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March 1

Computer numbers

How many computers are in the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lib214724 (talk • contribs) 02:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

PCs : http://www.worldometers.info/computers/

If you included routers, pocket calculators and mobile phones etc there are a lot more.87.102.67.84 (talk) 03:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I counted the number of computers in my home a few years ago - there were about 30 - in addition to the obvious desktops and laptops. Moreover, modern "computers" generally have lots of smaller computers inside them - at least one in each disk drive - probably one each in keyboard and mouse, another in the monitor. The GPU on your graphics card probably contains dozens of simple computers. So the total is clearly vastly more than the number of deskside or laptop computer boxes. SteveBaker (talk) 03:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on your definition of a computer, but "...one each in keyboard and mouse..." is quite a stretch. Just how little functionality is required before it is no longer considered a computer? The question is quite poorly phrased with a wide range of possible meanings, but I would guess the OP means he would consider a laptop to be one computer, a desktop to be one computer, a server at his ISP or place of work to be one computer; without breaking down the individual devices into components and calling each of them a computer as well. As for cell phones, mp3 players, game consoles, some newer TVs, CD/DVD/BluRay players/recorders, cable/satellite TV decoders, some kitchen appliances, the GPS/Satellite navigtion and fuel injection computers in the car, etc. I doubt the OP even considered them when asking the question. Astronaut (talk) 04:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The usual definition of "computer" is any device which can receive input, perform computations on the input, and provide output. That means that there are many things that fit the definition of computer that we don't normally refer to as computer. I had a student once who made a compelling argument that a toaster takes bread as input, performs quantum calculations on the atoms in the bread until the heat causes the surface of the bread to toast, and then gives back toast as output. I told him that when he could define the computations as a discrete formula that provides the one-way function from bread to toast (since we know you can't go back), I would accept that answer. -- kainaw™ 04:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Let's throw Turing completeness into the definition. That should deal with the toasters! --Tango (talk) 04:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Computers are not necessarily Turing complete. A universal computer is Turing complete (meaning that the instruction set is Turing complete). -- kainaw™ 05:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That's why I said we need to explicitly include it in our definition. That way we're more likely to get a result the OP will appreciate - the number of general-purpose computers (or computers that could be used for any purpose if you really wanted to). (I am, of course, excusing finite memory.) --Tango (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Well then, we could simplify by asking how many general CPUs have been sold in the last 5 years. That will put a reasonable cap on the number of universal computers. For the most part, computers are 1 CPU to 1 Computer. Then, the number can be made more accurate by getting statistics on how many computers have more than one CPU, what is the average age of computers currently in use, how many CPUs don't get into any computers at all, etc... However, it would be much easier just to get a list of computer sales for all major vendors over the last few years. -- kainaw™ 05:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of Turing complete processors that aren't general CPUs. The GPUs that Steve mentioned, the various special purpose computers that still have a Turing complete processor in them (cars, for example), etc.. If we want to interpret "computer" as "PC" (with the broad definition that includes Macs, etc.) we can get an answer fairly quickly, but it will be at least an order of magnitude smaller than an answer with a more general definition. --Tango (talk) 05:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

How to turn a GIF image into a JPG image

Hy there, I recently found an image on the net. Sadly it's in the GIF format. How can I change it into a JPG image? Much obliged. Flamarande (talk) 06:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I recommend the free Windows program Irfanview. You open the GIF file, then when you save it you can save in a plethora of formats. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

On Linux or any real operating system, make sure ImageMagick is installed and type "convert image.gif image.jpg". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that installing ImageMagick on a unix-like operating system will probably take half the day if you have to compile it from binaries. On a Windows OS it takes about five seconds to download the compiled executables. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

fink install imagemagick only takes half a day if you have a really really slow CPU/network. Of course, on most Linux systems, ImageMagick will be installed by default. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Please don't spread misinformation. With few exceptions, on every major Unix-like operating system these days the usual practice is to download compiled executables. Marnanel (talk) 17:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're on windows, you could open the gif in MSPaint, then save it as jpg. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 09:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that in most situations conversion of GIF to JPG will result in quality loss, especially if done from a program that doesn't let you specify quality (like MSPaint, at least last time I used it, in XP). Conversion of GIF to PNG is probably recommended if you have the option. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the remarks made above. Microsoft Paint can do the conversion (XP and later). Also, whereas both GIF (obsolete for static images - for instance GIF normally only supports 256 colours) and PNG are perfect for illustrations, screenshots, etc., JPG employs lossy compression suitable only for photographs. So unless the GIF was the wrong format to start with, I would not recommend converting the image to JPG, but to PNG. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 17:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

In fact, pretty much any image editor would be able to convert gif to jpg. Spending minutes downloading and installing a new new program, or a day making it from source code (if the OP doesn't know how to convert gif to jpg, are they really going to know how to make an image editor from source code?), is not necessary when the OP probably already has one installed which would be adaquate for the job. The usual procedure is to open the gif file in the image editor and immediately choose "Save as..." from the menu. The save dialog usually lets you choose the output file format. Astronaut (talk) 03:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Why is it sad that it's in GIF format? Admittedly it has its drawbacks, but simply converting the picture to a different image type will not solve them and possibly introduce more. Is there some specific reason you want this to be JPG (or PNG or whatever)? Matt Deres (talk) 17:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

NORTON 360 or NORTON 2010?

Which one is better for laptop? Thank you very much.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.148.167 (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Norton 360 is a suite that includes backup utilities and anti phishing things, as well as all the features from Norton 2010, whereas Norton Internet Security 2010 is just an antivirus and malware detection suite. It follows that Internet security will use less resources although I'm unsure. However if you can chose other anti virus programs and are willing to pay may I suggest Nod32? It's about the same price as norton antivirus, uses less resources, and is better at detecting them. They also have a smart security suite similar to Norton 360. There are also free anti viruse programs from AVG Antivirus and Avast which work quite well especially considering their price. Gunrun (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Is it true that one Norton 2010 Package is good for use only in one computer? If I format my computer, will i not be able to use it anymore to reinstall it to my computer? Can I share it with other computers? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.148.167 (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have had a look around on google and have found that while Norton Internet Security is by default valid for just 1 PC it seems to be for concurrent installs. It appears that reformatting will allow you to install it again fine, and probably even if you installed it to a totally different PC as long as you uninstalled the old one first. I may be wrong though, and I don't use the product myself otherwise I would test it. By the way if you follow your post with 4 "~"s it will make your posts be signed and thus look slightly neater. Gunrun (talk) 14:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't pay a penny and get all the features for free with AVG Free...! Chevymontecarlo. 17:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Norton software is notoriously bad and has been for quite some time (since Norton sold the company). ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

non-linear waveshaping

what is non-linear waveshaping in electronics? what is the use of it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geethikachaitanya (talk • contribs) 15:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• Did you read Waveshaper? Used to change tiranular wave to sine wave, or in electronic music. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Kodak Easy-share Picture Program Issue- Library Back up

I would like to copy my entire picture library from my Easy-Share program onto an external hard drive, but I cannot seem to locate where the pictures are hidden inside the software's program folders. The program itself allows one to copy the files on to discs, but I really don't feel like burning twenty or more discs. I know I can also place photos one by one into the editing program and save to the hard drive, but again, that would take an incredible amount of time. Is there a way to simply copy the library with a couple of clicks? What is strange is that I discovered some much older pictures on my external already, so I MUST have done this somehow a few years ago. As always, any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks, 10draftsdeep (talk) 15:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

(assuming you are using Windows) The easiest solution to finding where Easy-share is squirreling away your pictures is to write down the exact filename of one of those pictures, then click the Start button, select Search, and type it in there. It should have no trouble locating the exact folder location. I judge from your post that you're savvy enough to take it from there. :-) 218.25.32.210 (talk) 04:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea, I'll give it a try. The software seems to be designed to make it difficult to transfer easily. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 16:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Requirements for watching videos using YouTube HD

Just wondering, what do you actually need to watch videos in HD on YouTube? Clearly you'd need a computer and an internet connection good enough, but what else? Would you need a special monitor or something? Chevymontecarlo. 17:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they are available in HD are they? - though you could watch them on a HD TV, but you wouldn't be using the available resolution. Dbfirs 17:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake, they are now! - but the 1080p will need a better bandwidth than my internet connection, or much buffering!Dbfirs 17:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Many Youtube videos now offer the option to display as 320, 480 or 720 vertical pixels. 480 is roughly equivalent to a 480p video, while 720 is roughly equivalent to a 720p video. Computer monitors usually have much more densely packed pixels than TVs, so even a 20" monitor will often display at 1280x800 or 1680x1050, both of which will display the full detail of a 720p video. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Virtually any computer monitor can display 720p video. 720p is equivalent to 1280x720 screen resolution, so if your display is configured to display at that resolution or higher, you'll get some benefit from the HD resolution. You also need a CPU and/or GPU powerful enough to display it; many netbooks won't be able to play it without pauses or skips, but any machine capable of, for example, running the Aero interface on Vista/Win7 will probably be able to handle HD video. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Additional note: Even if your monitor runs at a lower resolution than the video, as long as your CPU/GPU is up to it you will still be able to play the higher resolution video, you just won't get as much out of it. You might even lose a little detail; if the video is fit to your screen by subtracting lines, you might have been better off with the lower resolution picture. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Isn't true HD (widescreen) at least 1920x1080? Don't we need a fairly fast processor to display this? Dbfirs 18:04, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

720p is considered HD, even if it's not the highest HD quality. 1080p is gravy; on larger computer monitors you might be able to display that level of detail but you probably won't be able to see the difference. You need a decent processor to display it, but if your codec is GPU accelerated, the GPU can handle most of the work. Virtually any non-integrated graphics solution from ATI or nVidia can handle GPU accelerated decompression; the most recent netbooks can display 1080p with minor stuttering if the decompression is GPU accelerated (using CoreAVC). So yes, there are minimums, but they're as much about the strength of the software as they are about the hardware. My point remains salient; if you can run Aero smoothly, you're probably fine. 1080p might need a bit more juice, but it's rarely beneficial to display at that resolution and the requirements aren't that much higher in any event. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Odd CD-Burning Question

I use the built-in CD burner of Windows 7, to create a CD with the following structure:

Root of CD
   |- myapp.exe
   |- User's Guide
   |  |- manual.pdf
   |- Examples
      |- pic1.png
      |- ...
      |- picN.png

Windows 7 makes it really easy to create the disk, but after the CD is burned, it is not finalized, so more data can be added, and it is identified as a CD-R rather than a CD-ROM. I want it to be a finalized, high-compatibility, non-appendable CD-ROM, so I use Roxio Easy CD and DVD Burner to finalize the disk. This works fine; when Roxio is done, the CD identifies itself as a non-appendable CD-ROM. But, and this is really strange, the entire Examples directory is now missing! Comments? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I've had issues with Roxio trying to add a file, failing, and failing fairly silently-ish. In my case it was filenames that weren't compatible with the CD disk filesystem (I think paths were too long); perhaps that's the case for you, or maybe it's a filename charset issue. Make sure you've got Roxio configured for Joliet rather than plain ISO 9660. I've found InfraRecorder to be a bit friendlier than Roxio, so you could try that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have found CDBurnerXP to be quite reliable. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Also DeepBurner —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 23:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. In particular InfraRecorder looks great, so I will probably use it from now on. Any theories about what happened to the Examples directory? I guess the data is still on the disk, but invisible to (most) users? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2

Key exchange with no shared secret?

Diffie-Hellman key exchange requires that the parties first be able to establish a shared secret over a secure channel. Is there any way to perform key exchange if the parties have never had and will never have a secure communication channel? NeonMerlin 00:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Diffie-Hellman allows a shared secret to be established over an insecure channel. decltype (talk) 00:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

No, you're wrong, Diffie-Hellman does not require that the parties establish a shared secret over a secure channel first. THat would be called Symmetric-key cryptography, and it is what people did for thousands of years before Diffie-Hellman and RSA was discovered. The the whole point of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange is that even if you hear every single thing communicated, you will not be able to figure out the key if you're not one of the parties.

There is a big problem with Diffie-Hellman though: the man-in-the-middle attack. If we ask "assume you can communicate over a insecure channel where the eavesdropper can listen in but is unable to change the messages", then Diffie-Hellman, or even RSA (you could just send the other party your public key) pretty much completely solves that problem.

However, that's not the real world. People often can change the message in transit, so then you need to authenticate your messages. This problem has absolutely nothing to do with Diffie-Hellman, they apply to any kind of public key cryptography, and the solutions are the same. Most commonly, this is solved either by a PGP-style web of trust, or (as is the case with SSL, for instance) by using Certificate authorities. Neither of those methods are perfect, but they're pretty much the best we have. Belisarius (talk) 01:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Importing TiVo files into Windows Movie Maker

I have a HP Pavilion DV6646us, running Vista 64, 2 gb memory, 160 gb HD. Started using Tivo Desktop to import movies into Windows Movie Maker, edit out commercials, then export to WMV to burn onto DVDs. I've used this Tivo Desktop/Windows Movie Maker combination for a few years now, and have had no problems with it up until a few months ago.

However, now, when I import into WMM, I get a 1:1 aspect ratio rather than the normal 4:3 ratio. The strange thing is, when I simply play the files using Windows Media Player, they look just fine. It seems to be ONLY in Windows Movie Maker that the aspect ratio gets "squared up."

I know it's probably something to do with the codecs, but I'm by no means an expert. I've done Google searches on every combination of "Tivo, Desktop, Windows, Movie, Maker, Aspect, and Ratio" that I can think of, and have come up with very few relevant results, none of which have solved the problem. I found and installed tbe "Cole2K" codec package that was suggested on one site, and I downloaded a "Tivo Desktop Codec Manager" ("TDCM") that I found on the Tivo Community forum. No dice on either.

I also uninstalled TiVo desktop and reassociated the ".TIVO" extension with Windows Media Player, but the video is all scrambled and the files don't play. I then reinstalled an older version of TiVo Desktop, also to no avail.

My main goal here is to be able to import TiVo files into Windows Movie Maker and preserve the existing aspect ratio. That's it. Help! Thanks much, Kingsfold (talk) 03:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Deleted E-mails

Hi

1.Is there a way to recover deleted e-mails after you've emptied your DELETED ITEMS folder?

2.Is there a way to see whether someone has opened up one of your e-mails without you suspecting? Like opening it and then using the MARK AS UNREAD feature to avoid suspicion.

3.How do you send one of those e-mails where you open it and after closing still looks like it hasn't been opened? Like the one that you get from time to time that says YOUR MAILBOX IS OVER IT'S SIZE LIMIT.

Thanks, NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 05:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

1. If an only if the email was stored on your harddrive and you know a hell of a lot about file systems, you can get back deleted emails. It is not something can do if you don't really know what you are doing.

