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November 1

php - where do i start?

I have read (lightly) the W3 tutorial for PHP; I know some basic code, but don't understand how to set it up. I am hosting my website using (site), if that makes any difference. I have a MySQL database already set up ( .../_1 ), I have something called "PHP MyAdmin," which I am assuming has something to do with PHP. Help? flaminglawyer^c 05:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The PHPMyAdmin is a control panel for your MySQL database, written in PHP. I don't know much about the language, but maybe if you read some more tutorials and examples, then that would work for you... And another thing - don't rush with a big project in PHP that you probably won't finish; start with some guestbooks and other simple codes, then proceed with the more difficult ones once you learn more about it. Blake Gripling (talk) 07:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You probably don't need to do anything to set it up - your hosting providers have already done that for you. Just create a file in Notepad with your code in, save it with a .php extension, and upload it to your server. Try saving this:

<?php echo "Hello world!" ?>

as helloworld.php and uploading it. When you visit yourdomain/helloworld.php you should see the words "Hello world!" and nothing else. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 11:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, try:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save that, upload it, and visit it. You'll see a lot of info about the php install on your server. -- kainaw™ 12:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Another thing... on the W3 tutorial, it has stuff about dates and stuff. Do I have to do something to let mySQL know that the date is Fri, or does it come with dates/times already programmed? flaminglawyer^c 17:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

MySQL is just a database. You just store data in it and manipulate data in it. If you have a date in the database, like 11-02-2008, stored as a string, then you can use PHP to figure out what day of the week this is. My recommendation with PHP is to download a copy of the manual to your hard drive and use the function lookups religiously. They usually give examples that are pretty clear.

My other recommendation is that if you are just wanting to play around and learn PHP/MySQL, don't do it with a remote server, as that can be a pain. Install it locally (see WAMP)—it'll save you a lot of time in just playing with things. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

How do I create-protect titles in my wiki?

OK, so I run a wiki, and there are cases of spammers posting Viagra and porn crap in my site. They usually make their spam posts under the title wiki/index.php or index.php, and I want to lock them to prevent editing. The problem is that my MediaWiki install doesn't allow such an operation, even though I seem to have the proper plugins/extensions. Any suggestions? Blake Gripling (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't run mediawiki, so can't give any first-hand information, but look at this guide on combatting spam on MediaWiki installation, including instructions for adding a captcha. 83.252.187.213 (talk) 12:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki is customisable in a bazillion ways - most of which Wikipedia doesn't use - but you can.

What I do is this:

• On your server, look in the 'wiki' directory (or wherever you installed MediaWiki) - there are two files you care about:
  • LocalSettings.php -- where you set up how you want your Wiki to work.
  • includes/DefaultSettings.php -- where the defaults for all of those settings live.
• Locate the following stuff in the defaults file:

   // Implicit group for all visitors
   $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = true;
   ...
   // Implicit group for all logged-in accounts
   ...
   // Implicit group for accounts that pass $wgAutoConfirmAge
   ...
   // Implicit group for accounts with confirmed email addresses

• This lets you decide who can do what. Copy this section into your LocalSettings.php file and there you can alter them.
• Each line that starts '$wgGroupPermissions' sets a permission on or off for one particular group of people.
• The spammers mostly edit as IP users - so job #1 is definitely to remove page-create and edit facilities from "all visitors" and only turn them on for "all logged-in accounts".
• However, you may find that some spammers do actually create accounts - they use them once and then forget about them so blocking them gets old, fast. So the next step in escalating your security is to turn off the page creation and editing privilage for "all logged-in accounts" too - and just enable it for "confirmed email address" users. (set '$wgEmailConfirmToEdit=true;') to make that work).
• So far I have never seen a spammer who created an account AND confirmed their email address on my personal Wiki. So this seems to be adequate protection. For the utterly paranoid, disable the ability of IP users and even regular users to create accounts! Now, the only way for someone to edit is to have an account - and the only people who have accounts are the people for whom you create them using the WikiSysOp account! This certainly locks out spammers - but it also effectively locks out the good guys too.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, resolved. Turns out that I have to upgrade my wiki... Blake Gripling (talk) 11:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Google Phrase

1. How can you look for an exact phrase on Google that has either, for example, "favourite" or "favorite" in it? I know you can use the command "x OR x", but I want to know what to do for exact phrases. Typing "that is my favorite OR favourite game" can confuse the search engine.124.180.143.48 (talk) 09:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a guess, but you could try "that is my favorite game" OR "that is my favourite game". -- SGBailey (talk) 10:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

ORing the phrases definitely works, but I tried this on a hunch and it seems to work too: "that is my (favorite|favourite) game". The two methods don't seem to be equivalent - they give different numbers of results in a different ranking. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 11:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu - slow DNS lookups

I have slow DNS lookups - e.g. in Firefox, it takes a long time at "Lookup up x.com...". I tried to disable IPv6: I put all sorts of combinations into /etc/modprobe.d/aliases, bad_list and blacklist, but that didn't work. I've tried moving the ipv6 directory out of /lib/2.6.27-7-generic/kernel/net, but that didn't fix the slow DNS lookups. I've disabled avahi-daemon but that didn't do anything either. Any suggestions? --wj32 ^t/c 11:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I run dnsmasq. It may take a long time to look something up the first time, but then it is locally cached and won't be looked up the next time you need it. -- kainaw™ 12:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I have that already, but is there a real fix for the problem? --wj32 ^t/c 21:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Get a faster nameserver. There is nothing you can do on your computer to make a remote nameserver respond faster. -- kainaw™ 02:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think its the nameserver - I think the problem has something to do with IPv6, but I don't know how to fix the problem. I've disabled IPv6, but lookups are still slow. And by slow I mean several seconds. --wj32 ^t/c 02:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think it isn't the nameserver? What makes you think that IPv6 has anything to do with an IPv4 query to a nameserver? Have you tried a different nameserver? -- kainaw™ 03:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Because on Windows and Mac (on the same network) the speed is normal and there is no DNS delay. My previous Ubuntu installation also had no delay. --wj32 ^t/c 04:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a bind bug a while back that caused slow DNS resolution if had IPv6 enabled. The true fix is not disabling IPv6. It is updating bind. So, make sure you've applied all updates. As for disabling IPv6, I would do it by adding "alias net-pf-10 off" to /etc/modprobe.conf (you may already have an alias net-pf-10 line, change the value to off). There are other ways. -- kainaw™ 17:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What can I make?

I recently took apart my nearly obsolete (to me) 2001 macbook. It has a rather nice screen in it, which I would like to use in another project. Is there any way I can connect this screen to something other than the computer for which it was paired? It is a 13" LG/Philips LP121X1 (A2C2) LCD screen and has two connections. One has two wire conduits and I suppose is the power for the fluorescent lamp. The other is flat, about 1x.125", and appears to have 20 wires in its harness. Is there any way to connect this screen to a DVI (or other commonly used) source? I would optimally like to connect this screen to a cable television source. Is this possible? Will it cost significantly more than just buying a 13" tv? Tuckerekcut (talk) 19:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, seems this is more involved than I thought, and I really don't have the soldering skills to mess with those tiny pins, maybe I should just scrap this now and save myself the trouble. Consider this question retracted.Tuckerekcut (talk) 20:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You could probably sell it on eBay—replacement screens are pretty expensive to buy new. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

::A 2001 MacBook? Sell it to ME! (Although, to be fair, there are probably a thousand people out there who will outbid me ten to one). Was it a prototype? MacBooks did not exist until 2006. I have one of the oldest MacBooks and it is going strong. ... kind of. Did you mean an iBook? Please let us know. Kushal (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I feel dumb. Kushal (talk) 22:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I did mean iBook.Tuckerekcut (talk) 13:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I should have realized that 2001 is a LOT before 2006. Kushal (talk) 18:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

November 2

JavaScript Support in OS X

Hi. Outside of Safari, can one run JavaScripts that manipulate files inside OS X, without downloading third-party tools? I understand that one can double-click on AppleScripts, but can one do the same with JavaScripts? OS X also natively supports Python, right? Thanks.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can run Javascript to manipulate files in any case. Javascript doesn't have file system functions. Anyway if I were to imagine some native way to do it, I'd think of having it somehow execute within Automator or something like that. But even then you'd probably be using Safari's engine... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In Windows, you can use JavaScript to manipulate files and system settings via the Windows Script Host. It can interface with almost anything, like MS Office. You save the code file with the .js extension and double-click on it. JavaScript cannot manipulate the file system via the browser, but once you execute the standalone file, it can. That's why I was asking about it, because I heard about JavaScript OSA, but it sounds like a third-party add-in. But then, I also heard that Dashboard widgets use JavaScript, too, so I wasn't sure how they execute the code.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Dashboard widgets use Javascript, but the execute it through a Webkit interface, I believe (that is, they use Safari to execute it). The widgets that manipulate things beyond the scope of a browser's ability usually have little custom Applescript or execute regular code, I believe. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I just want to put out there as well that I don't think there's any easy way to use Javascript this way in OS X. Applescript is definitely the better approach. Just my two cents. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

ok. Thanks for the help.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 00:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Question about image to sound converter

Why in those image to sound converter, I have to change settings??? Since its a image converter, the lenght, frequency..... why not the sound that is created after is not based only on the image???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.156.175 (talk) 02:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is. Some people have produced holograms using sound that they can then shine a light on, so you see an object in 3D as it interacts with the sound. I guess the opposite would be possible but only of use to bats and suchlike, I can't think why I'd want to do it, though one might want to direct sound in strange ways like one can with light and a suitably designed hologram. Dmcq (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I presume this is related to software like that on http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ - if so it should be noted that there is no real link between image and sound and one does need to associate the image height with a range of frequencies and the image width with the time in which one imagines a vertical scan line to move across the image. Remember that here the idea is to allow the visually impaired to interpret the sound in terms of visual elements. Shyamal (talk) 12:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I am talking about programs like the java program the_voice, and windows program coagula light. They are used to convert the image into sound, and create sound. The thinng that i dont understand is why I have to configure a bunch of things before converting. I just want to convert the picture in a sound that when looked on a spectrogram would be the picture (or something very near that).201.79.156.175 (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't really understand the question(s), but a really easy image-to sound converter is Audacity. Go to "import raw data," then locate your target image. flaminglawyer^c 17:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

When i said sound to image converter i was talking about programs that convert images to sound and if you look in the spectrogram of this sound you will see that image. And i was also talking about this: In those programs that i tested you had to changes some things before converting (minimun frequency, maximun frequency, the lenght....) Since they are creating sounds from the images, those sounds caractetistcs should be based on the image on things that the user of the program selected before converting. The things when looking in the spectrogram from the created sound, the image was allways very diffenrent from the original image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.156.175 (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

(For the still-confused, here are some examples of what the OP is asking about) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 21:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Can a USB drive survive after being in the washer?

I accidentally washed my USB drive in the clothes washing machine. I heard it clicking around in the dryer. What's the likihood that it will still be good? 67.184.14.87 (talk) 12:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. I did some research and it turns out it should be fine, provided that you let it dry first before plugging it in. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 13:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

It might survive...but it's not a certainty. Letting it dry out gently but completely before turning it on/plugging it in will help your chances a lot. SteveBaker (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Definitely I've put one of mine through a few times and all the files are still fine, as far as I know that is.

WinXP limited account and taskscheduler

I created a limited account on Win XP and I cannot any longer see the tasks under taskscheduler that I created on the Admin account. When I tried to create a task with the same name on limited account, the message says the task already exists. Does this mean that those tasks I created on admin account will run on limited account as well, without any extra changes in scheduler settings? Thanks for any advice. 59.91.253.105 (talk) 11:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.254.115 (talk)

Did you put a check in 'Show processes from all users' on the 'Processes' tab? Washii (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If you can't see the Process in Task Manager, then download "Process explorer" from Microsoft's sysinternals page User:Maheshkale

Mail (app) cache

Does Mail (app) in Mac OS X Tiger (Intel MacBook, 10.4.11) cache everything locally for an IMAP account? I have a GMail account which I use from Mail (app). If I have about 3 GB worth of Mail in GMail, is all 3 GB being cached locally? Including all attachments? Where? Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 15:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is cached locally. Look in ~/Library/Mail. Attachments are in ~/Library/Mail Downloads/. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:01, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. That was very fast! I am curious how Apple's folder is 4.12 GB (http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/sizeinMailapp110120081207CST.png) while size in GMail is only 2483 MB (http://benjaminrogerstexas.googlepages.com/SizeinGMail110120081206CST.png). Maybe that depends on how they organize their mail? I believe that Apple creates a separate file for every mail message. Or am I running off a tangent here? Kushal (talk)

Yes, it creates a separate file for every message. You can see them all in there if you look in the folder. As for why it takes more than Gmail... no clue. Apple Mail just stores the messages as plaintext; perhaps Google compresses them. One of my mailboxes is 1.06 GB in Apple Mail; when I compress it as a ZIP it is only 697MB—40% less than before, about the same as your difference. It's odd that compression is not available in Apple Mail—it seems like an obvious thing to do at this point in time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I guess the answer to not compressing is just the reason it creates separate files for each message—faster indexing. People are already complaining that Spotlight is too slow (they obviously haven't used Windows Search for a long time). Things may change with 10.7 once we get Finder rewritten and debugged. I believe Snow Leopard is not bringing many changes to Mail.app Kushal (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing wireless network?

Hello, we recently restored our Comcast subscription after some difficulty with them in paying our bills. Before these problems, we had cable TV and an Internet connection, the latter for which we had a wireless router. After fixing the problems, we have cable TV back, but we do not seem to have a signal from the wireless router. I am able to have an Internet connection by plugging into the router with an Ethernet cord, but my laptop does not pick up our specific wireless network as it did before. I imagine that the deactivation might require manually restoring this wireless connection, but I'm not sure how to go about doing this. What can I do? 98.223.188.95 (talk) 16:18, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What make and model of router? Kittybrewster ☎ 16:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Linksys WRT54G series. 98.223.188.95 (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Type into the URL bar the IP address 192.168.1.1 ... username leave blank ... password admin. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I was able to go from there... poked around on Google and found what changes I needed to make. Appreciate it! 98.223.188.95 (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Now change the username and password. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"This" and "first" memes on online forums?

Lately I keep seeing this goofy meme on some forums, where someone will post just the word "this", or just the word "first" in response to a question. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I just don't get it. Any takers? Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it more on blogs. Big blog post at a major blog, and oh boy, you've stumbled upon it before anyone else has commented. Within minutes there will be twenty comments or so, but you are first! Oh boy. What an achievement.

