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January 2

Oh how I miss my Unix shell

I've definitely decided now that I just can't live without my awk, grep and sed. Can anyone recommend a free set of unix-like utilities for Windows XP? I like csh, but I can live with bash and ksh - I just really need the good stuff - diff, sort, cut - all that magic. Pointers to good (free) software packages are appreciated! Franamax (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Cygwin may be a good solution. I haven't used it myself so I can't comment on it. - Akamad (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I use Cygwin all the time (well, on those -- thankfully rare -- occasions when I'm forced to use Windoze), and I can definitely recommend it. Easy install, and it gives you bash plus all your favorite indispensible Unix utilities.—Steve Summit (talk) 02:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes - using Windows without Cygwin is like...um...it's like...um...driving an Acura instead of a MINI Cooper'S. With Cygwin installed, you'll be right at home. All of the standard 'GNU' tools you have under Linux/Unix are right there - the slashes in the filenames point in the right direction and you have /usr, /bin, /etc and /home just like you like it. You can use tcsh (as well as bash...dunno about ksh). awk,grep,sed,diff,cut,sort - and all of the pipes and redirects and back-quotes, the GNU C/C++ compiler/make suite...everything. If you squint just right so you can't see the flappy-flag logo at the bottom-left of the screen...then you're right at home (er...except for having to unnecessarily double-click to launch programs...<grrrr>). SteveBaker (talk) 15:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've installed it and I have a very large smile on my face. Finally, I'm home again. :) Took a while to figure out the packages, but the whole command line is there and it's got X app's. Now if I could only get the Solaris cmdtool with the proper window controls - can't have everything I guess. Thanks for the tip, now I'm going back to playing with my new toy! :) Franamax (talk) 01:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

After you've been using it a while - you will start to notice some slight windows-isms creeping in to your otherwise comfortable new world. One weirdness is to do with case-sensitivity in filenames - and how that affects filename completion on the commandline. Cutting and pasting is also a little strange sometimes - it's evidently trying to deal with the Windows clipboard in parallel with the normal Unix/Linux mechanism - and sometimes it can get confused. Also symlinks are a bit strange - they work OK in the Cygwin world but they don't seem to exist (or at least sometimes not) in the Windows world. I don't quite fully understand what's going on there. But these differences from Linux/Unix are pretty marginal - on the whole it "just works" - and it allows die-hard Linux nuts like me to at least tolerate being stuck in front of a god-awful Windows machine for 8 hours a day. Some things surprised me - one is that Windows batch files work perfectly - so long as you type in the filename extension 'myfile.bat' rather than just 'myfile' as you would in Windows. Ditto for native '.exe' files. Still - it's all so much better than before I had Cygwin that I'll put up with a lot! SteveBaker (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Symbolic links created from Cygwin works in Windows Explorer as shortcuts, although the same won't work in the Windows command shell. On the other hand, shortcuts created from Windows won't work inside Cygwin. --173.49.10.53 (talk) 04:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Setting up cygwin

Now that you're on about Cygwin ... I tried it a week or so ago, and I'm completely dumbfounded on how to use it. –  LATICS  talk  04:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean how to use it? What do you want to do? --76.167.241.238 (talk) 05:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've installed it (the .exe) ... and since that point, I'm completely lost. I basically just wanna mod the GUI to look like Ubuntu. I really enjoy using Ubuntu, except for the lack of computability. –  LATICS  talk  05:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Cygwin is very useful but the installation process can be quite confusing. To install it, you first download the setup.exe installer from the Cygwin website. There are many optionally application/utility packages you can choose to install, and you probably won't need them all.

Before installing Cygwin, you may want to take some time to study the list of packages available and make an alphabetized list of the ones you want. It is often not obvious whether you may want a particular package, and some packages have dependencies on others. Fortunately, the Cygwin installer automatically takes care of the dependencies for you — if you select a package for installation, the installer will automatically select other needed packages as well. Sometimes a utility is part of a -utils package. It may take some digging to find out what package it is a part of, or if you have already selected it when you selected another package. If you are just using a software package, but are not developing (e.g. modifying and compiling) it, you probably won't need the corresponding -develop package.

When you run the setup.exe installer, you will be asked to select a mirror site to download software from and then to select the optional packages you want to install. At the "Select Packages" screen, you may want to click the "View" button (in the upper right part of the screen) to switch the view to "Full". With the help of the (alphabetized) list of packages you made earlier, select the ones you want on the big scrollable list. (To select a package for installation, click under the "New" column on the line for the package. It will change from "Skip" to the version # of the package.) The rest of the installation process is quite straightforward.

Two tips:

1. In Cygwin, the C: drive of Windows is mapped to /cygdrive/c/ in the file system. Other Windows drives are handled similarly.
2. By default, your home directory will be a directory under /home. You may want to make that a symbolic link to your Windows %USERPROFILE% or %USERPROFILE%\My Documents folder (so that you can work on the same set of files easily from both Windows and Cygwin.)

Good luck. --173.49.79.200 (talk) 06:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Most people use Cygwin to run useful Linux command-line utilities and stuff, and develop software that depend on Linux libraries. It sounds like you want to run a desktop environment or something; I'm not sure how to advise you on that. GNOME packages are part of Cygwin, so you might want to try installing GNOME and see what that does. But I'm not sure what kind of "compatibility" you would get out of it. I'm not sure that Cygwin is the right solution for what you want. --76.167.241.238 (talk) 06:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait, wait, wait...we're all answering the wrong question. You said you "wanna mod the GUI to look like Ubuntu" - that's not what Cygwin is about. It's mostly about being able to run a Unix-like command-line environment using the same GNU toolset as Linux, BSD, etc. The Windows GUI is something you're more or less stuck with. There is an X-windows environment for Windows - but it's not going to end up looking like you're running Ubuntu's desktop without an insane amount of messing around...and probably not even then.

a couple of responses: first, the commandline is the Unix GUI :-P. J/k. Second: KDE RUNS JUST FINE UNDER WINDOWS. I've done it myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.219.202 (talk) 20:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's how little I know about operating systems outside of Windows. :P –  LATICS  talk  21:35, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Using programs in OS X to overlap two images transparently like MS Paint does.

Just so it is clear what I mean, in MS Paint, you can define a "background color" (i.e. whatever is in the color box underneath the other one in the bottom left corner ) and with the appropriate transparency setting selected, when you move one image overtop another, and the color of the bottom image will show through any pixel with that "background color" in the top image. This makes it easy to say, stack a dozen separate graph images atop one other for easy comparison fairly quickly. How do I do the equivalent thing in OS X (4) about as fast I could in MS paint using either the default programs or downloading something free which has the desired functionality? Thank you in advance, 152.16.15.23 (talk) 02:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

So far, I found a hideously complicated method in Appleworks involving creating a "Painting section" in a "Drawing" sheet, pasting the image into the painting area and manipulating some settings and doing other things that I have already forgotten, and then repeat the process for every image I want to stack. I then take a screen shot of the drawing sheet with the now stacked image, crop it, and save it as a normal jpg, png, or whatever. The above method I described takes far too long and is difficult to manipulate, especially when I have to stack lots of images. I saw some free "Paint clones for Macs" when I googled for a solution earlier, but I don't know if they have this functionality. I feel a little uneasy downloading them to try them out since the computer in question is a shared work computer. I'd be willing to get permission if someone confirms that one of programs can do what I want it to. 152.16.15.23 (talk) 02:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

GIMP + magic wand tool on the "transparent" color + delete + paste new layer onto another image? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

GIMP is certainly the tool of choice - it's a free program and it's every bit as good as high-end paint programs such as photoshop (and WAY better than MS Paint!). Start up GIMP, create a new image - then right-click somewhere in the image window to pop up the menu. Under 'File' you'll see 'Open as layers...'. Click that and you get a file load dialog box which lets you select multiple files to load...each will be loaded into its own layer. Then right-click to bring the menu up again, under 'Dialogs' you'll see 'Layers'. Click that to open the layers dialog. Click on any of the thumbnails then use the 'Opacity' slider at the top of the dialog to adjust the transparency of each layer - or click on the 'eye' icon to the left of the thumbnail to turn the layer completely off or on again. You can also do fancy tricks like setting the 'mode' of each layer to modify the layer beneath in some interesting way - but you'll probably have to experiment to find modes you like. If you want to remove the solid-colored background of a graph or something - then right-click to get the menu and under 'Select' you'll see 'Select by color...' - click that then click on someplace in the image to pick a color from whatever layer you have selected - then type Ctrl-X (or whatever 'Cut' is on the Mac) to cut out all of the pixels of that color. SteveBaker (talk) 15:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Paint in Windows

Some time ago my XP-based Daktech laptop was having these hardware problems that made it harder and harder for me to use it except as a really small desktop, so I bought a new Vista-based HP laptop and transferred my data to it. I virtually never use the Daktech now. It didn't take me long to get fed up with Vista (like how it doesn't even have Windows Pinball, not to mention the way that file folders work somewhat differently, and some programs are rather different, like Paint which doesn't have simple reds and yellows in the basic color palate. Because the Daktech still works, I got Pinball and other things I needed from it; while Pinball works fine (I've broken my old record score :-) other things don't always. When I loaded the older version of Paint onto the HP, it worked fine: it opens image files fine, modifies them fine, saves them fine, etc. I've made the XP Paint the default program for opening .jpgs, .pngs, etc., but for some reason they always keep opening in the annoying Vista Paint. I'm tempted just to delete Vista Paint to solve the problem, but I don't want to cause big problems — would this do something bad to my computer? Would this be a good way to solve the problem? Or should I do something else? Or should I simply give up because there's nothing I can do? 24.93.116.128 (talk) 04:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest a test. Instead of deleting the Vista version of Paint, just rename it to something like "paint.exe.disabled". Then, if this causes any problems, you can rename it back. StuRat (talk) 07:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

SYN attack?

