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April 29

How are tactical maps made?

I am looking for a program or explanation on how tactical maps involving NATO symbols are made? Such as this: /media/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Map_of_dnieper_battle_grand.jpg

But also on the smaller, batallion-scale, or any scale. What program is used? I have found military fonts online, but ideally i'm looking for a program that allows me to map tactical movements with proper NATO symbols. Autorealm is a program which I have used in the past, and there are some references of a military symbology pack online, but the links are broken. Any help in this regard would be greatly appreciated. --Baalhammon (talk) 04:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Autorealm uses True Type fonts, which is the format for most other specialist fonts as well. http://www.mapsymbs.com/maphome.html has NATO APP-6 and APP-6a symbols, for free. They should work with Autorealm. KoolerStill (talk) 09:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Um you do realise that NATO was formed in 1949 right? That map was from 1941 or 1943 Nil Einne (talk) 21:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

linker

I need a linker that can connect my Samsung U708 Earphone and Microphone with my computer Audio and Mic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stool8888 (talk • contribs) 07:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You probably mean that you need an adapter. I don't know if such an adapter exists, but if it does, a well-equipped electronics store that sells Samsung cell phones would probably be a good place to ask for one. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

pc2mac, end of lines in text files

I transfer a simple text file from PC into a memory stick, then transfer it to Mac-System-9.2. Due to different encoding, I have too many additional blank lines. Question: Is there any FREE script of Mac-System-9.2 that would take care of the end of lines when I drag and drop a simple text file on its icon? Thank you in advance. twma 09:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

TEXT<->.TXT Converter seems to do what you want, though with a somewhat annoying interface (it defaults to converting Mac->Windows, and you have to change this for every file). -- Speaker to Lampposts (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Lampposts. Our supporting staff managed to download a copy for me called TextConverter without any extension. I double clicked it on Mac-system-9.2 but did not work. I inserted the extension .exe and then double clicked it on my PC. A dos-window appeared and disappeared quickly. I do not know what to do now. Be grateful if you could advise. Thank you in advance. twma 06:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like it is meant to be run on the Windows machine, to pre-convert into Mac format, not much help if you are being given Windows format files by someone else. http://www.filetransit.com/view.php?id=34958 is another converter that works on the Windows end of the transaction. But you should have a File Exchange Control Panel incorporated in your Mac OS which would do the conversion automatically. For plain text files, it is merely a matter of stripping off the Line Feed character at the end of every line (which is what is causing your double-spacing). Once the control panel is set up correctly, double-clicking files with the registered extension will do the conversion.KoolerStill (talk) 13:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to KoolerStill. File Exchange Control Panel solved my problem. Thank you again. twma 07:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

sound card volt meter

I want to measure a DC voltage with my computer cheaply. It should be possible using the sound card which has a high resolution ADC but is AC coupled. The DC would need to be chopped up, possibly using the sound card audio output. I've had a good look but I can't find references on the web. What would be a good, simple circuit for this? Cheers! PeterGrecian (talk) 10:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

This would be an interesting proof of concept, though not exactly the most practical way to measure DC. One way to chop up the signal would be to get an analog mux (such as Maxim's), run your signal to one input, ground the other, and use a 555 to toggle them. Conceptually it'd be straightforward. But I think you could also figure out some way using a 555 and an op-amp or two.

Note that you need a reference voltage of some sort in order to calibrate your measurement system. And don't apply too much voltage to your sound card inputs... they're probably not as forgiving as multimeters. (Multimeters are pretty cheap, btw.) - mako 20:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks mak. I'll have a look at the mux, but I'll probably use op-amps because I have some handy. The application I have in mind is testing battery capacities which requires measurements over several hours or days. Cheers. PeterGrecian (talk) 09:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

You may find this link useful: http://lea.hamradio.si/~s57uuu/scdsp/CheapChop/cheapchop.htm I was looking for exactly the same thing and found the link. I'm now happily using my sound card to record switch open/close events.--Phil Holmes (talk) 14:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Phil, just what I was after, and I'm happy to know I'm not the only one who thinks like this! PeterGrecian (talk) 09:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Radio Button script

I was wondering how hard it would be to make a script that would automatically fill in online forms; specifically those that contained radio buttons. The script would just randomly fill in all available buttons.

--Drogonov (talk) 12:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Not too hard. The Javascript below does the radio-button thing you mention. You could save it as a bookmarklet for whenever you feel the need to randomly choose a radio station. --Sean 13:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

  javascript:  var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');
    var radios_by_name=%7B%7D%3B
    for (var i = 0; i < inputs.length; ++i) {
        var t = inputs[i];
        if (t.type != "radio")
            continue;
        if (!radios_by_name[t.name])
            radios_by_name[t.name] = [];
        radios_by_name[t.name].push(t);
    }
    for (var name in radios_by_name) {
        var group = radios_by_name[name];
        var random_index = Math.ceil(Math.random() * group.length) - 1;

        group[random_index].checked = true;
    }

It kind of works but once you use the scirpt it checks the radio button ,as planned, but then goes to a blank white screen saying "true" --Drogonov (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Stick a "void(0)" at the end to prevent that. --Sean 13:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

what would this do?

 

    $("input:radio").each(function() {
        $(this).attr("checked","checked");
    });

I think it uses jQuery to check all the radio button inputs on the page. I don't don't know jQuery, so I'm guessing. --Sean 13:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

P2SP exist or not ? Or the real name is?

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=960617 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ice77cool (talk • contribs) 15:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

http://article.ednchina.com/CE/20090330084408.htm http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Farticle.ednchina.com%2FCE%2F20090330084408.htm&lp=zh_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

As hardware already come out P2SP technology.. May be it is a marketing trick. I mean fake technology. But P2P mean Peer to Peer. Client-Server is connection between Client and Server.. Then how about connection with/without torrent server (DHT) to both Client (Peer) and Server? Is it so call Peer-to-Peer-Client-Server? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ice77cool (talk • contribs) 15:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinacache (P2SP stated.. Funded by INTEL too) Hm... My P2SP deletion log also being deleted.. P2SP so hated by people? Ice77cool (talk) 10:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

ITQ portfolio work

Could someone with experience of teaching or marking ITQs (ie, the final "Making Selective Use of IT module) give me some tips on what is expected? Or a link to a course syllabus - I can't find any detailed information on what I should cover.

I'm taking a level 2 ITQ course at my local community college in Liverpool, England, one evening a week. I only have to do the final portfolio module, because I already have a basic ECDL certificate which excuses me from all the other work. However, being let off all the learning modules means I have no experience of the work an examiner will expect. My ECDL was assessed thru multiple choice tests (and one short intray exercise) so it doesn't help, and my tutor says the things I'm suggesting (based on my work & study experience) aren't complex enough. I can only go to college once a week for 2 hours, my tutor is too busy with people who started at the beginning to sit around holding my hand, and without background knowledge I can't ask intelligent questions.

I haven't been able to find a syllabus anywhere, and my tutor's instructions seem to change every week. At first I was told a copy of my CV was an adequate piece of work (even though I'd already written it) but the following week that had changed, for no clear reason.

I've been asked to produce three separate pieces of work, each using a different module of MS Office 2007, but also told that one module can be research on the internet. These are my ideas so far:

• A training pack for new library counter employees (Word and/or Powerpoint)
• A budget for a student society exchange visit, with income & expenses shared among the participants to give a minimum fee (Excel)
• A presentation of the society's activities, to show to new members at the first meeting (Powerpoint)
• A relational database to track job applications and followup (Access)
• A web search for sources to use in a history essay, covering Google Books, the library catalogue, JSTOR, and relevant websites thru Google. I could print the search results from each place I looked.

Please let me know if any of these are good ideas, and how much detail & complexity I'd need to show. Many thanks!! 86.143.231.244 (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Access takes a LOT of learning, to produce anything good with it. Do the training pack, in Powerpoint. Avoid too many fancy transitions. Look into the feature that lets the user click on some part of the screen to "jump" to the next item of interest. Do it on a Master template of your own design, and print out written handouts from them. Then do the student budget, in Excel, with calculations all done with formulae. Allow for variable amounts to be entered by the user. For both of these you actually DO need to do a lot of research, to get the material for your content. Document that search process, with links and quotes. Organise it into a Word document, making use of the Table of Contents and Footnotes features. They would expect relevant content, but mostly you need to demonstrate proficiency in the software modules themselves. So read through the Help to find features the average user wouldn't use, and incorporate them into your design. Go more for function than appearance. Expect to spend two evenings experimenting with the features, another outlining the flow of data, maybe two researching the content you need. Then two days for each section putting it all together. Good luck. KoolerStill (talk) 15:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Wireless network security

How safe is it to use unsecured wireless networks to access sensitive websites such as internet banking? In case I'm using the wrong jargon, the situation is thus; I live in an apartment complex, many people have wireless routers- most are secured by password but I can access the net with my ps3 using one which isn't. Leaving aside any possible ethical issues for the moment, is it safe to access internet banking (an encrypted website i'd hope) using this connection. Thanks in advance for any replies. Stanstaple (talk) 17:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

In theory, if you have access to unsecured wireless you could log into the router with the default password and set up encryption for the duration of your internet banking. I'd do this when you're sure the other people are not using the net, like 3am early morning time. Then remove the security when you're done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 17:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

That is particularly inadvisable. Altering someone else's router settings may be sufficient for criminal computer trespass, whereas using an unsecured wireless network may be somewhat less clear (depending on jurisdiction; this is not legal advice). – 74  00:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

If it's not his network (as is the case here), he probably doesn't have the router password (unless the router's owner is particularly incompetent), so he probably won't be able to change the settings. --128.97.244.41 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that neccesary though? If I'm using an encrypted (?) website does that scramble the information being sent between the ps3 and the router or just between the router and the rest of the net? (I'm no techie in case thats not patently obvious]]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stanstaple (talk • contribs) 17:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's just an idea, a bit extreme I guess. An encrypted website that uses https should scramble the data from your browser to the banking site, so all data traveling over the wireless connection is scrambled too. But with wireless, anyone could use packet capturing software like Kismet to record all wireless traffic between your computer and the wireless router, then go through the data and extract your passwords, visited sites etc. Even if you used secured wireless they can still be cracked. But, the likelihood of someone doing this, especially in a residential situation, is quite low. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 17:58, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(HTTPS also makes phishing very difficult when correctly used with modern browsers. MTM (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's safe to access an HTTPS website using an insecure wireless connection. An eavesdropper could tell the name of the server (www.bank.com), and roughly how many bytes were being transferred in each direction, but nothing more than that. An active attacker could break the connection (denial of service) but not add/remove/alter any data. -- BenRG (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Though if it's not a wireless network you are supposed to use, accessing something important like your bank with it could be a bad idea. Because the owner can then inquire the bank and be like, "someone hacked into my network and accessed your bank with it", and that would look bad on your bank and it might make them suspend your account or something because either you did it and you dragged them into this mess and they are taking heat for it, or someone else hacked into your account, and in both cases they would really want to talk with you. --128.97.244.41 (talk) 21:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input- I'll believe it because it's what I reckoned anyway- just wanted confirmation really. ' Appreciate your help.