I've seen it on forums I've been on since at least 2001, but it's probably from earlier. It's pretty lame. I think it's generally called "first post" as a phenomena. Like many internet things it's probably hard to pin it down though it's probably been on slashdot for quite awhile. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"This" means that you agree with the quoted statement. It's fairly common on the comments of stories on Fark.com. Like many things, there is an entry on Urbandictionary.--droptone (talk) 12:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Followup question (I admit, it belongs on the Language Desk) - is internet communication, as a whole, unifying or schisming the English language? Any good academic papers on this subject? Nimur (talk) 17:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably tons of papers. Once in a while they get picked up by Slashdot but I have no idea which tag you'd use to find them. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

So, "this" is for when one really, really has nothing to add to a discussion? Wow. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Enjoy the new crap. Same as the old crap. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

From what I've seen, "this" tends to mean the poster agrees with the previous post. --saxsux (talk) 20:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Excel and HTML tables

1. How is data stored in excel? I notice that when I copy cells from excel to notepad, the cell divisions show up as tabs and line breaks. Also, when I copy text from notepad to excel, the tabs and line breaks show up as cell divisions.

2. Is there a straightforward way to copy an html table into excel? Merely copying and pasting does not work, and neither does paste special.

Thanks! -VectorField (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

See Microsoft Excel#File_formats. In short, for Office 2003 (version 11) and earlier, Excel uses a proprietary binary file format. Beginning with Office 2007 (version 11), Excel uses a new compresses XML format. If you have Excel 2007, you can get a good idea of how Excel stores data by using the Save-As function to save into an XML file format. You can then view the file using your favorite text or XML editor. You will find a lot of overhead at the beginning of the file, with actual cell data near the end.

As for cut & paste from Excel, the results you get depend on the application you paste into. Excel makes several versions of the cut/copied data available. If you paste into another Excel spreadsheet, Excel native data will be pasted. If you paste into a word processor of web page editor, you may get a tabular view that preserves data formatting to varying degrees. If you paste into a text only window, such as Notepad, you will likely get tab delimited text.

Pasting from HTML into Excel an be tricky. If the HTML table is simple, you may get good results. If the HTML table has nested formatting, the results may not be what you want - often containing data split between cells, merged cells, and other formatting strangeties. I often copy and paste first from a web page into a text editor, clean up the data there, and then copy & paste from there into Excel. -- Tcncv (talk) 19:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done this too, but do you know of a way I can quickly clean out all the tabs that result from pasting a table into Notepad? My strategy consists mostly pressing enter when I see a tab (to put them into a large column which I just paste into Excel). Do you know of an automated way of doing this?--droptone (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Highlight the whitespace that represents a tab. Press control-C. Press control-H. Make sure the cursor is in the "Find What" field and press control-V. Place your cursor in the "Replace With" field and type in whatever you want the tab replaced with, such as a comma. Save the file, the start Excel and do File /Open. Select Files of Type = text files. You will then be presented with the Text Import wizard. Which, by the way, will happily accept a file with tabs as the delimiters between columns, so all that copying, pasting, and replacing shouldn't be necessary. --LarryMac | Talk 17:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

TrueCrypt and Autoplay

(Windows XP Pro)

I've noticed that every time I uninstall TrueCrypt, it screws up Windows' AutoRun/AutoPlay feature so bad, nothing can turn it on - only System Restore helps. (Autoplay Repair doesn't ("Shell: deaf" or something like), IniFileMapping isn't set for autorun.inf).

Any ideas why it does this and how it can be fixed, other than System Restoring everything?

--grawity 19:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Check the registry key cited in wikipedia's article on Autoplay (that is, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom). Is it set to 0? If so, try setting it to 1 and see what happens. Belisarius (talk) 21:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Check the Group Policy for AutoRun - Open Run... and type mmc. Choose File > Add/Remove Snap-in... and click Add.... Choose the Group Policy Object Editor and click Add. Click OK, Close, then OK. Expand Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, then click System. There should be an item called Turn off Autoplay. Set that to Disabled. Do the same thing for Local Computer Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. --wj32 ^t/c 06:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

First, would the Cdrom entry affect USB drives? (I can't test, because I've already SysRestored the system.) Second, TrueCrypt's *un*installer shouldn't mess with policies, and if it did, I'm sure Microsoft's AutoplayRepair would notice that. (Its logs say it didn't.) --grawity 12:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure most programs use Policies to disable Autoplay (it's in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\Explorer\). But have you tried what I said? --wj32 ^t/c 08:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

World of Warcraft: Treasure yield

For the World of Warcraft boss monster Gehennas, three different sites give a wide range of figures for the monetary value of his average treasure drop. Allakhazam says he has a "value" of 16g 53s 50c, Wowhead indicates his "average money dropped" as 73g 60s 85c, and Thottbot gives an "average coin" of 5g 39s 12c and a "vendor/auction value" of 30g 19s 51c (although the "total" that apparently combines average coin and "vendor-only value" is reasonably close to Allakhazam's figure at 16g 93s 39c).

Why the discrepancy between 16g, 30g and 73g? Is such wide variation in measurements common? Does it interfere with measurements of the game's GDP etc? Which figure is the most useful for the player that wants to maximize income? NeonMerlin 20:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have specific knowledge of WoW at the higher levels, but I do know that gaming companies keep tight control over the economies of their MMORPGs by controlling a number of dials, such as how much money monsters drop and how much money dissappears through "sinks" (in WoW, I believe one of the biggest sinks is the cost to repair equipment). If there is too much money in the system (i.e. inflation is high), they turn up the sinks, if there is too little, maybe they up money-drops from the biggest monsters. In this way, they can keep a pretty efficient control over the in-game markets (I heard some economist say once that MMORPGs are truly the only functioning communist societies in history).

I have no idea if that is what is going on, but it could be. It could also be that since these sites get their information second-hand, they simply haven't gotten enough data to give a good estimate and weed out the anomalies, and thus the information varies. Belisarius (talk) 23:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

one value is net, one is distributed among participants, one weights value of inventory by frequency and valuations 32.164.71.8 (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Copy home folder on Ubuntu?

Resolved

I tried to copy my home folder, on Ubuntu, but I always get errors, I already tried to do it in a root nautilus, root terminal, doing "chomd 777" to that folder, and nothing! Any ideas? SF007 (talk) 21:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What errors? -- kainaw™ 21:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"Error making symbolic link: operation not permitted" SF007 (talk) 21:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you are copying a symbolic link from your home directory onto a computer that doesn't have the file (or you don't have permission to see the file) that the symbolic link is pointing to. Remove the symbolic link from the files you are copying. -- kainaw™ 02:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I tried copying from the running system, and also from a Live CD, and nothing! Is there an easy way to do that thing you mention, in a easy and foolproof way? Thanks SF007 (talk) 14:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Where are you copying to? It appears that where you are copying to is telling you that the symbolic link is not allowed. -- kainaw™ 20:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It is solved! I just went to my home folder, pressed "ctrl" + "H" (to show all files), and then just copied all the stuff EXCEPT the "examples" folder. Thanks! SF007 (talk) 01:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The symbolic links were likely in the examples folder is where the symbolic links were. Removing that folder removed the problems of trying to copy symbolic links. -- kainaw™ 14:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

November 3

Checking for user fonts

I want to construct a web-page that displays text if the user has a specific font installed, and an image of that text if they do not. This way I can make sure it always displays the way I want it to (yes, this is important). Is this possible? If so, how so? I heard that javascript might do the trick. Deshi no Shi (talk) 01:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Some googling turned up this nice little article explaining how to do it, and this page shows that it actually works quite well. Good luck! Belisarius (talk) 01:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Since that uses JavaScript, it is dependent on the end-user having JavaScript enabled. Since it is so easy to disable (and disabling JavaScript is becoming more and more popular), making your website require JavaScript to provide basic functionality will turn away users instead of attract them. You may as well do away with the trouble of looking for fonts and just page your page a big JPG image so you can control exactly how it appears. -- kainaw™ 02:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure disabling javascript is really all that popular. It's certainly a bit silly — javascript is a major component of Web 2.0 and people who disable it do so at their own peril. Anyway, if you use a solution where text is written in a default font and then the javascript checks if it is in the right font and if not turns it into an image... non-javascript people will just see it in the default font. Which might not be pretty but it's not worth bending over backwards for people who go to extremes of disabling all javascript, in my opinion. If you disable basic functionality you are probably used to seeing things not as designers intended. A designer's obligation in my mind is that things fail in a still-usable fashion. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That was my point ... designers should be obligated to ensure that failure to meet all of their design still renders something useful. Consider a blind person trying to use the site using a text-only reader (no graphics, no javascript, no special fonts...). Most designers feel that the public is obligated to install Windows with the latest version of IE and the latest version of flash just to view their special creation. As for disabling JavaScript... disabling it doesn't mean you disable ALL scripts. I commonly go to pages where I have the page's scripts enabled and Google Analycts junk disabled. What is being disabled is annoyances, not functionality. A page that demands that I run a script just to see content in a specific font is an annoyance. -- kainaw™ 03:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I am upfront about using Google Analytics on my website and actually inform my visitors that they have an option to disable it, if they choose to. (I publicize Mozilla Firefox in the process, but that should not be immoral.) Being on a mac most of the time, I understand the annoyance when a website does not work on Mozilla Firefox or even worse, shows a pop-up saying "Please upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer." Kushal (talk) 12:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

For a long while, I used a 10-year old PC that was simply incapable of running the latest and greatest Internet Explorer and Flash versions. A large number of pages (many from major corporations) either displayed various amounts of garbage or refused to work at all. My pet annoyance was to have web mail freeze for 15 minutes or more while trying to display a Flash advertisment. I found that uninstalling the Flash plugin and disabling Javascript gave a much more usable internet, especially when visiting those sites that actually bothered to implement the <alt> or <noscript> html tags. Astronaut (talk) 12:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Again—all I think the developer needs to do is make sure things fail in a usable fashion. On all the sites I produce, if you show up without the ability to see flashy things, you won't see flashy things. But you can still use the site. (And what's up with the Analytics hate? It's far more anonymized information than most server logs—you can't, for example, follow an individual users' habits, which is quite trivial to do with server logs.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Speaker blip blip blip buzz blip blip buzz noize

You're probably heard this noise even if you don't realize it, because it's rather hard to describe, but I often hear it from electronic speakers at random times regardless of whether they're playing something or not, they tend to make this blip blip blip buzz noise and I haven't been able to uncover any information on what causes it on the internet. It appears to be the same pattern of sound from speaker to speaker and I am really curious to find out what the cause of it is. For the any of you who know of this specific sound that I am talking about, do you know what causes this strange sound? Yakeyglee (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That may be interference coming from a cell phone signal, be it an incoming call or a text message. My professor likes to claim that it is an advanced Russian detection system. Go ahead and try standing next to some speaker wires and send/receive text messages and phone calls. --omnipotence407 (talk) 03:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Depending on shielding for the speakers and the signal cables, a lot of weird noises can be picked up from all the electromagnetic radio wave activity in the air. I had to toss out a set of speakers that my wife had because they were especially susceptible to the shrimp boat radios. I got tired of listening to the shrimp boaters jabber back and forth all day and all night. -- kainaw™ 12:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

My speaker chord was too close to my land line telephone. When I moved the chord a few centimetres away from the receiver, the speaker stopped making those odd noises. Sandman30s (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing you have DSL - in that case, you probably need to buy a $5 filter to put between the wall socket and the phone. If you do have DSL and you don't already have the filter - then you should definitely do this in order to avoid killing your network error rate every time someone picks up the phone. SteveBaker (talk) 21:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Cannot associate files

OK, so I have Winamp on my PC, and whenever I try to associate MP3s to it, it does nothing, although I can do so in my other account in XP. Any thoughts on this? Blake Gripling (talk) 10:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell us what mp3 files are associated with at the moment? Kushal (talk) 11:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

If Winamp is not doing it directly (Winamp->Options->Preferences->Setup->File types->select all (or just mp3) then close) then you can use these steps: My Computer->Tools->Folder options->File types->mp3->Change->Select Winamp. To follow up Kushal one's question, if they are constantly associated with another media player then that player may be constantly changing the associations do you'd need to fiddle with its options to make it stop.--droptone (talk) 12:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

@Kushal: Nothing, although they bear the WMP icon. Whenever I double-click on them, nothing happens. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Blake. If you are sure nothing happens, please move on to the steps that Droptone suggested. HTH, Kushal (talk) 18:00, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

TI-84 Plus Silver Edition Screen Problem

There is a column of pixels on the screen that refuse to turn on, even after completely resetting the calculator. What is going on? PS It's not under warranty 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a classic symptom of a broken display. There is nothing you can do - except send it back for repair. It sucks that it's not under warranty - and the cost of repair could easily exceed the cost of a new machine (esp. if you remember to include postage). (The newer ones also tend to have more memory...so that might help to swing your decision towards "replace" rather than "repair"). SteveBaker (talk) 14:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Good god...it would cost $150 to send and fix...i just bought a new one. Thanks. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Grabbing that "CNNBC" video

-- and complete with the trimmings.

As you may know, moveon.org has produced a very flash couple of minutes of Flash, which you get at the special-purpose "cnnbcvideo.com".

(If you don't know, well, you go there and you write somebody's first and second names and email address. The website then sends a spammy looking message to that address, and if the recipient's spam filter is any good, the message is trashed. One way to get it is to use a web-based account -- I used yahoo.co.jp -- and flush out its junk folder, have cnnbcvideo.com send the message, and then fish this message out of the junk folder. The message, if you manage to get it, contains a link to a personalized page of cnnbcvideo.com that offers a Flash video that, eerily, is just for you. You can watch it perhaps three times, but thereafter it's no longer available, and with no explanation.)

So, I got the message, I clicked on the link, I gazed dumbstruck at the video, I fished the 5.8MB file out of the Firefox cache and gave it a name ending SWF. VLC plays it just fine. However, what I see is the generic version, with the variables undefined.

Presumably VLC gets the main file and some (flv?) datafile and constructs "your" video in your own 'puter. Extraordinary. Well, however it works when you're connected to cnnbcvideo.com, presumably it would also work when you have the right files with the right names in the right relative positions in your own directory structure. But what are the values for all these variables? Or -- the "teach a man to fish" question -- how, using Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Opera or even (on a borrowed machine) Explorer would I find out what they are?

