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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)

The .torrent file itself includes an SHA1 checksum, which your BitTorrent will check the downloaded files against. (Indeed, it pretty much has to have one, since the data you download with BitTorrent comes from a bunch of random people sharing it — without the checksum, you'd have no guarantee of getting what you asked for.) So, as long as you trust whomever you got the .torrent file from, you can be sure that the files you download are the same ones the creator of the .torrent intended you to have. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:48, 11 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 [1]. 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 • 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)

Go to System Preferences and click on "Exposé & Spaces." In the exposé tab things should be there. If you're on Tiger and not Leopard, then the procedure is very similar. Mac Davis (talk) 23:21, 10 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)

I'm working on this. I've only done TI BASIC development before, so I had to get all set up. But I think I have an idea of where you went wrong. Superm401 - Talk 06:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I made some progress, but I got bogged down by compiler problems (functions that seemed documented mysteriously weren't on my system). If you want to implement actual TI lists, then do something like:

push_END_TAG();
short i;
for(i = 10; i > 0; i--)
{
    push_shortint(i);
}
push_LIST_TAG();

Then, to read the list back

short sum = 0;
float cur;
	
ESI pos = next_expression_index(top_estack);
while((*pos) != END_TAG)
{
    //estack_to_short(pos, &cur);
    sum += cur;
    pos = next_expression_index(pos);
}

estack_to_short should work because i's defined at http://tigcc.ticalc.org/doc/estack.html#estack_to_short. However, it does not... If you don't need to use TI lists, just use a C array. The DelVar also requires specifying the variable to delete on the expression stack. See http://tigcc.ticalc.org/doc/bascmd.html#cmd_delvar . For DrawStr, do:

DrawStr(1,1,"x", A_NORMAL);

Finally, for pause use ngetchx();, which will block until the user hits a key. Superm401 - Talk 06:31, 15 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

Firefox problem

I just started up and seem to have some sort of FF problem. Basically I'm getting the problem shown on the right 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)

Unfortunately, the decision of whether to expire the page must be made when the page is originally transmitted, not when you attempt to return to it. This means you cannot decide "on the fly" to expire the page if the user is returning from outside your secure area. As a site creator, you are severely limited in how you can choose to expire your pages. Even setting a value such as "1 hour" leaves a sizable window and can lead to more security problems if the machine's clock can be tampered with. Dynamic content is another good example of a page that should be expired immediately. (Would you really want your browser displaying hours-old stock quotes?) Add in the fact that websites like to track user sessions (impossible if the web browser simply displays an unexpired cached copy of the page) and there are several compelling reasons to expire all "secure" pages immediately. As noted above, the Opera browser tends to ignore expiration requests when you return to pages using the back button; you might want to try it and see if that behavior is more useful to you--just be sure to close the browser if you don't want somebody returning to see your secure pages.

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 [2], you can backup a FAT32 partition containing Vista, but not a NTFS partition (Vista has a new version of NTFS) [3] [4] --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)

So you want that website to never appear try this: go to Internet Options, click the privacy tab, click sites, enter the URL and hit block; IMPORTANT THIS ONLY BLOCKS COOKIES SO MAY NOT BE USEFUL AT ALL! But honestly once the virus is uninstalled you should be fine.Xor24 ^{talk to me} 02:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but fortunately that annoying virus is gone. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 23:24, 12 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)

Please? Kushal (talk) 21:58, 13 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)

It's broke. I had the same thing happen to my TI84 Plus. The TI support people said so. Mine too was not under warranty so it would have cost less to buy another calculator than to fix it. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:33, 10 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 [5] . 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)

No reply so far, but googling the author's name gives many more links than googling ingoing links to his website, and indicates that there is little reason for concern. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:57, 10 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)

You may also want to try DFend or DFender (I can't remember which) which is a system that works with DOSBox, and has a mounting wizard built in. I never got on with DOSBox, so this really helped -- WORMMЯOW  13:54, 10 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 [6]. --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.

[7] 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)

I don't recall. I'm not even sure I got that right. I had a hard time explaining the second part was a word and not a letter. The man was Asian. Anyway, the problem was solved with system restore and I haven't had anything go wrong since.

And I'm still not on my computer yet.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm back on my computer.

I have backed up what was on the computer on a DVD. Some of the help I got last week made it possible for me to do that without the computer automatically telling me to, which it did when I didn't have a DVD. It hasn't since, so I had to find the information.