TBH, do you really want to take the risk that your irate neighbour might hack your bank account and clean it out; and them come knocking for a reason why you were using his wireless connection without his permission. Maybe your neighbour is stupid unskilled in securing his network, or maybe he is a skilled criminal waiting for a sucker to use his network for something important. Astronaut (talk) 02:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Another possible attack vector: The neighbour could set up his router to redir all traffic to www.bank.com to his web server, which is set up to look just like www.bank.com, except it has an invalid certificate (or simply uses a plain HTTP connection). He forwards the data sent to his server to the real www.bank.com, and relays the data from www.bank.com back to the user, capturing the username/password, and all the transactions in the process. decltype (talk) 22:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

For that reason it's important to check that you're connecting by HTTPS and never accept a certificate your browser flags as invalid if you care about connection security. (An invalid certificate is fine if it's a website you wouldn't mind connecting to by HTTP in the first place.) If the certificate is valid, there is no danger of an irate neighbor hacking your account. I don't mean to endorse stealing Wi-Fi bandwidth, which is a criminal offense in many places. People have been arrested, and I believe fined/jailed, for doing it. Furthermore, the owner of the connection could contact the bank you connected to, which can identify you from their logs and might notify the police. The connection owner can also see your DHCP host name and your MAC address, which could be used to ID your computer if it was seized. So don't do that. But I also don't want people to get the impression that online banking over an insecure net connection is dangerous. It's not, it's safe, which is a good thing since all net connections are insecure to one extent or another. -- BenRG (talk) 23:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Flawed PHP code

I was writing a short application for a couple Wikipedian IRC users (it will be an RC notice script if it ever works), but I have a problem in my test bot; it can't write data to the socket. If anyone would like to, I'd be very grateful if you reviewed the code. I get an error from fwrite() at the end, on line 222. Thanks! --Yamakiri 20:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no fwrite() (nor anything that should call it) on line 222. --Tardis (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

which generally indicates that there is some error in parens or something like that. If you get functions causing errors right near the end of your project it means you should double check all your brackets, etc. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 09:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Err, I meant fgets ._. I'd checked my brackets, quotations, etc. but I didn't see anything. The thing is, how it won't recognize the socket I use ($YamaBot->socket) --Yamakiri ^T_C 04-30-2009 • 19:38:00 19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

SoftSell

A friend of mine owns a consignment clothing store, and uses SoftSell on an ancient Windows 98 computer (yes I know...). Today, my friend started getting an error message: "Errpr DBFAT x/1104 Create error \\maint\softsell\Defentry.dbf (DOS Error 53)" and then gave quit, retry and default as options. The store has two computers, linked with a wire. This error only occurs on the front computer. The one in the back is the main one.

I know this is pretty much a lost cause, but any help at all is appreciated.

P.S. SoftSell Business Systems, LLC became Ascert, LLC in 2002, and the support website requires a customer login, whcih I don't have.

Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 20:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

DOS Error 53 occurs when trying to map a network drive from a DOS PC (I assume this applies as Windows 98 is based on DOS) to a Windows PC that does not exist. First, try remapping the drive. If that doesn't work, check that the computer "maint" is correctly connected to the other computer and that its network settings (workgroup, name, etc.) are correct. Xenon54 (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I know how to remap in XP, but how exactly would you do that in Windows 98? Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 12:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

In Windows 95, it's Network Neighbourhood -> File -> Map Network Drive. I'm not sure if it's the same in 98, but it likely is. NN should also show you "maint" if it's correctly connected to the network. Xenon54 (talk) 20:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The first thing to do is to make sure the network cable is intact and has a good connection at both ends. StuRat (talk) 09:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help, but it turns out that the network cable was completely unplugged. *sigh* If only people would check that first... Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 21:13, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 04:16, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

New Retail System

Because of my above problem, I am looking for a free alternative to SoftSell, which is a retail management program. It needs to be free, because I think taht is the only way I can convince my friend to switch over. Also, it needs to work on Windows 98. Thanks, Genius101 ^Guestbook 20:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is not with the SoftSell, so there is no point in replacing it for that reason. There may be some old (no longer supported) programs around. But it is not a simple matter to change from one to the other,as all the data would have to be re-entered, unless you can find one that uses the same database format (not likely with proprietary software). The only way it would be worth doing that work would be in conjunction with upgrading the computers, too. Going to Win XP3 would be enough, and would run on as little as 512Mb RAM (although 1Gb or more is better). If money is an issue, excellent used XP boxes can be found for a few hundred dollars. The existing program might in fact run on XP (in compatibility mode) but faster.For a business machine, all these factors have to be considered before making any changes. KoolerStill (talk) 18:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

April 30

MSN Question

Is there a way to re-add an email address you recently deleted by accident? Note : Not having the email address does not give me the option of asking the person whose email address it is what the email address is because I can't contact them by email, otherwise this would be a pointless question.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 07:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If you sent or received an e-mail from this address, you may still have it in an old e-mail, possible in the trash bin/recycle folder. StuRat (talk) 09:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

computer /network security

1.how to detect ,prevent and remove from infected computers the following vuruses,bacteria,trojan,worm,trap door,logic bomb,spyware,adware and password sniffers.

2.with reguard to computer security what are the definitions ,advantages and disadvantages of the following a)physical biometric accesss control methods,behavioural besed biometric access control,intrusion detection sysytems,one time passwords,and passphrases.

i have problems with above issues am just operating a small network and want some information on the above thank u am Mbabs —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbabaali1 (talk • contribs) 07:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Despite your claim that you're operating a small network, these look very much like homework questions to me. You should probably start at computer security and go from there. If there are specific things you don't understand, we can probably point you in the right direction, but we're not going to do the work for you. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Installing software on an MSI netbook with Suse Linux

Whenever I use Yast on my MSI Wind netbook to install something, it complains

Cannot access installation media

Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1 10 1-0.

Check that the directory is accessible.

When I check 'show details' it says

File /suse/i586.gcc-4.1.2_20070115-0.11.i586.rpm not found on media dir:///usr/share/lang

And indeed in /usr/share/lang/suse/i586 I only see two files, both beginning with 'aspell'. DirkvdM (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Opera Mini on PC?

Can I run the Opera Mini browser on my desktop PC? Whether it be Windows, Mac, or Linux? The reason is that I read that Opera Mini utilizes this proxy server to compress and reformat web pages. But presumably this functionality might also be useful to desktop users too. So I was wondering if there is a way to run it directly on my PC. Thanks, --71.106.173.110 (talk) 07:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is possible, albeit under a J2ME emulator such as the Nokia Series 40 SDK. I often use it for previewing applications and/or games that I downloaded prior to installing them on my phone. You can get it at forum.nokia.com, although you have to be registered (which is free of charge). Blake Gripling (talk) 08:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I recommend using MicroEmulator, it seems to be fastest for me. --grawity 06:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the name for this technique or design pattern?

I am trying to remember the name of a design pattern/technique of emulating calls to a client from a server. This technique involves the client making a call to the server, which is not replied to immediately. When the server has data to send it replies to the call with this data. The client responds by making another call, passing the response to the call as a parameter, and this call then waits for the next time the server needs to call the client. I think it is something similar to "reverse callback", and it is used a lot in AJAX. Its one of those terms that is on the tip of my tounge and I will kick myself for not knowing when I hear it! -- Q Chris (talk) 09:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Inversion of control? Jay (talk) 14:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not what I would normally think of as IOC, I am pretty sure I have heard a more specific term. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

We have the article "Reverse Ajax". Is that what you're looking for? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, this might have been what I was thinking of, though I thought there was a more general term to describe doing this independent of architecture. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

See also server push and Comet. chocolateboy (talk) 21:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Arranging Ubuntu for ease of later upgrades

[As this got no responses.]