Does this mean that i am being attacked?

01/01/2009 21:30:11 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 49530->> 74.125.19.104, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

01/01/2009 21:17:27 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 53775->> 74.125.19.103, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

01/01/2009 21:16:15 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 53501->> 66.135.200.11, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

01/01/2009 19:56:48 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 51612->> 66.135.220.11, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

01/01/2009 19:51:40 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 50726->> 66.135.220.11, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/28/2008 10:39:31 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.105, 2759->> 17.112.152.32, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/27/2008 23:45:36 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.100, 49291->> 213.199.149.11, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/27/2008 23:45:15 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.100, 49250->> 213.199.149.8, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:48 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53895 (from WAN Inbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:36 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53892 (from WAN Inbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:35 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53892 (from WAN Inbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:30 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53892 (from WAN Inbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:29 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53892 (from WAN Inbound)

12/26/2008 19:45:26 **Smurf** 157.166.255.39, 80->> 192.168.2.103, 53892 (from WAN Inbound)

12/24/2008 17:22:01 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 50272->> 66.135.200.13, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/24/2008 16:56:59 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.103, 65513->> 96.17.109.113, 80 (from WAN Outbound)

12/24/2008 16:47:48 **LAND** 10.202.46.2->> 10.202.46.2, Type:5, Code:1 (from WAN Outbound)

12/24/2008 15:31:21 **SYN Flood to Host** 192.168.2.100, 2216->> 65.254.35.18, 80 (from WAN

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.151.224 (talk) 05:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm a novice at this stuff, but I'd say it's looks very possible that you are. Just googled and found this, seems it may help. If it doesn't, just check google. (see SYN flood) –  LATICS  talk  06:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

After doing a whois search i found out that those ipaddresses belong to ebay, Microsoft, Apple, Google and 2 of the ip addresses were from 'Microsoft London Internet Data Center'

Was i jsut attacked by a zombie network?69.62.151.224 (talk) 06:15, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look like you're being attacked by a zombie network. Rather, it seems that your machines were being exploited to attack other computers. (In other words, your concern should be whether your machines are already compromised and are now part of some zombie networks.) I'd suggest checking the documentation of the firewall or IDS that generated the log entries and see exactly what conditions would cause those events to be logged, as a first step to understanding what was going on. --173.49.79.200 (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Doing a google search for "**SYN Flood to Host** (from WAN Outbound)"

I found others asking the same questing on a couple of the popular DSL forums: here and here

From what I was able to gather, this is not an attack. -- Grumbly0x03 (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grumbly0x03 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

KDE: Force undo video mode change

In KDE, is there any way to undo a video mode change and bring up the desktop, which no application can override? Just now I started Neverwinter Nights and had "VIDEO MODE NOT SUPPORTED" come up on my monitor. Nothing else would display. I tried Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Alt-Esc followed by a click, and Ctrl-Alt-Del, to no avail, and was ultimately forced to hit the power switch. I need some way to deal with this if another game does it in the future. NeonMerlin 05:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace will restart the X server. Plus, if the X server's frozen you can try the Magic SysRq keys. --wj32 ^t/c 07:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

(Note: The magic sysrq keys only work if the kernel is compiled with that option enabled...which it's typically not). SteveBaker (talk) 14:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

aha! Now we know why you're so powerful, SteveBaker, across all the reference desks!! You roll with Linux. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.219.202 (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

PCI express slot

Can I have a PCI express slot installed on my motherboard since it does not have one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.52.231 (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

No sorry, it is not possible to add that type of a slot. Your best bet is to get an AGP or PCI graphics card as they are still available. 62.25.96.244 (talk) 11:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly not possible - but even if it were - it would be a waste of effort. If your motherboard still has AGP then it's doubtful it has enough CPU horsepower to keep a PCI express graphics card fully loaded (at least not with 'typical' applications like games) - so the upgrade wouldn't actually achieve very much (if any) practical benefits. SteveBaker (talk) 14:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah my motherboard only has an AGP slot but I bought a new 512 MB AGP card last year and it runs most games pretty fast so that's your best bet unless you want exceptionally high performance, in which case you'd probably want to upgrade your motherboard anyway so you could take advantage of the latest technology.62.25.96.244 (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that, supposing there were something like that, some kind of "adapter" that provides a PCI Express slot and connects to your motherboard somehow, through another slot or connector, then whatever connection it uses must be at least as fast as PCI Express, for the PCI Express slot to be used to full potential. But such a slot or connector probably doesn't exist on your motherboard, because the PCI Express is among the most high-bandwidth slots even on motherboard that have it. --128.97.245.52 (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

There was actually an adapter in reverse i.e. AGP to PCIe Bridge Card [1] [2] but compatibility was poor. I would probably have been possible to do the same thing in reverse after all most AGP cards nowadays are PCI-express native with a bridge chip but again compatibility is likely to be extremely poor plus there would probably be other issues (e.g. the device would need to be externally powered so it can supply the 75W guaranteed by PCI-e). Actually I seem to recall talk of one in the works a while back, I guess they realised it was a dumb idea and abandoned it. BTW, you don't need to be as fast, technically it's possible by design for most cards to work with only 1 lane. Performance will suffer although for a long time there was little difference between 8 lanes and 16 lanes and 8x AGP is roughly equivalent to 8 lanes. Of course a card running on an adapter is quite different from one properly designed to use a bridge chip, the later being much more desiriable Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

notebook with windows vista BSOD problem

My notebook, started to give a blue screen of death, when starting vista, (after the loading screen), this problem occur even in safemode. I put my notebook to make tests, something that he is able to do, and when starting to make HD test it said that was a problem and he was not able to make the HD test. I tried to run the chkdsk in the command prompt that i am able to select when windows vista shows it starting fixer (the place where i am able to test the memory, use the command prompt...), but is didnt fixed the problem. Also tried running the defrag but it didnt started (and said something about an dll). What can be the problem?? The last user that was using the notebook said she didint made somethig very different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.97.5.198 (talk) 15:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Put the original Vista install disk in the CD drive and boot your notebook from the CD (press F12 before the computer starts loading Vista from the hard disk, and choose boot from CD). When started from the CD, you should choose the option to repair your Vista installation. Then you should be able to start Vista from the hard disk into Safe Mode. Once in safe mode, look at the system recovery options in the control panel and try to roll back the computer to an earlier System Restore Point. These links might help: here and here (found with this Google search). Astronaut (talk) 16:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Tried to recover to a ealier point before but windows vista says that the system dont have a ealier backup. Another thing I dont have a windows vists cd here because I am not in my house, (well not in my official house, i am on my vacation house), so i left my cd in my house. I am talking and using wikipedia with an another notebook that I have. (before you ask with windows xp). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.97.5.198 (talk) 17:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you wait until you get home and try a proper repair like I described above.

If you really can't wait until then and you have a way to burn an ISO image onto CD (using your other notebook?), now might be the time to play with a Live CD (a linux you can run straight from the CD without installing anything). You should be able to use the internet, check your mail, access your documents by mounting the hard disk, and maybe learn a little about Linux. Astronaut (talk) 02:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

wiki tools problem

I wanted to check stats on my contribs yesterday, and got a timeout error message. I checked again today, and I get the same results. If I do a contributions summary I get a "Gateway Timeout error", if I do the Edit and Action count I get:

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)ERROR: No result returned.

is there an upgrade or problem going on, or is it an issue with my computer or setting in my preferences that I'm missing. Thanks for any input. Ched (talk) 16:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The toolserver's been having problems lately. That hasn't been working for me either. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 17:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, if it's not my computer or settings, guess I won't worry about it. ;) Ched (talk) 17:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Typically, if you have a problem with a certain part of a single website or service, but everything else on the internet works fine, it's not your problem. Or rather: it may be your problem, but it's not your fault. ;) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Compromised email?

Hello! Just recently (according to my spam folder Dec. 21 last year), I started receiving emails in my spam folder from "me." I checked the details of the sender, and it did indeed say "From:<myemail>@gmail.com To:<myemail>@gmail.com." I checked my "Sent Mail," but none of these messages where recorded. I also looked into Gmail's discussion board, but mostly everyone else who had the problem had noticed the messages in the "Sent Mail" folder, so I'm not sure how severe my situation is. Do I need to take action? Is my account compromised? I run good periodic virus checks, watch for phishing, and believe I maintain good computer hygiene. Any advice appreciated. Thank you very much!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Much of the information in the header of an email can be spoofed; it is common for spammers to put in bogus "from" and "reply-to" data. Here is one (not very detailed) discussion of the topic. It sounds like you have nothing to worry about, just keep maintaining that good hygiene. --LarryMac | Talk 21:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Anyone can put anything in the From: field and it does not make any difference because that field is not used in mail transport. (Any email client should allow you to put anything you want in the From field.) People get spam mail "from" themselves all the time, and it doesn't mean anything. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much—and for the quick reply! That makes sense, and I'm glad it looks like I have nothing to worry about.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 21:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Designating Commons for file uploads on my MediaWiki wiki.

Hi,

I run a website that uses MediaWiki. According to MediaWiki's help page, "A group of wikis may have designated one wiki that is preferred to upload files to, with sharing of those files enabled. Among Wikimedia wikis, Wikimedia Commons works for this." How do I designate Wikimedia Commons as the preferred wiki for my personal wiki?