I don't see the Windows Event Log.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless it was causing more problems, I wouldn't bother tracking down the cause. Windows breaks sometimes and its easier to do a system restore or a reinstall than to find the cause and fix it, as the cause often requires a reinstall anyway. If you want a bit of reassurance, preventative maintenance such as checking the hard drive for problems (the hard drives properties should have options for that), checking the memory for faults (rarely required, use memtest86, scanning for viruses and other malware and frequent backups of your files should suffice. Rilak (talk) 11:24, 11 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 [8]. 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. [9] --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?

[[10]]

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)

Actually, Windows 3.1 doesn't autodetect any hardware. You need to specify it all manually (including fun things like IRQ lines, DMA channels, and I/O ports). --Carnildo (talk) 22:36, 10 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" [11]. 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)

Nevermind. It is under warranty, so I'm sending it in. -- kainaw™ 13:14, 10 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)

Does the at 12:34 /interactive cmd trick still work on Vista? (On XP, it starts cmd.exe with Local Service rights.) 78.56.68.25 (talk) 13:33, 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 [12] --wj32 ^t/c 08:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You can get a high-end Mac Pro for USD 26,689.00 or an Xserve server for 39,194.00 (without software support for OS X server). Why would you want to run Vista on it? Just to prove its scalability (or lack thereof)? Kushal (talk) 12:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Since it seems like you want to blow some cash on unneccessary parts of a megabeast computer (which you should DEFINITELY build yourself, Dell or anyone else will kill your price with a dagger made of lava)... I recommend getting liquid nitrogen cooling, 10GB RAM or better, 5TB SSD or better, 3 insane processors, a really insane case like Alienware or something (but not an actual Alienware case because then people will think that it's an Alienware, when it's actually way better), install XPSP3 and Vista SP2 (bribe Microsoft) and Win7 (bribe them even more). After that's all done, you can pay some ubernerd to make it all fit into a laptop. flaminglawyer^c 23:47, 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)

I tried to use that program but then I slapped my forehead and said to myself "why don"t I just try a system restore first?" So I did and that worked great without having to worry about cleaning up any dregs. You have no idea how annoying that virus is. It took me twenty minutes to type the OP with my cursor being taken out of the screen approximately every second letter! Thanks for the advice. (Yes, same guy, different computer as you'll note from the change of IP). --71.247.252.78 (talk) 15:31, 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)

For the Firefox things... no idea. But for the Hotmail thing, I reccommend Mozilla Thunderbird, thereby eliminating all the browser problems. flaminglawyer^c 21:00, 10 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)

If you had one of the faster 8800s (an 8800GTX or 8800 Ultra, for example), there's not much speed difference between it and a GTX 260. And no, upgrading from PCIe 1 to PCIe 2 won't make a bit of difference: either version is faster than a single graphics card needs. One thing to check is to make sure that the card is plugged into an actual PCIe x16 slot. Some motherboard manufacturers cut corners to save money and only connect half or a quarter of the signal lines, making it effectively an x4 or x8 slot. --Carnildo (talk) 22:49, 10 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)

Well, you're right. But I don't see why you would pay at all, when there are things like SkyDrive and FileDen. flaminglawyer^c 22:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Or Mediafire... SF007 (talk) 00:34, 11 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() [13] or ChangeServiceConfig() [14] 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)

There are lists online about which ones are really "unneeded" for 99% of users—there are a few in that list that can have a drag on the system that in many cases are totally unnecessary (e.g. services that only are useful if you are having someone remotely control your desktop, which most people never do or even know they can do). I recall there being something that allows you to disable services under the Account Management control panel? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

November 10

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)

Here's one from 2005. The #1 reason you are having trouble finding videos from before 2006 is that YouTube did not "take off" until late in 2005/early 2006, I believe, and then you have to factor in how many of that earlier, smaller pool of videos were copyright violations and other such things. As a result the odds are highly stacked in finding post-2005 content, and since YouTube gives you no way to search by date, that makes it all the more harder! I found the above one by searching Google Groups for posts containing "youtube.com" from 2005. It was actually harder than you think it would be -- as people were talking about YouTube then, but rarely was anyone linking to it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This is supposedly the oldest video on Youtube. - Akamad (talk) 01:23, 11 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)

I have no helpful hints for your quest, but I can say that you should start asking for help with projects before midnight on the day they're due. flaminglawyer^c 20:55, 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)

Switching between soundcards

I have two soundcards on my PC (running XP), one M-Audio soundcard for recording, etc. and one for ordinary pc use (gaming etc.). I have to switch between these cards very often, so my question: Is there maybe software to easily switch between soundcards. Another solution would be to make icons on my desktop which would execute some (commandline) commands to make the switch to another soundcard for the output of audio. Does anyone know if there's a way to switch to another soundcard through the commandline? Emil76 (talk) 10:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I found QuickSoundSwitch, so this question is solved. Emil76 (talk) 19:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't sign in to MSN or get to msn.com

Other websites and programs work fine.