2. No. The email doesn't contain any "I was opened on" date. It is just text.

3. The server is refusing to accept the "been opened" change to the email. It isn't the email itself.

I hope that helps. Keep in mind that email is just text. It is a very insecure format designed in the old days when messages didn't need to be highly secure. So far, nothing has been able to replace it and fix the blatant problems with the entire email system. -- kainaw™ 05:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) If you're on a corporate network, e.g. using Microsoft Exchange Server, then your system administrators may be able to recover deleted messages. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:30, 2 March

2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Kainaw and AndrewWTaylor

So you guys are telling me that this is the one department (for as long as it has existed) that hasn't really made progress?

Thanks, NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'd call what you're describing "progress". Your best way of ensuring no one has read your email and then marked it as unread is to not tell them your email password. As for recovering deleted messages, it sounds like you want a "recycle bin for your recycle bin". At some point you just want the stuff deleted, and indeed internet mail companies hanging on to deleted messages has been an issue raised in the past. TastyCakes (talk) 17:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Email, as it currently exists, is an old system that hasn't improved much. One of the huge problems with getting back deleted mail is the way in which most programs store emails. They are not stored as single files - so you can search for the deleted file and get it back. They are stored in one huge text file. When you delete an email (and really delete it), it is removed from the text file. Chances are, that process will completely obliterate the email from the hard drive by overwriting it with other emails. So, there is nothing left on the harddrive to get back. As for security, there is none in email. You have to secure the access to email. Use a password. Lock your computer. Don't tell others what your password is. Don't use a stupid password. I showed this at a security talk at a college I used to work for (and this is one of the main reasons that I says "used to work for"). I loaded up the servers passwd file in John (a free password cracker) and ran it while I explained that the school needed to use shadow passwords and they needed to install a password cracker program to force people to use better passwords. While I talked for about 15 minutes, the screen scrolled with hundreds of users using their last name as a password, using "cougar" (the school's mascot), and using the common ones: "god", "password", "fuckyou", etc... -- kainaw™ 17:58, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks TastyCakes, Kainaw

Would you say that it (e-mail as a whole) is flawed (especially with regards to recovery and security/privacy) in a way and that it hasn't been thoroughly taken through it's paces (by the people who created it) to see where it can be improved upon?

Thanks, NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 08:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Remove Security Tool

Okay, I guess I clicked on something that I shouldn't have, and so I let this un-godly fiend onto my machine. It comes up with its stupid messages every 15 seconds or so, but far worse is that it won't let me run many programs (including my word processor. Grrr). What's the best way to get rid of it? I'm running Windows 7. I have legitimate antivirus software (McAfee, provided by my University); is that likely to get rid of it? Or do I really have to boot up in safe mode and go after this myself? I'm totally incompetent on these new-fangled computer thingys, so if I do need to go on a search and destroy mission, I'm going to need step by step instructions. I promise to be more careful in the future. Buddy431 (talk) 06:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Try Security_Tool#Removal. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  14:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

If that doesn't work, also try combofix —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I got rid of it, thanks. That was a lot less painless painful than I was expecting. Buddy431 (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Saving MS WindowsXP or MSOffice to CD for possible reuse before I delete them

The motherboard on an old computer I had died, so I have an HD with a valid copy of windowsXP on it. I'd like to delete the operating system and have that disk as the secondary HD in another computer. Before I do this, is there any way of saving that operating system to a CD in case I want to restore it to the HD again in the future? (If for example I replace the dud motherboard.)

I also have MSOffice on the HD of the computer I am using now, but intend to delete it. Is there any way of saving that to a CD so that it could be restored again if I change my mind? Thanks Edit:If a CD is not big enough then I could instal a DVD r/w drive from another computer. 78.149.112.209 (talk) 14:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Installers are (very deliberately) a one-way process (you can't turn an installed program back into install media). It's possible to clone one hard disk onto another, but that uses another hard disk, rather than freeing one, which is what you're trying. This is true for both XP and Office. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

That's right — see List of disk cloning software, also. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

However, might it not be that an image of the disk could be burned to DVD? If you are able to resize the partition to less than the DVD maximum limit (by deleting all programs you have install media for and then using something like gparted to resize the partition) and then use some software (I don't know the specifics of that, perhaps gparted can do that too?) to burn an "image file" of your system partition to DVD. Later you can run the process in reverse to burn the image back to the HD if you so desire. Of course, whether it'll boot with a different motherboard, you can't be sure of. Jørgen (talk) 21:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand partitions - as far as I know I've never had any on my computers. I imagine making a reusable copy of an installed program would consist of save the program, saving the relevant registry details, and then being able to reinstall them when needed. 84.13.29.241 (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Partitions are rather easy but that's another question altogether. Basically I know of no software that can make a reusable copy of an installed program in the way described. It would be non-trivial as you would have to know what parts of the Registry to clone, which parts would need to be changed based on settings differences, and other myriad shared files, etc., and things that might vary between different versions of an OS, and so forth. For a trivially small program this would be doable but for XP or Office, I don't think so. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually my old HD has both WindowsXP on it and MSOffice, I now realise. So I suppose I could delete everything on it except those things and then clone it, and save the image file to CD or DVD? 92.29.76.9 (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Can a website disconnect my wireless connection?

I'm sure the answer to this is no. But when attempting to use http://www.old-maps.co.uk after about 5-10 page changes (navigation) - my WiFi connection plunks out. I've been using the internet all day and the effect only happens on this site. It's completely consistent. (Windows XP) (eg try searching for a map, moving around a bit, selecting a different map scale or type..)
How can this be explained? 87.102.67.84 (talk) 17:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In theory, if your router or wireless card is poorly designed or the firmware/drivers are bad, it would be possibly for it to die as a result of receiving a packet of incorrect size or format. Does the site in question use pure HTML, or does it include Flash programs? TCP should be roughly the same on every site (I wouldn't expect a problem to occur with only one site since the same protocol is used in every case), but a UDP driven site that handcrafts packets might have issues. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

For the record, when I say "incorrect" I don't mean malicious or problematic under normal circumstances. It might slightly violate the best practices for UDP packet construction in such a way that it works perfectly well for wired connections, and it might only trigger packet drops (not wireless connection death) in a properly configured router/wireless card combo. Wireless cards and their drivers expose lots of problems in protocols that were designed and tested entirely within an office LAN, running strictly on wires. And those same bad protocols expose poor error handling in the wireless card and its drivers in turn. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Just HTML, CSS and Javascript as far as I can tell. Possibly it's using ADF.NET web map control to update the graphics (of maps). Beyond that I haven't a clue.87.102.67.84 (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Update - like all good gremlins - it appears to have completely stopped doing it now I've asked someone about it. Leaving me even more confused (maybe I'm just going senile).87.102.67.84 (talk) 18:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It might have just been a coincidence. Humans have a knack for recognizing patterns on limited evidence, even where they don't actually exist. Either that, or the computer is mocking you and will eventually drive you to murder. Take your pick. :-) —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

GNU make issue

I have a makefile that WORKS under UNIX using whatever the default make utility is, but not under Linux. Some member functions of one class are said to be "not declared in this scope" when compiling under Linux. In my (limited) understanding of compilation, they are indeed declared, in a header file near the top. I'll add that the file extension that I've used is .hxx, but changing it to something else doesn't seem to help. What might be the problem? Thanks.--Leon (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It sounds as if you may be missing a library, or a name of the path to the headers is not included int he make file. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Your problem is very unlikely to have anything to do with the make utility. "not declared in this scope" is a compiler error message, not a GNU make message. Check out Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to ask a software question for how to ask in a way that permits a more detailed solution. --Sean 17:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I managed to SOLVE the problem, but only by using another compiler, in this case from intel. I've no idea why it didn't work from g++ (or gcc).--Leon (talk) 21:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

CustomizeGoogle is broken, how do I fix it?

from WP:VPT

I need a new version of http://www.customizegoogle.com/ because Google's new layout doesn't have a Wikipedia link with that anymore.

Would someone who understands how to "convert the CustomizeGoogle extension to a zip file and then edit the files in that" please help me out? My friend says that's the way to get my beloved one-click Google-to-Wikipedia link back.

Anyone who knows how to do this, if you turn out to be local to me (and it's quite possible) then I will babysit your pets, kids, house, or fish as you see fit for a week. Thanks in advance!

Logoth (talk) 06:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

http://www.optimizegoogle.com/ took over the codebase. I've used it for a few weeks (it's identical to customizegoogle) and recommend it to all. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 07:28, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Does that work with the new Google layout? They are asking for developers, but they haven't even approved my blog comment after a few days. I'm not sure whether they're working on the new Google layout or not. There is also a SourceForge project and a Google Group.

I made this ranked-choice voting poll so you can pick your favorite search engines to appear on the next version of OptimizeGoogle -- PLEASE VOTE WIKIPEDIA! :D

How do you look at the source code? Logoth (talk) 03:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

XPI and JAR files are just zip files. [Rename the .xpi to .zip and the .jar inside that to .zip,] unarchive and read/edit. See [1] or [2] for more details. (Also, this isn't a good place to discuss non-Wikipedia centered problems. Ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing if you have further questions :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm asking here: Can this extension be made to work with the new Google search layout? Logoth (talk) 20:27, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

IP address

How do I get the IP address of an edit that was made by a registered user? Aaadddaaammm (talk) 20:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Slave away at Wikipedia with incredibly high quality edits; mediate disputes; get approved as an Administrator; continue to slave away at the thankless tasks of Administrators until you are trusted to be one of the 39 people who have this ability. Or I guess you could ask one of the 39 users. See Wikipedia:CheckUser. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Or you could ask them on their talk page or via email! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

To explain why: The point of creating an account is to group your edits together regardless of location and, oddly, to provide an additional layer of anonymity should you so choose. An IP can be traced to a geographical location and sometimes to a specific computer, while your username is not traceable in that manner. The exception to this rule is people with CheckUser (and even they are required to have something resembling the concept of probable cause to perform an IP check). They are trusted with that power so as to rule out abuses of the system, such as one user creating multiple accounts so as to pretend that their edits or point of view has broader support than it does. Aside from scenarios of that type, registered users are supposed to have greater default anonymity than IP users. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 21:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not very accurate, but this might be of some use to you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 21:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Based on my (signed in) contributions it appears to work by finding when a user either

• Signs in and re-signs a previous 'anonymous' post (in Talk)
• (or) Accidentally (or on purpose) alters another anon User's comments (in Talk) when signed in.

(It's certainly not going to be effective against someone evading a block of a known username - unless they are very stupid)

If you just wanted the IP to find out what ISP they are using, or which state they are in it would be a lot easier to ask.87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Finding out about an IP is fairly easy here  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Many IP addresses do not have a very informative whois entry. Sometimes other methods, such as traceroute will provide you with a more detailed location to the user. -- kainaw™ 23:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies - I had no idea the IPs are hidden for registered users. I was just curious about a user, nothing to warrant asking one of the chosen 39. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Pre-translated phrase libraries for command-line apps

In GNU/Linux, the strerror() function in <string.h> always returns a description of an error code in the environment language. Do any other GNU/POSIX/C99/etc. standard library functions provide pre-translated text? NeonMerlin 22:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The key word here is locale (or i18n). strerror returns a locale-dependent result, meaning it tries to present a string in the user's preferred language. strsignal does the same thing for signal names. hstrerror, gai_strerror, regerror, and dlerror are very strerror-like and also can return locale-dependent translated strings. Overall, the C99 and POSIX library functions don't have a lot of strings embedded in them other than error strings. The most interesting one might be strftime, which can do locale-dependent date formatting. 98.226.122.10 (talk) 10:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Ripping Music from a Gameboy ROM

I've scoured the web for this. I have a ROM of Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M (legally obtained) for the Gameboy Color. I'd like to get the music off that ROM and into a GBS file. However, I can find ZERO ways to do this. I know people have done it because sites like Zophar.net have tons of GBS music. Can anyone direct me to a guide on how to do this? Or, better yet, a link to an already ripped GBS file for the game?  Buffered Input Output 23:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

We're talking Game Boy Sound System. Trouble is, ripping music from ROMs is almost certainly a copyright violation, and wikipedia is not in the business of offering advice on how to do such things. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not using it for commercial use, just personal enjoyment. And I know it might be a copyright violation, but the game is so old and the company defunct that it would take one desperate lawyer to take up this case. I'm willing to accept that risk if someone could actually answer my question.  Buffered Input Output 00:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Except even if you're willing to take the risk, Wikipedia isn't. By willingly aiding someone in an illegal situation (regardless of how unlikely it is to come up), it's just asking for future trouble. Sorry. ZX81 ^talk 00:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Ripping music for one's own personal use is not necessarily a copyright violation. (Let's just not ask where he got the ROM from—there are countries in which ROM backups are not illegal.) Anyway, the legal status of such a thing seems hardly clear-cut enough to warrant us refusing to give advice (and ethically, there is really no problem here, which is where I personally would draw the line). (And let's not worry about a slippery slope in such a specific case, eh?)

Anyway, follow the links for the programs at the Wikipedia page that Tagishisimon gave, they should probably help you out. Feel free to consult a copyright lawyer if you are afraid of violating the law. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

March 3

windows 7 file sharing

I have recently upgraded to Windows 7 Professional and am having trouble sharing pictures. My PC is set up with a partitioned hard drive. Myself being the administrator, and 3 other users. These picture files seem to be open for sharing but, I seem to still be missing something important.I even tried the homegroup, NO LUCK. Just trying to keep kids out of my stuff. Very new to this operating program, will need step by step instructions. Thanks, Frank,74.47.146.203 (talk) 00:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If you want to share with users on the same computer you can right-click on that file or folder, then select "share with" from the menu that appears - then select the people. step by step instrucs.

Or place the files or folders of files in the "public folder" (used to be called "shared folders") - there are default folders for "public music" , "public pictures" etc [3]

The homegroup feature is actually for sharing between 2 or more computers connected on a network.

The first two ways should work - note there might be an issue with windows 7 sharing more than it should when you mark a folder as shared [4]. Or this might have been fixed. First get sharing working, then check to see that it isn't sharing more than it should.

You might need to turn password protected sharing on (or maybe off) first (this only lets people with a username and password see the shared folders - stopping 'guests' seeing them) - see http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Share-files-with-someone this explains about public folders and sharing too.87.102.67.84 (talk) 01:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if you've already done this - it's not clear how or where you are going wrong.87.102.67.84 (talk) 01:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Outlook Web Access attachments

My brother-in-law's employer allows access to their Exchange Server email system using Outlook Web Access so that employees can work from home. A few days ago, he had a curious problem where he couldn't open an attachment to one of the emails he'd received from a work colleague, and asked me (the family's computer guy) to take a look. When trying to open the attachment (a Powerpoint 2007 file), a message box pops up saying the file cannot be opened and you should save the attachment the computer. Because this is accessed through Internet Explorer, the only way that I can see to save the attachment is to right-click and choose "Save target as...". Doing that, the file is saved as a zip file containing many xml files in a number of folders; and which Windows is only capable of opening as a zip file.