Some time in the next few weeks, I'll get a little computer from Dell that will have Ubuntu 8.04 ("customized by Dell") installed ("preinstalled"). Ubuntu 9 is already out, and I daresay Ubuntu 10 is in the works. Before I start fiddling with Ubuntu to make it more like what I want, I'd like to do any juggling around that will make it easier to upgrade to 9, 10 and beyond. I'm rather out of date with (K)ubuntu. I imagine that /home will not be in its own partition. If my assumption's right, would it help later upgrades to retain the changes already made by Dell and myself if I were to put /home in its own, newly created partition? If yes it would, then I suppose I could boot off a Knoppix or similar CD, fiddle with the partitions, copy /home to a new partition and delete the original -- but would the system then recognize the new "/home", or what other tweaks would be needed? Other tips welcome too. -- Hoary (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu is on a six month release schedule. 8.04 (2008Apr) is a long term support release, which means it will be supported until 2009Sep. 8.10 Intrepid and 9.04 Jaunty have since been released. Separating your /home partition will make it easier to do clean installs, but you can upgrade within the OS from 8.04 to 8.10 (then to 9.04, if you wish.) I like separating by /boot partition as well, but I have not seen anything which demonstrates this as a best practice. Taggart.BBS (talk) 19:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Then I'd like to separate my home partition. I don't expect to have much of a problem creating a new partition, plonking a copy of /home in it, and then deleting the original /home (although even this assumption may be ignorant and mistaken). However, I've no particular reason to think that the result would work (that the system would know where /home was, and that the content of /home would still be correct). Would it, and if not then what other preparatory work would be needed? (Or is there some utility that automates all of this?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You need to edit /etc/fstab to get that partition mounted on /home automatically. See this for better info. -- 93.106.43.155 (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Splendid; thank you! -- Hoary (talk) 09:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Webbased email

What web-based email is good for me if I don't care about that 8 GB of Gmail, but do care about price, stability, reliability and privacy?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

GMail is free, stable, reliable, and as private as web-based email will get. What are you looking for that GMail does not provide? -- kainaw™ 17:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I have some doubts about its privacy. Google scans it to serve ads. --80.58.205.37 (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's an automated process. I mean, of course it's possible that they violate their users' privacy despite their promises to the contrary, but there's absolutely no guarantee that another web-based e-mail service provider wouldn't do the very same thing, or worse. Google, at least, is an established service provider with a pretty good track record of not being evil, and getting caught on something like this would be a terrible blow to their credibility and, depending on the case, would probably be illegal. That doesn't guarantee that they can't do it anyway, of course -- but frankly, it's a hell of a lot more than most, if not all, other free web-based e-mail providers have going for them. I mean, if this is a major concern for you (and it's not an unreasonable concern in itself, I think), then this may be a "can't have your cake and eat it too" situation. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is an automated process. Highly specific and efficient computer programs do this. If you were exchanging child pornography the advertisement-minded computer program would neither know nor care. It would ask you if you wanted to buy Spongebob toys. Mac Davis (talk) 18:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Another way to look at it... Free services need to turn a profit. Google makes it clear that they turn a profit by context-sensitive ads. If a service doesn't explain how they turn a profit, it is possible that they do it by selling the secrets in your emails to other people. -- kainaw™ 19:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't use Gmail and thus write from ignorance. Still: Given the choice, I'd rather be served with ads for products that are of no interest to me than with ads for products that are of interest: there'd be less likelihood that the former would trigger purchases. I have about as little interest in Barbie dolls as I have in anything that I can actually put a name to; thus ads for Barbie dolls would be safely lost on me. If I had no worries whatever about my correspondents' perceptions of me, I might get an account such as barbiedolllover0501@gmail.com, but even without that I might sometimes give myself a signature including Barbie-relevant strings. And I could set up a throwaway account at hotmail.com to and from which I'd once a month send a great wodge of Barbie-related text (copied from Barbie). How does that sound? -- Hoary (talk) 00:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not have absolute trust in Google, but I agree that you can't get more privacy from any third party based email. If your mail is sitting on someone else's servers, you're pretty much dependent on their honesty. If it helps, a big company like Google is probably less likely to have some bored server admin browsing emails just because he can.

If you're determined to have more privacy, you're going to have to set up your own email server. This is a project, even if you do it through a collocation service that will hand-hold you all the way. You can put Horde on the server and have web-mail that way.

But, and here is the key issue, email is intrinsically insecure. Email has no built-in encryption, and little built-in security. Any email you send is vulnerable at many points along its journey from sender to recipient. If you're sending emails that are interesting enough for people to bother, there are a lot of ways your email could fall into the wrong hands. The way to prevent this is through encryption such as PGP. APL (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at Comparison of webmail providers

One thing to note if privacy/security is a big concern is that although you're looking primarily for webmail, it might be worth choosing one that allows sending/receiving via SMTP & IMAP as it'll allow you to use a mail application with a plugin for GPG or similar. IMAP access also makes other things easier (for me personally, offline access is very important)- Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 21:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

run application in background

Please help! tell me how to run a java application in background using windows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avitashpurohit (talk • contribs) 18:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean as a background process? You can do this with Process Explorer; run the program, right click your java application from the list, go to Set priority and select either below normal or idle 8I.24.07.715 ^talk 19:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

How does a website earn money for its owner?

I heard that websites try to get high page views (or web requests?) to earn money. How does this work? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Well presumably they get better ad money if their site has high pageviews as it is then more likely the ads will be seen.  GARDEN  19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But what if a website doesn't have ads? ARe there other ways to earn money with high page views? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Some websites, like Homestar Runner, gain revenue through merchandise sales. Others, like the Wikimedia Foundation, rely on donations from visitors. These are not directly tied to pageviews, but both revenues are based on how popular a website is. —Akrabbim^talk 19:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, some ads are less obvious than others. Affiliate links can be a good source of income if the website owner knows what (s)he's doing, and like merchandise sales, affiliate link sites need a lot of visitors to make any real income. 168.9.120.8 (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the website and ideology, Donations can be a superior good source of income. Mac Davis (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Closed-source project hosting website

Does anyone know of some good free (free as in offers their service for free) project hosting websites for closed source projects that don't own the code and also that enable people to sell software like other proprietary projects? --Melab±1 ☎ 19:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Googling for "free subversion hosting" or "free cvs hosting" gets some results, though the free plans tend to be very limited in size (200 MB or so). Buyer beware. --Sean 15:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Titles of external links in MediaWiki

Hello, I run my own mediawiki server. Is it possible to make external links to automatically parse the title from linked pages instead of assigning the links numbers like [1], [2], and [3]? thanks. 85.186.103.89 (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

No. --Sean 15:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a bot that does this. The source is available here. chocolateboy (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

May 1

Ripping Blu-Ray on Puppy Linux

How can I rip a Blu-Ray disk on Puppy Linux ? I asked this before, for Ubuntu, here: [1]. StuRat (talk) 04:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Dial-up in Ubuntu 9.04

How do I establish a dial-up connection in Ubuntu 9.04? This is my only way to access the Internet where I live, and I'm annoyed they dropped support for it in 8.10... Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.138.21.132 (talk) 08:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You might want to try this on the [Ubuntu Forum]. I don't know for sure but usually when things disappear they can be added back in via the "Add Software" or package manager. It seems likely that dial-up is now seen as a niche requirement and not installed by default. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, I can only get on the Internet via dial-up, so I can't download the necessary packages... 144.138.21.117 (talk) 07:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Get someone else to download the packages (or do it on the computer you are using now) and put them on a CD or memory stick. Of course you will need to find out which packages first though. You can load packages from media with package manager.-- Q Chris (talk) 15:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

So if I try to download GnomePPP, look at the address it is trying to get the package from, and go the that address on the Windows system I am using now, might that work? 144.138.21.157 (talk) 05:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it would, I think that just doing a google search for the full ".deb" package name will probably find it. Of course you may find that when you try to install the downloaded files it may tell you that other dependencies are missing which you will have to install either from your media or by downloading again if this also isn't included. -- Q Chris (talk) 19:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that worked :) Thanks! 144.138.21.235 (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

DVD/GOOGLE CHROME

I have a movie on a DVD-RW disk i place into the laptop i here the action of the CD Drive but nothing happens when i go to my computor the drive is not there any ideas as its the only movie i have and i am working abroad? Secondly my browser is google chrome every 20 mins or so the web page freezes and comes up with kill web page message were i have to reopen the browser very annoying when you are in the middle of something on the web is there a fault with google chrome or with the network or even my laptop>>>>????Chromagnum (talk) 11:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

One thing to check on the DVD is that it's properly inserted into the drive. Sometimes they are off-center a bit. I even have occasionally put them in upside down when working in the dark. StuRat (talk) 12:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

If, as you say, it's indeed a CD drive you are inserting the DVD-RW disc into, the reason it won't work is that CD drives cannot read DVD discs.

As for the browser freeze, I can say with confidence that it's not the network. Whether the problem is with Google Chrome, your operating system or something else, I couldn't begin to guess with the information at hand. I would recommend that you reinstall Chrome and see if that fixes the problem; if not, I would install another browser, such as Firefox, and see if that works better. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Two thoughts, first check the drive is actually a DVD drive. Secondly, how old is the laptop? Older DVD drives often have trouble reading RW media because they are not sensitive enough to detect the dye layer used in them 8I.24.07.715 ^talk 13:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; The DVD issue i resolved by a reboot it then picked up the DVD but it still doesnt see it if you enter a diffrent one you have to reboot each time but i have a work around so all good; Chrome re-installed no diffrence have supicion it is the network dropping out briefly killing the page thanks peopleChromagnum (talk) 06:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Hard disk failure and data recovery

I've been reading a lot of late about the two topics, and I've two questions that are, I'm sure, quite silly to someone who has any real knowledge of the recovery process; I hope you will pardon my ignorance, and I thank you in advance for satisfying my curiosity. First, where there is no physical damage to the magnetic recording media (most crucially no head crash) and where data are not directly compromised (as, e.g., upon infection with a virus), why can't one (in a clean room, and following the same standards under which a drive is originally put together) remove the platters, etc., from the dead drive and swap them into a new, working drive, which can be used normally? Second, several of the sites linked as references in data recovery describe a process in which one alerts the recoverer to the file types he/she wants recovered (simple recoveries, for instance, it seems, usually comprise the various file formats under which are stored documents, photos, music, and e-mails), and one gets the sense that in the recovery process the recoverer does not actually see a complete list of the files on the dead hard drive but only those files for the extension of which he/she searches, which isn't consistent with recovery stories (like this one) I've read. So, does the recoverer see all recoverable files upon his/her accessing the drive, or can he/she only search for the file types the recovery of which the user desires? Thanks, and apologies for the length; not only am I not quite tech-saavy, but neither, although I've been in the States for a bit, am I a native speaker. 68.76.144.42 (talk) 18:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure about your actual question, but I must say, if you hadn't said that you weren't a native English speaker, I would never have thought it. Congratulations! Genius101 ^Guestbook 21:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I imagine the method you described would work, but it might actually be easier to do the reverse. That is, instead of moving the platters to another hard disk of the exact same type, just replace those components of the drive which have failed (the motor, for example). I would think this would be rather expensive, though, unless you can ship it to China to have people earning pennies an hour do it. StuRat (talk) 22:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The process of removing or replacing parts from new harddrives into old ones or old harddrives into new ones is used as little as possible, because this is less efficient (see:[2]). It is much easier to use a forensic bridge[3]. This ensures that you can use the disk without writing any data to it.