Thanks, --VectorField (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

By using $wgForeignFileRepos. However, you should read Commons:Project scope and Commons:Licensing so that you understand what content is allowed on commons first. Nanonic (talk) 09:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --VectorField (talk) 00:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

New Hard Drive

I bought a lenovo 3000 N200 laptop over a year ago (with a year's warranty, damn) and I had to buy a new hard drive. Problem is, Windows Vista was already installed before I bought it and I don't seem to have been given a recovery disc. Can I install it on my new hard drive without having to buy it again?

Thanks 90.221.241.230 (talk) 23:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you still access the old hard drive with vista on it? There should be an option in Vista to create a recovery disk if you've never done it, and as long as you're using the same laptop it should install fine on the new hard drive. If not you'll need to get hold of a new install disk, I recommend Mininova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. The old drive was not recognised so I don't think it'll be an option. I'll try mininova. How do I transfer the Vista from one computer to the other. It is too big to fit on a CD/DVD, right?90.221.241.230 (talk) 23:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? Download one of the torrent files from Mininova, the "Extreme Edition" has lots of seeds so it'll be fast, and open it in utorrent. Once the file is downloaded (this could take a long time depending on your connection as it's a 4GB file) burn it to a DVD. Make sure to burn the iso to the disk as an image and not as a file, otherwise it won't work. Then put the disk into the laptop, restart with the new hard drive in and it should install. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I downloaded Windows Automated Installation Kit (900MB) eariler (will this do the trick) but it didn't fit on my 700MB CD/DVD. Can I get a bigger CD/DVD to burn this 4GB file that you are talking about? 90.221.241.230 (talk) 23:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Windows Automated Installation Kit, but it looks like it's a preinstallation environment for large scale deployment of vista and not what you're after. Either way, you'll need to burn the files bigger than 650mb to a DVD as they have 4.3GB capacity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for all your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.221.241.230 (talk) 23:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Technicolour spinning wheel of despair?

Yo computer wizards. I use an apple mac. Doh. Can one of you describe what is a actually happening when I ask my computer to do something, say I click on a link, and before it does what i have asked it to do, nothing happens for a long time, and the circular, rainbow-coloured, spinning thing takes the place of my cursor? I think the equivalent on windows is an egg-timer thingy? what exactly is happening at this moment? Why cant I be taken to the link or whatever I have asked for instantly? Is it 'loading', like a Commodore 64 had to? Are there popular names for the 'loading/waiting' icons on the mac or pc? Is there anything I can do to reduce the amount of time I must confront this technicolour wheel of frustration? If it isnt completley obvious, I am completley ignorant about computing, so I would greatly appreciate if you could explain in terms a retard could understand. Thanks. Willy turner (talk) 23:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

What you're seeing is the Spinning wait cursor or Spinning Beach Ball. You don't get taken to the link's destination immediately because your computer has to establish a network connection with the host the link's destination refers to, and then wait for the host to give you the web page you asked for. One way to speed up that conversation is to get faster internet service. -- JSBillings 23:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no. That's incorrect, it's got nothing to do with the speed of your internet connection. The beach ball is an indication that the computer is indeed busy with something else -- yes, just like the Commodore 64 back in the day -- and the software being used at the moment is too busy to respond. Adding more RAM to the computer in question will make the beach ball appear less frequently (and more briefly when it does). A cheaper way address the problem is running fewer applications at the same time.

By comparison, the whole thing with establishing the network connection and downloading the page's contents is represented by the browser software itself, which (in Mac OS X) displays an animated circle of sorts, composed of lines that seem to radiate from the center of the circle, in the tab in question. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 00:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not just that it's busy, it's that it's sooo busy that the operating system has noticed that it's no longer responding correctly. It's not a good thing and is usually a sign of really process intensive stuff or something having gone wrong. (It is not quite the same thing as the hourglass on Windows—on the PC, the hourglass can be a signal from the programmer to you that they want you to wait a minute, white the beachball occurs at the system level and programmers are supposed to indicate things are loading with other means, like progress bars). As for reducing it, I would add more RAM. Depending on your machine it's usually not that expensive—a machine that is about a year old today could have its RAM maxed out for $60 or so if you shop around. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

January 3

Al Gore and the internet

I know that Al Gore didn't *really* invent the internet, but what was the real extent of his involvement in its creation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.240.141 (talk) 00:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It's discussed in Al Gore's article. -- JSBillings 00:06, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Take of special note this article written by the guys who actually invented the internet (i.e. Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn), who gives Al Gore tons and tons of credit for it. He really deserves praise for his part in the process. He's a big part of the reason why we can do what we're doing right now Belisarius (talk) 04:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Note as well Al Gore never said he invented the internet Nil Einne (talk) 09:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Also see this article [[3]]. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 15:44, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

We even have an article on Al Gore and information technology. -- Jao (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft OS disks and product keys

For a specific version of a Microsoft operating system (eg. Vista Home Premium), are all the disks identical? So, for example, can I borrow a friend's disk and use my product key to reinstall the operating system after a hard disk upgrade? - The scenario I'm thinking of here is I lost my original install disk or I forgot to create a recovery disk before the hard drive broke. Astronaut (talk) 02:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the version it installs is based purely on your product key. --wj32 ^t/c 03:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Only product versions that are identical may be identical, and some OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) (Dell, HP, IBM, etc.) will have their own discs. All of these versions might be different disks. These disks might differ in one of three ways. 1) Different XP/Vista versions (Premium, Professional, Home, Corporate, etc.),; 2) Different service packs (more applicable to XP); 3) Version or vendor specific differences, such as if it came with the computer or was bought retail (some versions of Dell discs will check the bios of the machine to determine if it is the correct type of Dell computer (probably the right series, although i don't know how they split it up)). Product keys will be unique between these factors. LH (talk) 07:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Note that some Vista discs have *all* versions (Home, Buisiness, Premium, Basic, etc) on it. The cd key you give it determins which version gets installed.121.72.202.66 (talk) 07:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Retail x86 Vista discs allow you to install all versions of x86 Vista, as long as you have a retail key. Same with x64. OEM copies bought from shops (ie just ones that are under an OEM licence, not from the person that made your PC) should also do this, if you have a retail or shop bought OEM key. However OEM copies that come with a computer might not work, and it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and almost certainly if your key is from your system manufacturer it won't work with anything but the OEM disc for your PC brand. Gunrun (talk) 09:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Formatting my USB Drive

Resolved

 – LH (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a portable USB jump drive which is 16GB. I want to format it using NTFS but when I plug it into my computer (Windowx XP Professional with SP2) and right-click to format it, I only get the option to format it with FAT32. The reason is that sometimes I want to put some large files on it (like DVD images) and FAT32 is limited to 4GB. So the computer just tells me that there is no space even if the entire drive is empty which is kind of annoying. So the question is how can I force-format my USB drive with NTFS? Does it have something to do with the fact that when I plug in the USB drive, it shows up under "devices with removable storage" with my optical drives instead of "hard disk drives" where my other hard drives show up (even external backup ones)? I tried Norton Partition Magic also but the jump drive doesn't even show up in it. Thanks!-Looking for Wisdom and Insight! (talk) 06:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised that windows won't let you format it NTFS; I doubt it's simply because it's removable, because I have formatted removable hard-drives attached as "removable" with NTFS. If you have the expertise, and are able to format the disk from Linux or on a Mac (if you have NTFS tools on your mac) then it should be recognized and work under windows.

Update: Looks as though this website addresses your issue. It appears that you have to designate the drive as "optimized" before it will permit NTFS. In order to do this 1) right click my computer, select Manage, 2) Double click storage, then double click Disk management, 3) right click on your removable drive (make sure it's the right one) and select Properties, 4) Under the policies tab select optimize for performance and click ok, 5) Format as NTFS should now be an option.

I have not tested this personally. LH (talk) 07:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Dude, that was awesome. That is exactly what the issue was. The drive was setup optimally for speed as opposed to for performance. This ensured that the data was always written directly on the drive so that I could just remove it without safely removing the drive. As soon as I optimized the drive for performance, NTFS became available and now I can put large files on it. But now I have to be careful to safely remove my drive always. It works! Thanks69.110.132.49 (talk) 07:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Problems with Firefox

Resolved

 – Xenon54 17:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The whole thing seems to have gone totally bad. It won't run as normal. I'm using IE now instead, but I prefer Firefox. I think I'm gonna have to do a uninstall and reinstall of Firefox. I think I was on some porn forum which may have had malware. My firefox's noscript, downloadhelper, etc are all just gone, and it won't load sites properly.--Veritable's Morgans Board (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

But in Windows Vista, I don't even know where the Add/Remove programs thing is anymore because I can't find it in the Control Panel. I hate Vista.--Veritable's Morgans Board (talk) 16:13, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Reinstalled it. Scratch that. This question is solved.--Veritable's Morgans Board (talk) 16:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

For anyone wondering, the Add Remove section is now called Programs and Features. Gunrun (talk) 09:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

And, for anyone wondering there is no reason whatsoever that Microsoft has to make life more difficult by unnecessary name changes such as this. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

You may find this standard diagnostic useful if you have problems with Firefox in the future. --saxsux (talk) 20:45, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Memory card for my phone

Two part question; I would like to get an 8 GB memory card for my phone (LG Dare). The type of memory card, is it called a Micro SDHC? Also, where is the cheapest place online to buy my phones memory card? A few months back someone saved me a lot of money from a website out there for a camera memory card. Thank you in advance. --Endlessdan and his problem 18:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

One caution when buying over the web: For low cost items the shipping charges frequently negate any savings. If you buy expensive items or many inexpensive items at once, this may make the shipping free or the shipping charges less significant. However, places with free shipping for everything must charge higher prices to cover that free service. So, be sure to compare the total cost, including the shipping costs and any taxes. StuRat (talk) 19:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand. But I know how much it costs in the stores - $35. So I'll be able to compare and contrast.--Endlessdan and his problem 01:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, next do a Google search for that model number, maybe with the word "prices" after it, to find cheaper sources on the web. But, as I said, the initial price they report does not include shipping and handling, so you'll need to go most of the way through the purchase process to find that out. Also make sure it's a reputable company you trust before giving them your credit card number (or, better yet, use a system like PayPal). StuRat (talk) 15:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

$19.99+ shipped from this vendor, whom I've used several times with no problems. -- Coneslayer (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

iTunes

I have two questions regarding iTunes: 1. Can downloaded iTunes be used on more than one device and 2. can iTunes be played on normal mp3 players? Thanks, --87.114.175.178 (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes, iTunes music can be put onto as many iPods as you want, but only 5 computers. 2. Not in its native format. iTunes music is in .m4p format (aka a protected m4a, aka an iTunes version of an mp3). mp3 players can't play m4a's, or m4p's. iTunes can convert their songs to AAC (which some mp3 players can play, but not all), or you could use one of the converters online. There are a bunch, this is one example. flaminglawyer^c 21:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Almost all m4as already use AAC as their codec. --123.243.7.17 (talk) 00:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Connecting to the internet on gNewSense

Resolved

On gNewSense linux how do I set up a connection to the internet (either ethernet or wifi - I only need to be able to connect in one way). Thanks, 82.32.53.160 (talk) 20:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just worked it out. 82.32.53.160 (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Youtube is in a different language...