Strangely, this problem does not appear to affect this one attachment, about 6 out of a hundred or so emails with attachments are affected. I was unable to find a consistant factor - the emails were not all from the same person, and the senders had sent other emails & attachemnts before and since with no problem; the file types were all MS Office but included Powerpoint 2007, Word 2007, Powerpoint 2003/2000, and Word 2003/2000 (the employer has recently upgraded to Office 2007). TBH, this one has got me stumped. I flagged the problematic emails with coloured follow-up flags, and suggested my brother-in-law ask the IT department to investigate what makes these mails different. Unfortunately, in common with many of his colleagues, he thinks the IT department is filled with useless jerks whose only purpose is to make life difficult for the other employees, so I suspect he either won't ask them or will get an unsatisfactory quality of help.

Are there any further tests I could do without access to the Exchange Server, additional things that could be asked of the IT department, or web resources I could check out for an explanation? Astronaut (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds to me like a file association problem, not anything wrong with the server. Are you seeing the problem with only Office Open XML (Office 2007) files? Xenon54 / talk / 02:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If it was file association, how come the vast majority of attachments still open quite correctly (including Office 2003/2000, Office 2007, PDF, and so on)? The problem attachments were all MS Office but were from various versions (2007 and older versions - .doc and .docx; .ppt and .pptx - ie. not just Office Open XML). However the XML files in the resulting zip file did appear to contain fragments of the text of the attachment, so I could easily believe the whole contents of the Office document/presentation was encoded in some way across many XML files. Interestingly, when a problematic email was forwarded to a non-work email address, the attachments could be opened without any problems using the very same PC. Unfortuantely, I don't have access to the regular mail system - that is only accessible from my brother-in-law's office - but I will ask him to check if the problems attachments can be open while at work. Astronaut (talk) 04:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's what I suspect is going on: The PowerPoint file really is a zip file of xml files, but has a different extension. In some cases*, Internet Explorer tries to automatically detect the file type and will change the extension to the "correct" type. That is, Internet Explorer thinks it knows better and saves it as a zip file. Just rename the file back to the proper extension and it should work.

*For example, if the server sends the PowerPoint file with a generic MIME type like application/octet-stream or text/plain, Internet Explorer will try to automatically detect the file type. If the server sends the PowerPoint file with a more specific MIME type like application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, then Internet Explorer keeps the original file extension. See MIME Type Detection in Internet Explorer for more information. This Internet Explorer "feature" is often an annoyance, and can be avoided if the server sends a more specific MIME type. --Bavi H (talk) 05:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 new Updates

I heard that a new update for windows 7 disabled pirated copies of windows. is this true? how would I stop this? many thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 02:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This has all the answers to your question [5] 87.102.67.84 (talk) 02:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy responce. I better not update lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 02:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You better buy a genuine copy of Windows 7. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll pass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 14:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

And thus does another round of horrifically insecure systems spring up. Either buy a legit copy of the OS, or switch to a free OS. Your approach means more worms spreading, more spambot zombie machines, etc. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I hate do have to say this but in addition to ShadowRangerRIT suggestions, if you are going to use pirated software at least be smart. For example, if you are worried about a specific update disabling your system due to piracy, make sure you don't install that update but do install all other ones Nil Einne (talk) 08:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Vimeo stutter

When I play a movie on Vimeo, the sound is always chopped into incomprehensible pieces of about 1/2 sec, even if the picture is smooth. I'm using Firefox on MacOS 10.5 (PPC Mini). —Tamfang (talk) 06:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This happens we you have either; a poor connection to the interwebs, or a very old computer./ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 11:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the key question, then, is why it doesn't happen with (e.g.) Youtube. —Tamfang (talk) 04:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Unrefresh

Once you have refreshed a page, is there a way to undo your refresh? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 07:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No of course no! You ve cleared the cache it's all gone try opening the page in a new tab next time to preserve the content —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 11:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Recursive rootkits

Has any analysis been published on how multiple rootkits on the same machine, unaware of each other's presence, could interfere with one another? Anything focusing specifically on hypervisor-level ("blue pill") rootkits?

On a related note, has the effect of multiple man-in-the-middle attackers on the same channel, each unaware of the others' presence, been analyzed from the legitimate users' point of view? NeonMerlin 08:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Done appropriately MitM attacks should have no effect on the end user. As a practical matter timing will likely be an issue in all of these cases though since any problems exaggerate any lag. Shadowjams (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess I should mention that the authentication mechanism (if there is one) will indicate there's a problem, but I guess that's already assumed in the attack. But if you had Adam trying to talk to Zack and then Eve, Frank, and George each doing their own man in the middle attack, so long as they were in a series. Again though, practical considerations would be an issue. The "lag" issue is more of a timing issue in setting up the original channel, in which you'd have to intercept the legitimate communications and insert your own. As you add more steps that process becomes more prone to failure. Shadowjams (talk) 21:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Date injection

Does anyone know of a program that injects a time/date into an application? I used to have a freeware version I downloaded from the internet on my old computer but cannot find it. What it does is inject a different time/date from the system time specified by the user. Any help would be great, thanks! 198.188.150.134 (talk) 08:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Why not write your own program to do that? Save this text in Notepad:

var wsh = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
var d = new Date();
wsh.AppActivate("Notepad");
WScript.Sleep(500);
wsh.SendKeys(d);

Save the file with a .js extension and double-click on it when Notepad is open. Make sure that you select All files when saving the file in Notepad. It will insert the date into Notepad. You can replace Notepad with the title of another application you want to insert a date into.--Drknkn (talk) 09:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

He might not be asking for something so trivial. I read the question to mean that he wants to run a program so that it reads a different system date than the actual system time.

Perhaps he has a trial program that has expired, or perhaps he wants to test if an application can survive the end of the 32bit epoch.

I'm not aware of a way to do this. There are multiple ways for an application to retrieve system time, but all of them eventually resolve down to kernel calls. You'd have to intercept those and translate them. Tricky.

Not knowing what the application is, your best bet might be to set up a virtual machine. Perhaps with VMware. APL (talk) 16:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Opera Mini on Nokia E63

Hi, I have the Opera Mini 'app' for my Nokia E63 (on UK network '3'), and it is much faster than the built-in browser. Does anyone know if it's possible to make Opera the default browser, for all internet use? Currently when using, for example, the Facebook app, the default browser is loaded. Thanks in advance. 194.205.143.136 (talk) 09:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Type "about:config" into the url bar, then select "app.default" and change the value to the .exe file of the browser you wish to use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 18:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

QuickTime portable

Is there a portable version of quicktime I can download? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShadowFire101001 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Generally only open-source applications can be portabilized. Some freeware is portabilized, as well, from time to time, but I don't think anyone's done Quicktime yet. I suggest you try the open-source VLC Media Player Portable, which can play pretty much every video or audio format in existence. If you absolutely must have Quicktime there do appear to be several options (on the PortableApps.com forums, for instance) that simply "launch" a local copy of Quicktime and helps the launched copy act if it's portable. Xenon54 / talk / 12:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I beleive the OP means an application that can be executed immediately from a USB flash memory (or similar), without any prior installation, when he/she talks about "portable". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Virtual Disk

Can you boot a computer from a virtual disk on a hard drive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redigrey (talk • contribs) 16:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

In theory, yes, but probably not available as a product. In a sense, a partition of a hard drive is a "virtual disk", so a bootloader could be written for the purpose of finding, reading and booting from a virtual disk. After loading bootstrap code and the "real" filesystem drivers, it would need to load an additional set of virtual disk software (as well as whatever information is needed to find the virtual disk) and then boot from there. In practice, I do not believe a produce of this sort exists; if you want to boot different OSes, you're better off partitioning your drive and using a boot loader (e.g. GRUB) capable of booting multiple OSes from different partitions.

That said, there are hypervisor based ultra-light OSes that do something very similar to what you want; they boot a minimalist OS and then create virtual machines that do all the real work under the supervision of the hypervisor OS, potentially loading these OSes from a virtual disk. In this case though, the OS booted from the virtual disk is still virtualized to some extent and will generally underperform the same OS being booted directly without the hypervisor intermediary. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 16:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For more information on the hypervisor approach that might meet your requirements, see Hypervisor, specifically the information on type 1, "bare-metal" hypervisors, which are the type I described. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 16:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Special Character Keyboard Shortcuts

Resolved

The Windows 7 Character Map doesn't display keyboard shortcuts for all the characters. In XP, it showed me the keystrokes for the box drawings; Windows 7 doesn't. Is there a list of the keystrokes for the box drawing characters? Or, for that matter, all the characters?  Buffered Input Output 16:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Copy charmap.exe from Win XP to Win 7 and it will work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redigrey (talk • contribs) 16:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Nope, shortcuts still aren't there. Is there a way to convert the Unicode codes to a keyboard shortcut, because the character map help says that that's how you do it.  Buffered Input Output 16:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It's fairly long for shortcut, but if you're only using a few characters, you can memorize codes for specific characters, from a list like this one. I personally memorized Alt-0233 because accented 'e's occasionally appear in English words (like résumé), and Alt-789 because pirate smileys are fun. §-) —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 16:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I should point out that the "eyepatch" is not actually documented there as Alt-789. Many characters have two codes, one with a leading zero, and one without, and there doesn't seem to be a clear relationship between the two codes (nothing simple like octal vs. decimal or the like). I found most of them by trial and error. Yes, I'm a giant geek who is frequently bored. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For numbers 255 and under: If you put a zero in front, the character will be from a Windows character set. Without a zero in front, the character will be from a DOS character set. See Alt code - Legacy (compatibility) methods --Bavi H (talk) 03:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I figured out that if you switch the codepage to DOS: United States, the hex equivalent to the keyboard shortcut shows up next to the unicode value. It seems to work. Thanks for the link, ShadowRangerRIT.  Buffered Input Output 18:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Flash and WMV Sometimes Doesn't Work

I am running Windows 7 64-bit.

Sometimes my Flash in web browsers and Windows Media Player doesn't work. When I got to play a song or a movie, WMV is stuck in the loading phase, where the play/pause button is unclickable; the song/movie refuses to play. At the same time, Flash also stops working and when i try to load a website with flash, the browser freezes and I have to close it.

Why does this happen and how do I solve it? Usually a restart fixes the problem, but sometimes two consecutive restarts are required. Acceptable (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Flash and Windows Media Player are completely different things. If the problem is hitting both, then your problem is likely caused by neither and/or you're running some kruft (malicious or otherwise) that is screwing up general system performance. I'd make sure you have up to date drivers for your chipset/motherboard and your graphics card. If you have two virus scanners running, deactivate and uninstall one of them; competing virus scanners can cause serious problems and lockups since they both have near limitless privileges and they end up consuming all system resources scanning each other. Finally, can you provide the precise browser you are using, including the version number, as well as the Flash version you are running? Also, does the problem affect all Flash video, or only specific sites? —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

And with Flash in particular, see if you can replicate in Firefox and/or IE (whichever you don't use primarily) as well. That will help diagnose whether it is a browser-specific problem. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the same problem happens in both the newest versions of Firefox and IE that I am using. Basically, anything that requires sound, including Skype and video games (Call of Duty 4) refuse to work. Acceptable (talk) 22:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Closing ports, monitoring internet activity

I have WindowsXP. 1) I have had one or two programs ask to open ports. After I have uninstalled them, how can I check to see if I have any unnecessary ports open and also close them? 2) I just read something about botnets. Sometimes I see internet activity on my computer even while I'm not doing anything, and I normally never allow programs to use the internet automatically. How can I find out what this internet traffic is, and is there any software to alert me to malware-use of the internet/ Thanks. 92.29.76.9 (talk) 17:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The firewall openings can be configured using the steps in this guide. Your computer will be performing a low level of intermittent internet activity for various purposes; Automatic Updates, the "Windows Genuine Advantage" anti-piracy tool and virus scanner updates are often done in the background without alerting you to them. There are tools to monitor programs' network activity (search for "Network Monitor" or the like), but most of them are fairly technical; even if you understood them, it wouldn't necessarily help you as clever viruses will hide in svchost.exe processes (of which there are many, since it is used to partition services by the OS itself). If you're worried about malware of that sort, you're better off using an up-to-date virus scanner and an up-to-date malware scanner. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

For legitimate software Windows Defender is good for finding out what is using the internet (usually stuff like adobe update, google update etc) - you can't use windows defender and Microsoft Security Essentials (what ShadowRanger above is talking about I think) at the same time .. try defender first. Select 'tools' then 'software explorer' then 'network connected programs' - it gives a fairly clear display. I imagine more malicious programs will slip under the radar - but it's not unknown for "program update" software to continue running on a machine long after the actual program has been uninstalled. (Note defender isn't an antivirus - and there probably are built in programs in the OS that give network connectivity details - but it is fairly user friendly) Shortfatlad (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Technically, any combination of two anti-virus products can cause serious problems, not just pairing two MS products. My girlfriend just acquired a new computer; a couple days after she bought it she complained it was locking up randomly. Psychic debugging led me to ask a few quick questions:

1. Did you install AVG on it? (She usually installs it as a decent free scanner after a clean OS install)
2. Did it ship with a virus scanner?

Turns out, it shipped with TrendMicro. As soon as she uninstalled the extra scanner the machine stopped locking up. Other virus scanners might play a bit more nicely, only locking specific files or processes and not the whole computer, but it's a time bomb in any event. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 19:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

To actually get rounf to answering your question about firewalls : goto "Start" >> "Control Panel" >> "Firewall" >> select the "Exceptions tab" - this should show a list of things that are allowed through the firewall - it's fairly straightforward from there to disable a legitimate(ie openly visible) program you don't want to have access. It is true that I found programs had got access through the firewall and had never asked permission (despite "alert me" being on) - they were all stuff I would have allowed anyway.Shortfatlad (talk) 19:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Capture Video

I wish to record video from a streaming website, however the website does not offer a download service, and all attempts to use various plugins and addons with firefox to capture the video have failed. I am therefore seemingly left with but one solution; to capture the data directly from the internet connection. Please specify all programs that would allow one to monitor and capture video data streams directly from the ethernet port. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ShadowFire101001 (talk • contribs) 17:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/win32/MPlayer-mingw32-1.0rc2.zip + http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/windows-essential-20071007.zip (goes into 'codec/s' dir of former).
  mplayer -playlist -dumpstream URIhere -dumpfile foo (occasionally you will not want -playlist).
• http://www.downloadhelper.net/
• http://www.google.com/search?q=replay%20media%20catcher

¦ Reisio (talk) 18:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Will any of those work with the ITV Player? I'm not sure if it uses RTMPE but there is a good chance it does. I've tried two or three URL sniffers and none of them have found the right URL either. 92.29.76.9 (talk) 18:45, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

FedEx for large files?