For the second question, programs designed for less technical users like "photo recoverers" come up with graphical lists of files of specific extensions. However, serious forensics tools are usually command-line based, such as fls[4]. This guide is easy to understand[5]. More[6][7] and a book on this[8]. If you want to run the programs for yourself try The Sleuth Kit or Autopsy Browser[9]. Halfway through this[10] Hak5 episode, they Michael Gerling does a demonstration of file recovery. Mac Davis (talk) 18:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

A computer that restarts when told to turn off

Whenever I tell my computer to turn off, it restarts instead. I have Windows XP SP 3. I have an ASUS M2N (zip file with overview and spec pdf) motherboard. Originally I thought the problem was caused by XP sending the wrong signal. I did a complete wipe of all of my hard drives and did a fresh install of XP. And it still restarts when I tell it to shut down. Any suggestions? If you need more info about my computer, please ask.--Rockfang (talk) 19:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The obvious workaround is to plug the computer into a power strip with a switch and turn the computer off there. (First shut it down the normal way, then, when it restarts, kill the power.) You can use this method until you find a permanent solution. StuRat (talk) 21:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Recently my Mac's directory got corrupted, apparently because (or at least when) I switched off the power strip during boot. I'm just sayin'. —Tamfang (talk) 01:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Could be a bios setting --h2g2bob (talk)

Specifically, some bios have options that will restart the computer if it bluescreens or crashes. Sometimes, this can restart the computer upon shutdown. Try looking for this setting, and making sure it is disabled Dougofborg^(talk) 14:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

320 GB HDD; 140 GB (D:, named "DATA") is seperated from 144 GB (C:, named "ACER"), merge them together

Resolved

I have an Acer Aspire AS6920-6968. It has a 320 GB HDD, however this is split up: 144 GB is my C: drive, while 140 GB is my D: drive. I want to reformat my laptop and combine these two partitions together. How would I go about doing this? My laptop has Windows Vista Home Premium by the way.--Pass1019 (talk) 20:43, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

on the windows install disk there should be a partition editor. delete the two partitions during setup and format the unpartitioned space —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 20:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The thing is I don't have an install disc, I had to use Acer's program, eRecovery, to create a backup DVD that will put everything on it in order to reformat. So I'm not really sure what to do. Would this work?--Pass1019 (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Is your operating system installed on the drive you want to merge? I'm not sure you'll be able to do it like that. For software, check out PartitionMagic (search google for cracked version if you don't want to pay) or the free program GParted which you can download and put on a Live CD. Again, I don't know how much success you'll have trying to merge a partition with an operating system installed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.169 (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure PartitionMagic works with Vista. I could be mistaken though.--Rockfang (talk) 20:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing on the D: drive (140 GB), its empty. It's called "data" so I think its just to be used for storage, but I want all my space on one partition. My C: drive (144 GB) has all my stuff on it.--Pass1019 (talk) 21:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

In that case you should be able to delete the D partition then expand the C partition to take up the entire drive. StuRat (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

May we ask why you want one huge partition ? That's not generally the recommended way to do things, as it eliminates the flexibility you get from multiple partitions. For example, if you want to install something you're unsure of, putting it in the D drive would make it easier to get rid of it if you decide you don't want it. Also, you could put another operating system on the D partition to test it out. StuRat (talk) 21:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Because I just want all my space in one area. Anyway I figured it out, it was really simple. I went to "Computer Management" and then deleted D: and then extended C:. Now C: has 284 GB! Easy. Like I said, there was nothing on D: anyway, it was practically there just for storage.--Pass1019 (talk) 21:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

WARNING: Latest Developer Beta of Google Chrome will not load Wikipedia Properly

The latest Developer Channel Beta of Google Chrome (2.0.177.1) does not load Wikipedia properly most of the time. I urge you to switch back to the beta channel if you are on the developer channel. If you already have the latest version, uninstall and reinstall chrome, or hold out for an update to fix this. Problems include not loading pages, problems with gadgets like Twinkle, and improper rendering of formats. I have notified them about this, but I imagine that there are other bugs ahead in line.--Unionhawk ^Talk 21:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

FWIW I'm not seeing any of these problems (Vista SP1) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 02:52, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

How can this, honestly, be just me? I'll uninstall/reinstall, but, how can this be just me?--Unionhawk ^Talk 04:02, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm really not trying to be as unhelpful as this will sound, but if something is in beta then it's going to have unexpected results sometimes which might be why your configuration does one thing and it works on someone elses. ZX81 ^talk 05:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Excel question

I have a column of formulas, and they all are a function of a different column. This I know how to do. However, I want to include a value from just a single cell, that would be common to every cell in the column. For example, A1=B1+C1. When I drag down the column, all the values get incremented (i.e. A2=B2+C2, A3=B3+C3, etc.). However, I only want one of the values to be incremented, and the other to stay constant (i.e. A2=B2+A1, A3=B3+C1, etc). How do I do this? I haven't been able to find the answer anywhere else. I suppose if I could describe what I'm trying to do in less than a paragraph, I would be able to perform a more effective search, but I haven't been successful. Does anyone have an idea of how to do this? —Akrabbim^talk 21:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want something to stay constant you put a dollar sign in front of it. So to have the column stay constant use $A2, if you want the row, use A$2, if you want them both, use $A$2. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Pressing F4 steps round the options on the current cell reference. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

May 2

Inexplicably unable to log into my Hotmail account

I changed the password for it more than week ago, haven't logged in ever since but I wrote down the password. Yesterday, I tried logging in, and it kept turning me down because the password was "incorrect". This is really huge for me, because every account for other websites I have is registered to that address (including my account here) and since I've forgotten my passwords to them, the only way I can retrieve them is through email, but now I am unable to check my mail. I don't have an alternate account, and I made the mistake of not writing my answer to the secret question, so now it seems like I have no way of logging into my email account. Still, I wrote down the password and I wrote it down correctly, so I don't understand why I can't log in. Does that mean someone hacked into it and changed my password? I've been losing sleep over it. Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 01:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The likelyhood of your hotmail account being hacked is quite low - unless you clicked the "invite all my contacts" option when signing up for MySpace/Facebook/etc. All the same, take a look at your info on these other websites to see if they show signs of being compromised (bogus messages sent to others is one thing to look for). However, I think it is more likely you either made the same mistake both times you entered the new password, so now the password is not what you think it is; or maybe it didn't get changed at all, so have you tried the old password?

As for the answer to the secret question, that should be obvious to you (for me, I know 'what high school I went to', but MS offers other examples like 'the name of your dog' and so on). You really should have chosen a question so easy you didn't need to write down the answer. Astronaut (talk) 02:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The password change went through, because I tried my old one and it didn't work either (yes, I remember my old password very well). I seriously don't get it. Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 02:44, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

One common problem with entering a new password is having the CAPS LOCK key on. Thus, the PW is all uppercase. It's also all uppercase when you enter it a second time, because CAPS LOCK is still on. Of course, it's hidden both times, so you can't see that it's uppercase. The CAPS LOCK key is like a password land-mine. StuRat (talk) 13:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x805ADACC, 0XBACC349C, 0XBACC3198)

Hi,

Every week or so I get a Blue Screen of Death on my PC after using it for a while, but today,when I switched it on it immediatley went to a Blue Screen of Death, so I switched it off and on and it again went to a Blue Screen of Death. I switched it on again and it then went to a Green Screen of Death. The Green Screen of Death said this was the technical information: STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x805ADACC, 0XBACC349C, 0XBACC3198). What does this mean? I then restarted the computer and it worked fine. I then ran an antivirus and removed a worm that I must have got within the last 12 hours. Could that be what the problem was? My system is: Windows XP Home Edition 2002 Service Pack 3, if that helps.