For some reason YouTube is in a different language on my comp, and I don't know why. I'm not at any alternate YouTube site, it's just regular, www.youtube.com. All of the text is in some foreign language, and I don't know how to fix it. ScienceApe (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It's changed your default language, probably using your IP address. If you can work it out, change it in your preferences. A Gogle webpage translation should do until then. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

At the top of every YouTube page, next to the YouTube logo, there are links to change the country and language. I was getting YouTube in French for a while, until I switched back to English. I read somewhere that Google was misidentifying some blocks of IP addresses in the USA as being in France. --Bavi H (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the question and the answers! For a while there I was always being redirected to the UK version of YouTube and I didn't know why since I'm in the US. I'm just going to figure that it was a similar situation to this question. Dismas|^(talk) 07:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

January 4

some games are not playable

I have a p4 with core 2 duo processor but I have only 40 Gb hard disk formated with FAT system (because my 250 GB hard disk is out of order). I have downloads the games "Mad dogs on the roads" and " Lost road races " and installed but I can not play them on my computer.games starts as usual and ask for the name , " new game or ---" then first level sign appear but after that an error message appear .and for one of them it appears that "memory access denaid " what should be the problem ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 00:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have never heard of these games, and I doubt anyone else on the RD has, but they sound like they're related. The same error is probably affecting both, whatever that is. Try to find the games' tech support forums or a contact email address or whatever there is and ask the question there; you'll most likely get a better response if you specifically target people who know about the games. 24.76.161.28 (talk) 01:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

internat explorer sign is not " e " like

In start menu, the picture within the "internet explorer" is changed from sign of "e " to an other sign . what should be the problem and how can i get original sign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 00:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Try right-clicking on the icon in the start menu; going to 'Properties' on the menu that comes up; then clicking on 'Change icon'. If this doesn't work, you may need to tell us which versions of Windows and Intternet Explorer you're using. TSP (talk) 00:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The sign is called an icon. What does the new icon look like? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

By right clicking the icon "properties "does not appear but "internet properties". I m using windows Xp service pack 2, and internet explore may be latest (I donot know).Icon is a rcangular shaped ,small curled at one end ,and inside it a square with three small figure in it ,(this is they same icon for which windows does not know which program can open this ).My internet explorer is working properly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 01:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

wikicode source

How would you write this infobox from scratch in wikicode? I can't merely click "view source" because the source transcludes a lot of other stuff, so it's not clear what the basis for this in wikicode is. Thanks --VectorField (talk) 02:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to answer your question, since I don't like looking at {{infobox}}'s code, but I will say that it depends crucially on some stuff in MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Algebraist 02:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I ask because I would like to replicate the code for my own wiki without having to replicate the monstrosity that is {{infobox}}. --VectorField (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Fundamentally you can have a div that's float=right, or a table the same. Inside the div (or the table) you just have a bunch of rows, spaced and formatted in html as you want. To fill in the individual rows, you use MediaWiki's normal substitution mechanism. -- 87.112.6.240 (talk) 02:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

domain pointing

(Wow I should know this...) I use Apache for hosting, and Godaddy for registrar-ing. How do I make my domain name point to my Apache server on my IP address? Should it be "forwarded" or using a "nameserver?" flaminglawyer^c 02:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

You need a DNS (dynamic name server) - sometimes the registrar will offer you that service (at a price) - generally, if you host your site at a web hosting service - they'll provide the nameserver. There are a many nameservers you have to pay for - and a couple of free ones. You could (in theory) make your own nameserver - but I looked into doing that and frankly, it's a bitch. When I ran my own site from home I used GraniteCanyon - who offer a free public service. However, it was patchy and would 'disappear' for a couple of days at a time several times a year. Now I host my site with Dreamhosts.com and they handle all of that nastiness for me as a part of the $10 a month I pay them for hosting my site. SteveBaker (talk) 04:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I set one up at freedns. Now what? flaminglawyer^c 04:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind, that site was not what I thought it was. Still looking for free nameservers. flaminglawyer^c 06:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

FreeDNS does have free DNS hosting. See the "domains" section. --grawity 15:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Host	Type	Value	MX
(website).info	A	(my IP address)	(blank)
www.(website).info	A	(my IP address again)	(blank, again)

Yes, but I don't like it as much as the new one I found, EveryDNS (which I am using). So now what? I have the table on the right on my "domains" page, which seems right, but it's now showing my index.html page (the default "It works!" page). Instead it has a network timeout. When I go to http://localhost/ it works, but not when I go to my website. flaminglawyer^c 23:51, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

DNS records have to propagate through the Internet from one server to another - and that can take several days. Be patient! SteveBaker (talk) 19:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

<sad face> darn. flaminglawyer^c 23:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The other problem is that if you're using a NAT router, it might not support NAT loopback -- you'll know this is the case if, after a few days, you're the only one who can't use your domain to access your computer. The workaround is to set up a DNS server and resolver on your home system. --Carnildo (talk) 22:54, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

.NET Passport and cursors

I've got two questions:

1. How do I disable the .NET passport on my User Account? Because I already have a Windows Live ID separate from it.
2. Can anyone recommend a safe website where I can download cursors?

--Crackthewhip775 (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

For #2, cursormania is the only safe one that I know of. Unless you're interested in building your own cursors, in which case you could use one of the things on here which are on Download.com so I'm guessing they've been security-tested. flaminglawyer^c 03:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Web Of Trust (a Firefox plugin) says cursormania is a badguy. —Tamfang (talk) 09:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

1) Windows Live ID is the same as .NET Passport.

2) If you want something nice, the cursors category on deviantART is nice. --grawity 15:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Safe Search

As far as which sites are "Safe", there are several tools available that monitor which sites are safe. I've been pleased with siteadvisor (McAfee). I know their AV software has taken some hits lately, but their Site Advisor tool seems worth the download to me. When you do a search (say in Google)... it marks each result with green, yellow, red, or gray buttons. It is also a small toolbar that changes colors depending upon the site you're on. I'm sure there are other tools available as well, but I didn't look past this one cause it works for me. Ched (talk) 18:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, especially the one deviantART and the McAfee site advisor, though I have something similar to it, Web of Trust, as Tamfang was talking about. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 20:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Digital filter software.

I should perhaps be asking this on the math or science desk - but I'm going to try here first because I suspect that if I get an answer, it'll be one that I can understand!

I'm writing a simple music synthesiser package to run on a teeny-tiny Arduino microcontroller (yes, I am a complete software-masochist!) - I'm trying to emulate a MiniMoog analog synth - and I need to implement an audio filter with a realtime-adjustable frequency cutoff. I need something that's small, fast and uses very little RAM (although I don't mind having some reasonably large lookup tables so long as they are constant).

Does anyone know of a suitable digital filter algorithm for doing that? I've been messing around with simple moving-averages and other filtering techniques I use in the graphics world - but somehow I'm not getting what I need for audio filtering and the realtime nature of the thing on a pathetic little 8MHz CPU with under 1k bytes of RAM is definitely a challenge!