I did look in Google for this one, but only found this Mozillazine post, the same question as my own, posed by "Guest" (not me); this hasn't yet been answered. But someone here can do better, I'm sure. -- Hoary (talk) 14:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Why would you even want to do this? It sounds like some advertising spam to me that no one would actually want in their inbox. Like you said yourself: "...sends a spammy looking message..." and "...I gazed dumbstruck at the video...", so it has to be crap. However, if you must, take a look at the "page source" and pay particular attention to the link to launch the video. You should be able to fish out the variables used to provide you with your personalised spam. Astronaut (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I seen that video yesterday and it is cool. The NY Times blog notes that it is "essentially multiple layers of Flash animation". If you find out how to, leave a note here please? F (talk) 03:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, O tersely named editor. I'm glad to infer that the video interested you. Yes, if I manage to grab it intact I'll say how I managed to do so. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, Astronaut, unless the viewer is an unusually solemn supporter of McCain (or Barr, Nader, etc), this is a fascinating video and a good example of how, miracle of miracles, what at first looks spammy both to a human and to SpamAssassin isn't always spammy. (Come to think of it, committed Republicans ought to be particularly interested by the video, wanting to reverse-engineer it and apply its methods the next time around.) But thank you for the technical tips and encouragement. -- Hoary (talk) 05:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a Flash video. It most certainly runs a regular video and then superimposes the name in the right place at the right times. What's clever about it is just that it hasn't been done on that big a scale before, and that it was done quite effectively so that the text really did look integrated with the video feed. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

font size=1

what would replace the deprecated tag <font size=1>?--Givensuch2 (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You would want to use inline CSS with a div tag. For example:

<div style="font-size: 14pt">Hello</div> Or, for pixels: <div style="font-size: 1px">Hi</div> I hope I answered your question! _David^WS _(contribs) 21:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe a span tag instead, if you want it to be inline, not block. --Kjoonlee 23:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Android Eclipse setup

Hi, I am a neighborhood idiot. I can't get android setup in eclipse. Even following a guide directly from google and how to install their SDK. I wanted to play around with android apps so I wanted to know what I had to do to setup android. The problem I keep having is that it doesn't look right, I'll follow their guide and go to start typing in code and it never registers as it should. 66.216.163.92 (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I found it was very sensitive to the precise versions of Eclipse, JDK, etc, etc. Make sure you have the exact versions that Google describe. I also had a heck of time getting it to work because some versions of eclipse are broken for 64-bit machines and eat all of RAM before you've even gotten started. However, on 32 bit hardware and with the versions of everything that they suggest - it "just worked" for me. (It's kinda cool - you can run their emulation of an Android phone - you can even do stuff like surfing the web using their browser on the simulation of the phone.) SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Div and span attributes

Please go over some basic div and span attributes. Put a {{tb}} on my talk page when awnsered.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

HTML or CSS attributes? -- kainaw™ 00:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

DIV and SPAN at w3schools. If you still have questions then ask away! Otherwise look things up for yourself. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

And we have an article on span and div. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 02:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

November 4

Adobe Media Player

How come after viewing my saved favorites only once they automatically disappear, even though I download them in order to watch them? It even tells me that I'm not online when I try to re-download them, even though I clearly am. Is that normal of the program? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 04:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Status of Apache log for downlaod of a file

When user downloads a file from web server, apache access_logs show 200 OK followed by size of the file downloaded. Does this 200 OK mean that the complete file was downloaded by the user successfully? I suspect that Apache sends file and closes connection and puts log entry. (Client browser will receive FD_CLOSE socket event, but client should continue reading remaining data on the socket). But at users end, there may be network error just before receiving the last few bytes, and user may not receive complete file. Or does Apache waits for client to close the socket connection and only then it puts the log entry? manya (talk) 06:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I just started to download a large file and cut off the transmission halfway through. At that point Apache logged with 200/OK, and showed the file size I actually downloaded. 200/OK just means which HTTP error code got sent to the client, which happens before file transfer even starts. Note also that Apache won't wait until the socket is closed since modern browsers will do more than one request on a connection (constant opening and closing of connections was one of the major slowdowns of standard HTTP 1.0). --Sean 14:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

REPOST: Stopping Excel from Minimizing sheets

Didn't get an answer, and it is driving me crazy. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

---

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)

(Yes, I used "Special Paste," but it didn't help.)

---

I copied and pasted that data into excel using all three file formats and it worked just fine. My stats are the same as yours. Which file format are you using? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to look at this. I’m on MS Office Excel 2003 in XP Professional. The file format is straight default, nothing unusual at all.

With some website .xls data, the “special paste” option leads to choices such as Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object, Picture (Enhanced Metafile), Bitmap, etc. I choose “text” and that’s usually fine. But at the Fed, and many other sites, copying a column or line of numbers to paste into my own spreadsheet results in the worksheet reducing itself to less than maximum. I also frequently get a new (blank) worksheet inserted on top of my own, and that worksheet is labeled “Object”.

The Fed example is here http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TB1YA/downloaddata?cid=116 (scroll down for “Download Data”).DOR (HK) (talk) 07:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

0x80004005 error when I try to register vbscript.dll

I'm getting this one whenever I try to register the library, since I can't use VBScript; however, when I try to log on another account, I can register the said DLL. I need some help on this! Blake Gripling (talk) 07:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft big through illegal copies

Did Microsoft become big thanks to illegal copies? And did they plan that? (Yes, pov, I know.) The first question is almost rhetorical. msWindows became the OS standard because so many illegal copies were going around. (Although there are probably many other factors too.) But this makes me wonder if Microsoft planned this. Is it true that msWindows was (and is?) very easy to hack? If I'm not mistaken, one could retry the installation code an infinite number of times. So it's just a matter of letting a computer try all the possibilities and it'll give you the code within a week or so (yes?). Then spread that copy along with the code and the world uses msWindows. This is not just easy. This is a no-brainer. Below a hacker almost because there is no challenge. But is it true? Amrad (talk) 09:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft would certainly have a smaller market share if it wasn't for "illegal" copies, but their profits would be higher. Maybe. --wj32 ^t/c 09:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it. Bill Gates was strongly opposed to piracy from the beginning (the 1970s) and became a leading critic of it. Piracy doesn't make business sense because you have to make up the lost sales revenue by either raising prices, cutting prices (to increase sales), or by cutting costs. You can't really stop piracy, anyway. Microsoft's copy protection isn't as evil as Adobe's, but it is still stricter than many. You have to enter in a serial number and then activate the software. The usage share of Windows would drop slightly if it were impossible to pirate it, but it would still dominate the industry due to the proprietary nature of Macs. Remember that Windows became popular before the rise of mass Internet piracy.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 10:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's how they got big - and I'm 100% sure piracy had nothing to do with it. You have to look at the history. They were a fairly small company with essentially one product (their BASIC interpreter) that they'd ported to a number of personal computers (of the kind that mostly used cassette tape for storage). As 5.25" floppy disk drives started to become dirt cheap, CP/M (from Digital Research) became the 500lb gorilla - nearly everyone used it on 8 bit floppy-based hardware. When 16 bit hardware started to appear, CP/M-86 was a minimal port of CP/M and was (frankly) a bit pathetic - and when IBM decided to make their PC, they wanted to talk to Digital Research about getting it on their new hardware - but somehow Digital Research didn't pay them enough attention and Microsoft stepped in. It also helped that IBM wanted a BASIC interpreter in ROM as an alternative to the floppy-based operating system - and it's a little-remembered fact that the original IBM PC could be booted into a ROM-based BASIC interpreter just like an Apple ][ or a TRS-80 - since Microsoft were already the number one shipper of ROM-based BASIC interpreters, that must have helped IBM's decision.

The first version of DOS (PC-DOS - for the IBM PC only) wasn't much more than a clone of CP/M-86 - and it was just as pathetic - but Microsoft at least took the time to work with IBM where Digital Research just said "here is our CP/M-86 product - use it". I suspect that was because Microsoft had the experience of dealing with computer-makers and DR did not. Remember that every home computer had needed a slightly different version of BASIC - where Digital Research had written their "BIOS" layer that allowed the computer vendors to write their own BIOS and then take an unmodified copy of CP/M and it would just work without porting. That meant that Digital Research didn't need to work with the hardware vendors - where Microsoft did. That one fact (which was pretty much luck on the part of Bill Gates) explains 100% of the remaining history. The BIOS in your modern PC shares a lot of ancient history with the CP/M BIOS.

MS-DOS was just PC-DOS with a different label on it - and it was a way for Microsoft to sell clones of PC-DOS to clone PC makers. The success of PS-DOS was simply due to the success of the IBM PC. Businesses had been sticking to big mainframes and minicomputers - even though the desktop computer revolution was in full swing because they didn't know who to talk to or what to do. When IBM stepped into the market with their PC, businesses loved it to death...that pushed PC-DOS to fame. When IBM didn't bother to stamp on clone-makers - and their add-on board hardware made it possible for third parties to make cards to plug into the IBM PC (a thing that was unheard of at the time!) - this fed the PC-clone fire. As PC's took off, MS-DOS took off too - and before you could blink, the PC and MS-DOS were the only game in town. CP/M-86 was forgotten and cassette-tape machines went the way of the dodo (except perhaps in the UK where Sinclair was hitting the ultra-low-end market) - and the only competition for the PC were the AtariST and the Amiga - whom businesses simply ignored (stupidly, IMHO). By the time Apple woke up and made the Mac, Microsoft had gotten big enough and evil enough that they could dominate the market by simply leveraging their near-monopoly. When their competitors tried to sell applications that competed with Microsofts' own applications - MS simply changed the OS so that the competitor's software either wouldn't run or would run so badly that it would be unusable. The rest is just a continuation of that trend.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk is usually for factual information... not for biased essays, incorrect assertions ("pretty much luck on the part of Bill Gates"), incorrect information ("MS-DOS was just PC-DOS with a different label on it") and blatant lies ("MS simply changed the OS so that the competitor's software either wouldn't run or would run so badly that it would be unusable"). {{rpa}}. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 21:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm - aside from the fact that you are being incredibly rude (and have violated WP:NPA in a pretty serious waythere's never an admin around when you need one) - you are also wrong:

• PC-DOS versus MS-DOS: According to PC-DOS "PC-DOS remained a rebranded version of MS-DOS until 1993."...so I guess I'm right on that one.
• Luck: You took issue with my statement that: "That meant that Digital Research didn't need to work with the hardware vendors - where Microsoft did. That one fact (which was pretty much luck on the part of Bill Gates) explains 100% of the remaining history.". So are you telling me that Gates planned it that way? I'd like to see evidence for that. He chose to rewrite the same BASIC interpreter over and over again for different home computers - rather than providing a clean portability layer and shipping the same interpreter to everyone. I think most programmers would tell you that what Microsoft did would ordinarily be a poor strategy. So was that a cunning plan? Well, no - the way I understand it, IBM executives tried to get DRI to sign up to work on the IBM PC - and it literally came down to the owner of the company not bothering to come to the meeting with the IBM executives. Microsoft stepped in and filled the gap - but the fact that there WAS a gap - was not a clever strategy of Bill Gate's making - they were just lucky that DRI dropped the ball. Had DRI gotten the contract for the IBM PC - it would be DRI who owned 90% of the PC operating system market - not Microsoft. So I think it's a perfectly reasonable statement that 100% of what followed was down to sheer luck on the part of Gates.
• Microsoft have an extremely nasty reputation for crippling other people's software. Take WordPerfect - when Windows added truetype fonts, Microsoft provided two ways for scrolling text efficiently. The one that they documented and made public for WordPerfect to use was dog slow...for no particularly good reason. WORD on the other hand used a secret, undocumented, Windows function that scrolled truetype fonts at acceptable speeds. It's hard to justify why you'd fail to document the efficient interface - or indeed why you'd have the horribly inefficient version in the first place. One might argue that they considered the fast interface to be somehow 'iffy' - but yet Microsoft used that interface for their very own flagship product. In that case, it worked. Word Perfect went from dominating the market to being used almost nowhere within a year. Word just wasn't that much better...except that Word Perfect became almost unusuable overnight. I could come up with many MANY occasions when MS did that - but rather than get further off-topic, I'll just refer you to the many court cases that Microsoft have lost for doing this exact kind of thing.

So, I stand by what I wrote - it's fact - and I can prove it sentence by sentence. If you have other reasons for wishing for my imminent scrotectomy - feel free to say specifically what you mean and I'll do my best to reply to them ^{possibly in a high, squeaky voice}. SteveBaker (talk) 02:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe I just read all of your two posts. Talk about long! Anyway, I disagree with the statement, "That one fact ... explains 100% of the remaining history." Apple could have won the war with Microsoft if they had sold their OS to other vendors from the beginning. As it turned out, though, their products were too expensive. Windows 95 was the best OS on the market when it was introduced, and Windows 3 was pretty darn good. It wasn't until Mac OS 10.4 Tiger (2005) that Apple regained an edge. When Apple finally made competitive products, they were able to justify their higher prices, and they began to regain market share. So it's not an issue of making a deal or two with the right partner. It's really about building a good enough product and selling it at a fair price. You also mentioned uncompetitive behavior. But in cases such as browsers, Microsoft really beat Netscape into the ground after they started building a better browser (IE 4 on).--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft was already well established as a monopoly with DOS - long before Windows 3. We're talking about back in the era of DOS. It's debatable as to whether Apple could have turned things around - by releasing their OS to other vendors - but Apple are not (nor have ever been) a software company. They make their money from the hardware. Actually, Apple did Microsoft a favor there - when Digital Research tried to get back into the game with their "GEM" windowing system on the PC, Apple sued the pants off of them and that resulted in a GEM that was so crippled as to be practically unusable. When Microsoft infringed Apple's IP in the exact same way with early versions of Windows - Apple let it slide. As for the "better browser" argument - I agree that IE4 made an impact by sheer feature growth - but that was not the finding of the monopoly hearings in the US. SteveBaker (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

{{rpa}} - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 06:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

(If there is an admin handy - can we please take this to Jimmi's talk page and explain that he's not allowed to talk like this?) SteveBaker (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I removed two personal attacks above. EdJohnston (talk) 16:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You may already know of it, but for a good overview of the early days and evolution of the microcomputer, including the rise of Microsoft, I highly recommend the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds. Check the video section of your local library. If they don't have it, ask a librarian - they might be able to get it. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:44, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

download

I can't find any downloads for the game Fuji Golf. Could you please direct me to one? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 10:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

That's not free software - I think it would be illegal to do that. SteveBaker (talk) 14:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It was released in 1991, so I doubt Microsoft is going to make any more money off of it. 136.165.49.119 (talk) 21:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

There are always torrents. But I really don't think that's a good idea--Dlo2012 (talk) 17:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The Pirate Bay [1] --wj32 ^t/c 09:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

AOL

Why the **** has AOL Hometown been shut down?! There are some pages on there that I really need to visit! 121.219.2.201 (talk) 11:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

AOL isn't required to host Hometown if they don't want to. Check the Wayback Machine and see if the pages you want are cached. Also, keep in mind that the Internet is not static. There is no guarantee that anything you find today will be there tomorrow. -- kainaw™ 18:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

a gentle start to versioning....