Say I had a multi-gigabyte file I needed to upload to an FTP server very quickly. Could I sneaker-net my file to a business and they could upload it on a super-fast connection? (And charge me a per-megabyte fee or whatever) Is that a service local ISPs offer? How would I find a local service like that? I'm not even sure what to call it. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 18:10, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You might try contacting the company that hosts your FTP site and seeing if they would be able to do it. Keep in mind, your FTP server's download connection may be quite limited; in the same way a home connection is mostly download with a bit of upload, web servers are usually the opposite (since they are usually uploading much more than they download), so you might not get that much of a boost from a faster link on your end. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Some organisations that need to distribute very large amounts of data (such as bioinformatics or astronomy) use a couriered hard drive end-to-end. If you needed to have all the data hosted, but distributed to relatively few people, you could just get a dedicated hosting service (the kind that actually let you install your own machine in their data centre) and you'd physically install the disk there yourself. If you needed to distribute to lots of people, you'd often use a large scale content delivery network provider like Akamai Technologies; I don't know how you'd typically get large data files to Akamai, but (for the large amount of money they'd be charging for the large-scale distribution you're buying) I'd be surprised if they didn't entertain disks-by-fedex as an option. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 18:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Many companies that offer dedicated hosting will do things like install/swap storage for said hosted systems. It's not very cost-practical (since you need to have the host in place, and most will charge a labor fee for such work) but it would be effective if you could find a company relatively close to you. Keep in mind that a symmetric 1 Mbit connection can upload 450MB/hr, and faster services are available from most Cable or DSL operators. Getting a faster turnaround, unless you had many *hundreds* of gigabytes that needed to be uploaded, would be hard to do with any sort of service that you didn't run yourself (i.e. have the keys to the hosting provider to let yourself in to attach the storage.) --144.191.148.3 (talk) 18:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Amazon S3 allows you to ship hard drives to them for upload (for a fee), I don't know if their speed qualifies as "very quickly" for you, though. More info here. Jørgen (talk) 19:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Life expectancy of Microsoft

Given the prevalence of free operating systems and piracy, and the fact that Microsoft has of late pumped out mostly crap or malfunctioning operating systems, what is the life expectancy of Microsoft corporation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Delvenore (talk • contribs) 18:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, let's just throw out the "predict the future" part of the question. Nobody knows what will happen or when, and I don't think any "life expectancy" estimates are going to be very useful. (Especially when something dynamic like how a business performs and how it is perceived. People seem to like Windows 7 a great deal more than recent MS operating systems, which goes against your general assertion.)

More specifically, will piracy and free operating systems overturn Microsoft's OS dominance? Trends so far point to "no." While people seem to be reasonably willing to switch out individual programs in face of inferior product (Firefox has a sizeable chunk of the market, even though IE still dominates), they don't seem nearly as willing to switch entire operating systems, for reasons that are understandable. Considerations of platform compatibility, the need to be able to call up dedicated tech support, and the desire for things to be as simple as possible all seem to favor the largest shares of the market going with the dominant, if buggy, option. Now, the market share will probably fluctuate a bit as free OSes are more widely publicized, made easier to use, and find ways to basically duplicate what people can do on Windows boxes (with less hassle), but on PCs I don't see Windows becoming irrelevant any time soon. More likely is that Microsoft's non-OS products will run into trouble (like IE, like Office, etc.) as free alternatives pop up and don't require so much of a radical change.

As for piracy, I don't see it affecting this debate very much, to be honest. Microsoft might take some financial losses from people pirating its software but that doesn't actually affect its market share (the pirates are still using MS products). If MS has major profit problems I suspect they'll just cut back on the bits of them that make less profit, which doesn't, I don't believe, include the OS.

All that being said, dominance can be a very a fickle thing, so who knows. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You should keep in mind that Microsoft is *extraordinarily* stable, monetarily speaking. They have a AAA rating on their debt for a reason, and don't engage in the sort of speculation that brought down triple-As like AIG. They have cash reserves in the $40-50 billion range last I checked; if they stopped producing or shipping products of any kind they could still pay every one of their 50,000 employees 100K/year for the better part of a decade without running out of cash. Their annual net income runs around $15 billion dollars, varying by a couple billion each year, and it's not in decline. Paraphrasing Mark Twain "Predictions of their demise are greatly exaggerated." —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:42, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Just by way of comparison, Google's reserves are around $11 billion and Yahoo's around $3 billion. The fact that Microsoft has much larger reserves doesn't make them bulletproof, it just means they have a lot of room for failure without being in danger of insolvency. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Although mostly crap or malfunctioning operating systems is your personal opinion (and one I don't share), I have to wonder why, if you find them so bad, you're using Windows 7? You've freely admitted further up the reference desk that you've pirated Windows 7 so are you just asking the question in an attempt to be a troll? ZX81 ^talk 18:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I know you're new to the Reference Desk, Delvenore, but your question was flamebait; please be more restrained in the future. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Not much of a future. Blocked by Tnxman. Apparently a block evader who has been doing this before. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I, like ZX81, disagree with the premise that Microsoft products are "crap", but the question of the market leader being able to stay on top in a mature market is a serious one for any company, as General Motors and IBM (for the PC) and Dell show. Microsoft is smart enough to adapt, though around 1995 "it looked as if Bill Gates and company had missed the paradigm shift created by the Internet[6]." This link from two years ago is a Steve Ballmer list of Microsoft's "eight long-term growth bets"; the most important bets are probably the much smaller ones that are touched on later in the article. Microsoft doesn't have the reputation of Bell Labs or anything, but hopefully for them, they'll launch 1000 small research projects per year, and 1% of them will be hits. The company is big enough to finance a lot of research for many years. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft's performance is only a small factor — proprietary software simply cannot compete with open source software in the long run. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Based on what evidence? We try to avoid prophetic statements here. There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the proprietary/open coin. And even if open source eventually becomes the dominant philosophy, nothing is preventing Microsoft from embracing it to a greater or lesser extent, much in the way that IBM has done. Without evidence of any sort, your statement is empty flamebait. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 20:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

This isn't article space, and that is no prophetic statement. :p A company with a finite number of employees cannot compete with a world of contributors. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, a significant number of open-source "contributors" are employees of various companies. Sun paid a few hundred to work on OpenOffice -- a fraction of what Microsoft has working on Microsoft Office. A few other "contributors" working for Linux companies contribute a few lines of code here and there simply to get OpenOffice to work with their distro. There isn't a world of contributors. And the people who do contribute are spread across many different projects, competing with each other. Microsoft has 91,000 employees, 31,000 of whom are developers. Compare that to the 130 employees at Canonical or the 1,000 total contributors to the Debian project.--Chmod 777 (talk) 18:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Your statement is demonstrably false. To date, Microsoft has competed with open-source products most successfully. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Overclocking

Does overclocking a computer cause damage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Transfigurations (talk • contribs) 18:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Depends on the quality of the components, the amount of overclocking and the degree to which the overclocking is compensated for. Many chips shipped by manufacturers are exactly the same chip, but the final speed rating is assigned after testing a representative sample of the batch for the failure limit, then selling the other chips clocked a little below that limit. If you get lucky, your chip might be of higher quality than the chips they tested and would work perfectly fine at higher clock speeds. If you're unlucky, your chip is of lower quality than the sample, and even a very modest overclock would burn it out. Some of this can be compensated for by more advanced cooling solutions, but there is always a risk of damage whenever you overclock. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not always, but an overclocked component always has a higher risk of failure than one running at the regular speed. Our article on Overclocking has a lot more information on this. ZX81 ^talk 18:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Video

What is the best codec for encoding video? I don't know which to choose what has advantages over the others? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aject8886 (talk • contribs) 19:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

h.264 has good hardware encoding and decoding support compared to many other codecs. It's also quite popular. Depending on your specific criteria for "best" it is hard to answer your question more specifically. Caltsar (talk) 19:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Depends on whether you're willing to pay, the quality of the video, whether you want it to be easily redistributable, whether you want open source and/or patent unencumbered, etc. Popular codecs for videos in general release mostly boil down to Xvid and H.264 (for low res and high res video respectively), with DivX and Ogg Theora less used, but still relatively popular. WMV is also popular due to the relative ease of use for those with minimal technical knowledge and a Windows machine. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 19:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Avoid opening an email client when clicking on an email address

When you use an internet browser and click on an e-mail address, it will usually open some assigned software/e-mail client. (I forgot where exactly it was, but it's a Windows setting somewhere.) How can I stop that from happening??? I'm so sick of clicking on links which turn out to be e-mail addresses, and then my computer gets bogged down because some program opens... which I will close as soon as it's loaded. I can't believe there's no little checkbox to stop browsers from doing this... but at least I haven't yet found that checkbox.

BTW, I use more than one browser, so simply assigning that browser as "software to be opened" doesn't solve the problem. And yes, I can probably (?) assign at least a small program such as the editor, which would at least avoid long loading times... but I simply don't want *anything* to open unless I tell it otherwise.

Thanks a lot, Ibn Battuta (talk) 22:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You would have to set this within the browser in which you click the link. For example, on my PC I can find:

• in Opera, a menu option Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Programs
• in Firefox, a menu option Tools > Options > Applications
• in MSIE, a menu option Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Set Programs> Associate a file type or procotol with a program.

Then, of course, you would select "mailto" as the protocol concerned.

However they don't seem to have an option other than to choose a program. --Sussexonian (talk) 23:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, you're right. And the problem is: For example in my IE, I can only choose between Outlook Express (which I don't use), Microsoft Office Outlook (which I don't have), Windows Live Hotmail (which I don't use), and Opera (which is very slow to load). That choice seems ridiculous!

But hey, I hadn't yet found the Firefox option, thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Ibn Battuta (talk) 00:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

What makes pirated copies "unsafe"? Does it get worse or is that marketing?

1.) What makes pirated copies "unsafe"? In theory, I would expect that some expert could simply deactivate/re-program a license requirement, and then pirating should be possible without any security risk. So what makes it unsafe: Is it "only" the concern that some mean guy could hide malware in a seemingly free (pirated) copy, so that there's an *intentional* (by someone) security risk? Or is it also risky to deactivate that license stuff itself? If so, why--b/c hackers unintentionally do more than just deactivate the license requirement? Or why else?

2.) In the last few months, I've increasingly heard about the issue that pirating is not just illegal/immoral, but also unsafe. Is that just my impression? Or if pirating does indeed increasingly get that reputation, why? Is it because a) it's always been bad, but nobody heard (or cared?) about this issue so much? b) pirating has indeed gotten unsafer? (and if so: why??) c) some clever marketing guy for proprietary software realized that pirating will decrease if people fear for security problems, so he's promoting this idea?

[As you guess by my inadequate terminology, I'm not a computer geek, so I'd appreciate if you don't use words or concepts I won't understand... at least not without a tiny bit of explanation or linking. Thanks. :o) ] Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 22:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The unsafe aspect is:

1. Malware hidden in a distribution (or the tool used to disable the piracy checks), exactly like you said
2. That disabling the checks usually means disabling updates

The latter point is the important one. If your OS is up to date, but you stop updating to avoid being deactivated by the piracy checks (we'll assume your pirate copy of the OS was made by your own mother, manually breaking the check on her own and you trust her implicitly), you're initially just as secure as any legit user. But when a security patch is released and you don't install it because you disabled updates, you're now vulnerable in a way that a legit up-to-date copy is not. The details of the security fix often make it easier to develop an exploit for it in unpatched machines; most widespread worms targeting Windows machines could not affect an up-to-date OS, but because of piracy (and update laziness) there are still millions of machines that can be infected by them. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 23:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

To the rest of your question, the security risk involved has increased slightly over time, but only because more and more people are connected to the internet by always on internet connections. If your machine isn't on a network, then your security is pretty good. If it's on dial-up, you're only vulnerable while connected, and certain forms of attack that require brute force testing of the system aren't feasible. But if you're connected all the time by a high speed link, you're always vulnerable. Which means an exploit is more likely to be exploited. The risk was always there, you were just protected by a crappy or nonexistent internet connection. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 23:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

So if my mother is clever enough to only break the check, but allow updates--by some very clever way of making the break invisible to updates: you don't know what my mother can do at a computer!--then pirating from trusted people like her should be "100%" safe, correct? [I'm not talking about police men busting her and me, just about malware.]

Besides, if my mother doesn't like to pirate OS, but a very unpopular software for counting cows in Farmville, Idaho, the program should be "virtually 100%" safe--because chances are that nobody will write malware for that software, correct?

And would you say that the increased awareness of pirating as a safety issue is more or less matching the speed with which it does indeed get unsafer? Or would you say it's actually catching up (before we didn't take it serious enough, now we almost are) or losing ground (by now, pirating is getting very popular, but safety awareness is not catching on enough)? Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 23:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC) PS: If you should think that responses to things like the second paragraph would unduly advertise pirating, feel free to edit it and this "PS" out of my reply. :o) I sure don't want to cause trouble for Wikipedia... or the software developers in Farmville. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 23:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

1. If your mother is a software cracker and is able to crack Windows 7, then, correct, it's up to her whether to introduce malware into the crack. As far as "100% safe", nobody knows that; any cracked software may have unintended vulnerabilities. The problem with updates is an obvious one.

2. Incorrect; anybody who has the cracked cow-counting software could incorporate malware into it before they share the cracked software. By way of analogy, computer viruses that infect Windows applications will try to infect any Windows application; a separate virus is not written for each application out there.

3. I don't think you will find any studies that survey software pirates' awareness of the risk of what they are doing. It's quite a narrow niche (and hence, by the way, possibly a good area for future Ph.D thesis writers to focus on. You could be the first.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Ad 3: I wasn't thinking of pirates themselves, but rather the general public, e.g., discussions in forums of major newspapers. They should be a bit easier to reach for my Ph.D. thesis... although you're right, pirates would make for a sexier topic. :o) --Ibn Battuta (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I am a Pirate. I have pirated all sorts of things. From my experience, 'unsafe' copies of pirated games/movies/music/software/whatever quickly disappears. They disappear for a couple of reasons;

1) The 'unsafe' software makes the computer unusable, making it so this copy can't be shared for others to download.

2) Depending on where you download the 'unsafe' software you might find an area where people who have already downloaded it can comment. If it is 'unsafe' in a obvious way people might comment on that.