TIA SteveBaker (talk) 04:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I've emailed you a copy of some pages from this book that might be relevant. I bought the book some years ago when I was doing some audio programming. I've never tried implementing any filters, but judging by the book, the article Infinite impulse response, with its links, may be of interest. You could also download the source code of Audacity, and see how the filters there are implemented. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That was fairly helpful. I was hoping to find some actual code. The book suggests something like this:

filter ( input, tunefactor, damping )
{
  lowpass  += tunefactor * bandpass ;
  highpass  = input - lowwpass  - damping * bandpass ;
  bandpass += tunefactor * highpass ;
  notch     = lowpass + highpass ;  // Optional!
}

...but doesn't really explain how I set 'tunefactor' and 'damping' to adjust the rolloff frequency. However, it's short and it adds almost zero delay into the signal path! Another problem is that this is a 16 bit machine with no hardware floating point support - so everything has to be done in fixed-point math - which is do-able if you know the ranges of all of the internal variables. If I knew what a sensible range of values for the two inputs were - I'd be able to do the math in 16-bit-friendly ways. I like the idea of checking the Audacity sources - I'll see what I can find there. SteveBaker (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Steve, have you looked into the Max environment? It's (almost certainly) not suitable for what you want to do this time 'round, but I'm sure you'll get into it if you like using Arduino boards. [ cycle~ ] (talk), 15:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

That's WAY out of the Arduino's league! I only have ~1kbytes of RAM and 14kbytes of Flash for program storage - and it's a 16 bit CPU without floating point - so everything has to be kept super-simple. SteveBaker (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes definately; but it's something you may be interested in incorporating into something larger! [ cycle~ ] (talk), 22:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't, as far as I can tell, seem to be an open-source smallscale (microcontroller-friendly) filter package around, so you may well be stuck implementing your own filter FFTs yourself. The trickiest part will probably be getting the FFT to be real-time efficient on such a limited platform (but given the onboard DSP on that device, clearly this kind of stuff is a design target for the AVR). Take a look at the Atmel application note "AVR223: Digital Filters with AVR" (from this page) which has some of the basics (including how to do multiply-accumulate on their architecture). For a more concrete example, this guy has a simple FFT (I think it's a FIR) on that architecture. 87.112.6.240 (talk) 16:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

FFT seems a bit of an overkill - and it seems like it's going to introduce a lot of delay (which I can't have) - the Atmel application note is a bit math-intense (why the heck can't they just supply some source code?), but I'll take a shot at working through it. SteveBaker (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Recommend a Rails book

Can you recommend book on Ruby on Rails? I'm a Python developer who came in without doing a CS course. I'm used to Django and want an introduction to Rails (for fun, not work). I've read (and enjoyed) Ruby by Example (ISBN 9781593271480), which covers Ruby basics but not Rails. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I can recommend that you stay the hell away from Rails. just google why ("rails sucks" etc). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.10.173 (talk) 21:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Surely Python is the more fun option. 79.79.69.199 (talk) 04:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu to Ubuntu remotes desktop connect

I am trying to help someone setup wireless on their Ubuntu machine. I need to remote desktop to his machine to check everything out. He hooked directly in to his modem and I am behind a router. He did the system > preferences > etc. and checked to allow other people to access his desktop. He gave me his IP. I tried using the GUI VNC application (applications > internet) but it would always come up saying the connection had been closed when I hadn't even connected. (It took quite a while for this to come up so I think it may have been timing out.) I have no idea why this is not working. Any suggestions? TIA, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 22:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Could it be a firewall issue? Is his modem blocking the VNC port (I don't know what port VNC uses)? Does he have a firewall installed? - Akamad (talk) 01:42, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe (VNC uses port 5900). How could he set his modem up to allow these connections? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 02:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That would depend on the modem/router he has. Have a look at this site: http://www.portforward.com , in particular, have a look at this page: [4]. Also check to see if your friend has blocked any ports via software means (such as through a firewall application such as Firestarter). - Akamad (talk) 07:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice.org will not quit

Frustrated with MS Office PowerPoint 2008 for Mac, I downloaded OpenOffice.org 3.0 to my Mac with OS X. Now I cannot quit: I get a message: "The application OpenOffice.org failed to quit and is not responding."

What should I do?

L. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.66.148 (talk) 22:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried force-quitting? Algebraist 22:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Ctrl+Click on its icon on the taskbar, select "force quit." Or go to the Apple menu, select "force quit". If all else fails, hold down the power key to manually reboot. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

January 5

deleted file retrieval program

Can anyone recommend a good, thorough freeware program for retrieving deleted files off of an HDD or memory stick? Thanks --VectorField (talk) 00:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Piriform's Recuva (pronounced \ri-ˈkə-vər\). Xenon54 02:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

PhotoRec, and for some types of files, Foremost. For NTFS, there's "ntfsundelete", part of ntfsprogs. --76.167.241.238 (talk) 02:59, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

And any recommendations for a good, thorough freeware program that does a full disk overwrite? (Fullstop suggested CCleaner, but only mentioned that it was good for securely deleting specific files.) Thanks, --VectorField (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Na i disagree.Photorec is nothing compared to "Recover my files" .If you google it you'll get a limited free version from their site so just do a torrent search for it and you'll get a full version with a keygen and believe me its helped me out a lot .I haven't tried it on my hard drive cause its quite huge but for memory sticks (even those upto 8GB ) it works perfectly and retrieve's file deleted over a month ago ,i'm still curious as to how it works!But rest assures you'll get your files back safely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vineeth h (talk • contribs) 07:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

"Open" routers?

Does anyone know brands of internet routers that are "open", like in "open source software"? Using open standards and stuff like that? With the possibility to hack/modify the firmware, upgrade, etc... ? Thanks. SF007 (talk) 00:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Get a computer, put one of these on it, and then configure it as a router. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 02:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Netgear's WGR614L is probably the only commercially available open-source router. It's based on Linux and has full compatibility with dd-wrt, tomato, etc. It is also possible to create custom firmware. Xenon54 02:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, OpenWrt supports like hundreds of commercial routers decently, so most routers are "open" in the sense that people have figured out how to modify the firmware and put open source software on it and stuff. --76.167.241.238 (talk) 03:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The simplest thing is to find a really old, nasty PC - stick several ethernet adaptors into it and run Linux on it. Then you can hack and play to your heart's content. It doesn't even need a monitor and keyboard once you have it set up. I used an ancient 300MHz PC running SuSE 6.x as my router/gateway/email-server/firewall machine for years...it worked great - and I even had a small website up on it. SteveBaker (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Changing IP address

I believe my ISP changes my IP address everytime I restart my PC. I'd like to know if there is an easier way to change it (without restarting). The reason is that rapidshare tells me that my IP address is already downloading something when i'm not. Thank you. --AreDeeCue (talk) 11:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Most likely your IP changes every time you connect to your ISP. What you need to do is to disconnect and reconnect from your ISP without restarting. I can't tell you how, since I have no idea what OS your using, how you connect to your ISP, etc etc. BTW are you sure your public IP changes Nil Einne (talk) 11:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm using vista and it's a adsl connection. Should I just disconnect the router and reconnect it? The IP address that rapidshare says is currently downloading changes so I assume that means my IP is changing. --AreDeeCue (talk) 11:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I use XP not Vista but I believe Vista also includes the application ipconfig: typing "ipconfig /renew" at the command line (or from the Run... dialog) should get a new IP address via DHCP.[5] --193.172.19.20 (talk) 12:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I've always done ipconfig /release first, then the ipconfig /renew Ched (talk) 14:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

We may need more information about your situation. ISP's modems / routers operate differently. I personally have cable and my cable modem forwards my public ip address to the computer that is connected to it, but i have a router to split my internet between 5 different computers, the way that this works is my router has a 'WAN" port. what this wan port does is request an ip address from my cable modem (instead of submitting one from the router as it is also my DHCP server). Then what my router does is submit an internal ip address to the computers in my local area network (Lan). In my case i have 2 different ip address types, A public ip address and LAN ip address. Only my public ip address can be seen from the outside world, my lan ip addresses can not be seen. Now, if i were to throw away my router and connect my computer directly to my cable modem my computer will then be assigned the public ip address and will request a new (or the same) one from the modem every time i restart my computer. Now i said that some IPS's modems / routers operate differently, what i mean is this; sometimes a modem will assign it's self the public ip address and then submit a different one to any computers trying to connect to it. If your computer is like my home network then you will need to go in to your router and (depending on your router) release and renew your ip address. If your computer connects directly to your modem then simply going to the start menu then type in the word "CMD" in the search option then hit enter will bring up a black window with some text in is, that is called the command prompt. My typing in the commands:" ipconfig /release " and " ipconfig /renew " (without the quotations) you can submit a request for a new ip address. But if you are simply looking for evidence that your ip address is changing then you can visit a website that will tell you.here is a link to a website that will tell you what your public ip address is. good luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.172.159.131 (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

do the proxy dance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

music software

could you recommend a free software to play music instruments(like piano,flutr etc.) onxp operating system. Earlier I had play it which i played in windows 98. It is not working in XP. Please help thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.147.135 (talk) 12:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about software like this? BigDunc^Talk 15:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

You are probably looking for a MIDI (SMF) creator/editor/player. Do you want to connect a MIDI keyboard (like "piano keys") to your computer, or do you just want to use your QWERTY keyboard to play? Actually, I have been experimenting a bit with MIDI programming lately and have created an extremely small (and never really completed) utility found here. It is most likely insufficient for your needs, but may be fun to play with for a while. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

RCA Composite vs. VGA Video

Hello everyone and happy New Year! I’m seeking a bit of assistance with the video setup for a PC utilizing a projector. Here’s my questions:

Should I run my PC’s video signal through the A/V receiver (via RCA Composite cables), which would then be linked to the projector via the receiver's Video Out cable to the receiver (again via RCA Composite cables).

Or should I run the PC’s video signal directly to the projector via the standard VGA cable?

I’m looking for the best video quality with ease of use. I could foresee my team members finding the receiver control to be the easiest to use (one unit controls A/V). But on the other hand, the VGA might be the best video quality (meaning that my team members would have to tweak both the receiver – for audio – and the projector – for video).

THANKS!

Rangermike (talk) 15:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I would absolutely use the VGA cable instead of the RCA composite cables. The video quality is going to be a lot better; you're not going to get a high-definition video image with the composite cables... supposing, of course, that the projector supports HD, and that the video material is in HD. But even if that's not the case, the VGA cable is still going to give a better quality image. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Captain, I appreciate the info. Rangermike (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

But why not try it both ways and compare ? The only reason I can see not to do so is if you don't have all the cables needed. StuRat (talk) 18:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not have all of the cables needed to test both methods. I was leaning VGA and that's the route I'll take. I can post an update when I'm finished with the install. For now, I'll mark this resolved. Rangermike (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Is there a given character in a specified font?

The character ∯, U+222F, SURFACE INTEGRAL, exists in Arial Unicode MS, but not in Courier New (just an example). How can I figure this out in my Win32 application? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I can use the GetFontUnicodeRanges function? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

new computer causing problems.