For the past few years, the only programming I did was quick systems administration tasks (and a few other things) in Perl from the Windows command line. Everything was a one-liner. My only form of versioning was the up and down arrows (ie the command history). I would run it, if it worked, I added the next part. If it didn't work anymore I just pressed up and tried to get it working, repeating this until until it worked (this was great: I could just guess at what "might" be the syntax and if I was wrong I'd have it right soon enough) but if I really messed up with the change I tried to introduce and couldn't get it working no-how, I would just press up twice to get to the version before that. Worked great.

Well, recently I decided to start using Python, and it isn't as conducive to the one-liner.

So I started doing this. Instead of up and down arrows, every single change I made I copied the py file, like this: 1something.py 2something.py etc. If I really broke for example 23something.py then I would delete it and go back to 22something.py

It works okay but it's more work after my next change is okay to copy a file and iterate the number it starts with, close the project, and open the copied version, than to just press the up arrow and continue editing!

So I'd like a gentle introduction to a real versioning system. I want something that I can use my old, test-heavy approach, where every single change I immediately tested (and thereby committed as a version in the command history), and this only took a press of the up key and the return key.

Can anyone give me an easy introductory tip (windows or an online service) that would be just as simple. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.209.97 (talk) 13:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

If I were you - I'd install 'Subversion' (often abbreviated to the name of the command-line version: 'svn'). Its a full-blown, industrial-strength version control system with all the bells and whistles - but it has a fairly low entry-point on the learning curve and it's OpenSourced and fully portable across operating systems. Once you've created your repository, you can boil down the (huge) command set to just four commands: add, remove, update and commit. Use 'add' and 'remove' to add and remove files from the directory you're working in - use 'commit' to put your changes into the repository - and 'update' to get an updated set of files from the repository. This will get you started - then you can learn about reversion, making branches, tagging versions in various ways, resolving changes made by two or more people at the same time, etc, etc. You can use Subversion remotely over the net - but you can also keep your repository on your local machine where you can easily wipe it out and start over if you make a mistake. There are many great SVN tutorials on the net. If you have a strong aversion to command-line tools, you can use one of the many graphical front-ends to subversion such as 'SmartSVN' - I believe some of those are OpenSourced, but I don't use any of them because I'm a command-line junkie. I've worked on million-line-of-code projects that used subversion - and I keep all that I do at home using it too (even my firefox preferences file and letters to the bank are version controlled and kept in my repository!) SteveBaker (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

For a windows explorer-integrated graphical interface, you might want to try TortoiseSVN. After reading Steve's recommendation, I decided to try out subversion, and use my linux box as the server. I downloaded TortoiseSVN on my windows box as the client. First impression: very promising. To get it working with this setup requires some work though, and reading the docs carefully, as well as googling for error messages. Probably, getting TortoiseSVN working on a single machine is easier, but I haven't tried that. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:54, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Getting TortoiseSVN to work on a single Windows machine is easy. Installing is just point-and-click. TortoiseSVN adds its own menu to the Explorer, and you use the option "Create repository here" to initialize a repository (where the versions are stored). Then you check out the repository with the option SVN Checkout and now you have a versioned working directory. Put your Python script there, and select "SVN commit" after each good version, or "SVN revert" if you want to go back to the previous version.

As noted, a command line subversion client is also useful, and may be easier to add into your workflow - the key commands there are svn commit -m "testing" and svn revert. One approach would be to replace your command python something.py with svn commit -m "testing" && python something.py in order to really save a version before each and every test run, but this has drawbacks: first, it stores a version even if nothing changed, and second, after a test run it's now a bit more complicated to get the old version back. 84.239.160.166 (talk) 18:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

reset Keyboard

i dropped my laptop, and now some letters come out different from how they should, eg, a b c d e f g h 5 1 2 3 0 n 6 - q r s t 4 v w x y z. please help me, how can this be fixed, at the moment i have to copy and paste 50% of my letters. took me 25 mins to write this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.34.11 (talk) 20:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

uh, your num lock is on? If you look VERY carefully at the letters that come out as 5, 1, 2, 3, instead of i, j, k, l you should see (maybe in a very different color that's for example blue on black keys, or a weird part of the key [upper-left, etc]) the numbers will be painted on them. They might be hard to spot. Just press num lock again (it should be in the top row somewhere) and you'll be all set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 20:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, you are a real life saver! If i can ever do anything for you just say the word! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.34.11 (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

"The word". Sorry. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 07:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Squid cache

Can someone help me understand the sorts of things squid cache does by perhaps giving me examples of what it is used for on Wikipedia --RMFan1 (talk) 23:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Squid is used by wikipeda as a cache. When you ask for a Wikipedia page, you don't ask the php scrips and database directly, you ask the squid cache. The first time you do this is passes the request on to the php and database to really generate the page. Squid remembers the contents of that page, so the next person that requests it can just get the copy which squid has remembered, without needing to hit the php and database again. Using the cache reduces the load that wikipedia's main servers have to cope with. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

November 5

Google Reader shared items

I find that Google Reader is consistently omitting my friends' shared items if they are from blogs I already subscribe to. To see these items, I have to switch to "all items", i.e. they are automatically being marked as read if I already subscribe to that blog. Is anyone else having this problem? How can I make it show all of my friends' shared items? --Anakata (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Strange as it may sound, my contacts and I probably do not have any common shared subscriptions on Google Reader. Kushal (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what's going on, but my friends share stuff from feeds I already subscribe to all the time, and I can see them just fine. Perhaps not so helpful an answer :P 195.58.125.46 (talk) 19:24, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

yay a happy topic name

I just downloaded the "leaked" build of Windows 7. It is in the form of a .TPB.torrent file. How would I convert it out of .torrent? Then the .TPB extension... I have no idea what that is. flaminglawyer^c 01:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a copyright violation and we don't links, nor do we provide related information. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Wow. They should put warnings on stuff like that. Well that's deleted for me. flaminglawyer^c 01:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Could someone direct me to a legal download site for a Win7 beta? I heard (i think it was on neowin, but not sure) that Win7 was being released to developers/testers. flaminglawyer^c 01:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You are talking about Microsoft. Beta products go to licensed developers and testers. Purchase your developer license and they'll make sure you have a beta copy to test. -- kainaw™ 02:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Where could I purchase a "developer license?" A quick google search gives nothing relevant. flaminglawyer^c 02:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You call Microsoft. A friend of mine works there. I asked him what the cheapest developer license is and he said that if you get an upgrade from MSDN to MSDN Premium for $2,500, you get a 1-year license. -- kainaw™ 03:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

.torrent files are about thirty kilobytes, did you really think you'd downloaded an entire operating system in about two seconds? You don't seem interested anymore, but see Bittorrent to understand what a .torrent file is. The "TPB" stands for "The Pirate Bay", which is the site you downloaded the file from. (Frankly, the fact that you were surprised that you got a pirated file from a site called "The Pirate Bay" make me think I'm being trolled, but I don't mind. ) APL (talk) 05:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you had read the original post, I posted a link to the site where i got the .torrent file. The link was deleted by Gadget850, the second poster, because "we don't links, nor do we provide related information." The link was not to The Pirate Bay, as you can see, but was to some other random site. Which would explain me not knowing what the TPB extension was. flaminglawyer^c 01:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

rofl! You need a BitTorrent client like uTorrent to open the .torrent file. That client will actually download the file. BTW there's nothing wrong with talking about downloading illegal things on Wikipedia. We're not actually sharing the data. --wj32 ^t/c 09:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

And of course the other thing is that if you're downloading something from a 'dubious' source such as code pirates - you're also just BEGGING to have your machine infested with every kind of malware and other vermin. People who can crack the security on such things and are happy to flaunt the law like that are more than capable of writing some pretty vicious malware - and you have to suspect their motives. I certainly wouldn't even CONSIDER doing this - it's so obviously a bad idea. An entire beta OS is a great way to take over another persons machine because you can easily set up the OS defaults to turn off all of the security - and even have the malware pre-installed! If you want to paint a big "INFECT ME SIGN" on your PC, this is a great way to do it! SteveBaker (talk) 14:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly the reason why I abstain from Linuxes and similar download OS-es. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 15:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference there though - I wouldn't download Linux from a random nobody who I've never heard of - but downloading it (still for free) from places like SuSE, Ubuntu and RedHat who have a solid reputation is very safe indeed. SteveBaker (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

And remember, just because it is from torrent does not mean that you cannot run SHA hash functions before you install the OS. Kushal (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

So the moral of the story is don't download from torrents because they will kill your computer with a dagger made of molten lava. I get it. But I agree with SteveBaker on that Linux is pretty much always safe if you get from the right places. flaminglawyer^c 01:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. That's like saying you don't use Wikipedia because it's often inaccurate. There's something called common sense. You can usually tell if a torrent has a virus or not (virus scanner, torrent comments). And, I've never seen anyone load up an OS with malware and put that on a torrent site (and again, you can usually tell). --wj32 ^t/c 07:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Official torrents are almost perfectly safe. It is the unofficial torrents that are iffy. Ars Technica earlier issued a warning on supposedly leaked Windows 7 and asked readers to NOT download them as they turned out to be a customized Windows Vista SP1^link!. I don't know why I would download a massive, pre-beta software if I did not want to help with the development process, though. (I use pre-beta Firefox/Minefield on some computers, but I honestly believe that my error reports to Mozilla will not be tossed into a trash can.) Kushal (talk) 10:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people want to see what it looks like and feels like and a screen shot/movie usually can't do justice. At this stage, I'm not convinced there is any point but definitely at a later stage I can understand why people would be interested. I've used betas of various products for a variety of reasons, but I rarely file bug reports. I don't even usually find any (or maybe I do but don't notice or I'm not sure and don't track it down). As for viruses, I have to agree with Wj32 here, despite the scare stories it's actually not that common. More importantly, you can verify the file against a SHA1 and MD5 hash. Of course you need to actually get the hash, but there are various trustworthy sites where it's provided (at least at the later stage). Having said that, I wouldn't recommend someone who can't even work out how to download a torrent do anything of this sort. I don't mean to be rude, but you have a lot to learn before you start trying a pre-beta OS from a torrent site. Nil Einne (talk) 13:49, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well said, Nil. Kushal (talk) 10:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Download

Why the hell do many download sites demand that you create an account and then do something with a download partner? Young people like me cannot do that stuff. 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

In almost all cases those sites are just reproducing content elsewhere on the internet without any conditions. Search some more with the specific names of what you are trying to download and you can probably find the original. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 05:29, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You can download partners now? I can see that might be restricted for young people! The wonders of the internet never cease to amaze me. :) Dmcq (talk) 10:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Most sites want to get you to create an account for a least a couple of reasons: User-tracking (they track how you use/how much you use the site to further development), security (they tie your activity to an account e.g. if they need to identify you to authorities they stand a better chance), repeat-custom (if you went to the effort of signing up you might feel inclined to use their service again since you're already registered etc. Your best work around is www.tempinbox.com it's a throw-away email address (no passwords, no setup) and it lets you specify any email address (e.g. WhyWouldIDoThat@tempinbox.com) on the form and then just go to tempinbox.com and input that email address to access the mail. Signing up to sites you don't plan on re-using this way is pretty useful. There is NO security on tempinbox so anyone can access the email address you specify so don't use it for secure stuff/important things, it's just useful for throw-away logins you might need to get access to something in particular. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

He/she is referring to sites that make you sign up for a "free credit test" or something dubious like that. As I said, it's usually the case that such sites are not original generators of content—often they are just hosting files others have uploaded to RapidShare or something like that. It's a rather predatory racket. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd infer that the consensus is to advise you to stay away from those websites. Captain Obvious strikes again! Kushal (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Question

Are there any forums for the site [www.rom-freaks.net Rom Freaks]? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Spam? Moreover, it is considered poor etiquete to delete someone else's text in a talk page. Kushal (talk) 10:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Reporting

On GameFAQS and Yahoo Answers, whenever I report a comment that is off-topic, offensive, etc, I never, ever get a respose. Why is that? Those sites should be designed so that people have the right to take such comments off of their own topics. 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The topics do not belong to the questioners. They belong to the website (read the legal junk). Yahoo Answers does have the ability to demote comments that are off topic or offensive. If a person is demoted enough, his or her account can be blocked. -- kainaw™ 13:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't get a response because they don't have the staff to deal with it. Sites like that rely on the fact that if 200 people say something is off-topic or offensive, then they will probably have someone look at it. But if there's just one person or a dozen who say so, that isn't enough signal to cope with the noise of people clicking things at random, and isn't worth their time. They no doubt have some sort of system somewhat like this set up, because there is just way too much information to process otherwise. And they certainly don't regard your individual flag as being important, and they certainly don't have time to get back to you personally. --140.247.243.184 (talk) 19:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

is there any open source webzine, ezine, online magazine software?