I tried ping msn.com and all 4 packets timed out.

I tried telnet msn.com and apparently there is a problem with port 23. The connection troubleshooter also identified "key ports" as the problem.

Now how do I fix the port? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.57.48 (talk) 13:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Run tracert and see where it gets hung up. It'll tell you if it's on their end, your end, or somewhere in between. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Times out after 5 consecutive Level 3 Communications IPs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.57.48 (talk) 14:44, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Search for someone's MSN skydrive

Me and my friend signed up for MSN live. and uploaded files on SkyDrive. Without knowing each other's homepage's address how can we access each other's sky drive. (without inviting each other to view folders) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhammad Hamza (talk • contribs) 17:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

This may seem extremely obvious and stupid, but you could just give each other your username/password. I don't recommend it, though. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

What company rates website builders

i have a business that needs a website with domain name,search engine etc.l am ignorant about the process and want to go with the best company that helps build websites for businesses and gets you a domain name,search engine,help with advertising etc.i would like to know about some company s that rate these types of company's to determine which will be best for me like consumer reports rates all sorts of things but not this.please help me. I am going in circles and getting nowhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.162.240.114 (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It has to do with cost. It sounds like you want a publicity firm that includes Internet publicity. A web design company just designs a website and walks away, leaving you with the files and a hope that you know what to do with them. A webhosting company can host your website. There are companies that can do both. -- kainaw™ 19:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Since you have a business, I would advise hiring a web developer/designer. If you can get a good one, he will design a good-looking website and find somewhere for you to host it. If you don't want to hire someone, there are free website designs all over the 'net and gazillions of sites like these, along with lots of comparison sites. flaminglawyer^c 22:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Automated diagramming for Netware partitions/replicas

Now that Microsoft has killed Visio Enterprise Network tools, is there another tool that can semi-automatically map/diagram servers/partitions/replicas for Netware and eDirectory? Thanks in advance! --198.162.133.101 (talk) 19:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

windows games

Hi, my mom called me and is looking for this program on her old computer that she really wants. I don't even know if it is a program. It was on her desktop and I am told it may be an interface. She says it was a livingroom that also had a kitchen you could cook in and a gameroom that you could click on games on a bookshelf and then play them. Has anyone heard of this or even know if it's available out there or is there something like it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruthmetz (talk • contribs) 19:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

From a distant memory... Back in the Bob days, there was an experiment for Windows which made your desktop look like rooms, with a desk, file cabinets, bookshelf, and such. It wasn't popular and was killed off (with Bob) - probably to make room for Clippy. -- kainaw™ 19:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Some screen shots here APL (talk) 20:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

What is BOB and what is clippy? is there anything similar to this available? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruthmetz (talk • contribs) 20:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what Bob is, but Clippy (the Paperclip) is/was the default "helper" for Microsoft Office on Windows 2000. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Bob was the somewhat predecessor of Office Assistant; Clippit or Clippy was the default assistant. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Need Excel fundtion help

I'm struggling with a nested IF statement in Excel, and would much appreciate any insight from the RefDesk. Can I actually upload a minispreadsheet for others to look at and work with? If not, you have to use your imagination :-)

Sample:

C	M	N	P
2001	100	0	Pay from NQ
2001	125	500	NQ
2001	275	0	Pay from NQ
2049	50	0	Pay from NQ
2049	100	0	Pay from NQ
2049	400	600	NQ
2049	50	0	Pay from NQ

We are computing client invoices from this data; this sample data contains two clients (2001 and 2049 in column C) who have seven accounts between them, one per row. Column M contains the "raw" number, which may or may not be paid from the account on this line. Column P contains text which drives the test conditions. (Other conditions exist as well, but this is the one that's making me crazy!)

The formula in column N represents this explanation:

• IF col P contains "Pay from NQ", the amount paid from this account is zero; ELSE
  • IF col P contains "NQ", the amount paid from this account is the sum of all amounts in M for this value of C; ELSE
    • (failing both of those conditions) N = M.