Thanks. 92.7.18.36 (talk) 05:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have a minidump file available? If so, please zip + password protect it and upload it to a file hosting site. 0x7E is SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. It basically means some sort of driver created a system thread which then made an invalid access to memory (0xc0000005) and crashed your computer. Did you get the error code for the first BSOD? --wj32 ^t/c 07:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what a minidump file is, sorry. That was the only error code I took down; I just took a photo of the screen because I found it wierd there was a Green Screen of Death then after I thought of asking you guys why it was being wierd. 92.7.18.36 (talk) 07:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Look in C:\Windows\Minidump. Is there a file named Mini[date of the crash].dmp? --wj32 ^t/c 07:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a few, but none for today's date. 92.3.192.222 (talk) 09:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

radio 'loop' on laptop

hi all, just this morning, whilst downloading, my laptop has suddenly started playing a loop of a radio political sketch/skit show - someone pretending to be bush etc, between skits there is a silly voice saying 'heads up' then a poping noise, every now and again there is an advert for a BUPA care home, then another skit. It sounds like a radio show. There is no application open other than bitlord (and when that is closed it doesn't stop) i'm scanning using AVG 8.0 just now. Has anyone come across this before? Perry-mankster (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

When you say that there's no application open other than Bitlord, do you mean that it's the only one that shows up in the list of applications when you open Task Manager? Because that doesn't mean that there isn't a process running in the background. You want to click on the Processes tab and see what's actually cooking. You'll see a lot going on there, and one of those processes is probably running in the background and playing this stuff for you. One possibility is that you have a hung process there that doesn't show up on the Applications list, but is still kind of going on. A web browser that's still playing a stream from the internet could do this, for example. I doubt it's a virus. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

C++ help..

Hey!I'm basically a beginner in C++.I'm in search of a website where i can easily found problems and the coded programs as the solution of given problems, so that i may develop a program for that problems and check out my progress.I hope i'll be helped out soon!..cheers--59.103.12.242 (talk) 12:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Project Euler, although you only get to see the solutions after you have completed a problem. And the solutions are given in multiple programing languages. Taemyr (talk) 12:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The best thing to do is just look at life in terms of programming. You need to study for a final exam in English? Use string arrays to create a program that will quiz you on what you need to know. Mac Davis (talk) 18:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Specification of Keys

While working on Microsoft Office Powerpoint, Is it possible to specify a key for specific function ? For example KEY Z to change the slide, KEY X to add something in the notes or KEY C to write something in the slide or KEY V to chanfe the size of figure on slide. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.55.135.211 (talk) 14:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Help touching up an image

Can anyone help me touch up this image, which is of not-brilliant quality? I've only got a rubbish version of Photoshop, but anyone with anything more advanced... fancy a challenge? :-) A vectorised version would be brilliant, but I see that that might be hard due to the dot-printed scan - not mine, I was emailed it. Anyway, thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 14:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You can download "GIMP" - which is a free and fully-featured paint program. You can vectorize in programs like Inkscape which does a reasonable job with dithered-looking images like this one. SteveBaker (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Targeted advertising

Nearly every time I use Facebook, I notice adverts targeted at what I have searched for recently during the last forty eight hours. I am sure that they are targeted. For example, I recently looked for new batteries on Google, and then data recovery software - Hence my earlier question from this IP address. Both of these topics have arisen in adverts.

Is there anything I can do to stop it? There are apparently no such settings within Facebook. Normally I use Firefox, but Safari for Facebook (reasons are complex). When I use Google, I always do so logged out.78.33.187.186 (talk) 16:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The only things that come to mind are using a proxy server or never going to Facebook at all. I advocate using both at all times. Mac Davis (talk) 18:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Phorm springs to mind. Either that or some other tracking cookie or adware program. What antivirus program are you running? Some of them (Kaspersky for one) do a good job getting rid of such things. If it's Phorm or tracking cookies, you can also nuke the cookies manually, and you should be able to set your browsers to decline cookies or ask you if you want to accept. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 18:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this would be helpful then[11]. I do not know which one to recommend though. Mac Davis (talk) 18:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I've just deleted all of my cookies from both Firefox and Safari, they refuse them in future, and Firefox deletes them all when I close it. But whatever it is, it it browser independent: do the browsing in Firefox, but the ads appear in Safari, where I use Facebook. I've also upgraded the Mac native firewall, to "essential services only," and "stealth mode" which ensures that uninvited traffic "is given no response.

Yes, I'm concerned about Phorm and privacy, but I understand it isn't yet operational. As for antivirus/security, I don't use any - which would be less necessary on a Mac anyway. I have a proxy, but a very slow one. Might it be useful if I changed my facebook tied email address away from what I normally use?78.33.187.170 (talk) 22:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Google has AdSense, Yahoo has Web Beacons. They track your searching for the purpose of serving up "relevant" ads. Google was keeping search results for 3 months at one stage, and proposing to keep them longer. They are supposedly "de-personalised". But the day you search for batteries, they'd know at least for the rest of the day. These are not stored in the cookies that your browser can clear. Something like CCleaner will find them for you, disguised as Internet Temporary Files from several hidden locations (and it is an eye-opener to read down the list before deleting them).

Be aware refusing cookies, for many sites, will prevent the site from loading at all. If you have one of the newest versions of Firefox or Safari, try the "Private Browsing" setting, which records a lot less about your activities (but may or may not prevent the advertising cookies).KoolerStill (talk) 07:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The best method I found for ridding ads is Adblock plus for firefox. Also, you can customize it with this helper [12]-- penubag  (talk) 09:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that I've had to except several sites from the cookie block - like the bank, for example. But I would rather do so manually and know what I'm doing. The Firefox version that I am using is v3.0.10, which wouldn't appear to have private mode yet - in any case, I would be concerned about missing an edit history (which I do use). CCleaner is Windows only, I'm using a Mac (which should actually help my security). As much as ridding ads would be great, I would rather mask the path of what I'm searching for - ads are OK, targeted ads aren't when they come from another source than the site that I'm on.

I'm less annoyed by Google/Gmail Adsense, because it scans your emails/search terms, and returns targeted ads on the same activity. I haven't a clue where Facebook is getting its sources from, but it definitely isn't itself.78.33.187.162 (talk) 09:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Missing audio codec?

There's a video file I haven't played for some months, and it now seems to be missing the audio. I ran it through VideoInspector and got this result - how would I go about getting the sound? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 17:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Try installing VLC media player, and see if you can get sound on it. If that doesn't work, there's always the possibility that the sound may have become corrupted. Until It Sleeps 02:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It won't play with sound on VLC either. How might it have become corrupted? ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 07:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

File Downloading Protocols

Hi, I just downloaded a massive 154 MB file over a dial-up and the download's been corrupt. Is there some way by which a download manager will block-by-block check the checksum of the file downloaded with the server copy and downloaded only those blocks which are corrupt ? The server should send the checksum of a block and the client would compare that with the client side checksum, to be specific. 218.248.80.114 (talk) 18:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Bit torrent does something similar to what you've described. That large of a file over a dial up is always going to be tricky. If you know someone with access to the noncorupt file, it is possible to figure out which sections are corrupt (check summing sections of the file and comparing) and then send just the bad sections, but I don't know of a program that will do this for you automatically. Shadowjams (talk) 20:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

rsync? --76.167.241.45 (talk) 22:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, good point. I was thinking rdiff, which would be hard to create the deltas without the two together, but rsync should do it on its own. Shadowjams (talk) 23:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I actually want that feature in a standard download manager over http or ftp. Do the protocols have this provision? Why not? 218.248.80.114 (talk) 05:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

FTP and HTTP weren't really designed for this sort of thing, they were quick and dirty hacks that became far more popular than their creators expected. HTTP does have an optional Content-MD5 header, but I think it would be hard to convince server administrators to enable it because of the cost in CPU time (especially when you add in the potential for denial-of-service attacks). On the other hand, if you can find a .torrent for the file you downloaded, many if not all torrent clients will scan your existing file for you and redownload only the parts that are broken, and there may even be hybrid HTTP-BitTorrent software that will download the broken parts via HTTP. It might be possible to convince server admins to provide .torrents for large files they distribute by HTTP, since it has the potential to save them money. -- BenRG (talk) 14:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Page numbers in Word

After many hours of formatting numerous Word documents, each chapters in a longer work, I have outputted them to PDF and merged the PDFs only to find that despite having identical margins and settings in each file (as far as I can tell), the page numbers in some of the files are inexplicably a little off-center and some are even down half a line where they should be (something which is obvious when you merge them together and are turning from one page to the next). I've checked all the document margin settings, tab settings, etc., and found NO differences between the documents. What could be causing this?

I am using Word 2004 (sigh) on OS X 10. I generate the PDFs with the standard OS X Print > PDF > Save as PDF function. I merge them with Adobe Acrobat though it is clearly in the originals and not a function of the merging.

Thoughts? Things to check? God, I hate MS Word. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thought One: I concur with the sentiment, but you will hate it less if you automate it more.

Thought Two: double check the page numbers are in the same font and size. A wider left margin will move the figure to the right, and vice versa. If the margins are identical, check that your paper size is also identical.

Thought Three: did you go to all the trouble of formatting each document separately? Highlighted and selected fonts and sizes for every heading?

The only sure way to get them the same is to mark them as Head1 Head2 Para2 etc, without worrying about how they actually look. Then make up one sample-text page with the styles you want, marking them with the same labels (highlight, choose style from the drop-down). And make one set of headers and footers (which is where the page numbering happens). Then you delete the actual content and save it as a template (or just as a document with one word in it - empties won't save). Then you use the merge function to add in all the other documents, which will pick up the same style.

