 06:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

help desk assignment

hi im a student at Institute of Applied Learning and i am currently working on a help desk assignment and i would like to ask a few question about working of a help desk 1.What kind of script do help desk use? 2.What type of problems they encounter? 3.How do they record problems?

Um ... MediaWiki and perhaps a bot for archiving and a bot for signing unsigned posts ?? Why would RD have any special ... uh oh ... is that a homework question? Kushal (talk) 22:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, busted. And... wait a sec, how did that post not trigger the auto-sign bot? flaminglawyer^c 04:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sinebot is AWOL. --LarryMac | Talk 14:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Help desks answer the phone and help people on the topic they are set up for. Computer help desks are very common, answering questions about how to use programs and what to do about problems like broken computer, frozen screen, cannot log on, internet is slow... There is special problem management software that records details about the reporter, problem, resolution. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

October 30

Completely copying hdd

Would it be plausible/easy to copy all of the contents of a hard drive (including the OS) to another one? Mine is gettin' full, and I want to switch to a bigger, new one, but I want to keep all my files and stuff. Hypothetically, I could just plug the old hard drive into the master, and the new one into the slave, and just copy it all over using Windows (no fancy-schmancy cmd-line crap), right? flaminglawyer^c 00:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, you could copy all the data (pictures, text, movies, mp3s) but not the installed programs - you'd need to reinstall them on the new drive as they need to modify the registry etc to work. Exxolon (talk) 01:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't just copy it over in the Windows interface—it won't copy certain system files correctly (like the registry) and the master boot record won't copy.

What you ought to do is set it up master/slave, and then use a program to "clone" one drive to the other. I recommend GParted (downloads as a CD that you use to boot up the computer with—it's Linux but it has a super easy, friendly interface), personally.

After that you'll probably have to boot into the Recovery Console and run "fixmbr" to fix the master boot record.

So a little command line stuff but not too tough. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And that clones the OS and the data - good so far. But... could you elaborate on this whole "master boot record" thing? I've never heard of it before, and it seems to me that I need to know what I'm messing with before I mess with it. And thanks for directing me to the super-easy thing; I've tried a real Linux version before, and it was scary. flaminglawyer^c 04:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

And explain this "Recovery console," never heard of it either. flaminglawyer^c 04:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Basically, there is a little hidden file that is not on your hard drive itself yet tells your computer how to boot up correctly. What it means in practice is that if you just clone the contents of one drive to another, and then try to boot up off of that other drive, you might end up with just a black screen—the computer won't be able to figure out where it is supposed to boot. If that happens, then you can start up the Recovery Console by putting in your Windows CD and starting up from the CD—I think you hold down F8 while booting and it will give you a menu. The Recovery Console is basically like DOS—you'll see a command line prompt. Just type in "fixmbr" and it should fix the problem, if you are getting the "blank screen" problem. Then reboot and you should be good. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Try Clonezilla. It works well. manya (talk) 10:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to run the Recovery Console thing without a Windows disc? My comp came with XP, and I'm not about to spend 300 bucks on a CD that I'll only use once. flaminglawyer^c 21:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Singularity functions in Ti-89/84+

Does anyone know how to plot singularity functions/use macaulay brackets in a Ti-89 or a Ti-84+? I need to be able to plot functions such as y = x^2 - <x-5>^3. So I need the <x-5>^3 term to only appear when x>5 (it's equal to zero when x<5)

Thanks! --Fir0002 06:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I fully understand your question, but from what I take of it, can't you just graph the example equation and then a partial (just y = x^2) and see where they intersect? I don't think that's exactly the right way to do it, but something like that. Also, try the math reference desk. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 07:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

There's probably an easier way than this, but I can't find my calculator to try it out. Anyway, you should be able to create the partial equations as separate functions, thereby making your graph piecewise. Just multiply the function by a logic test: #F outputs as 0 and #T outputs as 1. You'll need to write different functions including/excluding terms as necessary and include the applicable logic in the function. You could do the example above as such: Y1=(x<5)(x^2) Y2=(X>=5)(X^2-(x-5)^3). Does that suit your needs? --Shaggorama (talk) 09:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I'm currently doing, but the equations I'm doing have three or four such terms with varying "turn on" points and it's a bit of pain to have to type out several versions of the equation. I was hoping there was an inbuilt function which could handle this kind of thing. --Fir0002 09:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If what Shaggorama suggests works, can't you just do Y1=x^2-(x>5)(x-5)^3? See also Iverson bracket: the Macaulay bracket $\{x\}\equiv x[x>0]$. --Tardis (talk) 15:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't let you do a (x>5) term for graphing "argument must be an expression". So unfortunately that won't work --Fir0002 23:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Multi touch in XP

For those of you that haven't seen it, this techie Johnny Chung Lee figured out a really simple trick that allows you to use a wiimote and an IR pen to create interactive surfaces, such as an interactive whiteboard or touch screen. The software he developed also has multi-touch capabilities, but windows XP doesn't. Not natively anyway. Dell recently developed a new firmware update giving multitouch gesture support for their latitude line of tablet PCs (a feature windows was apprently planning on holding onto for win7). I have an XP desktop (dell even) and wanted to know if there was anyway I could make my XP multitouch compatible with Lee's wiimote hack. --Shaggorama (talk) 09:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Computer Won't Even Turn On!

You may recognize me as the guy who has the totally-screwed-up computer and is always asking stuff. Well, here's another puzzler. When i went to start my computer, it wouldn't start. At all. no fan action, no hard drive action, no nothing. The power cables are all connected, the hard drive is completely connected, and all the fans are working properly (i tested them on an older power supply). All my expansion cards are seated properly, as are my memory modules. Windows had run its automatic update thingie while i was sleeping and i awoke to find my computer no longer functional. Why did this happen? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If the fans aren't turning at all, it is most likely a broken power supply. They are made from electronic components and break just as much as anything else that we pump a lot of electrons through. Nothing special or weird about it. -- kainaw™ 13:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kainaw, the PS probably failed. You said you tested the fans with another power supply; did you have that old power supply plugged into the same outlet as your possibly malfunctioning one? It's a long shot, but you may want to make sure it's not the power outlet with the issue. Laenir (talk) 14:46, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not the outlet or the power supply (i tested the power supply and the outlet just to be sure). I just got the BIOS logo to come up for about half a second before it turned off again. Also, something made some weird noise like a food processor grinding bricks. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The question I have to ask (and please forgive me for that) is do you hear any beeps and if yes, could you describe those beeps (number of beeps, duration of each beep) to us here along with manufacturer and make of your motherboard. 12.169.180.178 (talk) 16:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

WEBSPHERE DEVELOPER

Hi,

I would like to have a clarification, if WEBSPHERE PORTAL DEVELOPER and WEBSPHERE DEVELOPER are the same. If there is a difference how?!! please clarify me on this.

I'd guess the first is interested in developers with knowledge of IBM's Websphere. The second wants someone who's had experience with the Portals bit of Websphere (see Websphere#Portals). --h2g2bob (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Visual .net remotely asess user

I wanted to make a program for my school so teachers could net send messages to students, and one thing I wanted to do was make it so that I could have them find the username of the currently logged on user. I have no idea how to do this in visual net, but I know how to find current user on current system.

   Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal _
   e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
   lblUserName.Text = SystemInformation.UserName
   End Sub

Is there a way to get it so you can see current user on remote system? Forai (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but psloggedon will do the job: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897545.aspx .--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I saw that and figured that would be my last resort, I wanted to use only visual basic coding but if nobody has any other ideas then I can go with that Forai (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)