The IF-statements aren't really the problem, it's the SUMIF function that's proving obstinate. As far as I can get is:

=IF( P14="Pay from NQ", 0, IF( P14="NQ", SUMIF(M4:M24, C14=C$14), M14 ))

(P4:P24 comes from "Nobody has more than 10 accounts, so +/- 10 from the current row should catch them all")

Problem with this is I still have to go in and manually enter "$14" where needed -- I can't figger out how to parameterize or genericize this. C14=C14 doesn't do it! Any suggestions?

Thanks!! --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed typo in formula --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Numbering in NeoOffice

I can't get the hang of numbering in NeoOffice. When I start a main point, say '1', then press enter, it starts the next main point at '2'. All well and good up to now. But, when I put a subset of points in for '1', such as (1), (2), etc., when I try to start the next main point (which should be '2') it starts off at '1', again. Is there any way to sort this out? I have ended up doing it manually, with the pain of having to delete auto-numbering and auto-tab, etc., leading me to want to switch the damn auto-numbering thing off altogether. Which leads me to my next question. Is this possible, too? Can I switch it off completely (without using the little button AFTER the auto-numbering has already numbered back to '1')? This is really annoying sometimes, because half an hour later, I will start a new main point, and it will number itself at '4' or something else annoying.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Your second question first - if you turn it off completely, you would have to manually set the margins and stuff, which gets annoying after a while. First question - I don't know, I use MSOffice flaminglawyer^c 22:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Using someone else's unsecured wifi

<request for legal advice removed>

Paypal = credit card?

From reading microlot's support's relevant palpal FAQs, I can't come to a conclusion about whether they will or will not accept PayPal as a method of deposit/withdrawal. [15], they say they only accept credit card/bank wire. [16], they say they accept a PayPal credit card. I have a Paypal acc, so I guess my question turns into: Is a regular PayPal account the same thing as a Paypal credit card? flaminglawyer^c 21:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

No. The PayPal Plus Credit Card is a credit card that the service PayPal offers. Like most of these "store" credit cards (e.g. Macy's Credit Cards, CostCo Credit Cards, etc.) it is a regular credit card (with a balance of credit you can take out, with interest rates, fees, etc.) except you get some sort of store specific benefit for using it (in the case of PayPal, you get "exclusive PayPal offers" and "Rewards"). It is mailed to you as a regular credit card. I think the reason they have a clarification regarding the specifically PayPal credit card is because they don't take PayPal—and they're just emphasizing that that doesn't mean they don't take the PayPal credit card (which is the same as any other credit card). They even bother to specify that it should have a Visa logo on it (making it clear that it's a real-deal credit card, although I believe the PayPal Plus Credit Card is a Mastercard, but whatever..). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 00:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Subset symbol doesn't render on Wikipedia

How come the subset symbol doesn't seem to be working for me right now: $\subseteq$ --128.97.245.127 (talk) 23:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Server problems/general weirdness? When I view the image by itself it still doesn't work. flaminglawyer^c 00:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

It appears to require something following it. "<math> \subseteq </math>" yields "$\subseteq$", but "<math> \subseteq A</math>" yields "$\subseteq A$". The bug seems limited to this particular symbol. Others similar symbols appear to work correctly - for example, "<math> \supseteq </math>" yields "$\supseteq$". (I'll add a cross reference to the Math desk where it might get the attention of someone more familiar with the inner workings.) -- Tcncv (talk) 01:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Somehow that particular image was broken. A kind server admin deleted the broken one, and the image has been regenerated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

November 11

Hacking into my hotmail account

I lost the password and secret question answer for my hotmail account and I don't have an alternative email to send the password to. How can I hack into my email? --124.254.77.148 (talk) 02:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, can not answer that even if it is your own. Some one may know, but I doubt they will tell you. Rgoodermote  02:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

SQL Help

Does anyone know what the syntax is for a CHECK clause in SQL? I found information about ranges (e.g., less than value x), but I need a CHECK clause (or any type of statement, really) that limits an attribute to five choices. For example, in the following statement, I create a table with an attribute named LetterGrade that can only hold the values A, B, C, D, and F. Here's what I have so far:

CREATE TABLE "Roster" ( 
   "LetterGrade" VARCHAR(8) NOT NULL CONSTRAINT "LetterGrade_Chk" CHECK (

In case you were wondering, it's not a homework question. Thank you for any help.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)