I have googled all day for webzine, ezine and/or online magazine open source software. If anybody can suggest some names and, probably, we can make a list on wikipedia? I would prefer php software, if possible. Thank you in advance Renich (talk) 06:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• What do you want the software to do? I use a simple HTML editor and once I get another domain, I'll be able to use PHP too. I think you're better off getting the different coding bits from separate sources. The basics: web shop function (if you want readers to pay; make sure you have plenty of freebies, otherwise no one will invest), password function for readers to login, and mailing list software. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
• Drupal and Wordpress are the most popular solutions. You could also try Textpattern, Joomla, or ExpressionEngine. These all run on PHP with a MySQL database. Pretzels^Talk! 03:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Program Help

i finally got a new computer and its awesome, but someone keeps screwing with it and i come home from school to find a virus or spyware on my computer. I use a firewall and virus scanner and when i get home they have been turned off. I would like to write a program that will start a screensaver, then append a log file when the screen saver is deactivated. I'd like the program to be in either C#, C++, or Visual Basic. Also, i am curious as to whether or not this can be accomplished using an MS-DOS Batch File. Appreciate the help. PS-This is not homework. It may sound like it, but this is a serious question as i have no programming skills at all. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of such a thing - and I'm not sure it really helps. But why don't you put a new password on your account, and make sure you changed the password on the admin account - and keep both of those secret - remove the accounts for anyone else whom you do not 100% trust and for those you do trust, make sure that they set up passwords and keep them secret. Now set up the screen saver so that you have to type in your password to deactivate it. (Assuming you're running Windows - open up the control panel - click on the "Display" icon - then the "Screen Saver" tab - then check the box labelled "On resume, password protect"). If the screen saver pops up too often when you are working - then the need to repeatedly enter the password will get annoying - so increase the delay before the screen saver kicks in and get in the habit of typing Ctrl-Alt-Del and clicking "Lock Computer" whenever you walk away from the machine for any length of time. Then, nobody will be able to use your computer except you. SteveBaker (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) Windows already has a log for such things (Start --> Run... --> eventvwr.msc). It keeps track of such actions and its log can be exported as a text file. Screen savers themselves (.scr files) often contain viruses since they are programs. You could also keep a log using a batch file. You wouldn't need anything fancier than that. To start a screen saver, you'd type the name of the screen saver followed by a /s. Also, Windows comes with a file written in VBScript for accessing the log via the command line. To start the Bezier screen saver, and keep a log, you'd type this into a file with a .bat extension:

ssbezier.scr /s
cscript C:\WINDOWS\system32\eventquery.vbs | sort > log.txt

The cscript command runs the .vbs file and the > outputs the results to a text file named log.txt. The | character allows a command to be run on the output, in this case sorting it. You can also search the output, and so on.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 14:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ahh...that will work! thanks! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Another in need of help!

I have a confounding problem with my new computer with Windows Vista. I spelled out the details here [2]. If someone with some expertise would take a look and offer advice, that would be greatly appreciated. Handicapper (talk) 15:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Try right-clicking the taskbar and going to the Toolbars menu. I'm not sure will it work for Vista, but it works for XP or any older Window. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 16:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

What would I do when I get there? Handicapper (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless you really need Google Toolbar, I would suggest visiting the "Programs" thingy in the control panel and uninstalling it. Astronaut (talk) 17:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the strange thing, I don't have Google Toolbar. Handicapper (talk) 18:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you recently deleted the file C:/DELL/E-Center/index.­html ? I also did this search and quickly found a forum page - you might find it useful. Astronaut (talk) 18:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Standalone data entry system

I made this data entry system - basically a web app. which runs on ASP.NET & MySQL. It's a few simple forms and some nice graphics to illustrate statistics etc. running on a web server. Now the powers that be is asking me to make a standalone version you can dump on a laptop (without internet) so people can do data entry on the fly.

So I'm thinking I'll just make a simple app. without all the fancy features - which allows you to enter data with a simple function which copies all the data onto the webserver once you hook up to the internet.

I only ever messed around with web sites, I have never made a standalone program before, so help me out here. The app. is so simple I suspect I can just write and compile it in Visual Studio - can't be too different from what I got now - but what database do I use? I can't very well use MySQL? It's going to be installed on 200+ laptops so this needs to be REAL simple and manegable. 194.239.246.106 (talk) 16:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You could probably use SQLite for the data store. As you say, the majority of your code ought to be pretty easy to port, with the addition of some forms for the interface in place of the HTML. Of course, you'll then need some way of the standalone app "reporting" the data back to the central server, but that can be as simple as authenticating and then posting to an import script that dumps it straight into the master DB (with a bit of sanity checking, obviously). - IMSoP (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Bluetooth Caller ID

Is there a free program out there that will pop a caller ID notification on my Vista computer from incoming calls to my cellphone. I have bluetooth capabilities on both. I have the LG enV. (the original) --omnipotence407 (talk) 19:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Background change when locked

Hey,

Is there a program that let's you change your background when you 'lock windows' (windows button + l)? I'm talking about the background when it's locked. Not the desktop background. I'm using Vista by the way.

In advance, thanks! 93.184.122.12 (talk) 20:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

There are instructions on how to do it manually here, but it involves messing around with system files so be careful. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

November 6

OS X Binds

How can you bind a key to do a certian action in OS X? For example, I want to find the F13 key to switch kanas on my computer. Or even do expose. Do I need to use the terminal (which im fine with)? Is their some program that can do this? --Randoman412 (talk) 00:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

TIGCC and C programming

I am trying to write a program in C in TIGCC for my TI-89 Titanium, but I do not know how do implement lists in C. My program can be found on my userpage. How would I modify the program to properly handle the list? There are also some other problems with it, such as the DelVar function, indicating that the variable l should be deleted, and the Pause function, indicating that the program should pause there until the user presses the "Enter" button. How should these be fixed? Lucas Brown (talk) 03:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Turing test judging as a Turing test

Can the ability to accurately judge Turing tests be itself used as a Turing test? NeonMerlin 03:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I suppose so. Maybe. That might be missing the point of the Turing test a little, because the judge is not only supposed to try to tell whether he's communicating with a person or a piece of software. The process of that determination is also pretty important: the software needs to convince the judge by displaying human behavior. The judge uses an inherently subjective set of criteria for the test; that's kind of the point. Merely being able to analyze the responses in some other way wouldn't do. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 05:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

NO. If you try to use the ability to judge a Turing test as a Turing test then my program,

 print "JUDGMENT: Program being tested has FAILED the Turing test."

Would be correct for the foreseeable present (since we have no programs able to pass the Turing test) which is a contradiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 05:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

No it wouldn't. Your program would fail whenever the thing it was testing was actually a human. Algebraist 10:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• What you're referring to is known as a Reverse Turing test, and there is quite a bit of literature on the subject. So technically, yes - it has been proposed (and tried), and could serve as a type of Turing Test, where "Turing Test" is read to mean "Behavioral (or functional) test for intelligence". However, it does tend to be open to most of the same arguments that are used against the Turing Test, and personally I'd argue that it is likely to be simpler to achieve, and thus less convincing. :) - Bilby (talk) 10:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's possible for a non-intelligent program to administer a Turing test and judge the results with a high degree of accuracy. Most programs that attempt to pass the test are easily tripped up by asking questions that simply require more knowledge than a piece of software is likely to have. "How many dwarves were there in that classic cartoon...er..not "Cinderella" - the other one with the cute chick in the long dress?"...the difficulty of answering questions like that is a really major reason why the Turing test is so tough. So all a program has to do is to store a list of such questions - to ask them and to see how many come back with some kind of reasonable answer. I suspect that simple statistical measurements would work pretty well too. Heck - we have software that can tell the difference between Spam and real eMail fairly accurately - I think telling a 'bot from a human should be about as easy. SteveBaker (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, on this topic, a CAPTCHA is a turing test - it administers a question ("What are the letters in this picture?") that can presumably only be answered by a human, and then determines whether someone is a human or not based on their response. - Bilby (talk) 14:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Connection problem

My pc is using a linksys wireless usb adapter to connect online. I have a good signal and am connected, but when if i open IE or firefox, I get a page load error. I think this is a settings issue, but I'm not sure what to do. BTW, the pc is running windows xp.24.9.157.26 (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

nevermind. i figured it out.97.118.254.230 (talk) 04:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Firefox problem

I just started up and seem to have some sort of FF problem. Basically I'm getting this across the top of all web pages and not just Wikipedia. I haven't installed any new or updated add-ons since shutting down FF and I have also tried disabling all the add-ons but that does not help. Not noticable in the picture but the address bar is blank for every page and entering text in there works but it's not visible. Any suggestions? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

maybe you should donate, like everyone else who wants to get rid of that effect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 05:39, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the donation bar. The problem appears across all web pages, Google, Youtube, Firefox error pages, and not just at Wikipedia, as I pointed out. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, problem solved using brute force. Reinstalled FF. All is good with the world again. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 06:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If anyone else has this problem, the run-on effect shown in the picture is caused by a style sheet that contains * { display: inline; }. Firefox allows user-created style sheets to modify how websites look and how the Firefox interface looks. You can search online for userContent.css and userChrome.css for more information. You can edit or delete those files to correct the problem. --Bavi H (talk) 03:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Just curious but what would cause it? I hadn't changed anything and it just started like that. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 04:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

A corrupt installation, probably. Ale_Jrb^talk 22:21, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I can only guess some program or person created malicious or faulty userContent.css and userChrome.css files in the correct place. I recognized that run-on effect from experimenting with style sheets in the past, and since the effect was happening on all pages, I suspected a browser-wide style sheet was in effect.

Playing around with it just now, I was also able to make Firefox's address box text white (and thus invisible unless selected) by putting #urlbar * * { color: white; } in the userChrome.css file. So this further suggests it's possible your problems were caused by these style sheets.

In any case, if it ever happens again, you can might see if the userContent.css and userChrome.css files exist and if there are any clues in them as to the possible source. --Bavi H (talk) 03:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I just remembered, chkdsk ran on that reboot so it's possible that it did something that caused it. Thanks for the replies. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 09:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Rapidshare

How can you browse through the whole library of files on Rapidshare? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 06:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

unfortunately I remember seeing on their faq that for privacy reasons it is impossible to browse or search the files. you have to find someone linking to them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 07:19, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

You can't browse rapidshare directly, but there are several sites which index rapidshare links from across the web. Some good ones are rapidshare-search-engine.com, rapidshare1.com, loadingvault.com and 4chan's /rs/ board. SN0WKITT3N 12:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo

Some downloads on Yahoo require that you first install Yahoo Tools. I have installed that, but the downloads still do not work. Why? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 06:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Some secure pages: Use of Back-button = 'page expired'...Why?

Re: above. I've heard it is a 'security' reason, but I was just interested to understand what additional security was provided by this? I guess it is incase you left the screen without closing IE and someone could then come to explorer, click back and get to a secure site you were using, but that could be prevented by a few simple measures (e.g. only expire if the page they are navigating from isn't part of the site, or prompt a re-request for the password). It's most frustrating and beyond what I noted I can't think of any security benefit. Anybody aware of anything more? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Two words: Lazy programmer ... Kushal (talk) 10:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If you do online shopping, sometimes using the back button will place a duplicate order. That's kinda bad if it's a $2,000 pinball machine (yes this happened to me...$4,000 on a credit card is a bad thing...) 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:13, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

In the Opera browser, the back button always works. 81.200.82.2 (talk) 18:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well I think that, when you click Back, the browser would either have to (1) remember the state of the page, which involves keeping this page and its state in memory, for all previous pages, which would be a memory drain; or (2) reload the page again, in which case the site might get confused why you are make the request for the previous page again, when its session info or whatever says that you have already navigated onto the next one. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 18:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't the browser keep the information on the state of the page in the hard disk swap? Surely, it takes longer to access it but it is a worthwhile thing. And I still stand by my original words: either the website should provide a way to go back and forth in the page itself or work with the navigation buttons in the browser. Kushal (talk) 10:52, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the entire point is to avoid having the page be accessible through history files, duh. Relying on the hard disk swap is not very secure, especially if you are on a public computer. I don't think it is "laziness" that is at fault here. There are multiple ways to make pages rigorously secure, some of which are incompatible with allowing forward and back working. Here's a blog post about one of the more obscure exploits one can do and the sorts of things one must do if one is writing a site in which you are making sure this is not a possibility. I'd be surprised if that particular solution worked with forward and back buttons. Is it overkill? Is the trade-off in convenience-for-security done correctly? I don't know. One could reason different ways on it. But laziness doesn't come into play as a factor, at least not in the way you mean it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

More Program Help

yes...well the batch file listed in Program Help question (see Program Help above) didn't work. But i did find out how to do it in Visual Basic 2005! Here's the rough code for my program. PS: the Process1.Start command starts the process ssstars.scr PPS: the EventLog1.WriteEntry command writes the listed string to the Application Event log.

Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Button1_Click (system inserted stuff)
         Process1.Start()
         If Process1.HasExited() Then
             EventLog1.WriteEntry("Screen Saver exited at the listed time and date.")
             Application.Exit()
         End If
    End Sub
End Class

For some reason, the Process1.HasExited() command will not acknowledge that ssstars.scr has exited; therefore, the event log is not written to and the form will not exit. What am i doing wrong? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

You need to check for exit until the process has actually exited, not only once right after it was started. Try replacing if with while. This approach is called busy waiting and generally the easiest but also worst method. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.64.186 (talk) 16:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

How would i do that? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC) Never mind...i got it to work right. Thanks! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 17:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Process class has an event called Exited or something. Use that. --wj32 ^t/c 06:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration in MS Excel. How?

Resolved

I have Excel 2003 in a small office network. How can I work with the same document from different computers simultaneously, without "read-only" mode? When I open the file on one computer, I can open it on another one only as "read-only". I know this is possible, but I don't know how. I don't have Sharepoint. Please help me! 81.200.82.2 (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Why do you claim to "know this is possible"? Ever since the very first version of Excel, I've never seen it have the ability to allow two users to edit the same spreadsheet at the same time. Perhaps you are thinking of Access. -- kainaw™ 18:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Because I've seen it. In Excel. 0xFFFF (talk) 20:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, found this - any good? And here from MS --3sJJ0Itf (talk) 20:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Turn on 'share workbook' (tools > share-workbook) it's not quite perfect but does the job of allowing multiple users in one excel spreadsheet. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, 3sJJ0Itf and 194.221.133.226! That's exactly the option I was looking for. 0xFFFF (talk) 13:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

PHP Directory Listing Woes

Resolved

Hi Guys,

I have the following code, meant to list specific files in a directory (documents);

 <?php
$dir = dir(".");
$text = "";
$class = "";

	//List files in images directory
	while (($file = $dir->read()) !== false) {
			 if (preg_match('/\w+\.\w+/i',$file) && ($file != 'index.php')) {
			 	if (preg_match('/\w+\.doc.?$/i',$file)) { 
					$class = 'word'; 
				}
				if (preg_match('/\w+\.xls.?$/i',$file)) { 
					$class = 'excel'; 
				}
				if (preg_match('/\w+\.pdf$/i',$file)) { 
					$class = 'pdf'; 
				}
			 		echo "<span class='" . $class . "'><a href='" . 