A shortcut.If the other formatting is all identical and 'done by hand',no need to worry about the heading and para styles. Just merge all the documents together, onto the first chapter. Once it is one document, it is easy to reset the margins, footers and page numbering globally. If it's too big for one file (I think Word 2004 does 2gb files) make a copy of the first file, delete all but the first line of it, merge the remaining documents onto it, then delete the place-holder line. The merged items will pick up the formatting of the base file, including the new margins and numbering.KoolerStill (talk) 08:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Merging the documents is not really practical for this particular workflow -- it becomes unmanageable to edit a 300 page document from a human point of view (even if Word can technically manage it, which even then I'm doubtful of — seems like a recipe for crashing). Styles are done by hand just because at this point setting up and tagging them would be prohibitively difficult. Anyway, I figured out the centering problem—Word has two different ways to center footnotes. One involves a center tab stop in the center of the margins, the other involves the "center" paragraph alignment that apparently uses somewhat different margins (there is maybe a 1/12th of an inch difference in my case). I have converted them all to the same approach which fixes that problem; the random chapter with the vertical difference I will just try to manually fix by tweaking the footer margins. Thanks for your input, though. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

And the vertical thing appear to be caused by some of the footnotes being in Times and some in Times New Roman. arrhghghgg... but fixable. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:28, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

May 3

Why do you need Java for downloading Limewire now

Why do you need Java in order to download songs off of LimeWire now? It was never required before. What's up with that? Ericthebrainiac (talk) 01:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Read the articles you linked to. You can't run a program written in Java without the Java Runtime Environment. What was it written in before?--24.9.71.198 (talk) 01:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you had the JRE before, but it was an old version and LimeWire added some functionality that needs a more recent version. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 06:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

text image to plain text recognition

I have some PDF files from a scan in good condition and I need to copy the text from the document onto a form. Copy-Paste doesn't work, but is there some software or web app that can look at the text in the pdf (or any other text scan) and generate plain text? Like text recognition software?-- penubag  (talk) 09:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

If you have Microsoft Office then you can load your picture into Microsoft Office Document Imaging or whatever it's called. That converts scanned images to text, and it's surprisingly accurate. --Heron (talk) 10:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

For free solution, see tesseract (software), GOCR, ocrad. If you are on Windows, you should be able to run them under cygwin even if no other windows version is available. Also, there exist a program called pdftotext, but it won't help unless the "text" in your pdf is really in text and not image format. --88.194.216.207 (talk) 10:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

MS Office Imaging takes files only in TIF format, so you need some way to convert PDF to TIF. Moreover I doubt if its good for scanned hand-written text. The OP hasn't mentioned whether the PDFs have typed text or a hand-written one. Jay (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't use MS office so those free solutions worked fine. Thanks! -- penubag  (talk) 06:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Linux, adding user to group without having root access

I have an account at a web hosting service, and need a directory to be writable for the web server daemon (user www). My user account is myname, and I am a member of group myname. I would like to add user www to group myname, so that I can make a directory writable for user www without doing a chmod 666. Is that possible without having root access, and if so, how is it done? Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It is possible, though very bad, that the /etc/group file is writable by you. If so, just add www to your group. However, you should view the contents of /etc/group first. It is possible that both you and www are in a common group already. You can assign the directory to that group and forget about changing groups for www. -- kainaw™ 20:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I checked it out now. Reassuringly, /etc/group was readonly for anyone but root. User myname was the only member of group myname, and member of no other groups. Moreover, user www was member of no groups other than its own. The entries looked like this:

     ...
     www::80:www
     ...
     ausername::7761:ausername
     anothername::7762:anothername
     myname::7763:myname
     ...

According to the manpage, the format is groupname:password:groupid:userlist. The double colons appear to indicate no group password. If I've understood this correctly, I need my group entry to be changed to

     myname::7763:myname,www

Correct? If so, I'll contact the site admins and request the change. Strange that no-one else among the many users of the site have had the need (or have been allowed) to add www to their group. Does it pose a security risk? I tried

     chgrp www dirname/

too, but the operation was not permitted. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

On a properly set-up system, it should be impossible to do what you ask without root privilage. Even if you found a loophole in local security - there is no guarantee that your hosting service wouldn't find it and fix it at some future time. You need to find another way. SteveBaker (talk) 03:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand. I can of course contact the site admin, and request the change. Is there a sequrity risk in adding www to group myname? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Any other user who has www privileges will be able to use those privileges on directories for your group. For a multiple-host service, it is usually better to give each user two accounts - a user account and a www account. Then, there's no blurring between privileges between unrelated users all running their scripts as www. -- kainaw™ 02:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a second look at /etc/group and /etc/passwd. There didn't appear to be any accounts that fit your description, www was member of no groups but its own. But I'll contact the site administrators, and hopefully they'll suggest a solution. Thanks. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Free handwriting font?

Does anyone know of a website like this one but free? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 11:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

You could use some font creation software. here is a tutorial. IT's a little bit more dificult, but you may be able to tweak the results better. And it'll save you the nine bucks that yourfonts.com or fontifier.com APL (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

That will, of course, entail buying the HighLogic software used in the tutorial... ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 16:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a 30 day trial, but you could also use a free piece of software like FontForge, but I understand it's not quite as user friendly.

(Incidentally, didn't yourfonts.com used to be free? I've got a note to that effect in my bookmarks file. But it's definitely a pay service now.) APL (talk) 19:58, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

PDF TO WORD

What kind of programs do I need to convert pdf files to word files (or txt files)?? I do know that Adobe Acrobat Pro is one of such programs, but 500 bucks for just a program seems too much of a price to pay. And since I'll be needing to convert pdf files frequently from now on (pdf to word AND word to pdf), free trial programs aren't exactly ideal for me. So does anyone know of any FREE, easy to use softwares that converts pdf files??? (or if possible, a link where i can download the full version of adobe acrobat pro for free?)Johnnyboi7 (talk) 14:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice probably can do it. For windows, you can get a few different command line pdf convertors with cygwin, like pdftotext, but I don't think any of them will convert to "word file" (whatever it is). --93.106.46.15 (talk) 14:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

By "word file" I think Johnnyboi means a native Microsoft Word document (a .doc file). No, OpenOffice won't do this; it doesn't even read PDFs correctly (not that it's intended to). It can create PDFs but not import them. Tonywalton ^Talk 14:57, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Are the PDFs scans, or digital outputs from a Word processing program? (That is, are they pages that were scanned in or were they just exported as PDFs.) If the former then you are really not going to likely be satisfied with automatic conversion — OCR for long documents is piss-poor and requires about as much editing time as it would take to just type it all in right the first time. If they are digital outputs, it is relatively easy to find things that will take all the text from the life (like pdftotext) and dump it into a big text file. It is not very elegant and sometimes has problems depending how exactly the PDF was created. As for converting PDFs to DOC files, there are a lot of non-free "converters" out there but they are not, in my experience, very accurate.

The basic problem here is that PDF is meant to be a write-once format — it is an output state meant for printing, not for document editing or distribution. Once something is in a PDF format it is NOT easy to edit it or to get it into any other type of file format. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:58, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you work on your operating plan some more. Converting PDF to anything is terrible. It is a headache. It rarely works. You spend hours (if not days) correcting mistakes. What you need to do is have a bunch of word documents. Those are the masters. You edit them as needed. You make a PDF copy of the word documents as needed. So, you do not convert your word document to a PDF document and delete the word document. You keep the word document and two copies: one word and one PDF. Whatever your plan is - it should include the concept that PDF documents are read-only. You cannot edit them in any way. -- kainaw™ 02:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a freeware program here. I used it recently and got reasonably good results. At least all the original text was preserved. Results vary wildly depending on the source of the PDF, and the program I linked to won't extract any text at all if the PDF was made from a scan. --Heron (talk) 19:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Watching an AVI file on a DVD player

I've got an avi file (700MB) that I can watch on my pc no problem using VLC media player or whatever. How can I put this in a format where I can watch it on a standard DVD player? I know I could run it through Final Cut Pro or something and convert it then burn it through DVD Studio Pro, but that seems very long winded and would take ages. So is there a quick way to do it? My DVD player says DiVX on it, so can I just burn it to a DVD? Thanks.Popcorn II (talk) 18:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I use ConvertXtoDVD - quick, painless and bug-free method of getting almost any video format onto DVD quickly Sandman30s (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks but I'm using a Mac and doesn't look like this supports Mac.Popcorn II (talk) 21:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a good chance it will work without conversion. If you have a DVD-RW or CD-RW handy then you can experiment without wasting plastic. AVI files can use many video compression methods but "Divx" and variants (Xvid, Microsoft MPEG-4) are common. You can go to Tools/Codec Information in VLC to see the compression type. DIVX could also mean DIVX (Digital Video Express) if it's a very old player—in that case there's no chance it'll play the file. -- BenRG (talk) 00:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If the DVD player says it plays DiVX files, then you don't need to do any re-encoding; just burn the file directly on the disc and the player will play it. When you pop it in, a list of the playable file(s) will pop up on the screen and you can start wherever you like. With all respect to Sandman, do not re-encode files unless you actually have to; you'll almost certainly lower the quality every time you convert something. Matt Deres (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

google search

If foo yields a hit, you would expect foo -"blah blah blah" to also yield a hit. This search yields a hit, and this search does as well, as expected. However, this and this do not yield anything. Why? Thanks. --VectorField (talk) 18:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Google has a few strangenesses. One of them is dropping out most punctuation marks from your search criteria.(It will also no longer search for partial words, eg "winism" will no longer find "darwinism" as it used to). I get the same results as you; but if I just LOOK at the Advanced page, then click Search from there, is moves your exclusions up where they really belong, ahead of the site:parameter, as separate words, so it reads 'darwin -blah -blah -blah site:'etc.