I cant recall a time in which i have downloaded an 'unsafe' mp3 / game / anything. This does not mean that i haven't, just cant remember. I have always kept a legitimate free anti-virus and firewall running and updated. On top of that i normal spend time reading the comments, looking for possible problems / fixes / viruses. Oh, and i only download from well-known websites. From my experience i have come to trust pirated games/movies/music/software/blah.... blah .... blah. I hope this helps. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  23:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 vs. Windows XP

Does Windows 7 outperform Windows XP? I think I read somewhere that Windows XP is slightly better than Windows 7, though obviously horribly outdated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crockadoc (talk • contribs) 22:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

In terms of resources required to run the OS, Win7 requires more than WinXP. Some specific tasks handled by the operating system are slightly slower due to changes in the design to improve security, isolate privilege levels, etc. That said, the same thing was true of WinXP SP2 vs. WinXP, WinXP vs. Win2K, Win2K vs. Win9x, etc. The question is whether those improvements matter. Since I started using Vista, I've never had a program freeze in such a way that it blocked access to the applications behind it (thanks to the DWM, which transfers responsibility for responding to window messages to the OS). With 64 bit aware processing, I can actually address all 4 GB of RAM on my machine, allowing programs to run entirely in memory or cache more file system data. The isolation of privileges means malware can't just take over the whole machine without at least providing some warning. If your machine was made in the last two-three years, it can handle Win7, and the performance drop will be unnoticeable in 99% of situations. Aside from that, you need to decide if the improved security, functionality and stability is worth it. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind, being slightly slower is often irrelevant. If a particular click takes three milliseconds longer to service because of additional abstraction at some layer in the system, you're not going to notice. Virtually any program that operates entirely in user space will only be affected by side-effect; that is, the resources used by the OS might slow it down if the machine is resource constrained, but the machine isn't actively slowing down random third party programs.

In addition, some things that people use to evaluate speed are improved in Win7. Many people complain about a lack of responsiveness after booting WinXP, which happens because all services are started at the same time and compete for resources early on. Vista and Win7 set several of these services to a special start class that doesn't execute immediately, and operates at reduced CPU and I/O priority during initialization, meaning user programs get priority. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

They're actually very similar in performance on applications. Just google (or bing!) for "windows xp 7 benchmarks" - (rule 35 - if it exists - benchmarks exist for it).Shortfatlad (talk) 00:54, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

TV Tuners and recorded programs

I got a couple of questions. Question numero uno: Can anyone recommend TV tuners that are good for laptops? I haven't quite ended my search for a new laptop, so the only thing I can guarantee is that it won't be a Macbook. OK, next question: I know that recording shows on a PC takes up a lot of space on one's hard drive, so I wonder if it is possible to buy an external hard drive and use that solely for the purpose of storing recorded TV programs, because upgrading the hard drive on whatever laptop I end up buying will cost me $$$. Also, since the DVR on my cable receiver is at full capacity, would it be possible to transfer programs recorded on it to my hard drive? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I've personally used Hauppage's USB DVB-T adapter; if I were getting a new one I'd get a dual channel one (so you can watch one stream and record another concurrently). You'll need to get one that suits the transmission system you intend to record (analog NTSC or PAL, or digital DVB-T/C/S or ATSC); I don't know what, if any, option you have for recording off a US cable hookup onto a regular PC. I can recommend Windows 7's own Windows Media Center (not Hauppage's packaged software). WMC's recordings are single sensibly named files and can (at least for the unencrypted UK DVB-T signal I get) be copied to other media (as MSDVR files) easily. Recoding MSDVB to other formats (say to watch on a portable player) is a royal pain. I don't know about your specific cable DVR, but in general it isn't possible (or at least isn't made at all easy). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with all the abbreviated terminology you just used (ok, I looked it up, so I'm not completely clueless), I plan to stream whatever DVB is for digital cable. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to stream your cable channels on a TV Tuner? I suspect no, it'd probably be too easy of a deal. But can you, like, get Comedy Central to stream on your computer via a TV tuner? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

As your IP resolves to a (presumably) US cable provider, it's likely that your cable feed is encrypted by the cable company. In that case it seems you need the appropriate CableCARD, which is supplied by the cable company themselves, in order to view their cable feed. I don't know anything about what restrictions that places on a computer user - I believe it varies between companies. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I just found out my cable provider does provide one for $2.00 a month, so apparently it is possible. Would it be compatible with a TV tuner? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 00:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Searching around, it seems cablecards plug into tuner cards like this one. You need to see what your cable company says. It seems some cablecards only work in special TVs, and surely if they sell one that does work in a laptop, there will also be an associated program you'd need to run. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 01:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. 400 bucks is steep, but expected considering how new it is. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've also done some research on getting a TV tuner card for storing recorded TV programs on hard disk. I concluded that they weren't quite ready, at the time, for the following reasons:

1) The expense, as you noted.

2) The processing speed required to store full 1080 data. Most tuner cards say they "support" 1080, but that only means they downconvert it to a lower resolution they can handle, before storing.

3) The total storage capacity needed.

4) The rate at which data can be sent to an external storage device is probably insufficient for 1080 resolution, with a USB 2.0 connection. Hopefully this will be resolved by USB 3.0. StuRat (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about USB 3.0, but if you want a high speed external storage device, I strongly recommend firewire, e-SATA or perhaps ethernet (i.e. NAS). USB 2.0 is capable of 480mbps, but it's well known that it generally performs poorly with external hard drives/mass storage devices and even Firewire 400 easily outperforms it. I admit this isn't something I've looked at for a while, but I somewhat doubt it's changed much.

However I have to admit even with USB's poor performance I don't know if it'll be a real problem if you're only talking a single/simultaneous recording. Even if you only manage 20MBPS, that should be more then enough for even a MPEG2 compressed stream. If both the tuner and hard drive are sharing the same USB2.0 connection perhaps it will have problems but even then I somewhat doubt it for a single stream.

Also in terms of the above points, I don't know much about how things are in the US but I doubt the majority of tuners downconvert. For starters, any digital tuner, be it DVB-t, DVB-S/2, DVB-C/2 or ATSC is not going to since that would take a lot more work. There are very few analog tuners which support HD, and perhaps some advertise 1080i support but downconvert but the Hauppage HD-PVR does support 1080i and does not down-convert. The price is $209.99 at NewEgg. (This is a hardware encoder, I don't think any software encoding HD tuner exists because amongst other things it'll probably have bitrate issues if you aren't using PCI-express.) However this is no use if your device does not output HD over component, but that's not the tuner's fault. In any case, it doesn't seem like this is what's being discussed here.

In terms of storage capacity, it isn't really that bad. Okay in the US I believe you often use MPEG2 HD which does generally mean high bitrates but even then for broadcast TV I doubt you ever use anything higher then 25mbps (and even that is probably unlike, [7] suggests 19.3 mbps is more common) which would need ~10.5GiB / hour. So a 2TB HD could easily store over 165 hours. If you're talking h.264, like used here in NZ for example, a bitrate of 10mbps or so is more likely so 350 hours or so is no problem.

Perhaps a key point which I hinted at with the above, the real problem is with encrypted content like cable and satellite. For example, setting up a system to record Freeview NZ isn't that hard (well there were problems due to the fact we were a fairly early adopter of DVB-t HD with h.264 and AAC but nowadays they are generally resolved) or expensive. You can get a 2 tuner DVB-t PCI-express card for NZ$160 and that's really all you need other then software. (Because we use MHEG-5 exclusively for the guide, you do generally have to use some internet service for the guide.) This allows you to record at least 2 channels (e.g. with 7MC) and with MediaPortal and other better software you can record more then that (any combination on the same 2 multiplexes and we only have 3). You can even get cheaper generic single tuner DVB-t devices from places like DealExtreme for US$20 or less. However encrypted content is often a lot more difficult. In fact, as bad as the situation is in the US [8], at least you have an option. Here in NZ, your only option is by using software made by unknown people (which is probably against the DMCA in the US).

Nil Einne (talk) 09:08, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the storage capacity needed, I should clarify my point. While current storage capacities are fine for "time shifting" (recording something, watching it later, then deleting it), it's not sufficient for building a library. That is, if you want to keep every episode of some of you favorite shows, they will quickly fill the hard drive. You could, of course, keep getting new hard drives as the old ones fill, but that gets expensive and having to reconnect an old hard drive to see a favorite episode can be too much trouble, especially if it's an internal drive. Also note that there's a fine line between time shifting and building a library, as you might mean to watch something and delete it the day after you record it, but may fall behind and have the number of recorded shows go steadily up. Perhaps such a person should just admit they can't watch so much and delete it all and start over, but now we're getting into the psychology of "hoarding behavior". StuRat (talk) 15:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't expect more detailed responses. No, I don't plan on building a "library" of recorded programs, I already know beforehand how problematic that is (in fact, my DVR can't hold in any more programs, as I also share the TV with someone who has the "hoarding problem", apparently everything they record is too precious to delete, hence why I want to get a TV tuner in the first place). However, I am the type to record something, mean to watch the next day or over the weekend, and then that program sits there for ages completely forgotten, so you do have a point there. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 04:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

GigaQuads

In Star Trek they use GigaQuads of data as a measurment. Does GigaQuads actually real measurement of storage capacity for computers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Velderon4 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

No. They were made up so as to prevent the possibility of real world computing advances rendering Star Trek technology obsolete. Source —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 23:11, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This website suggests that it could be the equivalent of a Yottabyte. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

With no support whatsoever. Sure, it could be, but it could be many things. Or it could be something not based on a binary number system at all (ternary computing appears to exist in the Star Trek universe, and bytes of any sort would not apply). —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 23:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it does not matter if data is represented as ternary. The permutation value is linear and can still be converted to a count like an integer just as a byte count. -Tim-J.Swan 9 Dec 2013

What has permutation to do with anything? —Tamfang (talk) 05:25, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Inevitably, some guy is going to use the term to measure something in the real world, and then it'll be belittled in the show as a result. Kinda like smoots. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Indopedia is a non-compliant mirror of a very old copy of Wikipedia. That comes verbatim from the article Gigaquad, which was moved to Quad (Star Trek) and later deleted. Admins can see this revision here. That content contributed in June 2004, without any reference, by an IP with no meaningful track record. It is of no value as a reference. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, combing through a Star Trek forum might've been more reliable, but imagine doing that when you're not a Star Trek fan at all... 24.189.90.68 (talk) 23:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I would guess a 'quad' is a four dimensional byte (a byte being 2^3 bits and 1d) thus a quad is (2^3)^4 = 2^12 bits = ~4Kb. 512bytes (This is not based on interest or knowledge of star-trek - it's a guess)Shortfatlad (talk) 00:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In real life, a quad can refer to a quad word, four times as large as the word size, for a given platform. For a common 32 or 64 bit desktop computer, a gigaquad of storage is not particularly impressive. decltype (talk) 12:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

March 4

Janes combat simulation WWII fighters game

Question moved from Talk:Microsoft Windows Help and Support Center. Astronaut (talk) 00:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

i have janes combat simulation ww11 fighters game for windows 95/98 and use to play when i had windows 98 now i have windows xp but can not seem to open the game. i have a geforce video card ,directx installed and other flight simulator game that work what should i do next. thanks john c — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.65.72 (talk) 02:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Other people have had problems [9] - but - have you tried Windows compatability wizard - you can find it by typing that into the search box, and following the instructions. see [10] 87.102.67.84 (talk) 01:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Computer names?

What do you name your computers? Boring names (LAPTOP, DESKTOP1, PENTIUM), human names (JOHN, MARY), or something more interesting? 121.72.174.66 (talk) 09:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've named my computers after renaissance artists ever since is switched to Apple. It seems fitting. In university, I got servers in one cluster named after crime authors, and clients after their characters (Doyle serving Holmes and Watson, Sayers serving Wimsey and Vane, Christie serving Marple and Poirot, Hammett serving Spade and Archer...). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I always name my computers "Windows" so that when I'm using other peoples wireless connections they will be less suspicious of seeing "Windows" in the connection dialog than "MyComputer557" or whatever. I give my hard drives boring names like "750GB-TVSHOWS" or "1TBFILMES" etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ditreaium (talk • contribs) 10:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I think mine's called "ADAMS LAPTOP", it rips me up inside every time I see the missing apostrophe, but them's the rules. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 11:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Mine have been named after fictional computers that went insane: wopr, hal-9000, and m5 so far. Next up is probably vger. I have a virtual machine that's called dax because it runs inside a host. In college, we had a cluster of workstations that were named after local drinking establishments. That annoyed some administrator, who insisted we rename them. I suggested giving them names like dot, dash, dash-dot, dot-dash, dash-dash, etc., for "clarity" when reading hostnames out loud. My proposal failed, and they were renamed after Simpsons characters instead. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I name my computers after sitcom-characters. I have a PC which is "Frasier" and a Mac that's "Niles" (Niles seems more like a Mac than Fraiser), and an older computer I use as a media center hooked up to my TV named "Martin" (because he's old and likes TV). And my router is (surprise!) "Daphne", because she helps Frasier, Niles and Martin work together. She's the glue, so to speak. Belisarius (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Generally use my name plus some description related to the machine in question. My XPS M1330 is named "<name>1330", the Poweredge server 1600SC is named "<name>1600sc". When I worked on a joint British-French project, I proposed naming the English language machines after English victories over the French (eg. "Agincourt", "Trafalgar", "Waterloo") and the French language machines after French victories over the English (eg. "Hastings", "Bouvines", "Castillion") - the management team and the people actually installing the machines chose their own namimg scheme :-) Astronaut (talk) 13:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I used to call my boxes 'Gemini <number>', number being 1-5, increasing after upgrades. My newest machine, however, because Gemini was associated with a past girlfriend whom my current girlfriend loathes, is called Grom, which is Polish for thunder (see also GROM). My girlfriend's new machine, in turn, is Kwiatuszek, which in Polish means little flower (it's actually flower in the diminutive, the stem kwiat with the suffix -uszek denoting little, tiny, cute). Today she had actually changed her desktop wallpaper to an orchid. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Like "flowerette"? Belisarius (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm boring, I guess... I called my netbook THE NOTEPAD, (way before the iPad was announced). My non-network desktop has the default name, and my corporation uses the Hebrew Alphabet. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 23:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm a sysadmin, and two jobs ago the machines were named for Simpsons characters; it was quite prophetic as MrBurns turned out to a bit belligerent. In my last job, the machines were named for Greek Gods. In my current job, the previous sysadmin tried to be organised with names like "despatch1", "sales1", etc but machines get moved around so we now have "sales5" being used for picking, et al. I'm naming the new machines with the company initials followed by a three digit number. My own machine has "localhost" as it's host name. 80.176.225.249 (talk) 23:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

As long as this is story-time, I can add one -- it seemed humorous 15 years ago. An engineering workgroup downstairs from us had workstations named after their own first names (bill, bob, etc). At some point, when a big network rearchitecture required them to join the rest of the corporate subdomains, they had to change their hostnames. After kicking and moaning and gnashing of teeth, this bunch of old curmudgeons came up with a naming convention that must have been approved only because there were no women on the IT staff in those days. The new names were "always", "today", "kotex", and other brand names of similar products ...

DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a huge literature on computer nomenclature. I heard a story once that the CIA named their servers after states, and their users after cities. So there would be elevator conversations where people would think states were collapsing when it was just the server. Shadowjams (talk) 11:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

partition

Can I save a single partition to a disk image? How would you do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kandorko (talk • contribs) 10:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

On what operating system? On Unix-like systems it's easy to do, you just use the dd command (though be careful, if you mix up your letters, it can possibly erase your partition). There's an example in the article. Also see the List of disk cloning software for similar software. Belisarius (talk) 12:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Average traffic

What is the average number of page views per person on Wikipedia in a normal day? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olium jikki (talk • contribs) 11:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Go to Alexa and click on "Pageviews/user". It's approximately 4.22. --Brandon5485 00:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Image Privacy/Protection

Hi

I'm quite fond of a unique blend of pictures/photos and any other graphical type of stuff and because of that I like changing my desktop pic from day to day. One day I might have a muscle car the next time might be a nature pic; something abstract; photo of everyday life or even weird or funny signs. The point is I like to draw people's attention to things that they sometimes don't normally see on other pc's and I don't bother e-mailing it to people (except for a one girl... dont get ideas... I mean it!) not that I'm selfish it's just that everybody's got their thing and I like keeping mine, mine and I'll only show you if you're interrested.

Is there a way/are there ways that you can prevent other people from viewing your MY PICTURES folder or any other pics without having to lock your PC? -For fear of folks sending it to their pc's.

Thanks, NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 11:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, put your pics in a truecrypt volume. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Telijelly (talk • contribs) 14:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You could just change the file permissions so that only you can access the directory, although if you have a single shared login this won't help you (and any administrator could override the permissions from either your machine or via the network anyway). ZX81 ^talk 15:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys

1. Ok then, how do I put my pics in a truecrypt volume?

2. And how do you change the file permissions?

Thanks NirocFX

41.193.16.234 (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

1. See our TrueCrypt article, or go directly to truecrypt.org. You'll have to install the TrueCrypt software. Then you can create a volume called an "encrypted file container". You use the TrueCrypt software to mount the encrypted file container as a new drive, so when you look at the "Computer" or "My Computer" window, you'll see a new drive called, perhaps, "E:". The E: drive is accessible just like any other drive is. Its contents are encrypted. If you want, you can tell the TrueCrypt software to unmount the drive if it hasn't been used for X minutes, or if the screen saver is launched. This would prevent people from being able to access the files. If they sat down at your computer while you were logged in, they could e-mail or FTP the encrypted file container anywhere; but nobody will be able to decrypt that file container or get anything out of it unless they guess your password.

However, you haven't been specific enough about your environment. Is this a family computer or a dorm room situation where your concern is that people will sit down at the running computer and access your data? The comprehensive way to fix that isn't to use TrueCrypt; it's just to hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and hit L to "lock" your computer so it goes back to the sign-in screen. If you are in a situation where you have to share a Windows login with someone, like in a family computer situation, then the TrueCrypt container is probably a good option for you.

2. You don't say what version of Windows you are using, but let's say it's Windows XP. You right-click "My Pictures", then choose "Properties", then click the Security tab, and then you can add specific users to the list of people with different rights to access the files; and you would turn off access to the accounts that you don't want to have access. However, this doesn't fix the situation where you're logged in, and you walk away for a minute, and someone else walks over and starts typing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Trajan:WinNT/Omega.D

HI. I'm not a computer wiz. I have what appears to be a new virus on my computer. I have 6 different scanning programs and yet still cannot remover this bug. It appears to freeze me out of screens so that i cannot continue and leaves the images on my screen. Perhaps you can help me learn how to truelly remove it from my computer. User:Schwarzjim Note: this question was originally created as a page in article space. I felt it would be more appropriate here, so have moved it on the questioner's behalf. I will leave a note on his/her talk page to that effect. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

It's obviously not a virus it's malware. There are many programs that can remove malware, but most "free" antivirus software doesn't because they want you to pay for that feature. Search google for malware removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Telijelly (talk • contribs) 14:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not "obviously" malware, but it might be. Nikkimaria, what version of Windows are you using, and can you give us an example of what applications you're talking about? I see the behavior you are describing under Windows XP when an application has crashed. The application doesn't redraw its contents after you move a window on top of the crashed app's window. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I noticed the "Trajan:WinNT/Omega.D" section header after writing the above. Could you let us know which virus scanners you used, exactly? And, if you remember, what messages did they report? Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Schwarzjim asked the question; Nikkimaria just moved it here from article space. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Computer problem

Over the last two weeks my computer has been freezing and sometimes won't even turn on. it will restart and take forever to turn on. Sometimes i'll be on youtube and the computer will freeze and the sound on whatever video i'm watching will sound similiar to a CD skipping. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gordanginton (talk • contribs) 13:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

What kind of computer? Are you running Microsoft Windows? What version? What web browser are you using, and what version number? (The latter is found in the Help menu.) Have you run any antivirus software yet? Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

And to cover the bases, are you using more than one form of anti-virus? One virus scanner and one malware scanner is usually okay, but two virus scanners can wreak havoc on a machine as they start scanning each other incessantly. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 15:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Hard drives

Will hard drives ever reach a point where they simply cant make them any bigger? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harodeuam (talk • contribs) 14:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Although you're asking for a prediction (which the reference desks doesn't do), I personally doubt they'll ever run into a limit as the capacity has continued to increase over the last 50 years and there's no sign that it's close to stopping either. Although it's only starting to happen at the moment, the existing "platter" technology is slowly switching over to using solid state drives and with these types of drives capacity increase should be a lot simpler. The costs for SSD drives are coming down all the time, the capactity is increasing too and the technology is constantly improving so it's only a matter of time before they become the norm. ZX81 ^talk 14:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Similar the the previous answer, I'd say that each technology will reach a certain limit, then we will move on to a new technology. However, there might actually be an absolute limit, when the size of each bit gets so small that quantum uncertainty makes it unreliable. Of course, you could always increase the total memory by making the device bigger, instead of making each bit smaller, but that has it's limits, too. We've had computers the size of a house before, so I suppose we could do that again, if it was absolutely necessary to perform some critical task. StuRat (talk) 20:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

There's supposed to be a limit on how small an area (or more accurately a volume) can be constructed that will reliably store magnetic information - below a certain size the energy required to unmagnetise is so small that it would happen naturally at room temperature. This limits the storage density or a hard disk.

On the other hand there's the physical size of a hard disk - which I think is not what you meant.?Shortfatlad (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

There's also a theoretical limit on the density of information in any medium (at a given temperature, iirc). —Tamfang (talk) 21:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Windows and Linux only recognize drives smaller than 2 TB (2,000 GB). That's a software limit. Consequently, the largest hard drives made right now are 2 TB. Hitachi claims that hard drive-capcities will hit 50 TB in the next few years: [11]. The fact that they're fitting more data every year into 2.5" drives (which are used in laptops) is an indication that density is going up, even if overall capacity has hit a software wall.--Chmod 777 (talk) 22:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to nitpick, but (excluding hardware limitations with older machines) the 2Tb limitation only affects disks using [[12]] partitioning tables, but you can still create multiple partitions up to of 2Tb until all your disk space is used (well up to 4 partitions with MBR so you could have a total of 8Tb of your total disk space/array). However, if the disk partitions are created (or converted) using GPT partition tables (which recent Windows/Linux systems support/boot) then the limit raises to 128 partitions each with a limit of 18 exabytes (18 million terabytes). ZX81 ^talk 23:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Right. I was just simplifying my explanation. Windows supports a 256 TB "dynamic disk" if you organize the array of disks (or partitions) as one dynamic disk. So, if you had a disk that was larger than 2 TB (even though such disks do not exist currently), you could, theoretically, partition it and then organize the partitions into a dynamic disk. Most people don't partition their disks, though. If they need more than 2 TB of space, even technically-savvy users tend to simply add more disks, either internally or externally. Therefore, most disks are organized as a single partition, each. Eventually, a demand for larger disks will materialize and Microsoft will add support for basic partitions that are larger than 2 TB. Then, manufacturers will begin to make disks that are larger than 2 TB. I can't predict how large they will eventually become, but in the near future, 50 TB seems achievable.--Chmod 777 (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Well as ZX81 mentioned, Windows already supports a single partition larger then 2 TB and has since Windows XP x64. You just need to use GPT partitioning. The trouble is Windows can't boot from GPT partitions unless you use EFI instead of bios and although popular among Intel brandedd motherboards and some system vendors, most more normal motherboards still use bios.

It's unclear to me whether MBR will ever support larger then 2TB partitions. There's probably some unstandard way to do it but that would likely to cause numerous problems. However hard drives are moving to a 4096 byte native sector size from the current 512 byte native sector size. If this is properly recognised by the motherboard bios and OS then this would be used in the MBR allowing 16TB partitions in the MBR. However just to emphasise, AFAIK it not solely a Windows issue but a bios (i.e. mobo) and OS issue since the bios needs to be capable of recognising the drive has a 4096 byte sector size. [13] has some info on the complexities although not relating to Windows. Since most vendors clearly see GPT as the future I'm not particularly sure whether there ever really be much movement in the MBR area.

Of course, it's possible, but again probably unlikely that Windows will natively support booting from a GPT partitioned disk with bios. But they've waited this long and not done it, I don't see any reason to think they'll change their mind, most likely they see EFI as the future. And the people with the bigget influence i.e. the big OEMs probably don't care since as I mentioned many of them have started to move to EFI (and many are also including solid state disks). I suspect motherboard makers are going to have no choice but move to EFI and for those of us stuck with legacy bios, they'll either have to partition, use a bootloader (e.g. as done with Mac OS X on non Apple computers) or use a smaller boot disk (e.g. a solid state disk).

Incidentally, I'm not sure how true it is that most technical savvy people don't partition. Many choose to partition for management reasons, e.g. having a data partition and an OS partition. Anyone multi-booting will also partition obviously. And most OEM computers usually have a recovery partition as does Windows 7 by default although these are perhaps too small to consider relevant.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Superparamagnetism is likely of relevance. The article is perhaps slightly outdated, AFAIK most modern hard drives now use perpendicular recording partially because of this. Incidentally most modern 3.5" hard disks are currently at 500GB/platter which is ~400 Gb/in². 640GB/platter or 750GB/platter may not be far on the horizon [14] [15]. (There's probably been demonstrations of higher densities but these haven't yet been commercialised.)

[16] (from 2000), [17] (from 2003), [18] and [19] may be of interest. In particular, comparing where we're at now to the predicitions in earlier links may be of interest. Also [20] a different but related issue.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

working copper

what is working copper? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akaash003 (talk • contribs) 17:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any context for this? Where did you hear, in relation to what? It doesn't sound like much of a computing question, so it might be more relevant to the science ref desk, but you'll probably need to give more info in any event. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 18:20, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Trying to put it in a computing context, it could possibly mean running wires/laying cable, with the word "copper" used to mean they aren't laying fiber-optics wires. Alternatively, it could mean that your wires are functional, as in "if your screen goes blank, first check if you have working copper, then check out the graphics card". StuRat (talk) 20:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like trade talk for "wires with electricity running in them" - however in english it would just mean "(the act of) working with copper" ie copper metalsmithwork.

Or a policeman in full-time employment. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I immediately thought of the polar opposite of dark fiber - that is, copper-wire-based communication lines with active signals being sent, as opposed to copper communication lines which are sitting around unused. -- 174.21.226.184 (talk) 04:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

uTorrent, wireless, Linksys, and RoadRunner

I have RoadRunner cable internet, which I have hooked up to a Linksys wireless router. For some reason, when I put high stress on the network (especially when downloading with uTorrent), something cuts out the entire wireless connection to the internet. The computers stay connected to the network (so they say), but the internet connection drops out (so Network and Sharing Center says there is only "limited access"). You can see this happening in this screenshot: [21]. What is causing this problem? Is there a setting in the wireless router or cable modem that cuts out the connection at certain bandwidth? Is there a way to fix it? Thanks. —Akrabbim^talk 20:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you control the router? You might want to visit Linksys's website (technically, I think it's Cisco's now) and get updated firmware. Several older versions of the firmware had issues where they would maintain a running log of connections, and while it cleared old entries eventually, if you initiated too many connections in too short a timeframe, the log rollover wouldn't work. Caused the whole router to effectively shutdown and require a hard reset. BitTorrent clients create *way* more connections than just about any other software and were the primary culprit in triggering this issue. The cause was bad code in the router, but BitTorrent was the only reliable way to reveal the problem. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 20:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

See bandwidth throttling User:Curious Cactus 20:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

This isn't bandwidth throttling. Throttling slows the connection; the "limited access" message indicates the router is no longer connected to the internet at all. The ISP could be disconnecting him for some reason (ISPs aren't known for being open about this), but it's far more likely to be an issue on his end. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 20:41, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've updated the firmware, but I'm still running into the problem, so I guess I'll have to contact Linksys directly. I'm pretty sure it's not the ISP, since I only really have this problem with wireless. Thanks. —Akrabbim^talk 22:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. Good luck. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Five networking questions

Consider a windows PC (plain vanilla XP) that is connected to two linux servers A and B. A has a DHCP server assigning IP-addresses in the 10.xx.xx.xx range, and B has a DHCP-server assigning IP-adresses in the 192.168.xx.xx range. Both A and B also run web servers. The windows PC has two network cards, both set up to use DHCP.

• Q1: will the windows PC receive two IP addresses?
• Q2: what will the output of ipconfig look like (on the windows pc)?
• Q3: will the user be able to access both web servers (via their ip addresses) from his browser?
• Q4: with a "default" setup, will A be visible from B, or vice versa?
• Q5: (assuming the answer to Q4 is "no":) can a bridging functionality be set up somehow (say from the control panel)?

Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

You haven't told us enough to answer this:

• Are all these network ports on all these machine cabled to the same logical LAN, or are the LANs partitioned somehow
• Are both DHCPds configured to accept requests from any MAC, and has either seen the windows machine's MACs before
• Have either of the windows machine's NICs have previously participated in a DHCP session
• You'll have to define what "default" you're referring to.

-- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Assuming A and B are on separate LANs (or VLANs) and that no-one knows anything about anyone:

• Q1: yes
• Q2: there will be two entries for two cards with two macs and two IPs and subnet masks
• Q3: yes
• Q4: no
• Q5: use Internet Connection Sharing

-- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that Internet Connection Sharing is essentially a limited NAT (M:1), not a proper router (M:N), so if you had multiple things on the A or B port, you don't get full interoperability. I think the server-grade Windows OSes (like 2000) can work as proper routers, but I have no idea how you would do that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the speedy reply! Mye assumption was indeed, that A and B were on completely separate LANs; that the DHCP daemons were configured to accept all requests; that the network card connected to A was set up beforehand; and knows about the A network; that the network card connected to B is new, and has never previously participated in a DHCP session, and that the PC previously never has seen the B network. By "default" setup I mean a fresh XP home edition default install, patched with the latest available service packs. Were these assumptions compatible with your answers? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed; A will likely get back its old IPaddress. I confess I'm not 100% sure that XP home can have multiple concurrently active NICs; looking at Windows XP editions#Home and Professional suggests there's no restriction. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Recurring problem with ExFAT flash drive

I had [this] problem recently. It happened to me again, but this time I was sure to safely remove it. I put a couple of videos on it, safely removed it, and plugged it back in. One file was there, a few files were there but were corrupted, and some were just gone. It should be noted that I reformatted the drive between last time and this time. The drive is brand new. I noticed, also, that it writes far slower than my 8GB Sandisk, my 8GB PNY, and my older model 4GB PNY. The question is, does anyone have experience with this? Is ExFAT unstable? Perhaps this drive is broken. Or maybe Microsoft's update for XP is buggy. Can anyone give me a few ideas to test this? Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 23:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I would probably try formatting it as an NTFS or FAT32 device and try again — but at this point I wouldn't trust that drive with anything, and would return it to the store if that's possible. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Got the drive sealed off a friend who's a technophobe. If I told him it was broken he would beleive me, but I need to know for sure. The drive will not format in NTFS or FAT32 (I tried on Windows 7). Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 00:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Won't format? What error is given? Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

"Windows could not complete the format." And then the drive is unusable until I reformat in ExFAT. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 04:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Use GNU Parted to solve the problem. You're welcome. R12IIIeloip (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC).