Hey all,I got a new assembled computer 'bout a month ago.The specs are as follows: Intel DG43NB classic series motherboard(released in january 2008),Intel Quad Core processor( 2.4GHz),2.5GB DDR2 RAM, nVidia 9800GT (512MB) graphics card,Windows XP with service pack 3,DirectX 9.0c installed,SATA 500GB Hard Disk. Now the problem is that i used to play this game called trackmania(which is a racing game mainly for online play) for quite some time on my last computer which had an ATI Radeon 200 series graphics card and all was well. But after i got the new comp. and i started playing trackmania and had everything set to high and played well but soon saw that within half an hour to an hour of gameplay all of a sudden the entire colouring on the screen would go haywire and it would give me really weird colours instead of the normal colours and then after about a minute of the colouring going all wrong the screen would completely freeze and then i would be forced to reboot.Now this was like a week after i bought it.So i thought maybe there's something wrong with the game(which was impossible because i was playing it on a weaker machine for the last two years) even then i re-downloaded the setup file and installed it again. The same problem occured again. Then i thought MAYBE the graphics card drivers got corrupted so i uninstalled all the drivers, did a fresh download from nvidia's site and reinstalled everything and then tried the game- THE SAME PROBLEM AGAIN OCCURED. Then i just download RivaTuner (which is basically a monitoring software for nvidia graphics cards made by nvidia and www.guru3d.com, and tried increasing the fan speed to 70% and then monitored the temperature, and saw that it stayed in the 40-49 degree range,which is quite low. So all in all there's no problem with any of the obvious software .And nowadays the dis-colouring problem has started occuring within 10-15 minutes after i start playing.So i'd really like to know whats wrong with my computer and why its giving me such a problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vineeth h (talk • contribs) 17:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if it could be an issue of the motherboard overheating (instead of the graphics card) ? Take the case off the computer and point a window fan at it the innards, and see if this makes a difference. This isn't the cure, of course, just a way to diagnose the problem. If that's it, you will need a better computer fan or fans, better heat sinks, etc. StuRat (talk) 18:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly possible that there is a bug in the game. If the game is several years old then it can't have been tested against your graphics card - and it's quite possible that there is something about your graphics card that makes it crap out like this. If the game has a web site - you might go and look to see if there are any patches out for it. I wouldn't suspect hardware or driver issues unless you see other software with the same sorts of symptoms. SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey again sturat,I have 3 fans in it.one for the processor ,another for the graphics card and one in general .But i still tried out your suggestion , the problem still occured. And remember the suggestion you had made for unique feature in my paint? The converting everything to black and white. I did it and it works perfectly fine! And steve, yes there is a patch which was released in november and i've already tried installing the patch but still the problem occurs. And i've tried the same game on my dad's laptop which had 9600GT and it worked perfectly fine.So maybe it is the problem with the graphics card itself ain't it? So i was thinking 'bout getting it replaced but i just wanted to really find out if it was a problem with the card or with something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vineeth h (talk • contribs) 07:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, so you've eliminated overheating as the culprit. Next you might want to swap graphics cards with your Dad's computer (and update drivers accordingly) and see if the problem goes with the card.

As for your version of PAINT, that sounds cool, can I get a copy ? StuRat (talk) 15:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

ISO file

I tried to add vista to my new hard drive as discussed above but I can't seem to burn the ISO file to the DVD as an image. When I inserted the blank DVD, I was asked if I wanted to burn data, files or video. I chose video and went to the video imaging window for burning a DVD. When I tried to add the file, it said that it is not a supported file type. What can I do? 90.221.241.97 (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

You need to use a "burning program" (such as Nero), and then open, the iso file, then burn. this burns all the files, including the boot sectors, to the disk rather than just burning the one ISO file to the disk. Hope this help. Ched (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I use this [6] on Windows. Ubuntu comes with .iso burning applications. I think most of the other Linux distros do as well. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I recommend CDBurnerXP for Windows; despite the name it does DVDs as well. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Imgburn is also good, especially since you're trying to burn an iso file. Gunrun (talk) 09:01, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Comparing laptops based on specific technical factors

Hello, I would be grateful if you could help me with the following problem :

I have been asked to do an investigation on 2 Laptops, one with a hard drive, and one with solid state storage. Each laptop must have 32gb of storage at least, and they should be compared on the following :

Battery Life How robust the backing storage is Access speed of the backing storage (ms)

If you could help me with this, I'd be Very grateful!

Thanks, S.Taylor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.236.242.192 (talk)

Poor Upload Speeds On Broadband

We have a shared internet connection in our private student accommodation block. It consists of network points in every bedroom (much like many hotel rooms). The internet connection is, to say the least, unreliable. When I did one of those DSL speed tests online, it showed a download speed of 1329kbps but an upload of: wait for it....1kpbs. I'm guessing this is the source of it's unreliability. If it works, it works quite well, but sometimes Google won't even come up. Is there anything I can do to up the upload speed (I'm guessing not but it;s worth a try)? Fribbler (talk) 21:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm having this problem too. My specifics are documented here. Its prevalence has declined in the past few months, but I still have troubles with it occasionally. flaminglawyer^c 23:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd bet good money that someone is running a torrent progeram, and hasn't capped their upload. Most torrent programs can totally max out the upload speed of a network, if you allow them to, which will result in slow download too. Gunrun (talk) 08:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Free video editing software

Does anybody know of any free (in the monetary sense - it doesn't have to be freely-licensed) software which will allow me to edit videos like I would pictures - i.e. put them inside each other, apply filters to specific sections, etc.? I ahve a computer with XP and one with Vista, but I prefer the Vista one. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

WAX is a free video editor and what about Windows Movie Maker seen as you are using windows. BigDunc^Talk 22:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

On the whole it is a lot harder to modify videos in comparison with photos. There are only a few free software packages that do anything close to this, most of them are a real pain to set up and take a huge amount of time to learn how to use. There a few entries in the Category:Free video software that are relevant to your request—what you are looking for is a non-linear editor. At the moment the free offerings in this area are pretty paltry, in part because the real community of video editors already use high-end stuff that the free ones don't come close to approximating for the most part, and the YouTube kiddos just use Windows Movie Maker. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

VirtualDub is good for that sort of thing, if you know what you're doing. — neuro^(talk) 00:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's more lists, some out of date[7][8][9]. Sadly Avid no longer provide a free version and Jahshaka remains vaporware. I've used ZS4[10] which is perhaps the most powerful but takes some time to get to grips with the interface. Windows Media Maker in XP SP2 and Vista is good for simple tasks, but doesn't provide the support for compositing, images in images, effects on parts of images, etc, that seems to be required. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 10:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Why Freebsd (over Linux)

Hello. I been searching many forum to find out, "why use freebsd instead of linux". This question is more an opinion question. I am an linux newbie and always liked the idea of linux. But I am thinking of using Freebsd because of the security and "ports. But. Why use Freebsd??? My wish is to find out the reason to use freebsd and if it worth using instead of linux.

Thanks :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

What are you going to be using it for? Desktop systems are generally better with Linux because there's more software available. --Carnildo (talk) 23:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I want to use it mainly for desktop but i still don't know how to install Gnome —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 23:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Just go with Ubuntu. It has GNOME pre-installed. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 23:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried Ubuntu. But I was looking to try Freebsd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 23:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu is horrible. FreeBSD is so much more agile and versatile. — neuro^(talk) 00:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

And why's that? :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 00:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't really explain it, you have to try it to see. — neuro^(talk) 00:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay. but I read the Freebsd handbook about installing Gnome, but it is not working for me. What's wrong?. Any newbie guides?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 00:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I use NetBSD, but I know that there is a BSD distro that comes with GNOME preinstalled. One moment. — neuro^(talk) 01:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm a Linux guy and I've run various BSD's over the years - but if I'm honest there isn't much difference. ALL of the tools and ALL of the windowing systems and nearly all of the drivers are IDENTICAL between BSD and Linux. The kernel is different - but the API for the kernels are just about identical and the performance difference is patchy to say the least - it depends on what you're doing. Sitting in front of your PC doing whatever you do with it - your user experience is near as dammit the same - you're really unlikely to notice - pick something that installs the stuff you want easily. SteveBaker (talk) 02:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Mandriva Linux now. Is there any reason to switch to FreeBSd?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.243.235.218 (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

In my very limited experience, one difference I've encountered between Linux and FreeBSD is that Sun does not provide a Java distribution for FreeBSD (though they do for Linux). This may not be too much of a problem today because there seem to be various third-party groups who have worked to produce a Java distribution for FreeBSD, but I recall a period of some frustration four or five years ago trying to get Java working on a FreeBSD machine. —Bkell (talk) 07:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

January 6

Failure rate of computer DVD drives

It seems to me that DVD drives for computers have a much higher failure rate than even inexpensive standalone DVD players. Is this true? If it is, why? Is there a difference between the reliability of DVD-ROM drives and that of DVD writers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.9.141 (talk) 05:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I could think of several possible reasons - but I don't know if any of them are true:

1. The power supply for a portable DVD player is under the control of the designer who can ensure it performs perfectly. In a PC, there is really no control over that since who-knows-what-else is sharing the same power supply. Hence spikes and noise could maybe be more prevelant.
2. The DVD drives in PC's typically spin faster than DVD drives for playing movies (a 16x drive spins 16 times faster than a video DVD - that's gotta take a toll on the system).
3. DVD drives that are playing movies typically have drive heads that for 99.999% of the time are just gently following the spiral track around. In a PC, it has to jump around at great speed fetching directory entries and files - and probably does that a LOT more than a video-mostly drive. High accellerations wear out bearings.
4. Many DVD drives for PC's are also CD-ROM writers - perhaps also DVD writers - that makes them much more complex with multiple laser diodes, etc.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It's mostly to do with what steve said, that the access speeds are a lot lot faster, and about the drive head having to jump around so much, but it's also to do with build quality. Your average DVD player will have been picked by the consumer to have features they want, and possibly have a good brand name, which will result in at least decent build quality. Internal drives are mostly picked because they're cheapest, either because of lack of knowlege from the customer, or because the machine is built by Dell or similar and is made to be as inexpensive as possible. I'd assume (and have a small amount of experience working returns at my local electronics store) that the cheapest standalone dvd players do fail a lot though. Gunrun (talk) 08:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur, and this phenomenon hasn't started with DVD drives. CD drives, in my experience anyway, have gone the same route. I swear the ones from Creative used to pack up just after the one year warranty! Thank goodness these things are cheap. Funny though that the first cd writer I ever bought (back in 1996!) has a SCSI interface and is still going strong in my mother's PC... Sandman30s (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Setting up a WGA54AG Linksys Gaming Adapter

Hey. I was wondering if anybody could assist me in setting up my WGA54AG Adapter. I have followed the directions (several times) to try and hook it up. Then I found this article that says that the XBOX itself (onced wired to the gaming adapter) can manipulate the controls of the adapter and such. I found this to be true once I tried it myself. I've tried manually setting up the IP address, Subnet mask, etc. to no avail. I have tried the automatic settings and I've pushed the reset button (on the adapter) a few times to start all over again. I bought this on eBay, but the seller said it worked perfectly for them. They said the sold it because they didn't need it anymore. I think the main problem lies somewhere with the LED light titled "wireless". The directions say this should remain solidly lit once functionally connect to my wireless network. Mine keeps blinking. My XBOX says that it is connected to my SSID, but it "can't connect to [my] wireless network". Any help would be greatly appreciated. I spent a lot of money on this, and I really was hoping it'd be simple to set up. I guess not. Killiondude (talk) 07:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC) Oh. P.S. It basically is an adapter that connects things (it is aimed for gaming systems, but also works for printers I believe) to your wireless network. Killiondude (talk) 07:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

See my conversation with the Linksys worker here. I copied and pasted. It pretty much just ruled out a ton of stuff. But still no luck in finding the actual problem. Killiondude (talk) 08:17, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with WGAs particularly (though I believe they are essentially a wireless bridge), but can you try connecting a computer to the WGA and checking if the computer is able to connect to the router, access the router configuration page, and access the internet? (make sure to disable any built-in wireless connection first.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.137.108.115 (talk) 13:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Try googling "DD-WRT" it's basically a different firmware for your router (if its compatible; they have a list on their site) that allows the xbox to use the router.  Buffered Input Output 14:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

74.137.108.115: I hadn't thought of that. I'll try it when I get home. Thanks for the tip!.

Buffered, I went to their website, but my hardware isn't on their list (yet). It says that if its not listed, then it probably "isn't supported yet and you risk breaking it." But thanks for heads up about that. Killiondude (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Booting from DVD

(From earlier discussions "New Hard Drive" and "ISO file") I booted from the CD and everything was fine until I turned the computer off at night and this morning it again said "no operating system found". In bios the only option selected for booting is the dvd drive. Should I change this to have windows permanently on the computer? 90.221.241.97 (talk) 11:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I tried and the answer is yes, sorry. 90.221.241.97 (talk) 12:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Why did I lose the Internet?

There may be a hint here [11] but I'm not sure it's related.

I asked another question [12] but no one answered. There's lots of detail there.

But this is the short version of what actually happened. On January 4 everything seemed to be working fine. On January 5, I couldn't get on the Internet at all. I tried everything I had been told to do before. There was a sequence of four three-digit numbers that always took me to a page where I could see if I was online. Of course, this page showed red the last time I checked, even though I was on the Internet, when it was supposed to be green. On January 5, it wouldn't go to the page because I wasn't connected to the Internet. For all other pages, the circle just kept spinning. One of the questions I asked [13] includes all my system details.

So I called the phone company. They finally concluded the modem wasn't working and intended to send me a new one. I had tried both modems. But they wouldn't both go out at the same time. Unless the newer one went down after just an hour when I used it earlier. Fortunately, using a "cmd" command and "ping" and "ipconfig" it was decided first that the cable to the modem wasn't working, and then finally the computer itself. Finally! They had traced it to the computer, which meant I had to call the manufacturer.

Tech support for my computer's manufacturer concluded a system restore would fix the problem. It did. Any ideas what caused this?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Best guess is that something you downloaded (knowingly or not) overwrote some important piece of code (intentionally or not), which is needed to access the Internet. StuRat (talk) 15:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't download. I go to a limited number of web sites at home. I go to other sites at libraries. Now it is true that when the libraries are closed, I have to go to certain newspaper web sites at home. But how could that cause a problem?Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

"overwrote some important piece of code" doesn't really make sense, but anyway.

Fortunately, using a "cmd" command and "ping" and "ipconfig" it was decided first that the cable to the modem wasn't working

I don't really see how that is possible you could determine that from just using those two commands, if you could elaborate that would be nice. It sounds like a system file got changed in some way or other, in which case sfc /scannow might have done the trick before. Anyway, it's working now. :) — neuro^(talk) 22:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

New SATA HD for laptop 2

Hi following advice given here my friend switch from AHCI mode to IDE mode in setup and still gets the same BSOD any other suggestions thanks. BigDunc^Talk 15:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

apt equivalent to dpkg-query -L (find files from a .deb package)

After installing a .deb package with apt, how do I find what files it has created and where they are located (as I can do with dpkg-query -L for a package installed with dpkg)? NeonMerlin 20:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Try /var/cache/apt/archives/ that is were you should find the .deb files. BigDunc^Talk 20:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Just "dpkg -L". Apt uses dpkg underneath. Dpkg is the package system. Apt is just the means to interact with repositories. --169.232.217.1 (talk) 23:10, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

iPod nano is being an ignoramus

So I have a third-generation iPod Nano. I use iTunes for the songs and whatnot. And recently I've been trying to get some anime on it. Illicit anime, if it matters. Anyway, I've tried everything I can possibly try. I've got the latest software on the iPod, the latest version of iTunes, and it won't let me just put video files on the iPod. I go to the "add file/folder" to library and add one episode and nothing happens. It doesn't add it to the library. iTunes says "Music, Movies, TV Shows" and it doesn't come up in either; it doesn't come up on the iPod either. I've tried putting them directly on the iPod's storage but they still don't come up. I've tried renaming them to .mkv, .mp3, .mov, .avi and .wmv (all of which will play in VLC, so they're valid files even with changed extensions). I thought maybe they were too big, so I tried to put a 30-second .avi on the iPod to no avail. Is there something I'm really not getting here or is there an alternative program I can use with the iPod?

Thank you so very much.

69.81.52.230 (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

In one of my previous questions (Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 October 26#iPod without iTunes), the later replies suggested that files just copied onto your iPod are ignored unless the internal database is rebuilt. Quite how that is done is unclear to me - one view was "...it's hard, but probably possible...". FWIW, I still haven't bought an iPod largely because of this kind of bullshit. Astronaut (talk) 01:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Just changing the extension does nothing if the file formats aren't compatible. For example, if the file format is .avi, and you change it to .mov, Windows media player will still play the file because the actual data is still in the .avi format. QuickTime, however, will not play the file because it looks for .mov data, not .avi data. That's why VLC can play them, not because they're "valid files." Also, you cannot put anything directly onto an iPod; if you do, it's like you put it on a removable USB drive. The format must be compatible with iTunes, QuickTime, and the iPod in order to add files to the library. Try the "import" function with the files, and if that doesn't work, use a video converter (there are lots; i recommend AVS Video Converter as it supports iPod formats). Ciao.  Buffered Input Output 14:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The video being transferred to the 'pod must have a screen resolution that matches that of the device (320x240 in the case of the nano 3G) and must be in a supported format. The supported video format is MPEG-4/H.264 Low-complexity "Baseline" profile video at 30 fps and not exceeding 768kbps. Supported audio format is AAC-LC not exceeding 160kbps/48kHz. Supported container formats are MPEG-4 Part 14 (aka .mp4) or Quicktime .mov.

Aside from Quicktime pro, which costs $, there are quite a few free utilities that will do the necessary conversion for you. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Treat Fn-V as Ctrl-V

In Kubuntu 8.04, can I make Fn-X, Fn-C and Fn-V synonyms of Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V respectively, to reduce the chance of a typo, without overwriting the Fn-key combos that already have meanings? NeonMerlin 22:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

As long as Fn + X, Fn + C, and Fn + V don't have assigned shortcuts yet. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 22:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

So how do I do it? NeonMerlin 23:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Uploading using Terrapin FTP

Toby and I live in UK and both use Orange ISP. We both upload files to my website, using the same username and password. Or we did. Recently Toby has found he can’t do it. And I have noticed that when he has tried to upload a file (sometimes) it uploads file of size 0kb rather than 525kb. Then nobody can read them. On other occasions he is told the website is trying to connect him but it fails to do so. I am having no problems. We have both reinstalled the latest Terrapin and reset to the same password. What else could we try? Kittybrewster ☎ 22:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you share the same Orange ISP connection and user account? If not, I would suspect Orange have tightened up their security to allow uploads from only the authorised account holder's connection. Contact Orange's Tech Support (details here) Astronaut (talk) 01:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No we don't. 50 miles apart. Kittybrewster ☎ 16:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

"Filling my graphics card"?