$file . "'>" . $file . "</a></span><br />";
			 }
	}
	$dir->close();

?>

It works fine and all, but please help me understand why certain file names, specifically ones with parenthesis "()" dont get listed, and how to get around it.

Thanks in advance PrinzPH (talk) 20:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Your preg_match() calls all require that the file name contain a period and that the characters adjacent to some period be word characters (which probably means alphanumerics). --Tardis (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If you're not comfortable with regular expressions, I'd recommend doing something a little easier to follow if you're trying to have control over listing directories, e.g. something like this, which will load files and directories into an array (which can then be sorted, printed, whatever):

<?php
	$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
	$self = substr($self, strrpos($self,"/")+1);
	$filelist=array();
	$dirlist=array();

	if ($dh = opendir(".")) {
	    while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false) {
			if(filetype($file)=="file") {
				if($file!=$self) { 
					 $filelist[] = $file;
				};
			} else if(filetype($file)=="dir") {
				if($file!=".") {
					if($file!="..") {
						$dirlist[]=$file;
					};
				};
			}
	    }
	    closedir($dh);
	}
?>

The above code will leave you with two arrays full of files. The only things filtered out are the listing file itself and relative directories ("." and ".."). You could easily modify the nested IF statements to not include other types, or to check the extension of the files if you wanted to filter by filetype. Not necessarily as elegant as regular expressions but it works just as well (if not better, because if you want to make a change you can do it in a modular way, rather than trying to figure out the ideal regex for your purpose). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for help! The regex is meant to match *.xls(x) *.doc(x) and *.pdf... Silly me: \w+ does not match some special characters. PrinzPH (talk) 00:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Right, but you can do that without regex. Regex is a little overkill for something as simple as extension matching (you can just as easily and probably just as quickly use substr+stripos for that) in my opinion, in part because unless one really knows regex like the back of your hand you are liable to make lots and lots of errors. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

proxy server

I'm trying to connect to my university's proxy server, but I am already behind a proxy server at home and when I enter the university's proxy server into the "manual proxy configuration" in firefox it doesn't work. How can I access a proxy server through a proxy server, ie use a second proxy server when I'm already behind the first? I need it to access the library resources which can only be done through the university's proxy server. Thanks.

Firstly, you need to configure your proxy server to use your university's proxy server. Are you running the proxy or is it your ISP's? Secondly, is your university's proxy server actually available across the internet, or is it just on your university's intranet? --wj32 ^t/c 06:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Norton Ghost 2003

Will Norton Ghost 2003 (Ghost (software)) work on a Windows Vista based PC? -- SGBailey (talk) 21:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

According to [3], you can backup a FAT32 partition containing Vista, but not a NTFS partition (Vista has a new version of NTFS) [4] [5] --wj32 ^t/c 06:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Technically, NTFS is NOT a newer version between XP and Vista. They just actually added in-OS junctioning/symbolic linking support and Transactional NTFS (which are added on an application, rather than implementation, level (though junctioning/symbolic stuff existed in WinXP as well)). Washii (talk) 02:30, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

November 7

WTH?!?!

This website http://news.sina.com.cn/437/2008/0701/14.html (warning: do not re-type or copy and paste this URL into your browser, as this website is believed to install Trojan horses and/or other types of malware on computers) , has been popping up each time I open Internet Explorer, trying so hard to install a Chinese language pack on my computer even though it's not my homepage, but it appears as such nonetheless. Even when I go to Internet Options to reset my home page, it will automatically go back to the to the aforementioned site. It's the exact same deal even when I put the website on the restricted list in Internet Options. What the hell is going on? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 00:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

This is the common result of installing a trojan. What did you install? Can you uninstall it (probably not). Get a virus/malware cleaner and hope for the best. In the future, do not install software from strangers on the Internet (and your response will be "I didn't install anything!!!" - so don't install software when you are sleeping or let invisible gremlins install software when you are out of the house). -- kainaw™ 00:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

But how do I stop it from appearing constantly as my homepage (or ever again)? And why are admin accounts more vulnerable to those web sites than limited accounts? (I'm talking Windows XP.) And if you click install, and it says "Insert Windows XP Professional CD-ROM", but you never insert the CD, you only clicked install, is it too late? Oh man, I hope I'm not screwed. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 00:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

How do you stop it? Remove the trojan. How do you do that? Get a virus/malware remover program (anti-virus, anti-malware - whatever you want to call programs like McAfee and Norton) and hope that the program will completely remove the trojan. Why are admin accounts more vulnerable? Admins are allowed to install programs that limited accounts are not allowed to install. Some trojans need admin access to get deeply installing into the system. -- kainaw™ 00:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It probably is acting through an add-on. Go to Tools --> Manage Add-ons, or Tools --> Internet Options --> Programs --> Manage Add-ons and check. Write down the name of the add-on and search the registry (Start --> Run... --> regedit) for the entry. Also check your C:\WINDOWS and C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder for new .dll files. I usually go into these folders and sort the contents by creation date. If you were infected two days ago, you'd get rid of files created in the last two days.

Of course, limited accounts cannot install many programs, so they are less vulnerable. I run Internet Explorer at a low privilege level using psexec. You could also log in as a regular user and use the fast-user switching feature to improve security.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 00:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Not stopping the trojan in terms of removing it, I have an anti-virus program taking care of that, I meant making sure the web site never appears ever again. I disabled every add-on and I put the internet restrictions to the highest settings, still nothing. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 01:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

First, add the site to your hosts file at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc. As for your "anti-virus program," I would rely on your own two eyes instead of some automated program to clean your computer. It's obviously not very good if it hasn't fixed your browser issue. You're obviously still infected with a virus. Try searching your registry for the URL, too. Oh yeah, and any anti-virus programs you install after you are infected are often rendered useless by the virus.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Get Spybot and run it. If it still doesn't stop it from popping up, look in the advanced tools—there are ones that let you lock the IE start page and things like that. Additionally, you may want to consider switching to a less-vulnerable browser if possible. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It asked to clean out hundreds of temporary files and now it tells me getting rid of them may violate some license agreements with some of the programs on my computer. How do I fix that? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 01:54, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Clean out the temp files. You don't need them. Don't worry about the licensing agreement thing—any licensing agreement that deposits spyware on your machine is probably worth violating anyway. It's just a legal disclaimer—ignore it as you probably do others. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I have Windows Live OneCare as my main anti-virus tool, I wonder if Spybot will catch anything OneCare misses? --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 02:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

You could wait about 15 minutes and check. Or you could use Google and you'd discover that Live OneCare is one of the worst anti-virus programs on the market. Sorry, I know you were waiting for 98 to respond, but I couldn't help myself.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 02:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

"Do this when there's time" in C#

Is it possible in C# to cause a block of code to be executed the next time the program would otherwise be idle or waiting for input, but not before then? NeonMerlin 03:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

When your application is idle or when the system is idle? If you want to perform a task when the application is idle, you can use the Application.Idle event. That fires every time the message queue becomes empty (which is quite often), so you probably want to have a timer that starts when the event is fired, and after 1 minute or so perform the actual task. If you want to perform a task when the system is idle, use the GetLastInputInfo API function (through a P/Invoke).

You probably want to get your task running on a separate thread, and either suspend it every time the application becomes active and resume it every time the application becomes idle, or have a flag that controls the execution somehow. --wj32 ^t/c 06:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

How does Google limit searches to a specific country?

When using a localised version of Google, you can choose to limit the search to pages from that country, eg. when using google.co.nz I can choose to see only pages from New Zealand. How does Google know the country of origin,? In the past (say two years ago) it was very good in picking both pages from the .nz domain and .com domain with relevant content. Lately it has becoming steadily worse with more US pages creeping into the first page, even with specific search terms. For example, searching "electorate predictions 2008 maungakiekie" brings up 3 US sites in the first page. Is it likely that website designers have become better at manipulating the page ranking system? BeamerNZ (talk) 07:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I've heard people being advised against using overseas webhosting, as it won't show on google searches for "pages from the UK" (in the case of what I've heard - presumably same for NZ, or elsewhere) which would suggest they use Geolocation to see whether page. Might not be that though... Cheers, davidprior (talk) 21:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Google Calendar bug?

Signs: A notice in yellow highlight in the central upper region of the webpage "An error occured. Please try again later."

Steps to reproduce: Create an event in a calendar (lets call it C1) other than your main calendar (lets call it C). Edit the event to make it a repeat itself at least once a week. Set an end date for the event. Save it. Exit. Return to the calendar. Move the calendar from C1 to C. Exit. Move the calendar from C to C1. An error occurs in the last step.

Platform: Web-based, should be platform-agnostic. Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4.11, Firefox 3.0.3

Reproducible always: Yes/No/Not sure

Is it just me or has this happened to any of you too? Is it a bug? If yes, how can I report it? Am I expecting too much from Google Calendar? Kushal (talk) 11:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

NO takers? :( Kushal (talk) 16:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Asus Eee USB fault

I got this Surf 2 GB Linux Eee PC that continually resets my ability to access USB devices. It displays a symbolic link instead of the usual shortcut to the device and says that I don't have permission to access the device. Right now my cyclic solution is to restore the OS to its factory default, but could there be a permanent solution or is this a terminal fault of the manufacture? -- Mentisock 12:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

turbo c++

how can we add graphics in turbo C++ to make a software? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.12.188 (talk) 13:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question, and I suspect that the reason why you haven't received an answer is that no-one else has understood it. You haven't given enough information for us to figure out your level of knowledge, and exactly where you are stuck. Have you read the article Turbo C++? Do you know how to write a simple C++ program? Do you know the difference between a Hello world type of console application and an event-driven application? If you really want to use Turbo C++ for graphics, I remember it had something called the Borland Graphics Interface, which was used for graphics in DOS applications. But I doubt that you would want to program using that API today, it is obsolete. Please give some more information about your level of knowledge, and exactly what you are trying to achieve, and we will be happy to help. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

TI-83+ malfunctioning buttons

While I read a previous question posted about the TI-8x brand of calculators, it remind me of this. My cousin has a TI-83 Plus calculator, which he has been using for about 2 years now. However, about a month ago, an entire column of buttons stopped working correctly (it was the fourth column of buttons, containing Trace, vars, tan, ), 9, 6, 3, and (-)). Whenever pressing any of these buttons, only the negation symbol (-) would appear, not the corresponding one. So if someone pressed a tan button, the negation symbol would show up instead. Does anyone know why or how this could have happened, and possible fixes? The calculator is no longer under warranty, so any help is appreciated. Thanks! 141.153.214.30 (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Windows registry shapshot and diff utility

I'm looking for a program that can take a snapshot of the Windows Xp registry, and at a later time compare the current contents of the registry with the snapshot, and export the changes in .REG format. Can anyone recommend such a utility? Thanks. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It wouldn't be very efficient in terms of time or disk space, but you could just export the whole registry before and after and then run a standard tool like diff on the result (which should work fine even for the large output files). It wouldn't quite be a REG format file, but it wouldn't be very hard to turn it into one (include the appropriate header lines, strike the annotations that diff added). --Tardis (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I had tried that, but windows fc was unable to synchronize the registry dumps. Tried again now, with gnu diffutils diff. The registry dump contains binary data, so I had to use the --text switch. The resulting output appears to be in unicode, and removing the annotations will be very tedious as the output file from diff is large. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hm, that's true. It's probably easy enough to write this from scratch, though, since the regedit format is so simple and we can assume the two files to visit the keys in the same order. Give me a bit and I'll have you a Python script. (In the event that you're an Emacs user, it might even be easier in Elisp, so let me know.) --Tardis (talk) 07:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks!! I'm not an emacs user (did use it in a previous life, but the keyboard bindings are now long forgotten). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

See User:Tardis/regdiff.py. I vouch for its lack of malice, but not its correctness. (And anyone can edit that page!) --Tardis (talk) 10:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply on Tardis' talk page. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I googled "registry diff", "reg difff" and "regdiff" and looked at the first 1/2 doz results for each - only free tool I found within this was regdiff [6] . Hope this helps, davidprior (talk) 21:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The site definitely looks legit, but I'm hesitant about installing an executable from a small website which has few in-going links from external pages. I've tried compiling the program from the source provided, but it appears to depend on a library (gtools) which is available from the same website, but only as an .exe. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I've sent an email to Gerson Kurz, the author of regdiff, about this thread and the lack of complete sources to regdiff. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Remove my personal information from google search results

A Google of my name results in many "private" messages to genealogy lists. Some include my e-mail, mailing address, etc.

Is it possible to erase these messages or unlink them from my name? If so, do I send the request to delete to Google?71.142.83.236 (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Slim chance as it is pointing to other web pages with content. Have you checked other search engines too like http://cuil.com ? You will have to arange removal from original web pages. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

You can request removal of posts in Google Groups, which contains a lot of content that originated on usenet. I can't access the page right now, but it should be searchable. --LarryMac | Talk 21:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hm, I think I know you... --grawity 12:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

dos games on xp

How can we play dos games with windows xp operating system on dua core processor copmuter .e.g I want to play "prince of persia 2" or " gods". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.75.177 (talk) 19:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Try DOSBox. --140.247.242.66 (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have got dosbox from internet,but I know nothing obout it .I have read about it ,but I do not know what is meant by "mount" also I do not know where to write"mount C D:\GAMES" .plz help me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.71.251 (talk) 14:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

What is a corrupt list and how do I prevent it from happening again?

My computer kept turning itself off yesterday and displaying an error message on a blue background that said it was protecting itself.

It took a lot of time talking to HP tech support to get the problem solved. The first person didn't realize how serious the problem was because it took a while for it to happen again, and I had decided the problem was resolved, so I said it was and we ended our phone call. But the second person knew it was serious because I kept having the problem again and again.

The one error message I saw that seemed to explain what was happening said something about a corrupt list. This makes sense because nothing specific I did made the problem happen. One theory I have is every time I went to a site, the computer would add that site to a list and once the list got too long it cut off.

The problem was finally solved with a system restart or whatever he called it, to bring the computer back to where it was the last time it worked. When the computer was turned on I had four choices and one was F11. Normally, I let the computer skip over those. Each time it came back after restarting, it would say Windows didn't shut down correctly and I was given choices, including safe mode, which I tried once. One time I was given a choice which involved repairing.