Putting a phrase into quotes just places into the 'this exact wording' box, if you look in Advanced. But for exclusions, there is no 'exact wording' box. Anything you put into exclusions, with or without quotes, will be treated as separate words. So you are telling it to give you everything about Darwin, as long as it does not contain the words "it" and "was". Try to come up with rare words to use as criteria, especially for exclusions.KoolerStill (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Page Up/Down Capture

I have a program that works fine. When you press either the page up or page down buttons, it does its thing. I want it to work with one of those handheld presenter things that has a "forward" and "backward" button it. In PDF viewer and powerpoint, the device acts as a page up/page down keypress. So, I thought that since my program handled those key presses, all would be fine. However, it doesn't respond to the handheld presenter at all. I'm just looking for a starting point to figure out how to make my program respond to the presenter instead of only the keyboard. -- kainaw™ 22:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

What's the brand and model number of the presenter thing? Does it do a page-up and page-down while you are in Notepad or Word and you have a long document open? Tempshill (talk) 03:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a Targus AMP03US. I cannot answer the question about notepad/word until I get to a Windows machine again. -- kainaw™ 13:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

May 4

edit swf

I don't think this is possible, but is there any possible way to download an .swf flash file and view/edit its source? -- penubag  (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You can use a flash decompiler (e.g., Flash Decompiler Trillix), which will convert the .swf to one or more .fla files, which can be opened in Adobe Flash Professional. It doesn't work as well as editing the original source files, though.--24.9.71.198 (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! Thanks just what I was looking for! -- penubag  (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

div/mod in C?

in Haskell and Standard ML, they have two sets of integer division and remainder functions:

1. div / mod - div is integer division truncated towards negative infinity; and mod a b is a - div a b, or equivalently, mod a b is the remainder with the same sign as b
2. quot / rem - quot is integer division truncated towards 0; and rem a b is a - quot a b, or equivalently, rem a b is the remainder with the same sign as a

Other languages seem divided on this. In C and Java, it seems that signed integer division and remainder are the second kind (i.e. truncating towards 0, and remainder has same sign as first argument). In Python and Ruby however, they seem to use the first kind. What is the easiest way to do the "div" and "mod" operations in C? --206.72.77.76 (talk) 02:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You know that / in C++ will truncate towards zero. You want it to truncate towards negative infinity. Correct? It seems to me that it would be very simple to use a ternary operator: quot = a<0 ? (a-1)/b : a/b; -- kainaw™ 03:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Except that the actual sign of the remainder is implementation-defined. I suggest making a simple function that also checks the sign. decltype (talk) 06:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not implementation-defined though. According to the C99 standard, the division operation is defined to truncate towards 0. And the remainder is defined such that (a/b)*b + a%b == a. So it has to have the sign of the first operand. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 08:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct. I was responding to Kainaw, who gave his example in C++. The OP mentioned C, which in practice often means C89/90. decltype (talk) 07:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's the best I can come up with:

      div(a,b) = (b<0 && a>0) ? (a - 1) / b - 1     : (b>0 && a<0) ? (a + 1) / b - 1     : a / b
      mod(a,b) = (b<0 && a>0) ? (a - 1) % b + b + 1 : (b>0 && a<0) ? (a + 1) % b + b - 1 : a % b

If you know b > 0 then you can shorten things considerably:

      div(a,b) = (a < 0) ? (a + 1) / b - 1     : a / b
      mod(a,b) = (a < 0) ? (a + 1) % b + b - 1 : a % b

You have to be careful when writing these things because of integer wraparound. For example, (a-b+1)/b wouldn't work in place of (a+1)/b-1. I think this will correctly handle the weird boundary cases like b == INT_MIN. -- BenRG (talk) 21:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

XP non-admin account vs. Power control panel

So on my XP machine, the account with administrator rights (let's call it "XAdmin") has the "Power" control panel set up such that the display is never automatically turned off. On the account that lacks administrator rights (let's call this "XUser"), the "Power" control panel shows that the display is automatically turned off after 20 minutes. From the XUser account, clicking the popup menu that changes this 20-minute setting causes an "Access Denied" dialog box to appear.

Is this behavior working as it's supposed to? Does the machine have a single setting for this configuration item, and it applies no matter what users are logged in? Currently the display indeed does not ever turn off - why does XUser show it as turning off after 20 minutes? (I would not care much about this except that I'm trying to diagnose a problem where if the computer is configured to turn off the monitor, sometimes it seems to crash while the monitor is off.) Thanks in advance - Tempshill (talk) 03:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Promote software?

What is the best way I can promote my software (get lots of users)? I've tried submitting it to Softpedia and MajorGeeks but that doesn't increase downloads much (except when there are updates). It's hosted on SourceForge, if that helps. Any ideas? --wj32 ^t/c 09:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Having them on good-name download sites provides the potential user with good comparisons between similar products. BUT you must have your own site as well. A simple blog or free web page is enough. Check the developers' sites for some other programs from Majorgeeks. These sites give a description of the program, often include a change-log of updates and fixes, and form the user manual and FAQ for the program. On some, the developer actually personally provides tech support for individual queries. Such a page increases the search engine hits that mention your product (look into how to tag the page for more hits). You can also ask users to put a mention of your product on their blog or site. And you can mention your product on forums about related topics (but do not spam them).KoolerStill (talk) 13:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I use software having websites with nice URLs and easily available license information. Many users prefer to use packages from their own GNU/Linux distribution, adding it to some popular ones should help. MTM (talk) 19:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Restricting access to all but 2 websites

I would like to know if it's possible to set Internet Explorer (I don't know which version, I havent't seen the computer yet. I do now it comes with Windows XP SP3) to prevent access to all but Mozilla Firefox's and Ubuntu Linux's website. I need to access these two websites in order to download a live distro.

On a sidenote, as a user without administrator priviledges in Microsoft Windows XP SP3, am I allowed to download files? I know I won't be allowed to execute them, but what about downloading? -- 219.101.253.98 (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't specifically help with XP, but this is what I did using vista. it might work in XP.

I set up my kids Firefox running on vista so it only goes to a few sites. Go to windows user accounts, click on manage another account, choose the account you want to set the restrictions on(in this case my kids account), then click on 'set up parental controls'. Then click on 'Windows web filter', then click 'edit the allow and block' list. Now you can put in only the sites that you want, remembering to put /* at the end of the address, for example 'www.bbc.co.uk/*' will allow access to all of the bbc, but nothing else. It doesn't matter if my kids use firefox, or explorer, or somehow get hold of another browser, they can not get to any other sites other than those on the list. Well, they've not figured out a way so far.121.220.220.12 (talk) 11:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Why would you want to block all but two websites?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It's what people call a "practical joke". -- Hoary (talk) 01:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I thing this feature can only be found on Windows Vista, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

And no, it's not a practical joke, I just don't want to run the risk of running into malware and such things. Call it paranoia, if you will, but never a practical joke. I am, after all, the only person who uses this computer anyway... -- 219.101.253.98 (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

problem in c++ program

Hey! can someone please sort out the problem with this program?? Thanks in advance.--59.103.12.232 (talk) 10:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

void main()
{
    int s, r, n, c;
    
    for (s = 20, r = 1; r <= 4; r++, s--)
    {
        cout << setw(s);

        for(n = 4; n <= c; n--)
        {
            cout << "x";

            for (c = 1; c <= r; c++)
                cout << "y";
        }
    }
}

You could start by initializing the variable c to something before using it. Bendono (talk) 11:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

(Formatted the code). --wj32 ^t/c 11:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Also in the second for loop... You are checking for n to be less than another value. Then, you decrement n. For the loop to start, n must be smaller than c. Then, you make n even smaller. It will be difficult for this loop to ever run to completion. It is more likely that n will get smaller and smaller and smaller until the int wraps. -- kainaw™ 11:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The program is ill-formed because main does not return int. What was the program supposed to do? decltype (talk) 07:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

My website

This is my website. I would like to know how to add meta tags to it so that i can optimize it for search. [Link to website] Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duality32 (talk • contribs) 14:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, editing the RefDesk talk header is not the answer. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Nor is using your talk page for spam--Jac16888^Talk 14:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at our article about meta tags. See if that helps at all. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  18:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Most crawlers do little with meta tags as far as I can see, mainly because user-reported data about what your website contains is not usually accurate. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Downloading embedded videos

Is there any way to download this? I don't want to download this specific video but I was wondering if it is possible to download this type of media? Thanks! --217.227.68.197 (talk) 15:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Using Real Player you can download videos from websites easily. But be sure to check the copyrights of the website you are downloading from. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  16:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

For some reason that doesn't seem to be working...--217.227.68.197 (talk) 17:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

After installing it you have to restart your internet broser. Once that has been completed load the video, move your mouse over it and near the top (top right corner) of the video you will see a real player toolbar popup. clicking that will allow you to download that video. You can also just right-click on that video and choose 'Download this video to RealPlayer" at the bottom of the list. Now if it matters i am using winXP w/ Firefox. If you are using something different please let us know.– Elliott(Talk|Cont)  17:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Vista and I have now tried with Google Chrome, IE 7 and Firefox but to no avail. I get the realplayer toolbar and I can click it and it loads and then says that it's not possible! Thanks for your help, though! --217.227.68.197 (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Try it on YouTube(or another website that shows videos) , If it works then we know that the website you are trying must have protections on it. If it does not work maybe you downloaded the one for windows XP.– Elliott(Talk|Cont)  18:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It has worked! Thanks! Is the quality always quite bad? --217.227.68.197 (talk) 18:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I dont know about the quality but i think there might be an option in Realplayer to change that... – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  19:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Flash Videos in Ubuntu 9.04

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04 and i am having a problem watching flash videos full screen. They just seem really jumpy and laggy. This was not happening in 8.10. Initially i just thought it was a problem with the upgrade so i wiped my hard drive and did a fresh install of 9.04. I am still having that problem. This is on a Dell latitude D610. I have noticed this problem on Hulu, YouTube, And Adult Swim, I have not tried anywhere else. Any help would be greatly appreciated. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  17:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Does this ubuntu bug posting help at all? There are several solutions tried in it. -- JSBillings 21:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  04:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

TI 89 Titanium list sorting

Are there any list-sorting routines built into the TI 89 Titanium that can be used in functions, not just in programs? --Lucas Brown 42 (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

May 5

Need help with ASP

Hi All,

I working on getting a basic email sent from a website hosted at volusion.com.