I seem to be getting less than satisfactory performance with what I thought was a fairly high end video card. (Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS) To be fair, it works ok, just not as well as I was expecting. And also to be fair, it's entirely possible that my expectations were too high. Anyway, I asked a friend of mine about it, and he asked me what kind of processor I have. It's an Intel Pentium D 2x 2.8 GHz. And he said that my processor probably wasn't even "filling my graphics card." What does that mean, specifically? And would I tell whether or not my processor was "filling my graphics card"?

Additionally, I only have 1 GB of RAM, which I know was a lot a few years ago, but now, probably not so much. And I frequently find my self with less than 10 megabytes of free ram. So, would you say that my less-than-great performance is due to

A. Not enough RAM

B. Processor not filling my graphics card

C. The 8800 GTS just isn't a very good card

D. Some combination of A, B, and C?

Digger3000 (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

You will definitely see an improve in performance if you upgrade your RAM to 2 gigabytes or more, and you'll be glad to hear that at today's prices, that's a pretty cheap upgrade, too! I wouldn't know what your friend means exactly, but I suspect that he is saying that your processor is the bottleneck instead of the graphics card. That may be the case, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that -- the technology your graphics card uses is already two generations old now, and while the Pentium D processors certainly aren't the cutting edge either, I'd still say that the card card has a bigger impact on your computer's gaming performance than the processor does. (And don't get me wrong, it's not a bad card! But other things have come out since then.)

In any case, I'd start with the RAM upgrade, as it won't set you back too much (depending on what kind of RAM your motherboard accepts, you can get 2 gigs of RAM for well under 50 bucks), and I'd bet that alone will have a notable impact on your gaming experience, and probably have an all-around impact on what using Windows feels like, too, especially if you're a Vista user. If it's still not what you'd like it to be, you may then want to consider other, more expensive upgrades. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 02:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If upgrading your card doesn't make things go faster - then your friend is probably correct (although that's a funny way of expressing it). Either the CPU, the RAM, the motherboard bus or the graphics bus (PCI-Express or AGP) isn't fast enough to shove data into the graphics card at the limits of it's capability. That means that your new card undoubtedly gets it's work done faster than the old one did - but because the rest of the system isn't fast enough, it spends most of its time just sitting there waiting for more data to work on. That could mean it seems to be running only a little faster than your old card - or if the old card was ALSO not running at full capacity - then an upgrade might have resulted in no speedup whatever, just more time spent sitting around waiting!!

The Captain's claim that adding more RAM will help is not necessarily true. If you're running some kind of demanding 3D game and there is enough RAM for it to run in and there is nothing else running in the computer - then adding more RAM won't make it run any faster at all. The last game I worked on ran on both PS3 and Xbox-360 - neither of which has 512Mb of RAM. Adding more memory into a computer that was running my game and nothing else wouldn't make it go any faster at all.

Worse still - the extent to which everything I just said might apply to you will vary wildly from one 3D application to another. Some games that are horribly texture and data-streaming intensive WILL benefit from more RAM. Some will heavily load the graphics card despite only small amounts of data having to be provided from the CPU (eg if it has very heavy-duty "pixel-shaders") - and in that case, your new graphics card WILL show a lot of speed. Other games (older ones, typically) may need to send a TON of data from the CPU and yet demand very little from the graphics card - and in those cases, you see zero speedup with a faster card.

The dynamics of what goes on inside a modern computer game's graphics system is horrendously complicated - and BTW - did I mention - I write 3D computer games for a living? I'm a graphics programmer! I spend an alarming fraction of my life wondering why things aren't running as fast as I'd like them to - and if it's tough for me to understand - you can be forgiven for having a hard time with it!

So - what to do? Well, if you need more speed - you'll have to decide whether to upgrade the CPU, the RAM or replace the motherboard. That's life, sadly.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Damn captain ,ram is costly where you live! 50 bucks really?Here you get trascend or kingston 1GB RAM (DDR2 800MHz) for around Rs. 1000(which translates to around 20 bucks)! And Steve i see that you seem to know rather lot cause i've seen you answering a lotta questions every other day.!(Which we all appreciate) So what exactly do you do in life?I'm guessing a computer proffesional but what do you specialize in?Vineeth h (talk) 06:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that's not what it costs where I live. I just scanned a few websites selling RAM and based the price estimate on that; it's entirely possible that I was way off base. (As for Steve, he's a graphics programmer in the games industry... As he just mentioned.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:03, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Woah really Steve? Glad to finally meet someone in the gaming industry!! I really wanna be a graphics programmer!! And i'd love to talk about how you started with it.Could you like leave your email id or something of that sort?or any other way i can contact you? Or just leave a message on my user talk thing the next time you see this message.Vineeth h (talk) 06:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

January 7

Wikitable default border color

What is the border color for a default wikitable ? Also please provide me the coding. Thanks. — Arteyu (talk) 03:08, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Does Help:Table answer your questions? —Bkell (talk)

No. Arteyu (talk) 12:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

well, 10 points for conciseness. I would think that primary to that display would be the individual computers' / browsers' defaults. Secondary being the preferences set if it's a wiki-user. and third if anything is defined or declared ex: ({| style="background-color:#F5FFFA;.) But you asked "default" so... a print screen and paint program reveals the following: shadow area (right and btm.) r=0, b=0, g=0 ...aka black. foreground shadow (top and left) r=178, g=178 b=178 ... sort of a lt.blue gray. top of table border: r=248 g=252 b=255 ... almost white. Is that what you're looking for? Ched (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Common.css's CSS rule for "table.wikitable" says "border: 1px #aaa solid;"

Ergo, the border color for a wikitable is 63% gray, or #a0a0a0, or rgb(160, 160, 160). -- Fullstop (talk) 16:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

cool. I learned something about something I didn't even know that I wanted to know about. (huh?) ;) ...Ched (talk) 16:44, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, #aaa corresponds to #aaaaaa, which is 67% gray, or rgb(170, 170, 170). [14] —Bkell (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

studiVZ

studiQG, studiLN, estudiLN and studentIX are closing at the 20th January 2009. meinVZ you can find now also in english ([15]). Can somebody write it into the article studiVZ!--79.210.207.179 (talk) 15:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Is QBasic in public domain?

Does anyone know if Microsoft's QBasic has been released into the public domain? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Our article on QBasic states that it's licensed under MS-EULA, so I'd say that's pretty unlikely. In general, Microsoft isn't in the habit of releasing its old software into the public domain. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 18:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

There's FreeBASIC though. I don't think it has that nice DOS GUI, but it'll compile and run most QBasic programs. Belisarius (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

As you probably already know, a version of QBasic can be found on any (I believe) Windows 95 installation CD, in the directory "oldmsdos", if I remember correctly. (By the way, to me, there is nothing more nostalgic than the Interactive CD Sampler on that very same disc.) --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Draw, pardner

Is there a program (hopefully free) that lets you draw something, e.g. a freehand diagram, and have it appear on another PC's screen as well? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you want something like this? --LarryMac | Talk 21:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Programs like this allow whatever is on the screen to show on any number of attached computers, but I'm not sure if there are free alternatives to this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 00:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ipod touch - Album art question

When I download song from iTunes I can view the album cover on my iPod touch and yet if I rip music from a CD I cannot. Is there a way I can change this, it's rather ugly when in cover flow mode. Thanks, --87.113.36.255 (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

After you rip a CD and the music is in your library, highlight all the songs from that CD and right click. Select "Find Album Artwork" or some option to that effect. If you have the proper information about the songs (Song title, Artist name, album title, etc.) entered into your library it should then find the correct artwork and put it in there for you. Killiondude (talk) 00:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

January 8

Word Processors

Is there a word processor that can handle a document that is larger than 16 megabytes208.250.137.5 (talk) 00:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This might sound dumb, but have you already tried Microsoft Word? I've opened huge files with it before, but I don't know if they were anywhere near 16 MB. Killiondude (talk) 00:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

According to [16], MS Word's max filesize is 32 megabytes, so should be OK. Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 00:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC). Also [17] for confirmation of this, davidprior ^t/_c 00:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, dunno if it counts 'cos its web-based but from [18] - "Zoho Writer does not impose file size limits.

You know i wonder....why should there be any limit on the size? I mean if i made a 5 line c++ code using data file handling to save to a file and retrieve it ,technically it should keep working no matter what the file size.If i'd made something as simple as this->

fstream f("file.dat",ios::out);

while(1) { char a=getch(); f<<a;}

and if i added 3 more lines and retrieved it technically shouldn't it run no matter how much you type or how ever big it is?. So why then do such big word processors have limits?Vineeth h (talk) 06:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

߄ symbol

Does anybody know what the purpose of the ߄ symbol is? It is a box with a 0 in the top left-hand corner, a 7 in the top-right, a C in the bottom left, and a 4 in the bottom right. You could see it in Firefox but not in Internet Explorer or Microsoft Word.--Margyset (talk) 02:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling is from another language. Google that and you'll see what I mean. Rgoodermote  03:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It is the N'Ko digit for 4. The reason that it appears as a box with 07C4 in it is because you do not have a font with an appropriate glyph to render it. As a substitute, Firefox displays the Unicode value (U+07C4) in such cases. IE does not have this fallback feature. It will display correctly for those who have a compatible font. Bendono (talk) 03:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

XBOX 360 vs. dial-up

I have a Wii and I know that there's a lot of features I cannot use with it because I live in a house with a dial-up internet connection. I don't know a lot about the xbox 360, but I was wondering if I would be okay if I got one. All I would want to do is just play some games by myself, so there wouldn't be a problem there, but is there some set up thing that requires a high speed internet connection to get the console working? Evaunit♥666♥ 04:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

No, you can use the console just fine even without a broadband connection. I mean, there are online features that you'll miss out on, such as downloadable extra content for games, but you can certainly buy games and enjoy them without ever plugging your Xbox 360 into the network. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 05:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)