I was told to use the start button, but that kept disappearing when the computer would turn off. I came up with the F11 idea because in college the mainframe used to go down and we would have what was called "recovery files" in some cases when it came back. I chose to roll back to October 31, since HP, Norton and Windows had sent me lots of updates I didn't want to lose.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean you got BSODs? What is the exact error message? There aren't any "list" errors at [7]. --wj32 ^t/c 22:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

What version of Windows are you using? "System restart" sounds like system restore to me. Rilak (talk) 06:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I saved a list of information about the computer, but I don't want to put it all on here.

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001 Other OS Description Not Available OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name System Manufacturer HP-Pavilion System Model KT369AA-ABA a6512p System Type x64-based PC

Was that enough?

Yes, I meant system restore.

[8] does look very much like the error message I got. Is there someplace where error messages I have gotten are stored? I didn't write anything down because it was all too complicated.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The Event Viewer should have something. Rilak (talk) 08:43, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It's Windows Event Log for me, apparently. I'm not on my computer today.

One more thing. The PRN_List_Corrupt (that's how I remember it) message only appeared once, but that was the closest thing I ever saw to a cause of the problem. I only remember that it was something like that, and that I told the man on the phone as soon as I saw it.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

For some reason I can't find any info on "PRN_LIST_CORRUPT" and I have never seen one myself. What did HP tech support say? Rilak (talk) 05:56, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

WM6 and different data connections

Hi all,

I have a Windows Mobile 6 (Pro)-based PDA with WiFi and GPRS. Now, every time I am connected to WiFi, apps that want internet try to open a GPRS connection, so I have to switch manually to "My ISP" in Settings>Connections>Connections>Advanced. When I disconnect from the WLAN, then programs are again not cabaple to connect to the internet, and I again manually have to specify "E-Plus Web". Can I have WM6 doing this automatically, preferring WLAN?

Thanks, HardDisk (talk) 22:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

A quick thing to rule out... For each connection, you can set what network it connects to (normally "work" or "internet" - sometimes more too) so Windows Mobile knows to use this connection when trying to reach this network. Is the WiFi connection set as connects to internet? (and out of interest, whats the GPRS set as connects to?) Cheers, davidprior (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Where can I see this? I can only see some ethernet adapters when in the advanced section of the Wireless settings. HardDisk (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Now I fucked up something. I went into the program to reload the E-Plus settings. Now, even if the "Set connection apps should use to connect to internet" is set to My ISP, MSN/IE say "Can't connect to the Internet", though I am connected to Wifi :/ Internet via GPRS only also doesn't work anymore. HardDisk (talk) 22:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hope this wasn't 'cos of duff advice... Can't remember how to get in to this setting. My own device is a WM5 smartphone (have various other windows mobile devices at work so could hopefully take a peek on break 2moro) - I go into settings ( \windows\settings.exe) - then the option can be found under Connections->(appropriate connection)->Connects to . Like I say, I dunno if its the same in your version of Windows mobile. Hope this helps (and let me know if you've unkilled your device), davidprior (talk) 22:37, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, unfucked at least the GPRS part by simply again loading the E-Plus Web data. WLAN still connects, but MSN/IE/other apps still want to connect to GPRS, not use WLAN. Now gonna make you some screenshots because apparently Mio baaadly restructured this stuff and the option you (and various google hits) tell is not there :/ HardDisk (talk) 22:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

here for the approach via settings-connections, and here the app with the adapter list. all pix are in chronological order. thank you!HardDisk (talk) 22:48, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks like they're set as connect to internet, so that's that cause ruled out. I've thought some more about this, and I think I've had a device auto-select between 2 WLANs, but not between a WLAN and GPRS/etc. So, that's me hit my limit on this one - dunno if anyone else has any ideas. Cheers, davidprior (talk) 21:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

November 8

why does VLC sound so much more AWESOME than winamp?

After installing VLC for video on my new computer, I used it for some mp3 files. I prefer and am more used to winamp, so I downloaded that insteaed, but I was shocked to find out that VLC had sounded WAY more awesome. I couldn't believe it, especially since I prefer winamp, so tested very carefully. Hands down, VLC is more awesome. Why could that be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 00:36, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "more awesome"? VLC comes with a volume normalizer and a "headphone virtual spatialization" effect. I use Winamp with a normalizer (which uses the DSP studio) and ATsurround (which makes stereo music sound good on 5.1 sound systems). --wj32 ^t/c 01:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Winamp uses the DirectShow API for playback whereas VLC uses it's own codecs. This means VLC might sound different from winamp as it is decoding the mp3 file differently. VLC might also be routing sound through different wave or directsound output settings, or winamp could be using an equalizer which would reduce the dynamic range and clarity of the sound, whereas VLC would play it unaltered. SN0WKITT3N 14:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

VLC is standard louder then winamp I belive,

With standard I mean not pushing or clicking anybuttons except file > open > .....

A nice little note: VLC is multiplatform, Yet winamp is just for windows (as the name suggests) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.84.198.234 (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Unicode weirdness / mystery

I came across this set of characters some jokester posted on a message board recently that messed up the nearby text above and below it, with a series of dots going above and below some of the characters (in fact, I am seeing this effect now in this text box, I am not sure if it will show up when it's posted to the Reference Desk though). None of them look to be any actual alphanumeric characters... here is the string in question, pasted:

̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚ερ҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚

If I Google search this string, Google returns a "malformed or illegal request" error (first time in my life I've seen Google return an error message instead of attempting to search the web with the given string). If I paste some of the characters into OpenOffice, it won't let me select it (or it might be selecting it but it's 0-width??), or input any further text to the left unless I move the cursor up and down and try again a few times. Set the font size to a huge value to see it better, and individual characters will literally look like scrambled junk just like the string itself, like nothing you'd expect to see in an actual character set -- almost, but not quite, like an inkblot.

So what the hell is going on? --75.165.54.206 (talk) 01:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

That is AWESOME!!! :) (sorry, but this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while....) I don't know what that might be... SF007 (talk) 01:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the google error, I think it is simply because the string is very big (even a long string with "normal letters" will produce that error), and if we cut this strange string and search it in google, it works! SF007 (talk) 02:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the key to what's going on here is the unicode character U+202B, which is a right-to-left embedding character (meaning that the stuff you type is reversed). Repeated using of it probably screws with character rendering, or something Belisarius (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Just for kicks, I put your search string into some other search engines: Yahoo! returned this page with about 8 results (a couple of links to news articles on KCRG-9's website, some links to 4chan, one link to 7chan and a link to someone's Facebook page; Live.com silently dumped me back to its main search page, without even so much as an error message; and Ask.com found no results and told me my search terms were too long. --CalusReyma (talk) 09:34, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

On my system (Firefox 3 on Windows XP) the rendered page (although not the edit box) clearly shows several instances of ҉ which a hex editor reveals to be U+0489: Combining Cyrillic Millions Sign. Presumably I can only see it clearly because my system's failing to combine it with the adjacent characters. I can also clearly see a couple of instances of ερ (U+03B5: Greek small letter epsilon followed by U+03C1: Greek small letter rho), and there are various other diacritics in there I think.

So there is no rendering error here, just an imaginative use of combining characters - characters for things like accents that are designed to be displayed "on top of" another letter (or symbol). By layering them on top of each other, the jokester has obscured their individual forms and created an intriguing piece of abstract UNICODE art. - IMSoP (talk) 18:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Opening OpenOffice.org Math on Ubuntu?

Resolved

How can I open OpenOffice.org Math 3 on Ubuntu? It is installed, but I can't find a link anywere! SF007 (talk) 01:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

For an explanation, see [9]. Right-click the main menu and select Edit Menus. In the Office category there should be an item called OpenOffice.org Formula. Enable that. Alternatively, the command is ooffice -math %U. The icon is at /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/ and is called ooo-math.png. [10] --wj32 ^t/c 06:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Press Alt and F2, and type ooffice in the box. Open office is a single application: to run open office math, click File, New, Spreadsheet and you'll be at a new spreadsheet in OO Math. --h2g2bob (talk) 11:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I made it! SF007 (talk) 15:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Feasibilty of buying a Cray CX1 for home use

Could I purchase a Cray CX1 super computer for home use?

[[11]]

Would I be able to hook up my monitor, keyboard, mouse to it? Could I play games and perform tasks that a regular PC could do?

Acceptable (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Dunno, but you might want to take a look at [Windows Server 2003#Windows HPC Server 2008]. Though I'd bet you could get a far better price / performance ratio for most "home user" tasks elsewhere. Sorry this ain't a real answer, cheers, davidprior (talk) 21:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Your peripherals should work, except your printer XD. Most of the programs won't work, though, since the OS is Server 2008. However, Server 2008 includes Hyper-V, which allows you to run XP and Vista virtual machines inside the operating system. It's like VMWare.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Its just a Xeon-based server computer. The Visualization Node CV5401 has a fairly nice video card, so it'd probably be good for gaming. Just expensive. Looks like those systems are more intended for HPC uses. -- JSBillings 01:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I should mention that the CX1 is an enclosure for 8 nodes. Most games don't aren't parallelized to run across several different computers over a high-speed interconnect, like High performance computing applications. So, the answer to your question is, yes, you could play games and perform tasks a regular PC could do, but it would only run on one node, effectively wasting 7 other nodes. -- JSBillings 02:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I found a web site that lists game compatibility: http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/2008/03/08/games-and-entertainment/ . A lot of them have issues. Office 2007 should work, though. But I read that Photoshop won't run inside Server 2008.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Could I not just uninstall the operating system and install Vista? Acceptable (talk) 05:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think you can. The reason why Windows HPC Server 2008 is used is because it supports the hardware. It is a cluster anyway, not a multiprocessor, so I doubt games are programmed to take advantage of it. Rilak (talk) 08:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity, I installed Server 2008 inside VMware. Firefox, Adobe Reader, Office 2007, and Quicktime work without any problems. Although I read that Photoshop CS3 doesn't work, my pre-release Photoshop and Flash CS4 versions seem to work, too. They warn you when you install, but they work nonetheless.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 11:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

how do I allow XP to physically shut down my computer, instead of just almost doing so?

so this old computer used to have windows 98, which could shut it down all the way. then I installed xp on it, great, but now when I shut it down it goes real quiet and almost completely shuts down, but instead displays the 'safe to turn off your comptuer now' bit. how do I actually enable a complete physical shut-down? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Most likely your computer uses the older AT form factor, where the power switch is directly connected to the power supply, in which case there's no way for the software to control it. This is unlike the newer ATX form factor, where the power switch is connected to the motherboard, allowing software to control the power. See Power supply unit (computer)#AT vs. ATX. --164.67.207.12 (talk) 23:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Uh, maybe you missed the part that "this old computer used to have windows 98, which could shut it down all the way. then I installed xp on it" (on the same computer, no hardware changes, and actually it is dual-boot and the windows 98 os can STILL shut down the computer ALL the way). Was your comment some kind of joke? How could installing xp go so far as messing up physical layout and motherboard connections, reverting the computer to an old AT form factor whenever I run it (but back to normal on the old OS)? I didn't say Vista, I said XP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 03:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Because there are thousands of hardware configurations, a specific answer is not easy to give. Check the ACPI settings in your BIOS. Windows is apparently not recognizing that your computer is ACPI compliant. If that doesn't help, it is possible that a driver is failing and preventing XP from shutting down (a common problem with poorly written drivers). -- kainaw™ 03:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It's true that I'm using a wireless adapter, but there is NO other driver loaded, moreover the problem existed even before I installed the wireless card: a pristine install of XP can't do what windows 98 did already. how is that possible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 04:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "no other driver loaded"? Windows requires a large number of drivers to function properly. Possibly you mean you only installed one driver?

Did you check your BIOS settings to make sure ACPI is turned on? Does the computer shut-down properly if it's started in safe-mode? If so that could hint at a driver issue in regular mode. APL (talk) 07:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, before you try messing with safe-mode, try going to the control panel and disabling all power-saving features in Windows. Those can sometimes cause problems like this. I'm not sure why. APL (talk) 07:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

As APL said... When you install Windows (3.1, 95, 98, XP, ME, Vista...), it autodetects all the hardware in your computer and installs drivers - tons of drivers. Just because Windows 98 had a good driver for some hardware item does not mean that XP has good drivers (or even that XP has drivers at all - I had a scanner that worked in 98 but wasn't supported in XP at all). -- kainaw™ 15:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

November 9

3D Graphics Library

I'm looking into learning a 3D graphics library for Windows in order to ultimately create a game. What would be the best one for an amateur programmer? Currently, I'm leaning towards DirectX but OpenGL seems easier; however, am I correct in believing that OpenGL hasn't been updated for Windows since 1995? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.125.56.9 (talk) 00:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

OpenGL hasn't been updated? Of course it has: "OpenGL Now Natively Supported in Windows Vista" [12]. id Software has been using OpenGL for their games which run on Windows and GNU/Linux. --wj32 ^t/c 03:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

OpenGL has indeed not been updated by Microsoft since then - HOWEVER, OpenGL has a fancy extensibility mechanism that allows the device driver to offer features that the OpenGL library doesn't provide. This is a little inconvenient - but allows the hardware manufacturers to provide access to newer features despite Microsofts best efforts to kill OpenGL and thereby prevent anyone from doing 3D graphics that work on cellphones, PDA's, Linux, MacOS and Windows. In fact, since MS decided not to release D3D version 10 under Windows XP (you need Vista) - OpenGL is actually more powerful under XP than D3D is. There is no doubt that D3D is much more widely used under Windows than elsewhere - but OpenGL is the only 3D graphics API that runs on almost every 3D-capable hardware on the planet. Even if you're programming (say) a Nintendo DS - which has it's own weird and wonderful graphics hardware - the libraries that support it are sufficiently similar to OpenGL that you feel right at home. So I recommend learning OpenGL - but at some stage you may want to switch to D3D. It's not that hard to do because both API's are supporting the exact same hardware and the core concepts. SteveBaker (talk) 16:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Converting XVid to DVD

Hello all,

I recently downloaded the Phillies World Series parade and celebration from Vuze bit-torrent. I would like to put this on DVD for a friend who could not see it (he is in Iraq). It is an XVid file extension. Is there a free program where I can transfer my download to DVD format? I have DVD-RW.