Um... I don't run any of those OS's. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 13:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Use the GParted Live CD.  Buffered Input Output 16:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, downloading now... Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 18:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I formatted a 4GB thumb drive with exFAT using Vista and then reformatted it with NTFS just to be sure there wasn't some bizarre Windows refusal to change the format of an exFAT volume. I had no problems; my thumb drive is back to NTFS. I think your drive is flaky and you should not depend upon it for anything. Repartitioning it with different software won't fix this if there's a reliability problem. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

March 5

seeds

Is the downloading speed dependent on the number of seeds or number of seeds available from the seed pool dependent on the downloading speed of the net service??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.235.54.67 (talk) 01:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about Bittorrent? If that's the case the service where you got the original .torrent file doesn't really effect your speed. In it's most basic form, your speed is limited by the number of seeds times their bandwidth divided by the number of leachers.

Each seed provides bandwidth that must be shared among the leachers.

So, a torrent with 3 seeds on cable-modem might be slower than a torrent with 1 seed on a fast T1 connection. (A college student, perhaps.)

But in both cases, the more leachers there are the slower the torrent will go.

BUT, it's not just the seeds that provide bandwidth! While you're downloading you're also uploading. So if a leacher is uploading faster than he's downloading, he might actually make the torrent go faster! (This is Bittorrent's greatest strength.)

In short, it's tough to predict how fast a torrent will download. Best to choose one with a lot of seeds and hope for the best. APL (talk) 02:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

download speed is dependant on the upload speed of the seeds. you could have 2000837493253434 seeds with no upload speed and your download would be slow. You could have 1 seed with 200mb/s upload and your download would be fast. See upload for more info, R12IIIeloip (talk) 09:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC) R12IIIeloip (talk)

SpyArsenal Internet Spy, Malware?

Does anyone know if SpyArsenal Internet Spy contains any type of malware? Thanks:) 66.202.66.78 (talk) 07:27, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The word "spy" sounds like it does. Maybe it has spyware. You should run it through some anti-virus checkers 09:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by R12IIIeloip (talk • contribs)

To me, the name implies that it spies on others, not the user. Of course, if a company is in the business of spying, can you really trust them not to spy on you, too ? StuRat (talk) 13:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Computers

I was told they are using computes and dishes to monitor the sky and look for aliens. What exactly are they looking for to determine this? What would be considered evidence for extra-terrestial intelligence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jetterindi (talk • contribs) 09:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

SETI is probably what you are talking about. In short, they are looking for radio signals coming from space that look like they are generated by an artifical source (i.e. by intelligent aliens). Please ask any follow-up questions if the article doesn't answer you. Zunaid 10:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Floppy Disk

What is the max capasity of a floppy disk? I was always told it was 1.44 but I saw someone format a normal 1.44 disk into 2.88mb. HOW? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Berelera (talk • contribs) 09:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Floppy disk#Disk formats should have the answer you need. 2.88MB are what are "Extended density" disks, as opposed to 1.44MB "high density" disks. Extended density disks never really became popular. Please ask any follow-up questions if the article doesn't answer you completely. Zunaid 09:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
• (ec)See Floppy disk. 2.88 MB is the rated capacity of the last generation of widely used 3.5"-Floppies. Since a floppy is just a magnetic platter in a casing, you can always try to format a floppy rated for a lower capacity at a higher one. This may or may not work, based on manufacturing tolerances and your tolerance to data corruption. Especially nowadays, its quite likely that all floppies are produced to the same 2.88 MB standard, but run through different levels of quality control, or possibly are simply down-marked to grab a certain market segment without having two production lines. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Alphabet used for non-latin-charset licence keys

In general, for versions of popular software products (say Windows, MS Office, Photoshop) localised to non-latin alphabets (e.g. Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, Cyrillic, Japanese) are the licence keys that one must type in during installation also localised to those charsets, or are speakers of those languages stuck entering latin characters? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Latin characters. At least in Japan. But I think other countries too. Oda Mari (talk) 14:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind, for some of these countries, they're using Latin keyboards. Chinese can't be typed practically on a reasonable size keyboard, so they use an IME to create the Chinese characters from "names" spelled in Latin. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 16:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

how much does putting together a beige desktop quad core intel i7 system cost?

how much would a beige desktop be (no screen) if you configured it yourself from new (e.g. newegg) parts to have these specs:

• 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• 1TB hard drive
• ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB

Also how does this price change for 8 or 16 GB or RAM, respectively? Thank you. 82.113.121.103 (talk) 14:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

If you know that Newegg exists, and you know what components you're interested in, why don't you just price the parts there yourself? If you need help with some specific compatibility questions or something, I'm sure we can help with those. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) In case you didn't know, NewEgg has a search box at the top of their page. It is trivial to search for these prices:

• 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 = $280-$295
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM = $85-$150
• 1TB hard drive = $100
• ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB = $100

You still need a motherboard, case, and possibly a keyboard and mouse. The prices on those depend on what you want. Sometimes the case does not include a power supply, so you'll need one of those also. -- kainaw™ 15:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason I asked you guys is because I don't know anything about motherboards or cases or anything else I would have to put in the system. Since you have all of my parts, if you add the appropriate motherboard and an appropriate case, power supply, anything else I don't know about, what would the total be please? Thank you for the work you did to produce the above figures and I hope it is not too much to ask to add the missing parts I don't know about. Thank you. 82.113.121.103 (talk) 17:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Then, are you still planning to put it together yourself? I would advise against it- even though it is very easy, there are still a couple of things that can be done wrong...

To answer your question, I pay ~$50 for a case and anywhere from $70 to $115 for a power supply. Your parts are a bit power hungry. You can technically fit this in a mid-tower, but that may be too cramped for your taste. Wired keyboard and mouse set is about $15 or so.

While I'm at it, why do you need such a fast video card/processor, and yet the video card has a very small amount of dedicated video? In my (personal) opinion, you can get an older model card and save a ton of money, or get a fast card with more VRAM. This card is right in between, and seems like a waste of money to me. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 18:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(Fast video card + processor = games - is 512MB small these days?) ATI 4850 reviews were very favourable - but maybe a 1GB 4850 is a better long term bet.

On top of that you will probably have the price of an Operating System - which will probably have to be windows if you have lots of video games in mind - bought separately windows isn't cheap about £100 (more in $ I think) - that cost can really hurt the price advantage of a self build.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You'll almost certainly need at least a DVD rom? - which are quite cheap ~$30.87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You should get a Radeon 5770 instead. It may cost a bit more money but it's faster and has significantly less idle power consumption which will pay itself back soon. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the above figures, guys. I think no one has mentioned the price of an appropriate motherboard yet... any ideas? 82.113.121.94 (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

$200 (and probably more) I think. eg [22] 87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You can go a little less than that, if you want... the ASRock P55 Extreme and ASRock X58 Extreme (depending on which processor socket you need) go for $140-$160. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hard Drives

Are hard drives made with partitions when they're manufactured? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Temporialdisporan (talk • contribs) 16:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No, they're created at the point the operating system is first installed. ZX81 ^talk 17:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Rather, when the disk is formatted. A disk need not have an OS at all. —Tamfang (talk) 21:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

And, just in case you don't know, partitions can be added, moved, or removed later. Think of them like folding wall partitions, not permanent walls. StuRat (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Soundcard synth programming

I'm writing a game and want to add sound effects and music to it while making minimal demands on the processor (so I can use it for more important things, like graphics and AI). I'm happy with these sounds being extremely lo-fi and reminiscent of the 8-bit era. I would like to use multiple channels, though. So, this all makes me think MIDI is appropriate - except it would have to be MIDI in which I use my own custom waveforms or instruments and not the built-in ones. My questions in order of importance are: firstly, can I do that with MIDI, or if not, how should I do it? Secondly, where is the MIDI API documentation for Windows (and, after that, for Linux)? Thirdly, why did they discontinue the offline API files like WIN32.HLP leaving me to search for information in MSDN which is like a big shitty haystack? 81.131.5.159 (talk) 17:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You can do custom sounds with Soundfonts, which is pretty much a sample that you can play (pitch shifted) in place of a sound from the standard mini selection (the "bank"). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. "The most sophisticated sound cards use wavetables to define the base samples that are used to render their MIDI files." That implies that most of them, the unsophisticated ones, can't make arbitrary noises via MIDI. Still, I might just use the default instruments. Then I read on MSDN "by emulating the behavior of older software and hardware, the midiOutXxx and midiInXxx functions sacrifice the precision timing and enhanced functionality that are now available through the DirectMusic API." So it sounds like MIDI does unnecessary work in software and DirectMusic is a more efficient replacement to it. But then I read over at ASIO "ASIO bypasses the normal audio path from the user application through layers of intermediary Windows operating system software, so that the application connects directly to the soundcard hardware"... so should I be using ASIO instead? Except I would have thought that with MIDI most of the work of playing the note is internal to the soundcard. What's the least processor intensive way to play a (multi-channel) tune? That's my real question. 81.131.5.159 (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

ASIO and MIDI are for entirely different jobs. MIDI is instructions (like playing notes), ASIO is for samples. When you say "with MIDI most of the work of playing the note is internal to the soundcard", you're really entirely incorrect. For almost everyone, the soundcard is a brainless little thing that turns samples into analog audio signals (and vice versa); to play MIDI you need a synthesiser (properly a "MIDI renderer"), and if you have a normal soundcard and no external MIDI device (like a synthesiser or a keyboard or whatever) then you'd use the Windows Media Framework's own MIDI renderer. That takes a MIDI instruction, which reads something like "play a F# xylophone sound for 750ms" into a buffer full of samples to throw at the soundcard. Now there are a few fancy soundcards that do have their own synthesiser (the ancient, excellent, Sound Blaster AWE32 did this, and I think its descendent the Sound Blaster Audigy does too); for these you don't use the Windows MIDI renderer, and instead send MIDI commands to the synthesiser in the sound card, and it does its own rendering. ASIO is, like I said, entirely different - it's just a low-latency version of the normal windows send-samples/receive-samples APIs; ASIO allows you to implement a reverb pedal (say) in Windows rather than have it be a seperate piece of hardware. If you're looking to synthesise audio (and you're not building a recording studio or concert rig) ASIO isn't for you. Personally I'd ignore MIDI too (as you're going to use your own waveforms, and probably want effects like ring-mod that MIDI doesn't do) and just synthesise stuff myself and spray samples out either to a WAV file or to the normal DirectSound output. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I should point out that there are other software MIDI renders too, not just the built-in Windows one. Cubase and things like that do it; I would imagine that the fancy professional renders will be better than the free-bundled MS one, but I'm not really an aficionado of these. Each renderer also has its own bank of instruments (essentially little WAV recordings for each instrument) and some of the fancier ones have a separate sample for each note (because a low note on a piano is more than just a high note slowed down). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I should also point you to stuff like Tracker (music software) (a general family of sequencers and synthesisers) and stuff like reSID (a software emulation of a popular 8-bit era audio chip; emulators like MAME use a bunch of such emulators as the synthesiser element of their emulation of old arcade games. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:34, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This question was indeed inspired by my fiddling around with some trackers (Goat Tracker and ModPlug) earlier today. I'm interested in giving my game procedurally generated music. However if the overhead of mixing several waves together on the fly is too steep, I probably won't. I guess sound cards typically don't do their own mixing, then? Do they store a chunk of a few K of data, or does the OS have to nanny the sound card to the extent of supplying every little tiny sample (16 bits or whatever) on cue? 81.131.5.159 (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're talking a modern mainstream computer (and not an embedded system like an iPhone) then synthesising basic waveforms and mixing them together is trivial. Normal mixing is just taking an average; mixing with per-channel volume controls is just a simple weighted average. Indeed, soundcards have a buffer and only ask for a bunch more samples occasionally. The OS has to keep that buffer full, and you as an application have to keep the OS's buffer full, but again that's a very straightforward procedure. For something realtime-ish like a game, you'll not want to be writing too far ahead (otherwise the sounds will lag the action). Incidentally might like to read the iMUSE article; it's my understanding that the music description for such game-oriented procedural music generators knows more than just about notes (like MIDI) - it has some idea of key and time signature, to allow it to generate a genuinely musical transition (rather than just fading one to the other). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Real Player memory hog?

Been meaning to ask about this for a while... Windows vista, HP media center PC (pavilion m9040n). After Real Player runs, by itself or in a browser window (ie or chrome) after it shuts, i can see using task manager that it's still a resident process, using 25% of my CPU!! that's a lot of computing, and bogs things down. i can shut down the process and everything goes to normal. i figured maybe it's indexing/searching, but if i leave it for literally days, it doesn't stop. this has been going on for a few different RP updates. is this in any way "normal"? is there a fix?

thanks in advance Gzuckier (talk) 18:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed this, too, and consider it to be unwanted malware as a result. I kill it whenever I see it. StuRat (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

There is Real Alternative. 81.131.5.159 (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this problem on every PC that uses it. There are too many (free) media players to warrant considering this one. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 18:23, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are talking about - I used RealPlayer SP (free version) for many moons but never had this problem. When using it I see that after closing realsched.exe is left running (auto updater and message checker) - but I'm getting a consistent 0% (<1%) utilisation for CPU. Overall CPU doesn't change with it installed?

Is that the process you are seeing still active? (I stopped using realplayer - but due to annoying bugs in the library database - wouldn't release files - 'constantly' getting 'database error' messages due to 'realplayer not being properly shut down' - but that's another story.)87.102.67.84 (talk) 18:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

a percent or two i wouldn't mind but it's consistently 25%, unchanging 25% not just peak, and that's absurd! thanks everybody. Gzuckier (talk) 19:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Use VLC —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dataport676 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

floating point representation.

how electronic charge(-1.6 *10^(-19)) represent in floating point(in binary)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 22ankitjain (talk • contribs) 19:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

If you were intending to use Single precision floating-point format see that article - you also need to express the number as A x 2^(B) - to get the mantissa and exponent. To do this you need to use logarithms to base 2.