They don't provide access to CDO, and but they did give an alternate solution: an 'smtp' class of their own. Am getting an error tho, but their support isnt very good so I'm trying here.:

[13]

The what i have so far (the class is from volusion.com):

<%
Class vsmtp
	Public VsmtpKey
	Public EmailSubject
	Public EmailFrom
	Public EmailTo
	Public TextBody
	Public HTMLBody
	Private Attachment
	Private AttachmentFolder
	Public Sub AddAttachment(ByRef FilePath)
		If AttachmentFolder = "" Then
			AttachmentFolder = Server.MapPath("/v")
		End If
		If StrComp(Left(FilePath,Len(AttachmentFolder)),AttachmentFolder,vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
			FilePath = Replace(Mid(FilePath,Len(AttachmentFolder)-1),"\","/")
		End If
		If StrComp(Left(FilePath,3),"/v/",vbTextCompare) <> 0 Or InStr(FilePath,",") > 0 Then
			Err.Raise 512, "vsmtp.AddAttachment", "Invalid Attachment Path"
		End If
		If IsEmpty(Attachment) Then
			Attachment = FilePath
		Else
			Attachment = Attachment & "," & FilePath
		End If
	End Sub

	Public Sub Send()
		Dim HTTPRequest
		Set HTTPRequest = CreateObject("WinHTTP.WinHTTPRequest.5.1")
		HTTPRequest.Open "POST", "http://" & Request.ServerVariables("LOCAL_ADDR") & "/vsmtp.asp", False
		HTTPRequest.SetRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
		HTTPRequest.SetRequestHeader "Host", Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME")
		HTTPRequest.Send _
			"VsmtpKey=" & Server.URLEncode(VsmtpKey) &_
			"&Subject=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailSubject) &_
			"&FromEmailAddress=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailFrom) &_
			"&ToEmailAddress=" & Server.URLEncode(EmailTo) &_
			"&Body_HTML=" & Server.URLEncode(HTMLBody) &_
			"&Body_TextOnly=" & Server.URLEncode(TextBody) &_
			"&Attachment_CSV=" & Server.URLEncode(Attachment)
		If HTTPRequest.ResponseText <> "True" Then
			Set HTTPRequest = Nothing
			Err.Raise 8, "vsmtp.Send", "Unable to send email. Check logs for details."
		End If
		Set HTTPRequest = Nothing
	End Sub
End Class
%>

<%
Set m = new vsmtp
m.VsmtpKey = "my long key here"
m.EmailSubject = "Test Subject"
m.EmailFrom = "test@testdomain.com"
m.EmailTo = "test@testdomain.com"
m.TextBody = "Hello World!"
m.HTMLBody = "Hello World"
m.Send()
Set m = nothing
%>

note: When I comment out m.Send() I get no errors, so i'm guessing thats where the problem is. Also Im new to asp, how can I get the error description to show?

TIA PrinzPH (talk) 00:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I am no expert in VBScript, but it looks to me that the volusion supplied class is attempting to use an uninitialized variable Attachment. Try adding the following to the top of the following to the top of the Send method.

		If IsEmpty(Attachment) Then
			Attachment = ""
		End If

If Attachment is undefined, it might be invalidating the expression in ther HTTPRequest.Send statement. If that doesn't help, try adding ... & " " & Err.Description) to the end of the Err.Raise statement, which might give you a more informative error message. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

An easy and cheap (preferably free) way to read & convert JPEG 2000 files to regular JPG?

What I would like to do here is get scans from the Internet Archive which are in JPEG 2000 format, convert them to JPG, and upload them to Commons. The Archive used to provide book downloads in JPG, but converted over to JPEG 2000 after a certain date, so more recent scans no longer have the option to be downloaded in JPG format. Thanks. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 05:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm not really offering a suggestion for software or a method to do this conversion, but if you're going to do this you might consider converting the images to PNG rather than JPEG, so that you aren't compounding compression artifacts. —Bkell (talk) 07:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Adobe Photoshop will do the job. It's almost free, at the low price of $999. You can download a 30-day trial, though. Plus, Photoshop supports automated conversions of groups of files, if you're dealing with a sizable collection.--67.174.107.10 (talk) 07:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Read [14]. There are a few free options that might work for you. --Stefan ^talk 09:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

GIMP has a JPEG2000 plugin to open those files and it is easy to save them as JPG once they are open. -- kainaw™ 14:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

ImageMagick is good for scripting or converting large numbers of files. I think it supports JPG2000. APL (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Google and Wordpress

I've recently started a blog with the help of Google's free blog service, and it seems that Google doesn't support Wordpress.Is it possible to install Wordpress for blogs in Google? Please help. 117.194.231.202 (talk) 07:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

In case it helps, I'm talking about something like this http://aanushaghosh.blogspot.com/ blog. 117.194.229.230 (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No - if you want a Wordpress blog, just sign up at Wordpress.com — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 07:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Bitrate vs Quality

I have a video in VOB format with:

Variable Bit Rate Video Stream (12.8 Mbps, 9800 kbps nominal)
Constant Bit Rate Audio Stream (448 kbps)

I would like to convert this video to MP4 iPod format, but am unsure what bitrates to use so as to get the best quality. Video quality must not be so low as to cause noticeable artifacts in the video, and Audio quality must not be so low as to cause random static or buzzing in the audio stream. I'm using SUPER to convert the videos and it would be a LONG conversion process. Numbers are good. Thanks in advance.  Buffered Input Output 12:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

creating lists in Excel

I am trying to use Excel to create picking slips for product in a storage facility. Is there some version of the LOOKUP function (or other worksheet function) that will return more than a single value for the cell being looked up? I would especially like to be able to control the number of values returned.
On one sheet, let's say I have a whole bunch of different items (apples, lemons, pears, etc) in a column with the column next to it listing the slots where each lot can be found. Maybe there are dozens of fruits, with dozens of lots apiece. On a second sheet, I'd like a way of saying "apples, 3" and having it return the first three values for apples found on the first sheet. The MATCH and LOOKUP functions can return the first value, but nothing else. Is this possible? I have Excel 2007. Matt Deres (talk) 13:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at using a Pivot-table = you should be able to place the items in to show each of the available items and have a drop-down list to choose the item you're interested in. It may mean reorganising the data in the background depending on how 'table' like the information you have is. Worth a look though as pivot-tables are extremely flexible and very useful in many situations (once mastered). ny156uk (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Game too slow

I just bought a new game, GTA IV, on my laptop, Windows Vista platform. It has a 1 GB ram and a built in NVIDIA GeForce card. Yet it was unable to play this game. The game plays in still images, very slow....the configuration is not enough. So what are my options ? Is it possible to make the game play better by downloading (free) game accelerators ? Will it help if i upgrade my RAM ? Is it possible to put a new graphics card in a laptop ? What do i do to make this and other new games play ? Rkr1991 (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

"Game accelerators" are fake. I don't have this game on my PC, but the Grand Theft Auto IV article has a "System Requirements" matrix that shows that 1GB ram is a minimum requirement, which doesn't bode well. You should compare the model of your GeForce card with the "minimum" and "recommended" card types - maybe your GeForce card is particularly old (believable since laptop GeForce chips are usually pretty weak). You need to make sure you have the very latest GeForce driver (use the nvidia website). If that doesn't work, you may need a beefier setup with more RAM and a better graphics card. Tempshill (talk) 14:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I got an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M graphics card. Is it too old ? So what do i do know ? Is it possible to download any free update for this which would make it work ? And first of all can a new graphics card be inserted into a laptop ? Will increasing ram speed halp ?Rkr1991 (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The 7150s are not high-performance cards, and I think the "Go" cards are even worse (to conserve energy.) They also came out mid-2007. I hate to break it to you, but what you've got is a low-end video card that came out nearly two years ago. I don't think you're going to be able to play GTA4 with this machine. GTA4 requires a pretty high-performance system. Sorry. APL (talk) 15:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried to play the game on minimum settings? Lots of games have lower resolutions/draw distances/less enemies/whatever so that you can play them on lesser machines more smoothly - lots of people seem to leave it on standard and put up with jerky-playing but it's better (in my eyes) to play at worse-quality smoother. Anyhoo it may be worth a try as often the resolution can be reduced to a smoother-running level. ny156uk (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Digital audio player with resume-from-playlist function

moved from WP:RD/S

I am looking for a digital audio player with a function that allows me to resume from playlists. Let me explain: I have a playlist 1 of, say, 10 tracks. I listen to it for awhile and get to the middle of track 3. I turn off the player, turn it on a while later, and would like it to resume where I left off (in the middle of track 3), and continue to track 4 of the same playlist when track 3 is done. I listen for a bit longer, get to the middle of track 5. I stop playing, and load up playlist 2, composed of, say, 8 tracks. I start listening to playlist 2, stopping when I get to 20s into track 6 (of playlist 2). I stop, and switch again to playlist 1 - at which point I would like it to resume from where I left off on playlist 1, namely the middle of track 5 (of playlist 1). In other words, I would like a player which not only stores the location where I last stopped, both when I turn it off, and when I switch playlist (where it should store my location within a track and the track's position within a playlist). Are there any players which do this? Thanks in advance! — QuantumEleven 15:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This for sure belongs at the Computing Reference desk. Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm unfamiliar with other devices (read: Apple fanboy), but I know in iTunes there is a setting to set songs to play where you left off. There may even be an option to set a whole playlist to act like that and have that transfer over to a newer iPod that would support it. -- MacAddct1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 16:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comparing two CPUs

Lets say I have one CPU that has a clock rate of 2 GHz and 4 cores. I have another CPU which has a clock rate of 1 GHz but 8 cores. Other than that all specs are the same.

2*4 == 1*8

So which one is faster? Assuming their prices are the same, which one should you buy?

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.127.234.68 (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Not information to compare the two. See Megahertz myth. Taggart.BBS (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)