Thank you in advance

--72.78.20.45 (talk) 01:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

You will want to use iDVD to burn it to the DVD. You might already have it—check in your Applications folder. If iDVD can't take the XVid format, use ffmpegX to convert it to Quicktime. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a MAC. --72.78.20.45 (talk) 04:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Well OK. I assumed you did because I thought Vuze is a Mac-only program (I now see that it is not). In the future you might want to specify your operating system to avoid us having to guess and waste our time! --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Please excuse us. I am on a mac atm but it seems DVD_Flick might work for you. For a fuller treatment on the topic, please read DVD authoring. Hope that helps and I hope the rest of your weekend goes well,

Kushal (talk) 17:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

PS3 Maintenance Update

My PS3 suddenly decided to stop reading DVDs or CDs. The info box reads "Maintenance Update". I've tried searching to see what this means, but the garbage is overwhelming and I cannot find anything that even remotely relates to this problem. Does anyone know if this means the PS3 is actually broken and needs maintenance or is it stuck in some software update that is taking an eternity to finish? -- kainaw™ 02:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Deleting previous Windows installation directory

I'm wondering how to delete my Vista \WindowsBak folder, which I renamed (from XP) before reinstalling Vista. The folder is owned by "TrustedInstaller" and any attempt I make to delete it says that permission is denied. The folder is over 10 GB in size and just taking up space. Any advice? Thanks. Birchcliff (talk) 07:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

a) Start Command Prompt as Administrator, type:

cacls C:\WindowsBak /t /g Everyone:F

del /f/s/q C:\WindowsBak

rd /s/q C:\WindowsBak

Or b) If you have a Linux LiveCD (Ubuntu, for example), start the computer from it and simply delete the folder.

--grawity 12:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks grawity, but I still get an access denied message running cacls (or Icacls). I'll have to use the Linux method... Birchcliff (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

There's probably an Add/Remove Programs (called 'Programs and Features' in Vista) entry that would let you 'uninstall' it. This was what happened with Win98/2k upgrading to XP.

You could probably use psexec to run cmd as SYSTEM and try those commands again. --wj32 ^t/c 09:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Wireless woes on Intel Macbook

Dear Wikipedians,

I use wireless service from a local provider. My friend can connect to the same router with the same SSID. I can connect to the router but I have no Internet access. Why is it so? I am on an Intel Macbook with 10.4.11 My friend is using an HP compaq prescario. The wireless network itself is not secured but presents an authentication web page before I can connect to the Internet. Any ideas? Kushal (talk) 16:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I am online now. Weird. Kushal (talk) 17:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Spending $50,000 on a Computer

Since buying a small supercomputer does not appear to be feasible for home use, I am looking to build a custom computer for less than $50,000 USD. I would be using the computer to play games, for video editing, 3D modelling, and bulk photo processing. I would like the computer to be as powerful as possible. It would be running Windows Vista Ultimate. Can someone provide me with a set of technical specs and the resulting component I need to purchase for the computer? Please note, the cost of a monitor and keyboard/mouse is included in there.

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 18:28, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

$50,000 USD? My current computer, chosen from up-to-date parts, although not specially so with the graphics or sound cards, excluding monitor and keyboard/mouse, cost less than one-sixtieth of that. And I still believe I'm underusing its capabilities. A top-of-the-line gaming and graphics editing computer, considering you're only going to use it for your own personal use, will probably cost at least twice as much as mine, but I still have a hard time imagining it costing more than $3000 USD, monitor and keyboard/mouse included. The only way I could ever envision a personal desktop computer costing $50,000 USD is it either consisting mainly of industrial-grade 24/7 fault-tolerant hot-swappable components, or being made of platinum. What reason do you have for such an upper limit? JIP | Talk 21:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Spending $50K on a gaming machine would just be stupid. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

You can buy a Dell Precision with two 3.4 GHz processors, two NVIDIA graphics cards, a 15,000 RPM hard drive and Vista Ultimate for about $12,000: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&m_11=VB31E&oc=bwdwjap&s=bsd .--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 21:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

And even that... would be a bad investment of $12K. Computers deprecate in value too quickly to spend that kind of money on them. And you could probably build one of your own for a good deal less than that price. Honestly, you could probably get a top-of-the-line machine for $2K without too much difficulty, invest the rest, and then buy another $2K machine each year for the next 20 years. (Probably could sell off each old one for $1K or $0.5K at the same time.) You'd end up with a far better machine, and always be on top of the newest technology. When you blow your money on the latest technology, you're getting the latest technology of 2008, which sounds very nice and new until it becomes 2009, 2010, 2011, and it turns out that lo, there were far better ways of doing things that nobody thought up. Think about it this way: would you be happy today if you had spent $50K on a computer in 2004 or 2005? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

When building a machine yourself, I do not feel it is best to try and spend as much as possible. When I decided to build a 500G fileserver for home use, I looked online and found some 500G network drives for around $500. So, I spent a couple months monitoring parts, rebates, and such. I only built it myself because I was able to get it all done for $300 - even after spending more than I needed on a cool case. So, look for what you want and then see if you can build it for less - if not, just buy it. -- kainaw™ 00:07, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

this is realy not the forum to find this kind of help. if you want help spending more than $20000 on a computer, you'll need better contacts than you would find here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 01:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

But please come back and tell us of this $50k mega beast when you build it... Booglamay (talk) - 02:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Mac Pro with Intel Xeon processors at 3.2GHz (8 cores), with NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 and Boot Camp [13] --wj32 ^t/c 08:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Incredibly aggressive virus telling me I need to protect against viruses

Not sure where I got infected from but my computer is being attacked by a virus that every few seconds tell me "I have a security problem" and wants me to scan my computer and download "Antivirus 2009" and when I try to open any new webpage (any at all: this one, Google etc.), I get redirect to a page with the following text:

Internet Explorer Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!   
Most likely causes: 
The website contains exploits that can launch a malicious code on your computer 
Suspicious network activity detected 
There might be an active spyware running on your computer 
What you can try: 
Activate Antivirus 2009 for secure Internet surfing (Recommended).  
Check your computer for viruses and malware. 
More information

Just typing this message has been laborious as every few seconds I get a new task bar popup which takes my cursor out of this screen. They resemble official warnings from my computer and have the same type symbols. I am aslo getting a screen (not web-based, which says "security center" and looks also like it's my computer but it canlt be; I also just got a popup saying "We have det4ected 43 viruses! download antiviurs 2009 now! Please tell me what it is and how to uninstall or give me a link for uninstall instructions.--19:05, 9 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.202.35.71 (talk)

Here are instructions on how to rid yourself of this rogue. Fribbler (talk) 19:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Cool, they use Malwarebytes. I use it at least once or twice a week to clean up variants of that virus. SuperAntispyware tends to be a faster scan, with Malwarebytes being excellent at cleaning up the final dregs (which I say because SAS tends to run faster and cleans out the main components with higher frequency). It's main problem is being Windows Installer-based, which is somewhat trivial to block an install, and you can't install it in Safe Mode.

Most of the time, though, you'll need to double-check that you clean out your Temporary directory to ensure it doesn't come back. Also a liberal use of 'msconfig' to remove any extra startup entries it'll include —Preceding unsigned comment added by Washii (talk • contribs) 03:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Linux problem and Hotmail problem

I recently had a break in my Internet connection, and was forced to use Mozilla Firefox and Evolution in off-line mode on my Fedora 9 Linux system. Now the break is over, and the Internet connection works fine. The problem is that Mozilla Firefox and Evolution still insist on starting in off-line mode. I can turn them into on-line mode manually, and they work fine, but I want them to get into on-line mode automatically. How can this be done?

Microsoft recently updated their Hotmail service. I don't know what they thought actually needed updating, but they managed to completely break it for me. I can only receive e-mail now, not send it. Well, actually I am able to send e-mail - if people are happy with empty messages. The Hotmail web page no longer accepts any input into the actual message contents. The only way I am able to actually write any e-mail from my Hotmail account is by using the Mobile Hotmail service, which works OK from a normal desktop computer too. Is anyone else having this problem, and does anyone know if it's going to be fixed? JIP | Talk 20:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

XWIS online (Red Alert 2)

I don't understand how to login to XWIS, so as to be able to play Red Alert 2 online. Can someone please help me? --AtTheAbyss (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you already have an XWIS login? If not, do double-check you've got any entries it needs (I don't particularly remember if it needs anything). For your first XWIS login, enter the username and password you want to use in the username and password fields. Afterwards, keep using that username and password you set up.

Voila, you're done. Washii (talk) 03:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Where do I enter the username and password. I clicked on internet on the RA2 main menu, but when I try to open anything (profile, quick match, etc.) it says it needs a patch, and then can't find it. I already have RA2 1.6. Do I need a different, custom patch? --AtTheAbyss (talk) 05:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

higher-end graphics cards and PCI-Express versions

I recently upgraded my graphics card to an Nvidia GTX 260 and found that the 3dMark06 score is scarcely higher than my old card, which was in the Nvidia 8800 series; and the score is nowhere near the charts on Tom's Hardware. So I upgraded my power supply, which had been underrated for even my old card, hoping that would solve the problem. It improved the score by a few hundred points, still far short. Now I'm realizing that there is a version 2.0 of PCI-Express and my PC (unexpectedly) seems to be 1.0. Would this be a significant limiting factor in getting the expected performance from a newer card? What a disappointment if I have to upgrade my motherboard too. I need to know not if PCI-e 2.0 "might" help, but indeed if it's a "no-brainer" improvement, almost a requirement for this card, from someone with experience. (The CPU is a Q6600, shouldn't be a factor.) Thanks! Birchcliff (talk) 22:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

rapidshare contradictions

Why rapidshare has limits on uploader side like max file size and deletion of files and at the same time has limits on donwloader user side like max parallels donwloads and resume of downloads???

I mean, who will pay and use the rapidshare to be their place to upload their thinge to others peoples download, if people that would be downloading their files would be a hardtime to download her files or some restricions???

On the other side, who would pay to downloads more files at the same time, get better download speeds, if the uploaders of the system have many restrictions on how they will upload their files, make more diffilcult to find some kind of files??

What is the idea behind limiting both sides???? WOuldnt be a better idea to choose just one side and limit his actions??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.104.214 (talk) 22:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

windows xp services

any way to turn off unneeded windows xp services programmatically?

You can stop or disable services using the sc command in the command prompt or by using the ControlService() [14] or ChangeServiceConfig() [15] API functions. As for the unneeded bit, I don't know how you can determine "unneeded" services. --wj32 ^t/c 08:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

PNG vs TIFF

I just want to make sure: when storing digital photographs in PNG and TIFF format, there will be no difference between the two right? Both will offer 100% lossless storage of the photos, but PNG files are smaller? If so, what is the advantage of using TIFF over PNG in storing photos then?

As well, when I burn either format onto a recordable CD or DVD, no data will be lost either right?

Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 00:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

PNG format can be lossy, it depends on your compression level. PNG can compress in a lossless way, but a standard TIFF will be totally uncompressed. For storage smaller would be better, but it could be easier to write a program to operate on a TIFF or bitmap. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

TIFF can use either lossy or lossless compression. To see what I mean, save an image inside Photoshop as a TIFF and a dialog box pops up asking whether you want to save it using no compression, LZW (like a GIF), JPEG, or ZIP. Most of the time, though, TIFFs are not compressed at all. On the downside, it's not a sure thing whoever you send a TIFF can view it. Windows is pretty good with them, though. One advantage of TIFFs over PNGs is that they support layers and animation! Many people don't know about that last feature of TIFFs.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 07:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

PNG can't be lossy (unless you mean using a smaller color depth or something). PNG only offers deflate as a compression method (which is better than TIFF's LZW). So, if you really want to store photographs in a lossless format, then use that. I think TIFF supports more metadata tagging than PNG, but I don't really think you would need that anyway. However, for archiving photos, I would recommend using JPG at 99% or "100%" quality - lossless formats don't compress photographs well. --wj32 ^t/c 08:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If he plans on modifying his photographs after he takes them, then he probably should save them in a lossless format, like BMP, uncompressed TIFF, or a digital negative. Every time you save a JPEG, the quality of the image is reduced. Once he is done modifying them, then he might save them as JPEGs if space is an issue. Personally, the only time I make JPEGs is when I upload to the web, since space isn't an issue on my HDD.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 09:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Youtube

Do Youtube videos last just 3 years on the site? Because I can't find any pre-2006 videos on Youtube. JCI (talk) 00:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Youtube was founded in only February of 2005. Acceptable (talk) 04:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Information on CNC

I'm doing a research paper on CNC, and one requirement is a ridiculous amount of 4x6 index cards (54, to be exact). These cards are meant to contain all the information we cite from our sources. At only 20 cards, I've gotten all of the information I can possibly find. I've cited the only two books from my school's library that had any information on the subject, conducted a lengthy interview with a professional, and cited Wikipedia itself. This site is the only other Web site I've found so far to actually provide information about CNC; all the other sites have been forums for discussion or commercial sites. The local public library was closed, so I'm at a deadlock for information. Currently, I'm scouring CNC Information for what I can, and that isn't going to get me another 34 cards.

I need some online source of information about CNC. Anybody know of any sites?

And by the way, I posted this request here because CNC has to do with computing; anyone knowledgeable about CNC might know of a few Web sites for it, no?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 00:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you talked to your instructor? In either case, you may have wrote too much information on each notecard. Most instructors will tell you to put one or two key pieces of information on each card, rather than fill it up.

I hated these kind of research requirements for this very reason. I could craft a good research paper from 15-20 cards full of information, where I was supposed to have 60+ with a fact or half a fact each. Washii (talk) 03:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah. I originally packed each card to the limit, but of course that didn't work. Currently, I'm placing bullets of information in sentence form on the cards, while not trying for them to be too lengthy. After one bullet, there's a blank space, then another bullet, etc. I get the feeling that only one or two pieces of information would be really fudging it...as if that's not enough, I persuaded my teacher to let met turn in my cards Monday (they were due Friday) for a reduction of 5 points from my total grade. And yet, over the weekend, I've found about two or three bullets of information. So I've pretty much lost five points for nothing. Oh, fate, why hast thou conspired against me?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 04:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any specific sites to point you to, but the terms NC and DNC (digital? NC) may lead to other sources. I'd recommend searching in combination with other terms such as "manufacturing". -- Tcncv (talk) 05:05, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Using old printers on windows XP

Are there printer drivers around for old dot matrix printers for Windows XP? For example the Epson mx-80 was widely copied, so a driver for this could work on many printers. I remember with win 3.11 there was a manual set up for printers where you gave escape sequences to get bold, italic etc, is there anything like that in XP? These printers could be parallel or serial connected. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Guess what I can answer my own question, the Epson MX-80 is still there, and aslo the generic printer, which I can set strings under properties. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)