Do you need any help with parts of that?87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Am I protected?

I share internet connection with my roommates. We all have laptops. Could they see where I go online? I didn't know they could see my iPod list until they told me. --Reticuli88 (talk) 21:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

this is a reasonable question. Unfortunately, programmers are anything but reasonable. Who knows? 82.113.121.94 (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

First serious question would be - how do you share a connection. Second question would be - why could they see ipod list - do you have file sharing turned on or something (using vista/windows7?)87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:03, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The iPod list sharing is probably because in iTunes you have "Share my library on my local network" turned on (Edit menu -> Preferences -> Sharing). As for if they can see where you go online, who has control/access to login/configure your router/access point? Although it depends on the model, whoever has access to that likely has access to view all the traffic going through it (if they know what they're doing and again it does depend on the model). ZX81 ^talk 22:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It may be possible depending on what software they decide to try to use in order to find this out. See packet analyzer. It is possible to sniff wireless packets, in particular, assemble them, and get access to anything you send over the network. If you use good-enough Wireless LAN security, this becomes impossible — but even if you use wireless encryption that's good enough, or even if you only use a wired connection, most routers also have a log feature where they can track URL requests, and anybody with the router password can turn the log on, and then review the log at their leisure. Or stream the router's debug messages to their machine. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, they could see what your doing on-line. Using packet sniffers like wireshark they could see everything your doing... unless your logged on to a secure website. Just make sure you have an antivirus and a firewall installed and updated, and you should be relatively safe. I also suggest you set a password for your "administrative" account if your running WinXP. If your really paranoid; set your password for all users on your computer to something longer than 14 characters so its harder to use ophcrack on your computer. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  22:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It's more complicated too. If you're using any of the WPA versions then it's harder for people to see your connections. WPA connections establish a unique encryption key when the machine connects to the wifi. If they can see that connection then, if they know the password, they can decrypt the connection. If they didn't see that initial connection ("handshake") then they can't watch the traffic.

All of this is much more detailed though than you're probably interested in. The reason your iTunes list showed up was because iTunes is shared within the program. That's something iTunes is doing. As for snooping on your connection, it requires some technical skill, but it's extremely easy unless the connection is adequately encrypted. And if the other party knows the same encryption key, then they can listen in.

If you post the method through which you're connected, including the wireless security method, maybe we can be more direct. Shadowjams (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

87 and ZX81 have a key point, how do you share a connection? In particular, who has physical and administrative access of the router and if seperate, wireless access point (if you're using wifi) or switch (if it's a wired connection)? If this is a university, then most likely this will be under the control over the university in which case they could probably monitor what you do if not encrypted. If this is a home or flat, then someone or multiple people would have control, and anyone who has that control could easily monitor what you're doing. Note even if you use HTTPs, while they can't see what the website is showing you, they could still see what websites you're visiting due to DNS leaks (e.g. if you regularly visit www.ilovesexwithgoats.org they'll be able to see that if monitoring the DNS requests). If you want to avoid this, you'll need to use some sort of secure VPN or similar, and very carefully set it up to ensure no DNS leaks. (Note that this would still allow whoever runs the VPN to monitor you so you'll ultimately need to trust someone.) Tor would work too and doesn't require trust so much but that's only for the web. Of course, if you're really worried about this sort of thing to such an extent, you also have to consider physical access to your laptop and other stuff like tapping into the wired connection or illegitimately accessing the wireless access point, installing a hidden camera in your room etc. In other words, unless you're working for a terrorist organisation or something, there's ultimately such a thing as being too paranoid. Nil Einne (talk) 14:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

There is any PC emulator?

There is any PC emulator? PS: Using pc as most common one, not as a the name personal computer. PS: I do not want names of virtualization software. 187.89.197.232 (talk) 21:50, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, what do you mean? PC is personal computer.

Can you give a few examples of the sort of thing you were meaning.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about PC as in IBM pcs, there is many personal computers in the world not just ibm pcs.187.89.197.232 (talk) 22:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I too am confused. You want a 'PC emulator' where 'PC' does not mean personal computer... and you don't want virtualization programs. Are you asking to higher someone who slaps you in the face when your not "politically correct"? Please clear up this confusion by adding more information. 76.20.35.236 (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The original poster appears to be asking if there is an emulator of an IBM PC that was actually manufactured by IBM. 187, could you explain why an IBM PC in particular is what you are trying to emulate rather than an IBM PC clone? A detailed answer may help us answer you about the emulator. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Bochs and QEMU. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you meant PCs as in Commodore Amiga , ZX Spectrum , Apple II etc ? There are emulators for these (many) - if that's what is wanted search for "emulator name of computer type". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually I'm at a loss to think of anything that could be called a PC that doesn't have an emulator - maybe that's the answer? 87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Does this mean like a mac being a pc running windows?? see hackintosh —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonic4 (talk • contribs) 22:47, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I guess the OP has been watching the adverts a lot and is confusing the word 'PC' with 'Windows' (being the 'most common' OS). Windows programs can be run on a Macintosh using either Parallels or BootCamp. On Linux, many can be run using 'Wine'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Google search results

When I do a search on Google, it shows me a one- or two-hundred character preview for each item. Is there a way to increase that amount to, say, four or five hundred? I see that there isn't in Search Settings, but I would think that such smart people would allow for customization in this regard. Thanks. Vranak (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

about these also this - google calls these "snippets" searching http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHMA_en-GBGB367GB367&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=google+snippet+length is a good one.

This [23] suggests they looked at it (small medium and large) - no idea if this will ever be implemented

This is also relevent - [24] longer search terms give longer snippets.

Couldn't find an absolute answer.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:56, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Have a google account then yes maybe use the preferences section to specify settings —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonic4 (talk • contribs) 22:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Not an option yet as far as I can see.87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Vranak (talk) 23:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I sure know what you mean. The snippet often ends just a word before the thing I need to see. Then I click to see the full page, which is either so full of crap it takes my computer down, or doesn't contain the same info any more. StuRat (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I gotta say that this is the first time Google has disappointed me. Vranak (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Well if it takes the your whole computer down, I recommend a better browser and better OS. In any case, using the cache is often useful for cases like this Nil Einne (talk) 15:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Keyboards

Is it possible to connect more than one keyboard to a computer and have them both function? What would be a practical application of having more than one keyboard? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonic4 (talk • contribs) 22:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure. For people who are multilingual and have to work in different languages through the day, having a keyboard for each language they use might be nice (if they can handle the clutter). In addition it's possible to have multiple monitors, multiple keyboards, and multiple mice, and thus have multiple people use the computer (each with their own login session). Here is an example of someone with six "seats" on one PC. All of the preceding is true for Linux; in theory it should be just as true for Windows, but I've no idea whether Windows actually chooses to allow this. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, with addons - Multiseat configuration#Windows -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

My brother and I always play Jazz Jacrabbit using two keyboards. It would be difficult to play this split-screen multiplayer game with only one keyboard... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

what external monitor resolutions (with its VGA out) can an EEE PC 1005h netbook drive?

What resolution modes can an EEE PC 1005H drive with its external vga-out port? What is the largest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.121.94 (talk) 22:55, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

It uses a intel GMA 950 graphics chip [25] which goes up to '2048x1536 at 75 Hz maximum resolution'. (I'm not aware of any reason why the particular netbook wouldn't work with that too)87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

March 6

Retaining fonts across Word Documents

I am constantly writing documents using Microsoft Word Version 12.1.5 (081119) on an IMAC, and I am constantly copying text from one word document and and pasting it into another. The pasted text often does not retain the font the document I copy it from, despite that both word documents are in the same font. To illustrate, I'll grab a few paragraphs from one word document that is in Times 14, paste into another word document also in Times 14, but the text pastes as [[|Courier (typeface)|Courier]] 14. The size seems to retain but the font does not. Weirder to me still, sometimes it pastes in one font and sometimes in another, and sometimes there's no problem; the font will be the same. Anyone have a fix?--173.68.39.77 (talk) 01:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

One thought is that the Word docs really have hidden tags in them which set the font and size. When you cut, you may or may not include those hidden tags. If not, they likely default to whatever tags were in the target doc where you pasted it in. I'd try putting maybe 1 character with a different font and size before and after the text to copy, then cut and past the whole thing. Hopefully, the size and font of the two filler characters would be messed up, but the text in between would have all the tags it needs and display correctly. (If they don't use closing tags, perhaps you only need the leading filler character.) Let us know if this works.

I think there may also be a way to display Word docs with all the tags shown, but that wouldn't necessarily help, since the tags you need to copy might be far before the text you want. StuRat (talk) 03:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Try this: When ready to past right click where you want to past and hit 'paste special'. Or choose 'edit' from the menu and choose 'paste special' there should be an option in there somewhere that would allow you too choose to keep the source's formatting. Hope this helps. – 

Elliott(Talk|Cont)  09:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe that Word pastes text keeping the same Style setting in the new document as was used in the old. So if Normal paragraph formatting in the old document is Times and in the new is Courier, it will change Times to Courier. Try modifying the Styles so they match. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:15, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikis and Version Control Software

Most wikis have some sort of version control, but, for example, MediaWiki apparently "rolls its own" version control, rather than going through (external) revision control system. Is it possible to set MediaWiki up to use an external revision control repository (like svn), or are there other (potentially MediaWiki-like) wiki systems which can use an external revision control system? (Rationale: I'd like to be able to easily synchronize the contents of an existent svn repository with a wiki - e.g. so I can easily say "this was the state of the wiki when the state of the repository was this") -- 174.21.226.184 (talk) 04:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

JAMWiki

Q: Java bytecode from same USB-flash-disk on various OSs?

If I have a program (text editor, web-browser, audio/video viewer etc.) that is stored as Java bytecode on a USB-flash-disk. Is it possible to use it, that same instance of the program (including all of my user-set preferences, my saved macros, templates and work files), under both Windows and Linux?

I would be moving unpredictably back and forth between multiple workstations. I would have no administrative privileges and no possiblility to make any permanent changes, or make any preparations before, or do any local storage between each work session.

The operating systems would be varying types and versions of Windows and Linux, whith only one thing in common, namely that they all would have installed some Java Runtime Environment (Or is it a JavaVirtualMachine ?).

In other words: Could Java and a USB-flash-disk, combined with kind people who let me use their computer, be a possible solution to my no-budget portable need-for-computing problem?
--Seren-dipper (talk) 04:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Would it be possible to make a shortcut that opens the program and points it to a (INI?) file containing a predetermined set of parameters? Or, how about installing a portable visualization program like virtualBox on your flash drive for both windows and Linux, having it point to the same virtual hard drive enabling you to run your own OS containing your own programs. I apologize if i was not helpful, i am not a programmer, merely a lonely SH script-kiddie. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  08:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't think why it wouldn't work (ie it definately should) - after all that is one of the key ideas behind java. (that a java .class file works on all machines with a JRE). The primary issue I can think of is not a java problem - having a disk structure (ie File system) that can be read from all the different machines - someone else should be able to give advice on this point.Shortfatlad (talk) 10:41, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(I don't think a 'universal file system' exists as yet (Boo!), Formatting the USB as NTFS looks like a good bet for cross compatability (except Mac which would need some extra software installed).)Shortfatlad (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

If compatibility over different operating systems is required, you should definitely go with FAT32, which is supported on basically everything (if you buy a usb-stick, it almost always comes preformatted with FAT32). The one big limitation on FAT32 is that your files have to be smaller than 4 gigabytes, but if we're talking about java bytecodes, that shouldn't be a problem. Belisarius (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(There are also issues if the programmer has used system specific paths - rather than infering the paths from java operations - I'd assume this hasn't happened though)Shortfatlad (talk) 11:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

force higher resolution in ubuntu

Okay, what i am really asking is if i can make my entire desktop smaller, as if i was on a computer screen that supports a higher resolution. I want the mouse curser, programs, menus, desktop icons and everything to be smaller. Is there any way to do this?

I am running a dell latitude D610 with 2g ram, ubuntu installed as 9.04 and upgraded to 9.10. and i am running at the highest supported resolution (1024x768) on this laptops standard 14" display. Thanks. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  08:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

To try to fiddle with the screen resolution see testing different resolutions Shortfatlad (talk) 11:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking that 1024×768 is the physical maximum on a typical 14 inch LCD screen, meaning that's how many pixels it has. However, there still might be some things you can do:

1) Attach a larger external monitor. Windows supports this, but I don't know if Ubuntu does.

2) There is some Windows software which allows a "virtual screen", where the resolution is higher than the screen supports, but you only see part of the screen at a time. As you move the mouse around, the screen pans to show that part. I'm not sure if Ubuntu supports this, either. I've also noticed a "feature" with my Windows 98 laptop, that you get this behavior automatically after you disconnect a larger external monitor.

3) There may be options to change the sizes of specific items, like icons and pointers, as there are under Windows. StuRat (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Java

Did old computers have a version of java different from the current supplier, made by an entirely different company? Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arblottion (talk • contribs) 11:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Windows machines used to have Microsoft Java Virtual Machine now you need to download Sun's Java for windows if you want it. For the reasons why read the article.

It's also quite likely that Windows PCs from different manufacturers come preinstalled with different versions of java - eg versions from IBM for IBM manufactured machines. There probably are other examples too.Shortfatlad (talk) 11:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

right click taskbar

I'm often wanting to "minimize all windows", so right clik on the taskbar, but then accidentally click "cascade windows" or "tile windows horizontally" or "tile windows verticaly". This is complete pain in the arse. I don't ever use any of these options, and can't see why anyone would. Can I therefore remove them from the right click so i don't accidentally click them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.188.93 (talk) 12:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of any way to remove those options, but since Windows XP you can press the Windows-Key + "D" to minimise everything to the desktop (and press everything again to get it back). Hope this is of some help? ZX81 ^talk 13:16, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

And if you prefer to use your mouse (rather than your left hand), you can use the "Show Desktop" shortcut on the taskbar. Dbfirs 14:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Please notice that there is a difference between Win+D (show desktop) and Win+M (minimize all windows). --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:12, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Deepblue?

How many more times faster is the worlds most powerful computer compared with the computers you can buy in the shops? —Preceding unsigned comment added by W359 (talk • contribs) 13:51, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

So the worlds most powerful supercomputer is IBM Roadrunner @ >1 petaflop (10^15flops) performance , a typical home comupter CPU gets around 8 gigaflops (10^9 flops) per core , using a high end home PC (core i7) would give about 70 GFlops the difference as a ratio is ~10^15/7x10^10 = over 10,000 times faster. If you use the GPU in a home PC that can be around 1TFlop making the supercomputer only 1000 times faster by just comparing numbers.87.102.67.84 (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

CDROMS

Are CDs outdated? Everything is on DVD and blu ray now. Have they gone the way of the floppy disk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jainanie (talk • contribs) 17:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)